Persona monosword

The persona monosword is a DLC melee weapon added by the Royalty DLC that does a large amount of damage, has a fairly short cooldown, and deals sharp damage, it also boasts one of the highest armor penetration values for melee weapons in the game. It is the persona weapon variant of the monosword.
== Acquisition ==
Persona monoswords cannot be crafted. Instead, they can be purchased from any combat supplier or war merchant, at Empire faction bases, or obtained as a quest reward.
They can also be found on the following raider kinds:
Raider Kind 	Chance	Average Quality	Health
Imperial Citizen	? 	? 	100%
Stellic Warden 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Knight/Dame 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Praetor 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Baron/Baroness 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Count/Countess 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Duke/Duchess 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Consul 	? 	Excellent 	100%
Stellarch 	? 	Excellent 	100%
== Summary ==
=== Combat ===
Unlike other ultratech weapons, the monosword has no special mechanics. Instead it simply has excellent stats, coupled with an extraordinarily high for its Point and Edge attacks. Namely it has a base of %, as opposed to the % that would be automatically calculated from weapon damage. The still scales with quality, but does not scale with its wielder's Melee Damage Factor.
== Analysis ==
The persona monosword is the most powerful melee weapon in the game in terms of base , arguably the best overall, and a complete upgrade to regular monosword. With 90% AP on its main attack, a normal persona monosword will completely pierce any mechanoid's hide, and pretty much ignore power armor up to recon and poor marine. 
=== Comparison to persona zeushammers ===
The persona zeushammer is the biggest competitor to the persona monosword for "best melee weapon". For sake of comparison, the zeushammer's EMP effects will be ignored until a footnote at the end.
When compared to the zeushammer, a persona monosword of the same quality has higher raw against all mechanoids, as well as human targets up to (and including) marine armor. However, this is not the entire story. The main differences between the monosword and zeushammer are derived from their damage types: Sharp vs. Blunt. This goes beyond the usual advice of "most expected targets have much less Blunt armor than they do Sharp". Unless fighting against the empire's absolute best soldiers, both weapons' are so high that armor is not a concern.
While the monosword is better at pure DPS, persona zeushammers have 2 key advantages over monoswords:
#One-shot potential. Zeushammers attack slower, but deal more damage per hit. A masterwork zeushammer deals just under 45 damage per swing. Note that, due to body part protection mechanics, the zeushammer cannot actually one-shot the torso, the largest body part (usually). It can still destroy large body parts like the head, arms and legs.
#Overkill mechanics. If a monosword would cleanly stab off a finger, the zeushammer will smash the finger and destroy the arm in the process. While the monosword's Cut damage type can spread throughout multiple body parts, it is inferior to the zeushammer as it is less concentrated on any specific part.
While blunt damage won't cause bleeding wounds, the zeushammer is likely to destroy body parts that it hits, which will cause bleeding anyway.
Therefore, the following comparisons can be made:
* At normal quality, these factors aren't too important. With a normal quality persona monosword / zeushammer, the monosword edges out against most raiders you'll see, but loses against empire cataphracts due to their sharp armor. The zeushammer, while unable to one-shot humans, can take out many body parts in 1 hit, resulting in roughly similar performance. Monoswords are definitely superior against larger targets, where organ destroying is no longer a factor. Ironically, this means that swords are better against centipedes.
* But at high quality, the damage spread becomes very important. A masterwork persona zeushammer is better against non-tough humans - regardless of armor - and human-sized pawns like the scyther. This is due to a combination of overkill mechanics and the ability to one-shot. Persona monoswords of the same quality are better against larger pawns like elephants and centipedes. As these pawns are unable to be one-shot nearly as easily, the monosword's wins through its superior base DPS.
These differences are heavily exacerbated by the Strong melee damage gene, which increases the damage/hit of both weapons. While this means that the high quality monoswords can now one-shot the torso, this only makes the overkill mechanics more relevant. A zeushammer of the same quality can hit the arm, destroy the shoulder, and destroy the torso in the process. More breakpoints and numbers with and without this gene can be seen at #Further zeushammer comparison.
This comparison is largely moot, as players rarely have the choice between persona zeushammers or persona monoswords of the same quality. A weapon that's 1 quality higher will be superior in almost all cases. It can be useful for relics, which will be a legendary weapon of choice.
*Considering EMP
The zeushammer's EMP, while it can be useful, it can also be counterproductive. The stun time is very short, but causes the same amount of adaptation against mechs, preventing EMP grenades or other EMP weapons from actually stunning. A melee master with a zeushammer is likely to kill or severely damage most mechanoids within its stun time, but this is worth mentioning.
