Whip, the offhand varriant of the Trident?

[Aphexii]

Since my second theatric glad reached bloodgods and wasn't stomped to death immediately, i consider my expirience with exotics and theatrics are on a basic level.
Now i wanna dip my hands in that "honeypot of true knowledge" and ask what is the benefit of whips for theatrics without the entangle skill?

Which fighting style? Since we don't have shadow dance and whirlwind :(
Lunge seems not very wise with such a flexible weapon.
Bash also feels really wrong.
Slash is the way to go in my opinion.
Parry-X should be used with a stiff weapon.
CounterAttack should work.

For me the whip is the lighter version of the trident and not limited to just the mainhand.
It has a damn good reach, more than the trident as i can tell.
For example with a "trident+claw" combo the trident hits first more often, about 70-80%. With a "whip+claw" combo it seems 90% of the time the whip gets the first hit.
Stilettos and claws are sometimes to weak for heavy armor and scimitars are sometimes to slow for those rages able to pull off an activated right befor giving up... thus winning.
Trident would be my exotic of chose, but again a bit to slow for my taste.
Whip is very fast and hits quite hard, harder than claws at least xD

Whips used offhanded are a blessing. They are fast enough and hit hard enough to be used against both tanks and rages without underperforming in any case.
Mainhanded they are the exact opposite, hitting a bit to weak or to slow after the first hit connects. That was at least my experience.

I never found a guide or a usefull in depth analyzing for whips.
Even Kreegans weapon guide didn't mention them.

I use whips only on offensive theatrics. One pure theatric focused on speed and bleeding and the second a power theatric.

If all that is completly wrong and you think i'm a shame for all theatrics... :( so please tell me what is the purpose of whips?

[weaw]

Whip is the only exotics with speed ~ 3.0 . Its weight 3.0.
While the weapon speed is a property to describe attack frequency, the weight is a property to describe penetration (I can't prove this statement, but we can consider other weapon sub-types to assume).

Usually, the more speed of the weapon, the less weight. And almost all weapon sub-types have the same "relation" of these properties. Excluding Trident as a main exception: Trident extremely good for purposes of penetrating considering its speed.
Whip is a "usual" weapon sub-type in this sense unlike Trident (Let's consider Gladius from the Blades line):

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You may see, [almost] same speed, same weight, but Whip also have less damage on it... To understand why, we need to remember two of facts:
-- Every weapon have "hidden" properties like Length, Bleeding bonus and so on.
-- Some of weapon sub-types may have its own features.

Whip is a specific weapon to use Entangle skill, yes. It's the feature. But it looks like Whip have also the other features, for example (i am guessing) the feature to bypass Parry/Block(non-green) partially (compared with Gladius).
// But not a property to penetrate with high attacks number.
And i think, Whip is good to work with it without Entangle skill.

But it's not an off-hand Trident, sure.

Also, You need to consider another fact: Every off-hand weapon doing less damage than the main of the same sub-type.
If You wield both main Whip and off-hand Whip (Damage Per Round are equal for them at the same lvl and quality) You'll still do much less average damage per hit with Your off-hand than the main.
This leads to the question: What exactly i'm trying to deliver with my off-hand weapon?
The answer for Whip sounds like "I'm trying to deliver bleeding bypassing some defense and using average penetration, and i'm trying to deliver some of my skills like Signature Moves/Hamstring/Knockout, but not a direct damage."
And it looks like a good answer, in my opinion.

Ah, Yes. Don't bother about style a lot. It seems, all the "lesser" styles (Bash, Lunge, Slash) are about equal for Whip at the moment.
// But these styles are designed to fight against different types of Armor.


Since my second theatric glad reached bloodgods and wasn't stomped to death immediately...
Nice to see.
For Blood Gods the game uses some "smart pairing system". Just to avoid endless losses for young.
This system means Your gladiator will always fight against opponent of about same rating (the rating of the current season).
So having young gladiator, You will never be pushed to fight against tops, only at the beginning of the Season, occasionally.
But there's still an abyss between oldest and youngest. So, keep working! ;)