How do we play Soul Fighter?

[Keitsume]

Hello, I'm 10 days new to BnS. I'm lvl 55 HM 8. I have no idea about the procs or anything with the Soul Fighter. All I know is that Iron Shoulder crits. Could someone please tell me the best gear for Earth and Frost? How do I get the stacks and what's the procs for battle? 

[Nahri]

Have you done the tutorial in F12?  If not, I'd suggest doing that for both elements, since it lays out the basic stuff as far as skills & combos.  You can also summon a tank helper so you can practice on bosses.
  There's a class update coming May 9, so best gear is possibly going to change very slightly.  Go with Baleful Bracer stage 12 (Raven is the preferred next path), Draken necklace & belt and get Dragon bracelet.  Don't bother with the ring or earring in that Draken set, since Skybreakspire (Raid) ring and earring are superior.

 

MSP soulshields will hold you over until you can get the Skybreak (BT) set, but don't forget to infuse crit into your MSP set, you can craft or buy crit primers to do that.

 

If you open your inventory, there's a gear path icon at the very bottom that shows the gear and paths with materials needed.  Try to use that as much as you can.

As far as badges and amulets, that depends on the element you decide to play and why I suggested F12.  The preferred amulets are the ones you buy with Celestial basin peaches and Raven feathers.  The badges depend on which element you're going to play and what play style you prefer, but some are pretty useless, even with the upcoming update, while others only shine when combined with another.

 

Also, try for stage 6 soul minimum, it's where the buffs start to show up, for souls.

[SilverFoxR]

First and foremost... there's 2 things you should work towards getting ASAP... especially if you're running a Frost SF (which, let's be frank... 90% of SF players do):

1) Blue Moon Soul Badge

2) Hongmoon Skill: Right Punch

 

One of the biggest hurdles for Soul Fighters early on is focus management - simply put, your focus just burns away too quickly. With the Soul Badge and the Right Punch HM skill, this becomes almost impossible to do. To get the Blue Moon Soul Badge, save up 125 Solar Energy from doing Daily Challenge (might take about a month of work) and buy it from Dragon Express. If you have another character who had the energies, you can easily buy the badge chest and mail it to your SF. In order to get the Hongmoon Skill for Right Punch, Soul Fighters must consume the Chilling Flame Elixir. Fortunately, they made it way easier to obtain now that they pretty much throw Bravery Coins around lately, which can be used to buy the elixir.

 

Once you have those, you're pretty much set. Your basic rotation is to hold down RMB, hit F for Iron Shoulder whenever it appears, hit 2 when it's off cooldown to proc and use Breeze Kick and, when you hit 5 stacks of chi, hit V for Frost Storm. If you ever want to do some burst damage, hit Z, then V and then hold RMB... and, of course X for heals. That's 90% of your gameplay right there. It goes from being a struggle for focus management to one of the most dirt-simple classes to play.

 

Oh, and after you get both of the above items, consider saving up those Bravery Coins to obtain the Offal of Silence, Darkness and Luminescence. Consume all of those to get your Chi Burst HM skill... which will immensely help you and your party survive (boosts your heals by a LOT).

[lolydragon]

On 6-5-2018 at 10:39 PM, SilverFoxR said:

First and foremost... there's 2 things you should work towards getting ASAP... especially if you're running a Frost SF (which, let's be frank... 90% of SF players do):

1) Blue Moon Soul Badge

2) Hongmoon Skill: Right Punch

 

One of the biggest hurdles for Soul Fighters early on is focus management - simply put, your focus just burns away too quickly. With the Soul Badge and the Right Punch HM skill, this becomes almost impossible to do. To get the Blue Moon Soul Badge, save up 125 Solar Energy from doing Daily Challenge (might take about a month of work) and buy it from Dragon Express. If you have another character who had the energies, you can easily buy the badge chest and mail it to your SF. In order to get the Hongmoon Skill for Right Punch, Soul Fighters must consume the Chilling Flame Elixir. Fortunately, they made it way easier to obtain now that they pretty much throw Bravery Coins around lately, which can be used to buy the elixir.

 

Once you have those, you're pretty much set. Your basic rotation is to hold down RMB, hit F for Iron Shoulder whenever it appears, hit 2 when it's off cooldown to proc and use Breeze Kick and, when you hit 5 stacks of chi, hit V for Frost Storm. If you ever want to do some burst damage, hit Z, then V and then hold RMB... and, of course X for heals. That's 90% of your gameplay right there. It goes from being a struggle for focus management to one of the most dirt-simple classes to play.

 

Oh, and after you get both of the above items, consider saving up those Bravery Coins to obtain the Offal of Silence, Darkness and Luminescence. Consume all of those to get your Chi Burst HM skill... which will immensely help you and your party survive (boosts your heals by a LOT).

not true, do not fall for this trap.

