Heavy Blade Zaws

[xXRampantXx]

First off, a question.  Am I correct in thinking that the Gram Prime has basically invalidated Heavy Blade Zaws as useful weapons?  Sure it's slow (supposedly, it seems fast enough to me), but all it's other stats are so high I can't see a situation where any Zaw I could make in it's class could even come close to matching it.

Regardless of (and, if yes, in spite of) the answer to my question, I intend to make one as I like how they look, so I am curious as to what those of you who have some think would be the best option.  I had been thinking I might go for a High attack-speed status type (Seekalla grip and Ekwana II Jai or Ekwana Jai II link) but I'd like some other opinions.

[FreeWilliam]

Fast Heavy Blade Zaws with Exodia Hunt are glorious and a riot.

Enjoy the chaos, Tenno!

[Raikh]

Zaws got the short end of the stick with U26 since they are no longer very high damage or have better stats comapred to other weapons. So for pure dps reasons most Zaws are not worth running right now.

If you want to build a Zaw anyway, stack attack speed, as again with the changes of U26 the attack speed values of Zaws stayed the same but the damage difference between links and grips are much smaller now always making the fatsest grips and links the best option. (Seekalla for 2handed and Peye ofr 1handed)

Given that hybrids currently decidedly rule the meta a 25/14 split is probably the best for Zaws as you can use Blood Rush tog reat effect and Weeping Wounds have gotten so strong that 14% status are enough to push it to a good status weapon. With 14% base ststuas and Weeping Wounds at a x12 combo you get 75.6% status and if you add 2 dual status mods you get to 92.4% and finally with Drifting Contact on top you are at 98%. (Dokrahm + Seekalla + Vargeet Jai II)

If you however don't want to rely on Weeping WOunds at 14/25% split would probably work the best as you can still utilize crit stats and especially Berserker but can get to decent status values with just dual status mods. (Dokrahm + Seekalla + Ekwana Jai II)

I can currently not really recommend going 10/32 (Ekwana II Jai) or 32/10 (Vargeet II Jai) as both pure crit and pure status weapons are rather miserable right now an fall off A LOT earlier than any kind of hybrid.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Raikh

[MasterZK]

zaws are still good but they can never compare to the power of prime weapons that have a MR 12 or higher lock.

PS: the gram is mastery 14