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The (most) complete guide for Blade Masters


SyxK

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Looking around the internet for hours I did not managed to find a comprehensive or even remotely detailed guide for Blade Masters. As such, I will give my best attempt at a guide after having played a Blade Master since CB1.
Basic Terms:

F: Form (skill tree related and usually followed by a number)
T: Tier (skill tree related)
BM: Blade Master
PVE: Player versus Environment
PVP: Player versus Player
KFM: Kung Fu Master
Focus: Basic resource for skill usage

CD: Cooldown

Grasping the essence of a BM and its potential can be done in an extremely rudimentary way by learning how to PVE, PVP comes afterwards and since the focus of this guide is to introduce people in the ways of a BM the focus of this guide is PVE.


Class Introduction

I do realize that the game actually emphasizes the "balanced fighter" aspect of a BM. I do in fact find BM's as a combination of several classes, but not designed for any specific role. I won't go very far into skills in this section, so if you're looking for specific skills you can look at the skill section.

As a BM, you can tank bosses with ease and even tank Blackwyrm (World boss with 90 million hp), but a KFM can very much do the same job.


As far as DPS goes, your damage while tanking can be substantially higher due to the fact that you are constantly replenishing your focus. You can of course replenish focus in other ways, but tanking by far gives you the best focus regeneration.

Overall, BM's are very prone to disaster later on if your knowledge of the class is close to null. You will more than likely make mistakes, but that's what all the other BM's are here for, to help you learn (I hope).


Important Skills

Alright, realizing which skills are worth it and which ones will not help you is a constant battle that (at least for me) will take you a long time to get past. Therefore, let's begin.

For reference, let's use this website 
https://bnstree.com/BM and work our way from the top. Only skills marked as trainable will be covered here, the rest are self-explanatory(hopefully)

Breeze: Your basic focus regen skill. Overall T4S4 is the most commonly used by many BM's. It regenerates extra focus without relying on criticals.

Flicker: During Draw Stance your LMB will be this skill. F1 and F3 are mostly focused towards PVE, while F2 has a stun component and higher CD, therefore making it more useful in PVP situations.

 

·         F1 has high initial damage potential and on a critical can ready a Blade Echo for even more damage. 

·         F3 has a low initial damage, but on consecutive uses it really starts to shine. It does have faster casting speed than its F1 counterpart, so pick your poison here.

 

Cyclone: I feel that Cyclone is a BM's best skill because of the skill versatility and different Form capabilities. It can be used after a successful Block, Parry, as well as during specific resist situations.

·         F1 is great at regenerating focus, it does however rely on resisting dmg on very specific timeframes, making it great for very experienced players.

·         F2 provides focus regeneration and our first Threat generating mechanism, the 30s Threat buff can be maintained over the course of boss fights and therefore protecting the rest of your party(In theory at least... I am looking at you summoners and force masters). At higher tiers it provides resistance to damage and status effects.

·         F3 is the focus regen tool for those that do not want to steal Threat from another tank while still attempting to regenerate focus.

 

Pierce: Your most basic “let’s get the job done” skill. Pierce provides another way to spend your focus for some high damage while not in Draw Stance.

 

·         F1 is a high damage skill that already introduce us to very basic combos, such as Block > Cyclone > Pierce. This combo can be shortened by removing the Cyclone in order to deal quick damage, or lengthened by applying further Pierce.

·         F3 is a variation of Pierce, providing some health regen at the cost of damage. Overall you shouldn’t be suffering any damage if you block enemy attacks, therefore leaving F3 in the shadow.

 

Honed Slash: Extreme focus costs for tremendous damage. F2 provides the most potential in PVP situations, while F1 and F3 are for its most part PVE based during Draw Stance

·         F1 is the basic form of this skill, providing heavy damage and even higher damage against enemies under grabs or status effects.

·         F3 is its very interesting variation. F3 provides increased damage on consecutive uses at no focus cost and no cooldown on a grabbed enemy, it can only used 4 times before going back to Basic Stance however, and its animation time is much longer than F1 though,

Crash: I will be avoiding explaining this skill due to the fact that crash can only be used on airborne enemies and you rarely want the airborne status on bosses. It makes it really hard for other melee classes to do any damage whatsoever.

