How best to solo?

[IxFa]

I've primarily played wind-focused as it has 'felt' better to play than what I've tried with lightning.

That said, I've been reading up on lightning and practicing a bit, and it gets me thinking..

 

I'm really no expert on blade dancer. Clearly I don't know how best to play this class. Now I'd like some help, how should I approach solo content as blade dancer?

Though I'm level 45(HM2), tips about leveling would be useful since my girlfriend is interested. Primarily I'd like tips with end-game builds and such. I haven't tried Mushin's Tower yet either, so I should get on that sometime soon.

[Shinsetsu]

Are you asking about soloing 6-man content or doing solo content like Mushin?

[IxFa]

Boy if you can tell me how to solo a 6-man I would be grateful.

Just, the best ways to solo the most content feasibly. If the tips only take me as high as green dungeons and Mushin's Tower, so be it, but if I could solo a blue dungeon then that'd be pretty rad.

 

Bladeguard seems like it could do wonderful things if someone was really really good with it. 0 cooldown and stunning everything hitting you in that half second seems pretty good.

But I don't know. I'm hoping I can just be better 

Soloing green dungeons as I leveled BM was super easy. Not so on BD. 

[IxFa]

Oh jeez

 

I've been trying Bladeguard for a couple hours

 

This is hard

So hard T_T

[icyterror]

Wind build to kill mobs fast. 

Elec build with i-frame+healing is better for end game contents. 

 

[Shinsetsu]

Soloing 6-man blue dungeons (big 4) is not too difficult for BD if you have good soul shield. Personally, I don't have the time, but I have solo'd Ogong and duo'd Brightstone Ruins with another BD for achievement. Unless you want to try and farm Brightstone for tears/chance for recipe, I wouldn't bother trying to solo 6-man content.

 

As for Mushin Tower, there's many guides in this section for the different floors.

 

Personally, I basically have different 4 builds that I use.

 

Build 1 focuses on single target enemies that can be CC'd with one strike. I don't use wind or electric focus. This build mostly utilizes Draw Stance and Flaming Scourge (Z), LMB + F anicancel with stuns for extra damage. I use this for floor 1, the last guy on floor 3, and for Junghado on floor 7.

 

Build 2 is the same build I use for most dungeons. Its mostly wind focused with Multislash and Rolling Thunder upped damage. Also uses Flaming Scourge. I use this for floors 2, 4, 5, and 6.

 

Build 3 is basically the same as build 2, but change LMB for to AoE, V for pulling enemies, and Z for 5 resist + heal. I only use this for the first few guys on floor 7.

 

My 4th build is specifically for floor 8, Mushin's 3 clones. For this, I use electric focus so I can get Storm Cleave (V). It also utilizes a similar LMB + F anicancel with stun strategy as build 1.

[Intersolar]

Bladeguard has 1 fatal flaw - your passive evasion/block comes first and after it fails comes the parry from BG,so dont be surprised when you put a perfect BG and still get ~7k block damage and it will not reset BG.(tested on Be Ido adds).

[Chikotan]

You usually don't use bladeguard because it requires you to stop attacking for a moment beforehand (you cannot cancel abilities into bladeguard, you must prepare in advance), and you will be locked into a block animation for a moment after successfully parrying. You also cannot chain bladeguards together for a powerful pseudo-block because you cannot use bladeguard again until you finish the block animation, which lasts longer than the actual parry. The daze also does not affect bosses.

 

Typically tier 3 form 1 lightning strike is better for avoiding attacks. It casts extremely fast compared to bladeguard, puts you behind the boss which will usually avoid attacks from giant-sized enemies, and deals a lot of damage at the same time. It is usually not effective against human-sized enemies, though.

 

That being said, bladeguard IS good against mushin 8.3. But that is the only fight where I would consider using bladeguard at the moment.

[Shinsetsu]

8 minutes ago, Chikotan said:

You usually don't use bladeguard because it requires you to stop attacking for a moment beforehand (you cannot cancel abilities into bladeguard, you must prepare in advance), and you will be locked into a block animation for a moment after successfully parrying. You also cannot chain bladeguards together for a powerful pseudo-block because you cannot use bladeguard again until you finish the block animation, which lasts longer than the actual parry. The daze also does not affect bosses.

 

Typically tier 3 form 1 lightning strike is better for avoiding attacks. It casts extremely fast compared to bladeguard, puts you behind the boss which will usually avoid attacks from giant-sized enemies, and deals a lot of damage at the same time. It is usually not effective against human-sized enemies, though.

 

That being said, bladeguard IS good against mushin 8.3. But that is the only fight where I would consider using bladeguard at the moment.

 

I agree. Bladeguard will take some getting used to though. I tried it for a bit for 8.3 when I was testing out different builds and it did work well when I could get it off, but it's hard to get used to if you haven't been using it. I still don't use it though, even on 8.3. I just couldn't get the timing down well enough. I don't know what it is. I have no problem timing .5 seconds with Tab, but for some reason timing it with RMB for Bladeguard throws me off.

[IxFa]

Well I managed to use it in a few places.

Used it in Mushin's Tower a few times. 

Felt pretty good about beating everything up to augerite with bladeguard on.

Used flashstep in the floor with the high number of enemies though.

 

I mean, I'm not pro. Honestly, I'm likely very low-tier on the Blade Dancing scale, but when I manage to use bladeguard correctly it really feels good to me. 

If it is at least viable, I believe I should really commit to learning it. It provides a spark to the class that helps me enjoy it.

But I'd be quite pleased if they buffed it.

[Chikotan]

It does feel really good when you succeed with bladeguard. The problem is that in most cases lightning strike also gets the job done, and it is easier to time, and it does damage, and it doesn't lock you into a lengthy animation. It's just hard to justify using bladeguard in most situations unless you want style points.

 

Actually you can avoid almost all attacks in draw stance by using lightning strike and SS. And regarding SS, you should typically turn around and SS through the boss so you can immediately resume dps. It has super long iframes that will absorb most aoe attacks so there is usually no need to SS away from a boss.

[IxFa]

ncsoft pls buff ;~;

 

I heard some guy called Dakaringer solo'd Bloodshade with bladeguard

I also saw a video of someone doing Mushin's Tower with it.

Surely there are more tricks with it that I could learn to make it more competitive vs using lightning strike