Blade Dancer Ahri

I don't play male characters, but I think this is a cool idea and I like that references were provided as well. I support this and think it would be a good addition rather than another rerun of existing things. As for another thing, I think there should be a change to clan crafting for the weapon illusion skins that allows you to pick whether or not you want the shinier version. It'd also be good to have a way to get Infinite Challenge again.

I experimented a bit and found out how to get the 250% soups to work. You can only activate them if you are currently in "eating mode", which must be activated by eating something else first. Use any consumable item that makes you sit down and eat it out of combat, like a plain Dumpling, then without moving and while your character is still sitting down, right click on the soup. It will activate. It also does work once activated - I tested the 200% and 250% and I did see more exp with the 250% active. tl;dr: Eat normal dumpling -> use soup while still sitting down. Enjoy.

Hello. I'm a player who has been a Light BD for a very long time, and have been playing BD for many years. I am one of the most geared remaining Blade Dancers on NA. It's become more obvious lately that BD has fallen farther and farther behind in damage compared to other classes at endgame. This trend has also lead to an exodus from the class, both in KR and NA - most of the higher-tier Blade Dancers in NA have either quit or used a Class Change voucher, while BD is largely avoided entirely in KR. This is mainly due to the DPS differential between classes in addition to higher effort required compared to most classes for what is ultimately still significantly less DPS. I do not seek to reduce the effort required for light BD, as that is part of what gives it a unique class feel and is an appealing aspect of the class's identity. Instead, I would like to propose a couple of simple tweaks that would fix the damage issue while still maintaining the class's feel and experience. ------Background------ Currently, there is a talent that we have called Turn The Tide which grants a stacking AP boost and other rotation-critical resources upon a parry with Bladeguard. It is also intended to boost our damage on Lightning Flash at low HP. The main issue is that in most content where offensive capabilities must be at peak performance, there are simply not enough blockable attacks spaced enough to stack and maintain this boost. Additionally, our base ratios and attack rotations simply don't deal enough damage at the moment to keep up with most other classes' current damage-dealing capabilities, especially ranged classes. The low HP aspect also does not work well. When we have the boosts from Turn The Tide fully activated and are frequently parrying, such as in Twisted Serpent's Den against the easier version of Shadow Fury Myung, the class takes on a much more dynamic feeling, with rotations smoothly flowing between multiple flash steps and fatal blades as attacks are deflected. In such moments, the developer's concept of a nimble class elegantly deflecting attacks and counterattacking for massive damage is brought to life and shines brightly. Unfortunately, that simply cannot be replicated in most endgame content. ------Proposed Changes------ I'd like to make the feel from an optimal fight more available throughout content. A lot of this is already present in-game with the current form of Thundering Blade, so my alterations will be bolded. Turn The Tide Talent: Upon successful Bladeguard or Fatal Blade, grant the Overflow buff. Overflow grants +13% Attack Power for 12 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. Stack one Bladepoint and one Shinespark on Successful Parry with Bladeguard. At 3 stacks of Overflow, gain a 50% chance to grant an additional Bladepoint upon a successful Fatal Blade hit. Remove the additional damage to Lightning Flash against a low HP target. Thunderstruck Talent: Increase base ratio of Lightning Flash from 9.00x AP to 15.00x AP Increase base ratio of Awakened Lightning Flash from 16.00x AP to 23.00x AP Increase Fatal Blade casting speed and grant one Shinespark on successful Fatal Blade hit ------Why these changes?------ When Turn the Tide is fully active, our damage begins to approach those of other classes and the persistent influx of Bladepoints creates a much more efficient and smooth rotation. The changes to this allow us to stack the buffs from the talent even when blockable attacks are not frequent enough or timed well for upkeep through Bladeguard. Adding the additional Bladepoint opportunity allows us to more frequently access the alternate feel of the class when Bladeguards are successful. This is a chance to activate rather than a guarantee because there should still be incentive to Bladeguard as well, in addition to it being the main method for proccing Insignia such as Timestitcher: Parry, Breakmancer: Parry, and Sentinel: Parry. Since the Low HP component of Turn the Tide doesn't really work, let's remove that and give a lesser, but more consistently available version through another talent whose intent is also to focus more on fluidity of skill activation. We can turn to the Thunderstruck talent for this. Thunderstruck technically lowers the damage of Fatal Blade compared to the other two options in that talent row in exchange for boosting the cast speed of Fatal Blade. While Thunderbolts and Lightning yields notably more damage overall, it feels awkward and causes gameplay to have an uncomfortable pause while waiting on Fatal Blade to execute, and this also leads to more chances of being knocked out of Fatal Blade since the resist wears off before the attack executes. As a result, Thunderstruck is much more commonly used in NA due to its increased fluidity. While the Turn the Tide change gets us closer to other classes' potential right now, it isn't quite enough by itself. I mentioned earlier that the low HP component of Turn The Tide is fairly ineffective and so we would do better with a more consistent version. The proposed changes to Thunderstruck increase the base ratios of Lightning Flash to be more in-line with other classes' key attacks. While you may think 15x is high, let's compare that to the AP ratios of the key abilities of several other classes, leaning more towards other melee: Phantom Assassin's Night Reaver: 43.80x Madness Warden's Blade Frenzy: 10.50x Madness Warden's Bloodstorm: 26.00x Guardian Warden's Sword Salvo: 38.50x Guardian Warden's Divine Strike: 95.00x Singing Blade Blade Master's Flash Step: 72.00x Arsenal Gunslinger's Machina: 40.70x on first hit, more on successive hits Shifting Blades Dual Blade's Drive Strike: 50.00x Shifting Blades Dual Blade's Decimate after a Splinter Mode Drive Strike: 119.60x Shifting Blades Dual Blade's Onslaught: 34.00x, doubling on repeated uses Many of these attacks also deal significantly more damage on a broken target or also have other buffs associated with them. Light BD does not get any attack-specific bonuses against a broken target. The awakened lightning flash buff is similarly just increasing its output so that the 7.00x AP ratio gap between the current form and the proposed form remains the same. Finally, the shinespark change is to cover one of the weakpoints of Flash Step - it displaces the BD significantly such that either a second flash step or a gapclose must be used immediately to regain proper positioning. This change is to help increase the likelihood of being able to do a double flash step instead of having to wait for Thunder Slash or using Raid outside of a CC window. With this, you would be able to pull off more fun rotations even if you don't get a reset and Storm Cleave is on cooldown. One example: V -> fcfrfrVfz -> W+C , spin camera, W+C -> xfcfV. In English: Fatal Blade (hit the 50% and gain two bladepoints + one shinespark) -> Lightning Flash -> Lightning Draw (Three Bladepoints) -> Lightning Flash/Flicker [x2] -> Fatal Blade -> Lightning Flash -> Flaming Scourge -> Flash Step -> Flash Step -> Thunder Slash -> Lightning Flash -> Lightning Draw -> Lightning Flash -> Fatal Blade.

