QUOTE(BlueWaterSplash @ Mar 14 2020, 19:25)

There is significant speed lost in doing Vital Strike or toggling Spirit Stance (avoided if possible)
My solution to vital striking was to have hover attack only enabled when a key is pressed, that key is on the side of my mouse, where my thumb rests. The key above that is my vital strike key, so what do, is the moment a stun appears, I can roll my thumb from the hover key, onto the vital strike key, and back again, and vital strike quick enough that there won't be any t/s loss. I get a loss due to hesitation and switching targets. I have spirit stance on right click, so don't lose any there either.
QUOTE(BlueWaterSplash @ Mar 14 2020, 19:25)

With a shortsword it might be different though. I would expect my t/s to drop further due to using Imperil (I don't use it) although the finishing turns and time would be better.
Using imperil doesn't change t/s much, since imperiling itself is a turn, so its not like a delay to do something between actions or anything. My t/s is 2.74-2.75 often, even with imperilling, my best t/s I can see from recent dwd's is 2.78.
For what it's worth, I don't lose t's attacking normal mobs except on 1 sg arenas and some of the 2 sg arenas, on 3sg arena's they are dead before the SG's are through counters.
My current strategy (for sg arenas) heavily replies on oc management, and so despite hating to admit this, lately I've been considering if rapier might beat short sword (only on sg arenas), by reducing amount of turn waste from when outside of spirit stance (using imperil with the rapier too).
For fests, IW, and none sg areans, I'd take the shortsword anyday though.