Dual Blades: Critical Eye Vs Attack Up.

Hey everyone! I just hit high rank offline, and I've been wondering where to go with my armors. I'm currently using Volvidon S gemmed for Attack Up L and Evade+1, but I plan to get Azure Rathalos armor soon, since it offers more versatility. I'm not sure what would be better in terms of skills though - taking into account the dual blade's massive attack speed, and the way crits work with them*, I was curious if I should gem Azure Los armor for Critical Eye+3, or just stick with Critical Eye+2 and gem in Attack Up S. Furthermore, which stat is better overall on dual blades, crits or pure damage?

*From what I understand, dual blades basically get 2 crits in one. For example, getting a crit with the first hit in your combo will result in 2 successive crits. Furthermore, if the first hit in your devil dance crits, every other hit in the combo will crit too, resulting in around 10 or so crits.

Thanks for your input and advice guys!

Hey there! I personally prefer to use the critical eye, since a crit does 125% damage (this is what I've read from Braddy's guide).

But you can gem them in both ways, just register them in different kits to make it situational /yes/ .

I'd use Critical Eye +3 if I was to use dual blades without affinity, and take Attack Up S if it already has some (for example Blizzarioths+ have 20% affinity). In the end I always want some crits since it's pretty when it flashes! :D

Without doing the math, it will be difficult to tell which one is better. Personally, for DB, I would focus on the elemental weaknesses of your foe, and go with Atk Up (L) and Elementa or Status attack up. a critical hit, even at 50% critical chance = 112.5% of what you would normally hit without the critical hits. While, if you focus on Atk up (L) and get element up (10% increase to elemental damage), you will most likely cause much more damage on a monster with an elemental weakness than just going with straight raw + Crit.

I have always thought of dual blades as elemental damage or status inflictor, so forgive me if my advise is biased towards that.

Sephastus wrote:

Without doing the math, it will be difficult to tell which one is better. Personally, for DB, I would focus on the elemental weaknesses of your foe, and go with Atk Up (L) and Elementa or Status attack up. a critical hit, even at 50% critical chance = 112.5% of what you would normally hit without the critical hits. While, if you focus on Atk up (L) and get element up (10% increase to elemental damage), you will most likely cause much more damage on a monster with an elemental weakness than just going with straight raw + Crit.

I have always thought of dual blades as elemental damage or status inflictor, so forgive me if my advise is biased towards that.

I see dual blades as elemental weapons too. The thing is, since element up isn't a skill anymore, it's awkward to get the good old "attack and element" set. I'm working towards getting Fire/Water/Thunder/Ice/Dragon attack charms so I can jewel my G rank set for something elemental, but for now I can't seem to find a decent element set for high rank, which is why I'm looking at Azure Rath right now.

Attack up large adds in 20 attack while crit eye+3 adds in 7.5% of attack.

100/7.5 = 13.333% of a weapon's raw is added
Attack up large gives 20 full attack so in order for it to be better than crit eye it must be more than 13.333% of a weapon's value.

20 x 13.333 = 266.66 raw attack or 266 raw attack since monster hunter rounds down.

So in order for crit eye to do more than attack up large it must have more than 266 attack after sharpness power charm/talon is factored in. Too lazy to figure out values for power charm/talon but with just pure raw.

Purple sharp = 190 raw attack
White sharp = 200 raw attack
Blue sharp = 221 raw attack
Green sharp = 241 raw attack

so any numbers of pure raw above these (this is without power talon/charm so the numbers are slightly lower than what is shown) will be the threshold for when crit eye outdamages attack up.

haruno wrote:

Attack up large adds in 20 attack while crit eye+3 adds in 7.5% of attack.

100/7.5 = 13.333% of a weapon's raw is added
Attack up large gives 20 full attack so in order for it to be better than crit eye it must be more than 13.333% of a weapon's value.

20 x 13.333 = 266.66 raw attack or 266 raw attack since monster hunter rounds down.

So in order for crit eye to do more than attack up large it must have more than 266 attack after sharpness power charm/talon is factored in. Too lazy to figure out values for power charm/talon but with just pure raw.

Purple sharp = 190 raw attack
White sharp = 200 raw attack
Blue sharp = 221 raw attack
Green sharp = 241 raw attack

so any numbers of pure raw above these (this is without power talon/charm so the numbers are slightly lower than what is shown) will be the threshold for when crit eye outdamages attack up.

Wow Haruno, that's really helpful! So critical eye might not win out at the moment, but at G Rank when my weapons have over 266 raw, it'll be a much better choice it seems. Thank you very much!

X Kitsune X wrote:

...
I see dual blades as elemental weapons too. The thing is, since element up isn't a skill anymore, it's awkward to get the good old "attack and element" set...

