Stance Leveling Extravaganza: March 21-27

Busy, busy week. Okay, so first off Christian (Soho) spent a couple of days in Bahamar AA in order to gain some percentage towards Master. Though it took longer than anticipated, I finally got him to Expert 9, 25% and was able to finish his leveling with some EXP Cards. And voila! Master Soho. Generally I like the fact that I can buuf and deal some damage with him (unlike Emilia, who, until now, has been my sole Master "Enhanced Tactics" user). However his gear's pretty terrible right now, consisting of a Trump Dagger and a +6 ERS with 2DR and 5 EVA, making Scout armor a priority. That being said, Soho's also the only character in my family who uses that armor exclusively, yet I feel like a great piece of armor for him is imperitive. Also while I'd like to get him a 30 DR armor, I can't decide between the Trump armor and an ELB. The ELBr costs more, but it only takes Level 100 Chips to enchant and it would be less expensive to craft. Conversely, the Trump Armor has inherent boosts and the recipe would be cheaper, though I'd have to enchant it with Veteran Chips. Any thoughts on this are welcome!

After Christian was Mastered, I put Iron Chef Panfilo (leveling Bloody Feast), Calypso (leveling Shadow Sting), and Grace (finishing leveling Superior Blaster) into Caebolan AA. It took a while, but they all three eventually finished, and I even got a chance to try Shadow Sting and Bloody Feast in a couple of Bounty Hunter runs! So here's a synopsis of my critique for each of them:

Shadow Sting: Shadow Sting has two attacks per cycle, and given Calypso's inherently high Penetration, each shot packs quite a punch. In fact, her regular DPS is greater than my Musketeer on Flintlock, who has a slightly better weapon. Fully buffed, I can't quite hit speed cap on her, though my Crossbow only has +20% Atk Spd. Skill-wise, the stance is good, though extremely similar to Sagitta, her Veteran stance. It's quite easy to clear mobs by cycling through Burst Shot and Step Back Inferno, the latter having a relatively small cool down. Eagle Eye, the stance's buff, is really not my favorite to be honest. The buff only lasts for 50 seconds at level 10 and the cool down for the skill is one minute, making it a pain (to say the least) to upkeep. Additionally, I'm not really seeing the benefit of Heart Breaker, a skill with only 366% at level 10. Maybe it's a PvP thing...Overall I'd give this stance a 5/5 rating, given the fact that it makes Calypso that much more of a versatile character.

Bloody Feast: So I've been looking forward to this stance for a long time, since I love ICP SOOOO much. To be honest, I was majorly disappointed. First off, the attack cycle makes no sense. Though each cycle consists of three attacks, the third one carries the bulk of the damage. So it's kinda like the first two hits don't count, and it's damage output without skills isn't particularly efficient. The bonuses given to the stance are all over the place. Like Equites, it gives bonuses to Penetration, Immunity, Block, Critical, and Attack Speed. That being said, the bonuses on BF are less than those on Equites. Though the Block Evasion element of the skills may be useful in PvP, very few mobs actually have any Evasion. Bloody Feast is also a slight pain to upkeep, though I generally like the idea of the buff increasing upon skill use. Overall, it's better than using a Vet stance, but if you don't have a BF-user right now, I wouldn't rush out and level one: 2/5

Anyway, for the rest of the week, I'll be leveling Catherine Torsche up to Master while simultaneously leveling her Expert stance, Death Chopping. Until next week, thanks for reading!