Alluvion Soul Badge > got a WL use this

Sagewood Soul Badge > got no WL use this

[extra] Magnum Soul Badge > when tanking and you do have trouble with survivability take this IF you have the above badges which I mentioned

 

in the end combine them with 5 gracestone to get the Limitless soul badge

 

SilverFoxR has lived under a rock and use the old build for SF

 

[SilverFoxR]

4 hours ago, lolydragon said:

not true, do not fall for this trap.

Alluvion Soul Badge > got a WL use this

Sagewood Soul Badge > got no WL use this

[extra] Magnum Soul Badge > when tanking and you do have trouble with survivability take this IF you have the above badges which I mentioned

 

in the end combine them with 5 gracestone to get the Limitless soul badge

 

SilverFoxR has lived under a rock and use the old build for SF

 

Yes, because the Sagewood Soul Badge is easily obtainable for a new SF... =_='''

 

BM allows them to maintain focus, while fighting... which can help them UNTIL they can earn their combined badge. I sincerely doubt they'll be able to just grab 5 Divine Grace Stones out of nowhere if they are asking how to play SF currently (implying they are new to the class).

 

Additionally, wouldn't the Undying Soul Badge be a better combination? 1 chi stack for every Frost Storm isn't bad, but combining the "old" Blue Moon with the Sagewood also makes a lot of sense too... maintains focus recovery and gains 4 chi stacks pretty frequently.

[htdexhdfg]

Punches build "energy"
Energy builds "Chi"
Skills also build "Chi"
Chi + skills creates "Golden dragons"

Figure out...
Animation cancelling
Focus regen (For starters your TAB skills gives you 6 regen for shifting to a stance i.e. full focus in 0.6s after the first tap)
Evasion
Chi stacking skills


Conceptually they're the same but the rhythm is different between earth and ice

Animation Cancelling>> Chi stack building >> Kingfist/Froststorm >> DragonFury >> KINGSTRIKE/Ice Helix
KINGSTRIKE=Hyakuretsu Ken

Ideally you want to always be up and active in the fight.
Evasion skills support that through i frames and knowing mechanics.
Kingfist and Dragon fury are what you want up as much as possible to open into KINGSTRIKE.
so your badges should support your motions to do so.

 

 

[lolydragon]

On 15-5-2018 at 7:31 PM, SilverFoxR said:

Yes, because the Sagewood Soul Badge is easily obtainable for a new SF... =_='''

 

BM allows them to maintain focus, while fighting... which can help them UNTIL they can earn their combined badge. I sincerely doubt they'll be able to just grab 5 Divine Grace Stones out of nowhere if they are asking how to play SF currently (implying they are new to the class).

 

Additionally, wouldn't the Undying Soul Badge be a better combination? 1 chi stack for every Frost Storm isn't bad, but combining the "old" Blue Moon with the Sagewood also makes a lot of sense too... maintains focus recovery and gains 4 chi stacks pretty frequently.

Sorry about the late response I was bussy with school.

if you calculate it correctly u get more from the sage badge.

I did some testing with the giant turtle and the sage badge wins in dmg.

I base all these calculatons on my PVE tests on my FROST SF.

I don't have the knowledge for earth so I can't say anything about it.

 

let's get the facts why it might be the case:

 

SKILLS

breeze kick

• Occures only when lightning fist hits
• reduces the cd of howling blast by 3 sec.
• recover 3 focus

lightning fist

• cd 6 sec
• recover 2 focus
• resets after ice coil is used (30 sec cd)

iron shoulder

• occures after every 3th hit of RMB
• recovers 4 focus

RMB

• cost 2 focus
• recovers 1 focus on crit
• stacks 2 energy on hit
• on 10 stacks unlocks full charge

BADGES

Blue moon soul badge

• stacks 1 chi
• recover 6 focus over 3 sec on hit
• 600% extra dmg on breeze kick on hit

Sagewood soul badge

• reduces focus chi cd by 3 sec when burning tundra is used
• stacks 3 energy on hit

 

NOTICE:

When playing the blue moon badge and the boss jumps away it was hard to catch up because lightning fist is on cd the sagewood soul badge didnt have that kind of problem.

The full charge in general makes more dmg then the breeze kick even though it's pumped up by 600%.

I noticed that the blue moon soul badge has an interesting way to get stacks because it tries to nullify the howling blast as much as possible which increases the crit by 20% for 5 sec.

 

The main skill of the SF is ofcourse frost storm so because of that we try to gain as much chi stacks as fast as possible.

lets first calculate the Chi rate:

1. breeze kick is 2 chi every 6 secs.
2. Iron shoulder appears every 1.5 sec and stacks 1 chi.

