What in your opinion is the best single handed sword?

[Lolacrayola]

I think Pangolin Prime is the closest there is to a hypothetical best single sword for combo dps.

If I were to imagine what the perfect single sword for combo dps would look like, I would look something like this: high speed, heavily slash biased with at least 28% base crit chance (minimum 2.0x crit multiplier), 36% base status chance and a stance mod that has fast cleaving attacks with big damage multipliers. All combo dps melees are essentially built the same way so the only real difference is the stance mods and the base stats.

With 28% base crit chance, 12x combo multiplier and Blood Rush it is possible to get 0.28 x (1 + 0.6 x (12 - 1) = 212% crit chance. This means every hit is a guaranteed orange crit and you have a 12% chance of upgrading to red crits. If you wanted to guarantee all red crits you would need 31% base crit chance and r10 Sac Steel.

With 36% base status chance, 12x combo multiplier, Weeping Wounds and 2 unranked 60/60s, it is possible to get 0.36 x (1 + 0.3 + 0.4 x (12 - 1) = 205% status chance.

I am loathe to consider riven disposition for anything except stat sticks, of which there are many good single swords - normal pangolin/heat/dark/plasma/jaw sword and mire for example. The reality is that anything good that isn't a stat stick will end up going to 0.5 disposition anyway.

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

I think it's really hard to pick best in several different melee weapon categories.  Especially when a lot of them are similar stat-wise.

I have a CO build on my Ether Sword that handles anything that isn't status immune, including on the SP.  It comes with a guaranteed rad proc on slam attack, which is okayish soft CC, shuts off Ancient auras, and adds a proc for CO without having to mod for Radiation.

The Pangolin Prime, Dakra Prime and Broken War are all great crit swords.  Of those, Broken War is free from a quest and comes with a catalyst on it.  You can fit a full "no prime/rare mod" build on it that will clear sortie 3 easy, with zero forma.

A zaw sword can be built to mimic pretty much any of those stat-wise and will come very close, with the added bonus of being able to use zaw arcanes.

Simple fact of the matter is that melee is so strong right now that even weapons that used to be total trash like the Plasma Sword are crazy viable.

[DoomFruit]

3 hours ago, (XBOX)TehChubbyDugan said:

I have a CO build on my Ether Sword that handles anything that isn't status immune, including on the SP.  It comes with a guaranteed rad proc on slam attack

That sounds too good to be true... but I've just tested it and holy crap you're right.

When did this happen and why is it not mentioned anywhere? It's not in the description and there's nothing in the stats to show it - how did anyone expect us to know about this?

 

[vanaukas]

Skiajati. Looks cool with default skin, have nice stats and 2 umbra forma included, nikanas have the best stance in the game imho and the passive is very useful sicne it cannot be interrupted by nullfiers and saves an arcane slot. Jack of all trades, I love it.

[WoodedSkate89]

Nikana Prime

[(XBOX)TehChubbyDugan]

13 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

That sounds too good to be true... but I've just tested it and holy crap you're right.

When did this happen and why is it not mentioned anywhere? It's not in the description and there's nothing in the stats to show it - how did anyone expect us to know about this?

 

It's been here since the sword came out, pretty sure.  I know it was here 3 years ago when I picked it up the first time.  As to how we're supposed to know without checking the wiki...  lol that's Warframe, baby.

With this sword's solid IPS distribution and high status it makes an absolute nightmare of a status blender, especially if you have a riven for it.  Mine has melee damage and range.  I have nearly 8m of range on one build, it's hilarious.

[Tiltskillet]

15 hours ago, DoomFruit said:

That sounds too good to be true... but I've just tested it and holy crap you're right.

When did this happen and why is it not mentioned anywhere? It's not in the description and there's nothing in the stats to show it - how did anyone expect us to know about this?

 

Think that's always been there.  There's actually a fair amount of weapons with a special damage type and/or proc on their slam.   Some of them intuitive, some not so much.

It would be nice if in the Arsenal stats there was an elemental icon next to the slam damage in those cases

[Lolacrayola]

On 2020-12-06 at 10:55 AM, DoomFruit said:

That sounds too good to be true... but I've just tested it and holy crap you're right.

When did this happen and why is it not mentioned anywhere? It's not in the description and there's nothing in the stats to show it - how did anyone expect us to know about this?

 

Its just the way melee 3.0 works. All melee weapons (even the worst ones) are better than most if not all primaries and secondaries, often by a long way.

Apart from having innate cleave, no reload (i.e. no dps downtime) and no resource restrictions (i.e. ammo) they have stealth multipliers, prone/knockdown multipliers, combo multipliers and extremely busted mods like Blood Rush and Weeping Wounds that can make make anything with like 20% crit/status chance into a hybrid monster weapon. Then you have force procs on stance combos so you can get guaranteed knockdowns easily. There are also hidden damage multipliers on stance combos. For instance, Crimson Dervish neutral hits 5 times - the first 2 hits have 3x damage multipliers and then you do a spin attack which hits 3 times with 2x, 2x and 4x damage multipliers respectively.

Stance mods also increase mod capacity to 70/70 and melee weapons have the best damage mods by a long way. You have Sac Steel that gives 220% crit chance and Organ Shatter + Gladiator Might. So you can get stupid crit multipliers too.

Under this new system, the only things that really matter are the base stats of the weapon and the stance mods. All combo dps melee builds will look more or less the same in terms of mods.

The most busted melee weapons will ideally be heavily slash biased with 34 to 36% base status chance as this allows you to get over 200% status chance with Weeping Wounds using only rank 1 and 0 60/60 mods at 12x combo. Its better if you also have some crit chance since you can benefit from the big crit multiplier mods but its the slash procs that will do most of the work anyway. Your character sheet damage is largely irrelevant since bleed DoT ticks only factor in damage% and faction% mods, not elemental% or ips%.

You run basically the same setup of Berserker, Blood Rush, Condition Overload, Primed Reach, Weeping Wounds and 2x rank 0 or rank 1 cold and toxin 60/60s to make viral. The last slot is a flex. Can be a Riven, Organ Shatter, Gladiator Might, a Bane mod or at lower levels some quality of life mod like Drifting Contact for the combo duration.

Get to 12x combo which can be done by grouping a bunch of mobs together and wailing on them with your neutral combo for 2 seconds and now you are an insane killing machine that drops Steel Path enemies in 1 second. Your bleed ticks will be gigantic with all the damage amplication you have on weapon.

[Skaleek]

Dakra prime gets my vote.