=== Comparison to plasmaswords ===
A normal persona plasmasword will actually beat the same quality monosword in raw DPS, due to the fire. However, as the flame proc does not scale with quality, a higher quality monosword comes out ahead. In addition, the plasmasword has less , and the flame attack, 0% AP. Finally, many enemies are immune to fire or will pop a firefoam pop pack the moment they are lit on fire.
The main difference is whenever the plasmasword's fire is desirable.
*Fire completely stops enemies from attacking until the fire is put out. This can be great in open combat situations. Plasmaswords come out ahead in the average human v human fight for this reason. Great when surrounded by enemies.
*However, lighting your enemies on fire is actively harmful in a melee block scenario. Enemies lit on fire will ignore collision, allowing them to run behind your melee fighters, ruining the melee block setup.
=== Melee verb selection at high quality ===
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Melee verbs, i.e. the types of melee attacks performed by a pawn, are chosen by assigning them attacks into categories, based on their relative strength and compared to the strongest attack. These categories are: "best" (75%), "mid" (25%), and "worst" (0%). This system is not calculated for the in-game weapon info.
At Masterwork quality or higher, the persona monosword has the unique distinction of having primary attacks strong enough that all other attacks are relegated to the "worst" category, ensuring that the user only makes attacks with the blade. This results in a % increase in when going from Excellent to Masterwork, significantly above the normal % from the quality increase alone. It also increases the effective in a similar way, ensuring that only the best armored enemies will ever take no damage from an attack that hits. 
When wielded by a pawn with an increase to its Melee damage factor from either the Strong melee damage gene or Juggernaut serum the lower-damage secondary attack is brought back into the "mid" category for Masterwork and Legendary monoswords. While this means some attacks may occasionally fail to penetrate armour, the increased damage on hits that land will outweigh the failed attacks - and against pawns which can't block the secondary attack, the DPS is increased even further. Due to the secondary attack having increased AP from strong melee damage, and being a blunt attack, it will actually penetrate any armour worse than recon armor (including mechanoids).
==== Further zeushammer comparison ====
Regardless of Melee damage factor, the Blunt overkill damage means that the zeushammer is equal or superior against pawns with smaller health pools. A high quality monosword attack will waste damage done beyond the maximum of the limb, but a zeushammer will instead transfer that damage into the parent limb. The increase in applied damage against humanlike, combined with blunt damage's better AP against high tier armor, means that the zeushammer will perform similarly or better against any humanlike who isn't tough and robust. However, against enemies with high health pools, such as Centipedes, the monosword's damage will be fully utilized, and it will outperform the zeushammer.
The average humanlike bodypart has around 25hp; with a legendary persona monosword's attack damage at 44.55, you will waste around 44% of the potential damage against humanlike. With strong melee, this becomes over 50%. Meanwhile, a zeushammer will only waste damage if it was under 40% overkill, which is very unlikely at high qualities- with an attack damage of 51, and the average body part having just 25hp, overkill should always be successful, even without strong melee damage - which will increase both dps and AP by 50%. 
If the pawn has no modifier to its Melee damage factor, the melee verb difference means against high HP enemies such as centipedes, a monosword will deal 28% more damage than a zeushammer. With 150% Melee damage factor, a persona monosword is 10% more dps than a zeushammer if there is no overkill. Regardless of Melee damage factor, the zeushammer should match or outperform the monosword against humanlike, especially against high quality Cataphract Armor due to overkill mechanics.
In summary: 
* A masterwork / legendary persona monosword has a ~40% chance to kill opponents with torso HP <= 65 HP, such as scythers, neanderthals, yttakin, and baseliners.
* A legendary persona zeushammer would have an ~80% chance to kill opponents with torso HP <= 42 HP, such as baseliners and lancers.
If you are fighting a mixed squad of mechs or xenotypes, then they will be roughly equal. However, there are many raids that consist of only scythers, neanderthals, etc., which are much more dangerous in melee combat.
== Version history ==
* Royalty DLC release - Added as Linked monosword.
* 1.1.2647 - Renamed to persona monosword. No longer damages relations with the Empire without the necessary titles. Previously, a title of Knight or Dame was required.
* 1.2.2719 - Persona monosword damage reduced from 29 to 27.
Category:Equipment Category:Weapons Category:Ultra Weapons Category:Persona Weapons
Category:Melee Weapons Category:Sharp Weapons Category:Swords