Originally Posted by
Seedz
Haute is an okay sword, but totally situational. If you can melee a mob with no worries of TP spam, use Joyeuse. Not only will you contribute to the overall damage and speed of the fight, but you will also allow your DDs to go even wilder because hate control will be better. If you're talking about a mob you can melee but you probably shouldn't feed too much TP (Khimaira comes to mind), use Hauteclaire. The hate you'll generate won't even be close to the one using Joyeuse, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and priorize survivability over hate e-penis. For fights against mobs that use constant Physical AoEs (Dark Ixion, for example) or that attack extremely fast, you're better off using Hauteclaire as well. Last, if you aren't meleeing for whatever reason, go with good old Beavertail+1.