Xiom Offensive-S

I just got a Xiom Offensive S blade and I am somewhat hesitant of gluing up rubbers on it without a light seal job first.  It does seem to have a light seal already, but I can feel some micro dry/protruding grains of wood as I run my fingers across the blade face.  

Has anyone found problems gluing and re-gluing this blade a few times without extra sealing?   I plan on testing 2 different sets of rubbers on it for sure, and I do not want any splinters, but want to try it without any extra sealing first.


Also, I see several with this blade in their signatures and would love to hear your experiences with it compared to previous blades you have been using.  I am wondering if it will feel at all like the Virtuoso and a few other OFF- types of blades I have tried.  So, using this thread as a sort of review/comments section for this blade.  Thanks for any input.

Oh, yes I forgot to mention I will use Tear Mender on it.  Thats why I am unsure I want to glue without adding a light seal even though it seems to have a light factory seal on it.  Normally, I would not even hesitate to do my normal lacquer job on it.  Not sure why I am tempting fate by thinking ...."just glue it man....go for it"    Famous last words huh.  

Anton, I know some of the blades you have been using in the past.....does this blade offer you more feel, control, possibly helps your game play by putting more balls in play..... while still being fast enough for your likes?  Sort of like it does not do anything super special but does everything so well it makes your match play more consistent and better over all?  I ask this because I know you have used some of the faster composite blades as well as some stiffer or more solid feeling ones as well. 

The Offensive S I have is 84g and ST handle, though slightly on the thin side for my likes...its not bad.  Most of the blades I have been using are 88 to 91 grams.  And I have a feeling I will be comparing it with a Virtuoso and my Galaxy E2 as far as the all wood blades go I have liked lately. 

This is a very interesting blade, like the two-faced Janus. If you put hard rubbers on it, e.g., Haifu BW2, it is a controllable ALL+/Off- blade; if pairing it with Xiom Vega Europe the blade becomes a raging beast. ST handle is just as big as it must be - even a little bigger; wink to Dual700.

Imago wrote: This is a very interesting blade, like the two-faced Janus. If you put hard rubbers on it, e.g., Haifu BW2, it is a controllable ALL+/Off- blade; if pairing it with Xiom Vega Europe the blade becomes a raging beast. ST handle is just as big as it must be - even a little bigger; wink to Dual700.

My recent trip to my home country.. I had both ZQ and Offensive S handles thickened by 1 mm overall. $5 each. Now they are awesome to hold. I wish I brought both of my P700s with me

Thanks to Rokphish's connection

Had a hit with the Offensive-S  with 2 Rakza soft 2.0's.    NEXT  throw was way too high.   Trying regular Rakza 2.0 this wed. at club.  

I'm glad you seem to be enjoying the blade. 

Thin handles?

Anton....in comparison to the Yasaka ST handles....this Offensive-S is more round and just slightly thinner.  I normally like a SQ/ST handle because it fills out better in my slightly large hands, and I just like the feel of having a flat spot on the top and bottom face with an edge the square shape makes. 

To give you guys some idea, I felt the OSP stock SQ/ST was perfect in size....as well as the Nexy Color ST handles.  The pictures I had seen of the Offensive S ST handle....made it look like it was wider than the average asian blades.  But in reality, it is not as thick or wide as most of the pictures from the manufacture/sellers show. 

Also, this size of the handle is not a major flaw for me to drop the blade, just that I really felt the balance of the blade to be very top heavy with the 2 Rakza regular 2.0 rubbers on it.  When I use the slightly lighter soft Rakza 2.0's on it......it may offset that sensitivity in my hand i feel from the volume of the handle size.  I will lower the racket setup about 5 grams going to the soft version of Rakza. 

I do use grip wrap (thin wilson grip from the big box stores) on my handles because it does make them feel bigger and I can have a more relaxed grip with the added grippy/sticky feeling from the wrap.  But the normal grip I use did not fill out the Offensive S handle enough for me.  I think maybe the FL version of this blade may not be a thin feeling as compared to other FL handles.....not sure though. 

So I guess I am opposite feeling as Dual is....I wish the handle was wider and not thicker.

I do have a Nittaku Monophonic ST blade....and this handle is much thinner than the Offensive S for sure.

Rich, don't get the FL version of the Off S. I've tried it.
I have had over 10 Amadeus, Strads, Aria, etc etc. Those older version do have a large FL handle that are very comfortable and close to ST handle with the exception of the bottom is slightly larger.
I bought the FL with the hope that it is the same FL handle as the older ones. Not.

I do like Yasaka YEO's square handle. That is perfect for me. I prefer squarish ST handle myself.

dual700 wrote: My recent trip to my home country.. I had both ZQ and Offensive S handles thickened by 1 mm overall. $5 each. Now they are awesome to hold. I wish I brought both of my P700s with me Thanks to Rokphish's connection

dual.....would like to see the pics of the thickened handles you have.     


Ok, now that I have played matches with the Offensive S with the 2.0mm Rakza soft rubbers, I like this blade even more than with the 2 regular Rakza 2.0 rubbers on it. 

Weights with 84g Offensive S ST:
Rakza Soft 2.0mm  173g
Rakza reg 2.0mm 179g

This weight difference using the softer Rakza made the blade so much more balanced and not at all head heaving feeling in the least.  For this reason I was able to play much better touch shots and had a greater ease of short play close to the net.  Brush looping was clearly more easy to accomplish with better control and placement. 

But, just after one club night playing I can say my looping  barely suffered with some shots not having enough arch to hit the table end consistently (many just an inch or less off table end or sides).  I can adjust this with much more play most likely.   One big difference I had a hard time with adjusting to was the blocking ability.  While playing a more aggressive looper/driver, I had a hard time placing blocks that would not fly off long and not close to the table end.   Using the regular Rakza 2.0mm was much much easier to place low fast blocks on the table.  This is surely the norm when going from a softer sponge to a stiffer one, but I did not expect this to be as dramatic with the small difference in sponge hardness of these 2 rubbers.    I had to close the blade face so much more to have good blocks from fast powerful loops and drives than I would with the Soft Rakza on my Yasaka Extra SC blade. 

As I mentioned the blade balance was so much better and pretty much centered with the soft version rubber.   I would really like to use some of the soft Rakza in Max thickness though.   I think that may be even better than the other 2.

With my limited use (2 club nights with 2 different rubber setups) of the Offensive S......I still think this is an excellent blade and can see using it quite alot.  I probably would not want to use a rubber on it that was over 44-46g cut though on both sides.  I just lost too much feel and it became too head heavy for my liking.  So if your using a ESN tensor or the like, keep that in mind if you do not like a head heavy setup.   Rakza is hard for me to quit with other ESN offerings being much heavier so far. 

The only other rubber so far that I am interested in might be the Xiom Vega Japan.   Have to wait and hear more on it though. 

    

Rich, here they are. The guy did a very good job. Looks stock.

UPDATE:     Now after a few club sessions with the Rakza 7 regular 2.0 on it again....I would use these rubbers over the soft version in 2.0mm.   BUT...I wish I had some R7 soft MAX to test too. 

With the regular R7 I could put more loops/drives on the table because of the throw angle being lower. Also having more speed helped as well, especially moving back off the table. 

I had to give up the touch shots and close net playability of the soft version, but gaining better loops and more balls on the table offset my choice with these 2 rubbers. 

I am still just messing with this blade as a 2nd choice of setup, I still have not found anything better FOR MY GAME than my Yasaka Extra 3D SC with max soft R7 on FH and regular R7 2.0 on the BH.