Impale and Fendazon

[ThelostDragn]

I have just begun working on an Impale and Fendazon. Impale although slow, does incredible dmg and I think could be used well against bosses with IAS equipment. And Fend is a great melee skill against groups. The problem with durability I think could be taken care of in two ways. (assuming cost is no object) Either using a javalin like titans or a botd war pike, the durability factor would not come into play much. I was also going to work heavily on avoid and dodge inhopes of not getting hit. Its a very basic build right now, but what all do you think of the thoughts behind it?

[GenXCub]

The problem that people have with the build is that it's VERY easy to get hit while using fend. With no shield, you're going to die very quickly unless you have some great gear on. Impale may look like it does good damage on paper, but you could probably get 4 jabs in during the same time frame as 1 impale. I'm thinking the 4 jabs would do more damage.

Those are the limitations you're working with. As far as durability, keep some Ort runes around and then you don't have to worry about gold.

[Kirsty]

Fastest attack you'll probably get with a spear and impale as attack is 18 fps.
Fastest attack you'll probably get with a spear and jab as attack is 9/4.5/4.5 fps.
So 1 impale will be the same length as 1 jab.

Impale at level 20 does 775% extra damage
Jab at level 20 does 42% extra damage per hit, so 136% for the entire jab sequence.

That means that technically for those conditions impale will be better. The problem is that jab is uninterruptable and impale can be interrupted. Normally a fast attack is fine even if it can be interrupted at times, but since it takes 18 frames before you actually hit with impale, it has a long period of time in which you can be interrupted. You'll have to use specific defensive gear and/or tactics in order to use impale successfully. It can be done though, no question about that. I've taken quite a few impalers through the game in the past. The main tactic will be casting decoy slightly in front of you and having valkyrie and mercenary tank some monsters. Then you go in for some impale hits as the monsters are preoccupied with your minions.
You can play more rash though and that works if you put a lot of effort into it.

[flapserdk]

Forget Impale, its to slow and it can be interupted. Even with 75 % IAS, your FPS is only 20, and you make 1,2 attacks/sec, if you use Titans. You only need With 60 % IAS to reach 5 FPS and 5 attacks/sec if you use Fend/Jab.

Go for Jab instead of Impale when you fight single monsters. Despite the much lower damage Jab is very usefull, if you you combine life leech, and use some items that give you Crushing Blow (CB), deadly strike, open wounds.

[Kirsty]

Forget Impale, its to slow and it can be interupted. Even with 75 % IAS, your FPS is only 20, and you make 1,2 attacks/sec, if you use TitansI assume you got those from the German calculator. That bit is wrong for javelin impale and it lists the speed as if they were spears. So those values you lists are [-10] spear values, not [-10] javelin values.

95% IAS with Titans gets you 17fps impale, 7/4 fend and a 7/5/5 jab attack. It still means that a jab sequence is as long as an impale sequence.

[FsF.Demon]

ive made a jabazon/fendazon w/o impale and did fine all the way to late nm and hell. i didnt use any cb or much ow so if i rm 1 ill let u know wat i find. gl and hf playin.

[brianc84]

Impale at level 20 does 775% extra damage
Jab at level 20 does 42% extra damage per hit, so 136% for the entire jab sequence.

That means that technically for those conditions impale will be better.

Two things people seem to always forget to add (or fail to consider) are to add 100% for each attack to account for the actual weapon damage and to account for any bonuses to weapon damage from strength and dexterity in addition to what is added by the skill.

So:
1 Level 20 Impale sequence will do the equivalent of 100% + 775% = 875% of weapon damage
1 Level 20 Jab sequence will do the equivalent of 3 * (100% + 42%) = 426% of weapon damage

We haven't even figured in the str/dex bonus yet.

So considering a +200% weapon damage bonus (easily reachable) from str and dex:
1 Level 20 Impale sequence will do the equivalent of 100% + 775% + 200% = 1075% of weapon damage
1 Level 20 Jab sequence will do the equivalent of 3 * (100% + 42% + 200%) = 1026% of weapon damage

95% IAS with Titans gets you 17fps impale, 7/4 fend and a 7/5/5 jab attack. It still means that a jab sequence is as long as an impale sequence.

I can tell you right now that the first Jab strike is not at normal attack speed (neither is the first Fend strike but the difference in that case is relatively minor) and that the Jab sequence, for all the speed trials I have run, is always faster than the Impale sequence.

I don't have any more specifics on this, unfortunately.

[Kirsty]

Granted, I forgot str/dex bonus and then jab can have a better total damage potential with the right gear. Still impale can do a better job at delivering damage due to the higher attack rating it receives.

I can tell you right now that the first Jab strike is not at normal attack speed (neither is the first Fend strike but the difference in that case is relatively minor) and that the Jab sequence, for all the speed trials I have run, is always faster than the Impale sequence.The first hit of jab is the same speed as a normal attack but may seem shorter because the withdrawal is faster before it hits the second and third times. Only for connectivity of multiple jab sequences there is for some breakpoints one frame left out. This has previously been translated to partial jab frame breaks for the last two hits, but it's a 1 frame gain in the first hit.

Impale is in some cases 1 to 3 frames shorter than jab, some cases 1 to 3 frames faster than jab. Overall it's more or less the same timelength for the entire sequence. If one wants an estimation on impale length, just take the jab sequence and it's close to that.

[brianc84]

The first hit of jab is the same speed as a normal attack but may seem shorter because the withdrawal is faster before it hits the second and third times. Only for connectivity of multiple jab sequences there is for some breakpoints one frame left out. This has previously been translated to partial jab frame breaks for the last two hits, but it's a 1 frame gain in the first hit.

Every single part of the sequence, even the first attack, is shorter. This becomes very evident when using slow weapons (and very fast weapons as well). The first action point is reached almost instantaneously while normal attack takes noticably longer to get there. If they were both using the same lead-in, there would have to be no discrepancy between the times that both Jab and normal attack get to their action points.

[QUOTE]Impale is in some cases 1 to 3 frames shorter than jab, some cases 1 to 3 frames faster than jab. Overall it's more or less the same timelength for the entire sequence.QUOTE]

That is definitely not what I'm seeing in speed trials. Impale has consistently been coming out slower than Jab.