Honestly not great. I’d say I block maybe 1/5 attacks while Finestra is active and still wind up taking a lot of damage if I just sit there. Hitting Guardian for a bit of an evasion boost and jumping around and attacking are a better means of defense than relying on passives alone. Block also flat out doesn’t work on magic, and magic mobs tend to be more dangerous than physical mobs anyway. (Some archer mobs are an exception.)
The best defense is still offense in these cases. Cyclone can and will kill practically anything before it can kill you, and you can move around during Cyclone at roughly walking speed to avoid attacks. I leveled up with a healer in tow the entire way though, so my perception might be a bit skewed.
@AkaiKiseki I’m not sure if the range bonus on spears applies to Cyclone. I need to test it and some other things still. (Leveling up an archer at the moment.) Cyclone has a decent enough range as it is, and it doesn’t really matter much since you have Swash Buckling to gather mobs up. In dungeons, the main limiting factor for my Cyclone is often the AoE ratio, not the range.
At the moment, I’m inclined to say it isn’t. What you wind up doing that for is basically the mount / movement speed and the ability to use two-handed spears. None of the offensive Cataphract skills at C1 (and perhaps even C3) can match up to Cyclone.
Cataphract in general feels a bit underpowered and needs some kind of buff. For perspective: Rush is weaker than Cyclone, has a longer cooldown, and doesn’t even have an overheat like Cyclone does. This is ignoring the fact that a Hoplite C3 + Cata C3 build is impossible. Cataphract also has very little to contribute to a build in the long term due to the absence of buffs and any worthwhile attributes with secondary effects. You really choose it for the mount and two-handed spears and nothing else.
I believe the triple attack on some two-handed spears is actually just a normal attack spread over three ticks, and not an actual triple attack. Attack proc effects like Concentrate also only apply once per attack and not three times, so you can’t even have that as a consolation for going Cataphract. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