You still have double stun on light. It's Raid -> Sidewinder.

As someone who's played Blade Dancer since the start and as someone currently very highly geared, the bit about BD underperforming is one of a couple of reasons. BD at base, *especially* if you're playing wind, will feel underwhelming because you need certain badges and need to know how to keep your rotation going, and if you only got to lv. 40 you don't even have all your skills unlocked, let alone the items and equipment you need to make the class perform. Third spec BD has exceptional dps right now, but you wouldn't have known that at Lv. 40. BD also has rotations you need to maintain on the two specs you have access to, and Lightning's rotation will feel very bad without badges. However, even without badges, you can basically hold simple mode on gunner and do much better, so it's a distorted representation. Gunner also doesn't scale as well. It's already been said, but it needs to be said again - judging classes at low tier gear without much of an understanding of how the two classes work and differ is a big mistake. That said, I'm willing to go more in detail and go over what I do know about classes - I usually help people if I see them asking questions in Faction chat (I'm in Cerulean), but if you've already given up then it won't help.

Thank you very much, Hime! That was a pretty fast response. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Hello. I'd just like to ask if the previous tier of souls will now be tradable due to the new tier coming out (usually, that is the case) and if so, what the revealing cost for trading purposes is.

(For clarity, "tradable" in this context is between players, not just between alts) Would be nice if you would make the current highest soul tier (the one with Thunderflux) tradable. Tradability application is usually one soul update behind but it's been a while now. Additionally, would be nice if tradability in general wasn't restricted to only "True" stages.

I'm glad that you found them useful! Thanks for taking the time to say thank you. ^_^

I've uploaded some guides for the new content coming out on 12/6/2017 in the Dungeons section. Should I also duplicate the post here in General Discussion?

I've written a couple of guides for the new dungeons. They have gifs for attacks and such. I'm working on adding gifs to an Outlaw Island guide as well. I can also update to provide a version without gifs and just the text if desired; sometimes loading the gifs can take a while. These may also be edited later to update names/other information. I can be reached on Discord, Dreamslayer#9122, with any questions. I'm also Dreamslayer, the Blade Dancer, on Yura server. Hollow's Heart (Gif version): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vFcckNkU5zfKtUDp-XTrcuBG7tpkNk0wxY7WTtNiJ6s/edit?usp=sharing Starstone Mines(Gif version): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K6EC4TM1n58QrapphLsSqJub_b_Z-P9LkG77pTwlnbA/edit?usp=sharing Outlaw's Island(Gif version): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XTxJfy_7bwFN-wyjbRkFt6njCTEarCDlWK3La_7_PQ8/edit?usp=sharing I hope you find these helpful.