Fighter-bard kensei-swash hand axe or piercing?

[NaturalHazard]

Which should I choose? This is a new character I do not plan on doing much epic before tr just getting my gs shards then TR, into a very different build that wont be using melee weapons.

I plan on weaponmastering and im at the point of choosing which weapons to go for. I have no crafted or named handaxes will be relying on loot gen handaxes if I go that way. For piercing i do have some WOP shortswords, rapiers, the envenomed blade, vulkorim dagger, my cutthroat smallblades are all level 20 sadly. Is WOP that good in heroic levels? I do like the handaxes more dps with the stacking swashbuckler and kensei enhancements. strike with no thought and swashbuckling.

Which do you think is the better option to take? If it was just the improved crit feat I would not worry but its 3 feats to swashbuckle. If I had a good named handaxe or crafted on it would not be much of a choice.

[EllisDee37]

Handaxe looks fun with a swashbuckling kensei, for sure. For early levels, regardless what weapon focus you plan to use, I'd probably go with Tiefling Assassin' Blade. It's pretty easy to farm up, though it has a low drop rate. Figure a minute per try, 40 tries to pull it. (May need to roll up iconics if ransack becomes an issue, and if so they'll be more like 2 minutes per run since a new alt won't be able to start from Scoundrel's Run.)

Looking at named handaxes, Axe of the Unseen Blow looks ridiculously good and would be worth trying to acquire somehow. (Or at very least, look for it on the ah and asah.) In the hands of a swashbuckling kensei:

20x4 base
19-20x4 Improved Crit (base)
17-20x4 Swashbuckling
15-20x4 Improved Crit (doubles swashie bonus, in addition to its normal bonus)
15-20x5 Strike With No Thought

EDIT: Just to throw it out there, my swashbuckler on live uses Widowblight, which I absolutely love. My guy doesn't get the IC feat until 12, so I use Tiefling Assassin's from 4 to 11 then switch to Widowblight @ 12.)

[cru121]

consider also Light Picks. they are piercing, and you can swash for 17-20 x 5. Works nicely with En Pointe.

[NaturalHazard]

consider also Light Picks. they are piercing, and you can swash for 17-20 x 5. Works nicely with En Pointe.

thank you both for your replies, so picks become x5 with strike with no thought?

I might go that road, not sure i want to farm slashing weapons for a first life who isnt going to use them again. Random loot gen and whatever I pick up will have to do.

[unbongwah]

If your baseline build is bard 3 / ftr 6 and you want to get Swashbuckling + Strike w/No Thought to stack, then yes, you need to use either handaxes (15-20/x4) or light picks (17-20/x5). As ED37 said, AotUB is your best option for ML:14 weapon; if you don't have that, though, then whatever you can craft or loot should be fine.

If you're going for T5 Kensei and Piercing weapons, an unconventional option is Deathnip, even though it doesn't work with Swashbuckling. So why bother with it? Because it becomes 16-20/x5 with Keen Edge, SwNT, and IC:Pierce (better even than light picks and almost as good as AotUB); and because Skirmisher partially works with non-Finesseable weapons ("you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats" applies to any 1H melee weapon and doesn't require Swashbuckling to be active). The other downside to this approach is you aren't gaining any Swashbuckling bonuses, so you're spending 11 APs just for Skirmisher; though the upside is you aren't restricted to light armor, either. I think Different Tack works w/out Swashbuckling too, though I won't swear to that without testing.