The reason why blue moon still lost is because of the time. If it was a short time then they are evenly matched but let's say you figth a whole match that will mean the ice coil gets on cd which disables the second chi stack of breeze kick.

 

The focus rate without crit:

1. breeze kick constantly recovered and there was almost no issues just a 1 second interfall before I could hit again.
2. I had to micro manage every move but it just woudnt function

NOTICE

for this test I had to disable my crit because otherwise my focus just woudn't go down and used the dragonbone bracers which had no crit at all.

 

focus rate WITH 50.55% crit:

1. no issues
2. in a long run youre focus will deplete, you NEED to use breeze kick from time to time to replenish.

When equiping Frostfall ring on lowest stage + 50.55% crit:

1. no issues
2. no issues

It seems sagewood is in a bad spot for focus recovery until you get the frostfall ring from BT and have crit. The additional 10% focus recovery on crit nullifies the restriction of RMB depleting.

The blue moon wins in focus recovery.

 

CONCLUSION:

early game - blue moon soul badge has great focus recovery but lacks especially in dmg. If you want to do more dmg then use the sagewood. The pain with sagewood is you really have to know what you are doing until you get that ring.

 

late game - you won't use the blue moon anymore because focus is ur bro for life o/ there is NO reason to use this badge, sagewood increases ur dmg by stacking faster chi per second and gets more energy stacks per second, it is also easyer to maintain you just hold your rmb - f till your other abilities are off cd.

 

HINTS to increase crit:

improve your soulshield so it has extra crit, the more crit the less focus you need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SilverFoxR]

4 hours ago, lolydragon said:

Sorry about the late response I was bussy with school.

if you calculate it correctly u get more from the glory badge.

I did some testing with the giant turtle and the glory badge wins in dmg.

I base all these calculatons on my PVE tests on my FROST SF.

I don't have the knowledge for earth so I can't say anything about it.

 

let's get the facts why it might be the case:

 

SKILLS

breeze kick

• Occures only when lightning fist hits
• reduces the cd of howling blast by 3 sec.
• recover 3 focus

lightning fist

• cd 6 sec
• recover 2 focus
• resets after ice coil is used (30 sec cd)

iron shoulder

• occures after every 3th hit of RMB
• recovers 4 focus

RMB

• cost 2 focus
• recovers 1 focus on crit
• stacks 2 energy on hit
• on 10 stacks unlocks full charge

BADGES

Blue moon soul badge

• stacks 1 chi
• recover 6 focus over 3 sec on hit
• 600% extra dmg on breeze kick on hit

Sagewood soul badge

• reduces focus chi cd by 3 sec when burning tundra is used
• stacks 3 energy on hit

 

NOTICE:

When playing the blue moon badge and the boss jumps away it was hard to catch up because lightning fist is on cd the sagewood soul badge didnt have that kind of problem.

The full charge in general makes more dmg then the breeze kick even though it's pumped up by 600%.

I noticed that the blue moon soul badge has an interesting way to get stacks because it tries to nullify the howling blast as much as possible which increases the crit by 20% for 5 sec.

 

The main skill of the SF is ofcourse frost storm so because of that we try to gain as much chi stacks as fast as possible.

lets first calculate the Chi rate:

1. breeze kick is 2 chi every 6 secs.
2. Iron shoulder appears every 1.5 sec and stacks 1 chi.

The reason why blue moon still lost is because of the time. If it was a short time then they are evenly matched but let's say you figth a whole match that will mean the ice coil gets on cd which disables the second chi stack of breeze kick.

 

The focus rate without crit:

1. breeze kick constantly recovered and there was almost no issues just a 1 second interfall before I could hit again.
2. I had to micro manage every move but it just woudnt function

NOTICE

for this test I had to disable my crit because otherwise my focus just woudn't go down and used the dragonbone bracers which had no crit at all.

 

focus rate WITH 50.55% crit:

1. no issues
2. in a long run youre focus will deplete, you NEED to use breeze kick from time to time to replenish.

When equiping Frostfall ring on lowest stage + 50.55% crit:

1. no issues
2. no issues

It seems sagewood is in a bad spot for focus recovery until you get the frostfall ring from BT and have crit. The additional 10% focus recovery on crit nullifies the restriction of RMB depleting.

The blue moon wins in focus recovery.

 

CONCLUSION:

early game - blue moon soul badge has great focus recovery but lacks especially in dmg. If you want to do more dmg then use the sagewood. The pain with sagewood is you really have to know what you are doing until you get that ring.

 

late game - you won't use the blue moon anymore because focus is ur bro for life o/ there is NO reason to use this badge, sagewood increases ur dmg by stacking faster chi per second and gets more energy stacks per second, it is also easyer to maintain you just hold your rmb - f till your other abilities are off cd.

