I got an Atlas ex katana and planning to put s1 seagleam for 4% healing, s2 rainbow vitality for 3% healing for a good 7% hp from max health every second for 30 seconds. Now I can't decide whether I should get s4 lifesteal strike or s4 rainbow adversity that gives me 500hp whenever I get 500+ damage on me which should pair well with my s1 and s2 augments.

Anyone know which one is more beneficial for me? 30hp per hit doesn't sound like much and rainbow adversity along with the other 2 augments seemingly makes me immortal. Another route I can go is to just get the S2: Tumultuous Vitality which grants a 10% chance to restore HP equal to 1% of damage dealt with a maximum amount of HP restored 300 along with S4 Lifesteal strike and use the remaining S grade slots for offense.

Any thoughts on the matter before I commit to one or the other?

In most cases, Lifesteal on its own is more than enough to cover you, and the other slots should be more focused on damage-based S-Grade Augments, particularly Precision Will since Braver and Phantom focus on Critical Damage (S1, S2, and S3 Precision Will means an additional 10% damage multiplier on Crits).

Regardless of your choices in S1-S3, from my understanding Rainbow Adversity will only kick in if you take an additional 500 damage after Seagleam activates within its 30 second window, meaning you don't get an instant heal from activating Seagleam and it only has a limited window to activate; contrast this with Lifesteal, which is 30HP per hit per target, meaning that when mobbing, you will more than likely be constantly at full HP, and a multi-hit attack on a boss can easily heal you quickly, especially if your Mag has the Dance SP Action. Plus, ideally you should be avoiding taking that much damage (either by Countering as a Braver or Dodging as a Phantom), so Rainbow Adversity is way more situational.

That said, if you want to try out both for yourself, don't forget that you can grab a Novel Weapon to act as a storage weapon for S4s, so you can always use the S-Grade Augement Transfer option to have both ready to test.

@AndrlCh said in Question about which s-grade augment I should take for my Atlas ex katana.:

In most cases, Lifesteal on its own is more than enough to cover you, and the other slots should be more focused on damage-based S-Grade Augments, particularly Precision Will since Braver and Phantom focus on Critical Damage (S1, S2, and S3 Precision Will means an additional 10% damage multiplier on Crits).

Regardless of your choices in S1-S3, from my understanding Rainbow Adversity will only kick in if you take an additional 500 damage after Seagleam activates within its 30 second window, meaning you don't get an instant heal from activating Seagleam and it only has a limited window to activate; contrast this with Lifesteal, which is 30HP per hit per target, meaning that when mobbing, you will more than likely be constantly at full HP, and a multi-hit attack on a boss can easily heal you quickly, especially if your Mag has the Dance SP Action. Plus, ideally you should be avoiding taking that much damage (either by Countering as a Braver or Dodging as a Phantom), so Rainbow Adversity is way more situational.

That said, if you want to try out both for yourself, don't forget that you can grab a Novel Weapon to act as a storage weapon for S4s, so you can always use the S-Grade Augement Transfer option to have both ready to test.

Oh thanks a lot for clarifying about rainbow adversity that it doesn't activate with seagleam. But going precision will 3 times isn't it better to make one of them at least something that increases crit chance since I'm maining Phantom now and as far as I know Phantom's crit chance isn't that high to begin with?

Btw S1: Precision Will is 3% crit damage, why shouldn't I take S1: Augment Will instead which gives me 4% damage all around?

@Rafahil893 If Augment Will is in your price range and your weapon has 8 slots, then, yeah, totally go for it. I just mention Precision Will since it is usually not too difficult to obtain and is less conditional than some of the 4% S-Grades.

Phantom's Critical Rate depends on your PP, with it maxing at 60% with 300PP; being conservative and saying that you max at ~250PP between affixes, class bonuses, Jerky, and Photon Drink, that gives you a 50% Crit Rate, and then factor in your natural 5% and 20% from a Crit Strike ring bringing you up to 75%. To me, that is decently high enough to warrant going with Precision Will without any Skillful Adepts on the Weapon (though I wouldn't say no to trying to get S6: Skillful Adept for your 13☆ Back Unit).

You do also have the option of building a Rivalate Katana instead, as that can get you to 100% Crit Rate on Phantom even with 200PP, and you can double up on the healing. Basically, with a Rivalate, you don't need to worry about your S1-S3 since you only have an S4 and S5, and its potential gives 20% Crit Rate with a 16% Damage multiplier (23% for the Redux Potential), and the S-Grade from the Gunblade, S5: Skillful Adept Will, gives another 20% Crit Rate and 1% Crit Damage and heals just like S4 Lifesteal, which you can also add to it. Both in normal and Redux potentials, this will typically give you more damage than an Atlas Ex just due the fact that it has significantly more Pwr (both naturally and by having 6 affix slots avaialble instead of just 4).

@AndrlCh Alright I understand what to do now. I already have my Novel gunblade at 8 slots so I'll turn that into the katana and change my current atlas katana into an assault rifle with crit damage as you suggest.

Thanks a lot, I could have seriously gimped myself here.