Stomp: Alright, I know we all saw the combo tutorial on this skill and most of us thought: “That’s it?”. Well mostly, its only redeeming Form is F2 thus far. F2 DOES increase the damage significantly, provides some AoE potential, and gives us a low CD.

Flash Step: Part of the fast and heavy hitting skills of the BM if used properly. This skill can be used during Draw Stance and upon landing a critical hit… at least F1 and F2.

 

·         F1 and F2 are extremely similar, as said before, they rely on a critical hit in order to get the prompt, both provide charge potential, and while F1 has AoE mechanics it does have to be aimed. Both provide some neat complete Focus recovery upon kill, making it a nice clean-up tool.

·         F3 changes this skill completely. Instead of an offensive skill we get a very defensive skill that increases Threat and can be used upon hitting LMB or RMB during Draw Stance. It can be useful during World Boss scenarios in order to maintain proper Threat.

Take Flight: Your basic airborne tool. Useful under solo scenarios but inadequate in most others. Airborne DPS is comparatively lower than Grabbed or under status effects. It does help you gain a few moments to breathe if you’re waiting for the CD on a potion or as a finishing move on an opponent coupled with RMB or LMB.

Lunar Slash: Alright, this skill has some interesting variations and different uses.

·         F1 at its highest levels generates Focus instead of using it, dealing good damage and opening up some combo possibilities.

·         F2 provides consecutive uses beyond the first one as well as a second Daze in the BM kit, allowing you to reliably stop a Boss in its tracks.


Second Wind: Your “Get out of jail” card. Useful both in PVP as well as PVE scenarios, this skill can provide a Grab escape, AoE Knockback, or Daze in its F1, F2, and F3 trees respectively. I would like to go much into detail about the very specific scenarios in which every single one of these Form trees are useful, but as of this moment I feel it is unnecessary.

Block: Your basic survival tool. Block gets divided into 3 skill trees that make slight or heavy variations on the basic block skill. Every one of these variations serves one basic purpose though, to keep you and your party alive.


·         F1 is your offensive-defensive tool. It offers a bit of damage and deflection, making gaps in the enemy attacks as long as you can be certain that the enemy will land its attack in the 0.5 second window.

·         F2 is a more defensive oriented skill, as it provides you with a bigger block window and the initial 0.5 seconds do provide deflection. That way, even if you miss the deflection you can still get a block out of it.

·         F3 is the “I am tanking big things”. Percentage based regen and an AoE protection for you and your teammates is a tool that I’ve rarely see being used by other BM’s. Granted, thus far most of of the enemies have not thrown us anything of that caliber… yet.

 

Rush: Gapcloser. There is not much to say about this skill, a relatively weak but useful gap closer with stun in F1, or a gap closer with some damage on a long cooldown on F3. Don’t misunderstand; even a single point in T1F1 is useful enough, granting you move speed on a class that rarely grants you this.

 

Raid: Raid is the Rush counterpart during Draw Stance. Closing the distance is extremely important as BM due to our mostly melee kit. T1F1 does provide some Focus regen, while T3F3 provides some good PVP potential. Overall, I feel that your skill points can be used elsewhere and Raid is as effective as it can get.

Anklebiter: Although this skill start as a basic disable, it can get some interesting effects if we go into F3.


·         F3 is the variation of Anklebiter, Fissure. Fissure costs 0 focus and deals moderate damage in a line. This damage aalso allows you to recover Focus, opening up paths for higher Focus-cost combos. My suggestion? Put a point into Fissure and you won’t regret it.


Five Point Strike: The essence and the very soul of a Blade Master. Alright, that sounded way more important than what the skill actually provides, but during the right circumstances it can be our most powerful nuke. F1 is mostly focused towards PVP combat due to its extremely low damage and airborne potential.

 

·         F2 is the basic for of this skill, a gap closer that also provides us with the hardest hitting skill in our arsenal alongside with some Focus regen. This heavy damage is done over the course of 5 strikes.

·         F3 is basically the same as F2, except that it provides us with triple Threat. Excellent in combination with Threat aura from Cyclone in order to keep a Boss attention on us.

 

 

Lightning Draw: Aside from the damage potential, this skill allows a BM to change stance into Draw Stance. All and all this is a very useful tool; the damage is quite nice, but the Draw Stance change is what really allows a BM to seamlessly flow. There is not much variation between the different skill tree to warrant an explanation for each though.