 

HINTS to increase crit:

improve your soulshield so it has extra crit, the more crit the less focus you need.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good response. Very useful.

 

Yeah, my SF currently still needs the ring, but it's an alt, so I'm not going hardcore after it... otherwise, yeah, I kind of prefer the focus recovery. I mean, I probably could do a little stance dancing to use Chi Burst for a full focus regen if need be, but I'd much rather have it available to assist the party.

 

Ultimately, however... from the looks of things, it makes sense to eventually fuse both badges together to get the Undying Soul Badge rather than the Limitless Soul Badge, since the extra 1 chi stack from Breeze Kick coupled with the focus regen might overall be better than just 1 chi stack for Frost Storm. I mean, Frost Storm will happen more frequently, sure, but with all the options to build chi with Iron Shoulder, Howling Blast and Breeze Kick, it'd probably not be as necessary... especially when you'd be able to get into Frost Storm with just 2 Iron Shoulders.

 

Worth consideration at least. Certainly will be getting the Sagewood Soul Badge regardless for later on... probably when the season ends and the tokens are dirt cheap =p

[Inanhesh]

3 hours ago, SilverFoxR said:

Good response. Very useful.

 

Yeah, my SF currently still needs the ring, but it's an alt, so I'm not going hardcore after it... otherwise, yeah, I kind of prefer the focus recovery. I mean, I probably could do a little stance dancing to use Chi Burst for a full focus regen if need be, but I'd much rather have it available to assist the party.

 

Ultimately, however... from the looks of things, it makes sense to eventually fuse both badges together to get the Undying Soul Badge rather than the Limitless Soul Badge, since the extra 1 chi stack from Breeze Kick coupled with the focus regen might overall be better than just 1 chi stack for Frost Storm. I mean, Frost Storm will happen more frequently, sure, but with all the options to build chi with Iron Shoulder, Howling Blast and Breeze Kick, it'd probably not be as necessary... especially when you'd be able to get into Frost Storm with just 2 Iron Shoulders.

 

Worth consideration at least. Certainly will be getting the Sagewood Soul Badge regardless for later on... probably when the season ends and the tokens are dirt cheap =p

you will regret going for undying.  but have fun shooting yourself in the leg.

[lolydragon]

3 hours ago, Inanhesh said:

you will regret going for undying.  but have fun shooting yourself in the leg.

Quote

I bet he doesn't regret it because the undying exceeds in terms of pvp :)

my bad I thought he was talking about the arcana soul badge.

 

The differents between undying and limitless is basicly alluvion vs blue moon as the third badge. 

The main thing why you would take blue moon is because it gets you focus. The alluvion basicly decreases the chi stacks needed to 4 instead of 5 without needing additional animations.

 

The reason why people go for limitless is because of the rotation and the mobility. When using the blue moon you always use ur lightning fist to unlock the breeze kick which stacks your chi. Like I said before if the boss jumps away you will have no charge left to follow up and you will be most likely need to SS dash to your new destination, this restricts mobility and your defense. 

 

Every end game boss is kind of mobile so restricting that part is indeed cutting yourself ):

 

edit:

I forgot to mention that accesoiries boost ur focus regen rate so in the late stages the blue moon has no real purpose.

[htdexhdfg]

On 08/06/2018 at 7:00 PM, lolydragon said:

if you calculate it correctly u get more from the glory badge.

I did some testing with the giant turtle and the glory badge wins in dmg.

I base all these calculatons on my PVE tests on my FROST SF.

I don't have the knowledge for earth so I can't say anything about it

Glory is earth based and you said its better but you only know about frost... How can you make the comparison to Sagewood(frost badge) vs Glory(earth badge) if you only know of frost? Is Glory Frost based in game now?

Just poke Tonillsons until he helps you lol

 

[lolydragon]

7 hours ago, htdexhdfg said:

Glory is earth based and you said its better but you only know about frost... How can you make the comparison to Sagewood(frost badge) vs Glory(earth badge) if you only know of frost? Is Glory Frost based in game now?

Just poke Tonillsons until he helps you lol

nice catch, I kinda messed up because the badges look similair.

Ofcourse I mean sagewood.

[You will notice that I first talk about glory then switch over to sage xD]

 

I'l edit it.

 

for those who wants to see every badge:

https://bnstree.com/items/badge

 

[htdexhdfg]

i just gave up on life and went with magnum. (not dying = fun)
ideally i'd want magnum+sagewood
with the badge in the video below.

Mystic Healing speeds up tundras
Tundra spamming speeds up focus chi
Focus chi speeds up self defense chi
Would be interesting to have permanent self defense chi with 12-15s focus chi :)