I was not aware at all the element up was not a skill.... I could swear it is, since I can do a HH song that increases elemental attack damage. The Cha-chas also have an elemental up ability (for themselves only). And you can get elemental damage up as food.

Maybe you mean that elemental damage up was "split" into its components? Instead of it being one skill that raises all elemental damage, it is individualized on a per element basis. So if you want to use fire dual blades, you need to gem up the Fire Damage skill. ect.

Might mean you need to swap out decorations if you want to keep the same set, but if you are looking to maximize the damage for the hunt at hand, I think that is acceptable.

IMO of course.

It's still a skill but a rare one now since there is specific elemental attacks

^what Yuki said is true indeed, there is Element Attack Up skill available. I don't know where the OP got that information from.

haruno wrote:

Attack up large adds in 20 attack while crit eye+3 adds in 7.5% of attack.

100/7.5 = 13.333% of a weapon's raw is added
Attack up large gives 20 full attack so in order for it to be better than crit eye it must be more than 13.333% of a weapon's value.

20 x 13.333 = 266.66 raw attack or 266 raw attack since monster hunter rounds down.

So in order for crit eye to do more than attack up large it must have more than 266 attack after sharpness power charm/talon is factored in. Too lazy to figure out values for power charm/talon but with just pure raw.

Purple sharp = 190 raw attack
White sharp = 200 raw attack
Blue sharp = 221 raw attack
Green sharp = 241 raw attack

so any numbers of pure raw above these (this is without power talon/charm so the numbers are slightly lower than what is shown) will be the threshold for when crit eye outdamages attack up.

Does this at the same time mean that weapons with high raw benefit earlier from attack up rather than crit eye, such as great swords? And weps with low raw power like sns benefit usually more from stuff like crit eye?

I'm using db and the atack large skill has made a big difference to me, but i haven't tried to get critical eye or elemental up, of curse it would be best have both hehehe maybe later in game i can do it, but right now since im still finishing village quest im rocking with atack large, getting atack buffs from food the chakalaka brothers and always packing my charm to boost the atack a little more.

Samochan wrote:

haruno wrote:

Attack up large adds in 20 attack while crit eye+3 adds in 7.5% of attack.

100/7.5 = 13.333% of a weapon's raw is added
Attack up large gives 20 full attack so in order for it to be better than crit eye it must be more than 13.333% of a weapon's value.

20 x 13.333 = 266.66 raw attack or 266 raw attack since monster hunter rounds down.

So in order for crit eye to do more than attack up large it must have more than 266 attack after sharpness power charm/talon is factored in. Too lazy to figure out values for power charm/talon but with just pure raw.

Purple sharp = 190 raw attack
White sharp = 200 raw attack
Blue sharp = 221 raw attack
Green sharp = 241 raw attack

so any numbers of pure raw above these (this is without power talon/charm so the numbers are slightly lower than what is shown) will be the threshold for when crit eye outdamages attack up.

Does this at the same time mean that weapons with high raw benefit earlier from attack up rather than crit eye, such as great swords? And weps with low raw power like sns benefit usually more from stuff like crit eye?

quite the opposite actually.
Can't be assed to remember weapon multiplier but generally most weapons have the same true raw.

Attack up large is set in stone at 20 extra points of attack.
Critical eye+3 is a percentage based skill at 7.5% damage increase.

Higher raw weapons have well higher raw which means the damage increase from crit eye is larger. This is an exaggerated example but should help get the idea.
Weapon 1 has 100 raw attack
Attack up large gives you 20 raw attack which brings your attack at 120 a 120% increase.
Crit eye+3 gives you a 7.5% boost or 7.5 more attack which brings your weap to 107.5.

Clearly attack up large is more effective in this case with a low raw weapon.

However weapon 2 has 500 raw attack
Attack up large gives you 20 attack and brings you to 520 raw a mere 4% increase in attack.
Crit eye+3 gives you a 7.5% damage boost or 37.5 attack which brings you to 537.5 attack.

In Tri AuL > crit eye simply because weapons don't reach the true raw needed for crit eye to overtake attack up. Does random shit like 10% affinity activating 20 times in a row happen? Yes it does but with crit eye it's better to look at the average percentage increase.
On the flip side in mhfu crit eye > attack up because weapons raw are so high that they blow the damage increase from attack up away.

Not to mention most G rank weapons hit the amount needed with white/purple sharpness that allow crit eye to overtake attack up.

^ Sold!!! i'll try to make a set for crit eye +3, even though right now since the dual blades are not that high damage i don't think there will be any difference.

So the way to do it is have a high affinity weapon so you land more criticals. Well maybe when the dual blade has like 300 raw damage will be usefull to upgrade to crit eye becouse rigth now the most i get from the blades is 220 or so, so right now atack large gives me 10% extra while crti eye 3 just 7.5%. wich would be like 15? or did i just got confused with the concept?