 

Soaring Falcon: Thus far, Soaring Falcon is one of those skills that seems kind of useless at first, but it does serve a purpose. A single point into it grants us a small amount of Focus regen, while spending a point into F2 gives us a nice pull ability, useful for those dungeons in which you just want to pull a single group of mobs at a time.

 

Blitzblade Scourge, Lightning Rod, Flock of Blades, Whirling Scourge: Grouping these abilities just seems like the best course of action, as they all share the second recource that BM’s have, Soulblades.
Soulblades provide the basic catalyst for these skills and can be summoned by using Flock of Blades. While on a high cooldown, Flock of Blades T2F2 can output some very good damage, and while we’re at it, we can use in quick succession Whirling Scourge and Lightning Rod for some heavy hitting damage.

Blindside: Yes, this is not a trainable skill, but I feel like I must add some pointers about this skill too. Blindside Q moves us behind the enemy and instantly switches our stance to Draw Stance. Blindside E does essentially the same, but can be used after Blindside Q without any cooldown. If used at the exact moment of an attack, Blindside also becomes a damage resist skill.

 

Evade: The skill explains it all. Pressing S twice in quick succession and provides us with a quick escape mechanism. Evade does provide damage resistance during and a short time after the execution of it, allowing a BM to escape from a sticky situation and possibly leave unharmed. Its only upgrade allows us to change into Draw Stance afterwards, pretty useful.

Basic Combos

 

Yeah yeah, everyone wants to immediately combo an enemy to the death, but that is a bit more complex than what it sounds. Some skills allow for Focus regen during the course of its duration, while others spend focus at an alarming rate. Knowing how much to spend at what time can mean victory or death.

The most basic combo is: Block > Cyclone > Pierce
A basic Draw Stance combo is: Lightning Draw > Honed Slash > Flicker
These super basic combos are the basis for the most complex combos. Mastering these two combos is not difficult, but properly improving them is part of the training.


Advanced Combos

Time for the interesting part, which is Focus management. Under no further circumstances Pierce can be used 5 times as long as it has one point in it; meaning that after 5 uses you will be out of Focus. Under normal combat however, you will consider having some way to regenerate Focus before you’re completely dry, here comes the basic combo: Block > Cyclone > Pierce. Even if you started this combo with absolutely 0 Focus you will be able to pull it off and even increase the number of Pierce in the combo if so desired. You can even think about changing Pierce for heavier hitting skills by using variations of multiple combos, for example: Block > Cyclone > Lightning Draw > Honed Slash > Flicker. Since the input time of Cyclone gives us a decent time window we can include another skill in between: Block > Fissure >Cyclone > Lightning Draw > Honed Slash > Flicker. This is where it gets more complicated, as situations could change fast during a fight and you could be forced to stop midway. Adapting your strategy is always important, never rely on a prolonged combo for your damage, as it can backfire and leave you exposed to an attack. Practice your combos, create your own, adapt, and succeed.

Animation Canceling

 

Remember the Draw Combo: Lightning Draw > Honed Slash > Flicker. There is a reason why Honed Slash comes before Flicker, and that is because Flicker can cancel the animation of Honed Slash while still dealing its damage. Done in quick succession, your Honed Slash > Flickr can be done in an extremely fluid and quick manner, therefore increasing your damage potential and helping you dish out some more delicious damage.

 

Desired Stats

 

Critical and Critical Damage. I cannot emphasize how much you need these two. Critical allows you to reliably hit those much needed critical hits, while Critical Damage makes them more powerful.

 

Piercing is also good, as it helps decrease the enemy defenses and thus increase your damage potential.

 

Accuracy has a great deal of impact on your damage output, so make sure your chance to hit is 100% or better.

If you’re able to block consistently, you won’t need Block Stat or Avoid.


Closing Words

I do realize that this guide is very far from complete, but at least I hope it serves as a stepping stone for those that wish to improve it or those that required a bit of insight on Blade Masters.

TL;DR I tried to explain Blade Masters as best as I could, 

I hope the formatting comes out ok...
 

