Fiona Longsword Guide

This an formatted archival of the excellent guide by reddit user SlowDinosaur.

Foreword
Hi guys, so a certain forum post about me has sparked a lot of people asking me how I play Fiona. This led to me eventually writing a Fiona guide. Just thought I'd share it with you guys.

I'm usually pretty vague when I get asked the question, "how to play Longsword Fiona." This is because I don't think there is actually a "correct" way to play Longsword Fiona.

That said, a lot of people still want to know some of my strategies (for raids). So here we go:

Artifact Choice
Greater Mysterious Cat Statue is mandatory for LS Fiona. It gives 250sp every 70 seconds and lets you start off every raid with a shield enhancement. This item/gear is the best armor piece in the game for LS Fiona. Get it ASAP if you don't have it.

Damage Combos

 * Counterattack into Amaranth Kick combo is the highest dps move for Fiona. No other move should be prioritized over counterattack. This means Fionas should stay in front of bosses as much as possible in order to take as many hits as possible. Counterattack also gives Fionas her much needed sp.
 * There are many rotations that Fiona can do when the boss is not agroing her, but I only use 3 strategies depending on how much SP I have:
 * Low SP (under 200): Shield Bash+Amaranth combo -> KickDash+Focal Points -> Amaranth Kick -> repeat. Shield Bash combo is Fiona's most sp efficient dps move. Fiona uses 55sp to activate it and gets 50sp back after the kick. KickDash focal points costs 75 sp to activate (full combo) but I would still use it at low sp because of the high dps. Amaranth Kick gets Fiona +50sp but it is the lowest dps skill for Fiona. Only use it if you have to.
 * Medium SP (200-800): Shield Dash+focal points combo -> Kick Dash Focals -> Shield Bash combo -> repeat. This is my bread and butter rotation for sandbagging bosses for Fiona. The full rotation is only uses about 150sp (you lose about 225sp but you can get 75 sp back). Every skill has 7 seconds of cooldown, so when I finish my third skill, my first skill becomes available again which means I can do this rotation indefinitely as long as I have the sp. It doesn't really matter what skill start with in this rotation but I usually do the dashes first because they do more damage.
 * High SP (over 800): same rotation as above (b) but mix in as many Active:Focal Points as possible. Active:Focal Points costs a whooping 175 sp to use which drains Fiona's sp bar really quickly. However, the Active Focals do more damage than the Dash Focals and it also gives a small extra hit if Fionas are facing and touching the boss. Also, the Active Focals have 5 seconds of cooldown instead of the usual 7 sec CDR of the other skills so this means you can use this skill after every 2 normal rotation skills. Watch your sp bar when you are doing this move, this move drains Fiona's sp very quickly. You don't want to lose all your entire sp bar doing this move because you would have to LLLLR when you run out of sp

Other Skills

 * Active: Shield Enhancement: Keep the buff active 100% of the time
 * Slashing High: I never use Slashing High (unless Soloing which means I have unlimited SP). Slashing High gives 20% aspd but this does not necessarily translate into dps because most of Fiona's dps comes from Counterattacks and Focal points. The High SP cost also puts Fiona's at risk of running out of SP. Running out of SP means low damage when sandbagging because Fiona's LLLLR is pretty bad.
 * Active: Shield Charge: Same as Slashing High. However, this skill gives extra damage and a finch for the team which is nice. I would consider using this skill if I am at max SP. But this rarely ever happens due to focal point spam.
 * Active: Crushing Assault: This skill is good for the team but it has a really high SP cost of 1000. I would only use this still at I am at max SP and have cat statue at low cooldown. Being at low SP really hurts Fiona because if the boss is not agroing her, Fiona has to LLLLR.
 * Active: Taunt: I rarely taunt because most bosses' attack have a huge hitbox anyways (havan, jug) so there is no point. Other bosses might have many unblockable attacks which waste the taunt (regina, lugh, eochaid). Once again, Taunt uses sp and SP = dps for Fiona. I would only consider using Taunt if I'm at cap SP
 * Shield Deflection: Counterattack is the best move for Fiona so use that instead. Deflect is good as a "oh crap" move if the boss suddenly agros while Fiona is doing her skill rotations.
 * Heavy Stander and Heavy Stander Counter: Counterattack is better, more damage and more sp gain.
 * Petal Toss, Blossom Blow, Ivy Sweep: These moves are for clearing mobs.

Skill Awakenings

 * Efficent SP (70) : Shield Bash, Shield Enhancement, Slashing High
 * Cooldown (22sec) : Shield Charge (honestly SP is better for LS but CDR is super essential if you want to play hammer)
 * Damage (10%): Counterattack (most important), Focal Point, Amaranth Kick

Last Thoughts
LS Fiona is not a flashy class but one of her advantages is that even with no gear, she can be played the same as those dudes who upload to Youtube.

Fiona has a solo video of almost every boss on Youtube which is good for learning. Just keep in mind Korea got the Fiona revamp in January 2016 and NA got the revamp in May 2016.