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This is helpful. While I like to mess around on my own without relying on builds from others as playstyle vary I still found the information useful to me. I don't usually play melee classes so this is a trial and error time for me with my BM. I played summoner and while it's most like my playstyle I found myself getting bored maybe because I am so used to playing ranged and tired of it *shrugs* who knows 

 

Anyways thank you for this 

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Missed out many main points about the skills and shouldn't simply imply another way of the skill description to us because it's suppose to be a guide yes?

 

 

Below is sort of elaborated and I'm only adding on to things that should have been pointed out if you do not wish to read or simply just want to scan through,

jolly well do not quote and pin point because i do not frequent the forum and would not entertain thanks.
 


Blade echo does not deal significantly high damage but just a small boost.

Stage 3 flicker doesn't have any sort of "initial" damage as you mentioned.. and it's not very low compared but more constant damage but faster alot faster swing than and yes eventually the output would be more than stage 1 flicker but the buffs that stage 1 has is also very beneficial depends on individual.

 

Cyclone stage 1 goes hand in hand with block stage 1/2 for obvious reasons and it is only provided if a bm either solos or gets the aggro otherwise can forget about performing stage 1 cyclone most of the time.

The main point of cyclone is also the immunity for 3secs it blocks everything or closes you in during pvp.

 

Pierce is really too focus levy but yes it's still something to add but only use in situation when you have to blindside back to basic stance to use skills, dodge red attacks unless you're on flock/blades or with sundering sword on target to upkeep pierce otherwise any bm should always be in draw stance as much as possible in pve. Because a stage 3 flicker with 1 cost would still swing faster and more than the pierce and a honed slash stage 1 on crit would cost same as pierce but hits way harder.

 

Honed slash is not really something to be relied on to spam in pvp for obvious reasons.. but then again smoothest chain action would be flicker(stun) > honed slash > flicker unless in pve just spam it..

 

Stomp the only time to use it's when there's really nothing else to use but with a empty focus while the target is knockdown.. not something bm should be adding points to..

 

Flash step stage 1 is the only tree every bm needs to know and use it to your situation, use it to move away from a boss attack or just use it for a group of mobs or just simply use it.

 

Lunar slash left or right it's good for pvp/pve depends on individual if they want the extra daze on boss for joint attack or pvp for that extra option to take flight or simply that high damage.

 

Second wind stage 1 runs from everything, stage 3 runs from the mentioned but dazes good for take flight followup, stage 2 gives you a breather during pvp or good during world pvp getting mob by opposite faction.

 

Block stage 1 isn't something any bm should really add because because block is bm's bread and butter hence stage 2/3 gives the hp recovery which is more substantial. stage 2 again goes hand in hand with stage 1 cyclone also stage 2 is preferable for pvp for its stun leaving stage 3 block friendly for its duration in any situation beware of skills that cancels block.

 

Rush the only time to add this is when you want the stun which can joint attack with other skill to disable boss or simply for pvp otherwise there are places for points better spent on. Multislash is something to consider for more damage output and it wouldn't get interrupted unlike stage 2/3 of 5 point strike which resist for that .6secs but then against personal preference.

 

Anklebiter very straightforward left to knockdown right for upkeep of focus. If considering to add that 3% hp recover on anklebite, it is too insignificant and too many points wasted.

 

5 point is not the very core skill. 1 is something you want to do with pvp with for that aerial combo or for boss which can joint attack, 2/3 simply hitting hard.

 

Lighting slash this is quite debatable because of our current game situation we do not possess as much skill points and let alone stage 2 tier 5 is the skill every bm MUST have but so far hardly obtainable whereas adding that 4 skill points to get that 10% crit for 3 secs and additional dmg ONLY when cc-ed every 36 secs is not very substantial in my opinion also because crit chance shouldn't be an issue with bsh ss fused with crit and a siren weapon and that crit dmg of 5% only adds 50 or less assuming most BMs with at least 900~1k crit dmg.

 

The only thing i use it or save it for is when i used up my blindside or evade to dodge a red attack to get into draw stance.

 

Soaring falcon not something to be added unless the pull for pvp because there are already sundering sword/HM weapon/rush/lunar slash/flock to gain focus already. But it's something which can be used inbetween rising eagle and ascend.

 

Evade is a must, be in draw stance as much as possible.

 

To combo watch video guides, pause inbetween see what they do. Try and experiment there's no fixed skills because again BMs are very VERSATILE. I just like to spam my stage 3 flicker when everything is on cd :3

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