blademaster q

[scarffs]

I'm about to start a bm...i know what you're about to say, nm, i just love the title and the fact that its not being played much.
Just soe questions to you hibbies since i'm a mid
1. Are sickles considered blades ? ( i hope thats correct english, sickle = small hand scythe )
2. Are blade spec really that bad in pve also ? I mean, i hear about blunt spec being best, then pierce and last blades. Is that for pvp or also pve ? And why? I noticed that blades has only you block-styles, ok that sux since bm dont block, but dont you use cd styles ?
Do the pierce style animation look any good ? And the weapons ?
3. As a team, would i be better off with druid/bm or bard /bm, so is end consumption high for a bm ? With high end consumption i'd say bard, otherwise perhaps druid for con/stre, dex/qui and haste...

Thx for response

 

[old.Anpu]

1. Yes
2. Blade got mostly crap styles and the cd styles are even worse.
Pierce animations >> all Best way would be to go either pierce/cd or blunt/shield til 40 and then respec to whatever you want.
3. Druid prolly better, unless you plan to xp on baf'ing oranges

/Anpu

 

[old.Kian]

Yup, sickles are blades... they're player-crafted only so the first ones you see are level 26 weapons.

I was blade spec until level 50 (respecs came in after I dinged 50)... worked fine for me. Plenty of slash vulnerable mobs, especially at low levels, and there are more quest blades available than pierce/blunt if you don't have a pet weaponcrafter and spellcrafter handy. And those who tell you blunt spec is best probably haven't tried using pierce Celtic Dual has a parry chain that does nice damage, and an ok evade chain, so you can use those if your chosen weapon line lacks them (e.g. as a piercemaster I use the CD parry chain... which, as anyone who has duelled me can attest, HURTS). Pierce is probably the weakest spec for low level PvE but works best in RvR if you're a cleric hunter

Either druid or bard would work for a team... end regen and so-so heals from a bard would let you chain oranges. Teaming with a warden for damage add and/or PBT plus heals should work pretty well too.

 

[elerand]

Only spec I haven't tried is blunt, I was originally full blades and changed to pierce.

I also opted to spec 42 in shield, since he's my main and I pve a lot with guild it's useful, useful in rvr too.

Since I never levelled with pierce I can only say that what I've heard from those who did that they soloed pretty well on orange con pierce weak mobs but as we all know grping is the best way to xp and fast piercer weapons make for some very good taunting indeed!

At 50 with shield/pierce spec I do a good job, I don't look for kill spam since my job is to proctect casters, I have prevent flight which is wicked at giving our casters a chance to peg it then carry on with their job. Teaming with talivar (blunt spec bm who want's blades back, sorry tal ) I snare things and he kills them

If you manage good items as you lvl then you won't have much trouble as a tank in pve, bm's have good hits, evade 3 and a pretty decent amount of parry, I found myself being healed less often than less defensive tanks at 42+. Always seems to me that there are a lot of crush dealing non-pierce weak mobs however lol but if you can afford sc cover your weakness and you should be ok

Play one, we hopefully get some new touches that are long overdue and more than that I found it a greater challenge to play than my hero which basically was what I wanted

 

[ravenslore]

Giv blades back!!

 

[belth]

Yes, respec back to blades, those blunts hurt Blunt parry chain >> all other parry chains though

 

[old.Kian]

In RvR, blunt does more damage than pierce against 8 classes: Armsmen, Paladins, Friars, Infiltrators, Berserkers, Hunters, Savages and Shadowblades. Pierce works better vs 10 classes: Cleric, Mercenary, Reaver, Minstrel, Scout, Healer, Shaman, Skald, Thane, Warrior (well OK, 9 classes then - I think I actually saw a mercenary once but I felt so sorry for him I let him live Slash only gets a bonus vs Berserkers, Hunters, Savages and Shadowblades.

Only blunt has a 9 sec stun available - as second in a parry chain, and you have to spec 50 blunt to get it. Pierce has a 5 sec stun straight off an evade. It's all swings and roundabouts, and really comes down to who you expect to fight most often. Even at that, armour vulnerabilities don't really decide the issue outright - otherwise you'd expect me to have lost most of my duels against blunt using blademasters...

 

[belth]

10 sec stun

 

[old.Kian]

10 secs, eh? Even nicer... although I don't regard stun as the holy grail of combat the way some people do. It lets you get a few shots in for free - but you can't kill a level 50 tank in those few seconds unless you've got a mage or two pouring in some serious firepower during those seconds. In one-on-one fights, I usually get slammed by shield users, take a couple of hits and then come back and carve my initials into their livers

 

[belth]

It's a lifesaver at times, but purge>all RR2 tanks die to long duration stuns usually though, 1v1

 

[old.Kian]

No purge here My last 1 vs 1 with a tank class happened when I logged into DF after a break and got slammed from behind by a paladin before I even knew he was there. I had to soak up maybe 400-500 damage while I was stunned... then I came out of it and wasn't even tempted to hit my IP button before he died (although he nearly bored me to death when he Engaged me at one point).

Which is all WAY off topic, except possibly as an example that BMs aren't hopelessly gimped and do actually fight rather well, whatever their spec

 

[old.mattshanes]

Originally posted by old.Kian

Which is all WAY off topic, except possibly as an example that BMs aren't hopelessly gimped and do actually fight rather well, whatever their spec

Yep just like mercs people compare them to zerkers then think hey they are no good,heh they hit ok imo and so do bms,but when cd/dw fixing comes we soon show them good to see someone making a bm and not listening to usual crap like they are gimped,i seen some good ones tbh.

 

[crd]

the fact that its not being played much.

Nowdays at least excalibur is full of blademasters. In rvr groups I see more blademasters than heros and champs.

As for the spec I would say pierce or pierce/shield with prevent flight for a group friendly bm, +dmg to healers and mezzers, and blunt if u'r going more solo. I mostly meet ppl in leather or plate when I solo.

And btw most infils and other weak gimps I meet are dead before the stun is over ;P

 

[Shike]

Firehawk was Crush and he was damn good

Blades is poooooo, worst weaponline in daoc i reckon

Anyone speccing Blades as a BM is asking for a gimp, all bladeBMs say that aswell

 

[ravenslore]

I want blade back !! giv

 

[belth]

Yes please respec Talivar, maybe I could actually manage to kill you for the first time in... 7 months? /cry @ game changes

Really enjoyed all the fights back in the early days when Emain was worth going to on Exca as a solo non-50 unbuffed infil with 2.0 specpoints

 

[Kyo Shunketsu]

I like speccing in weird and funny character builds, but some do make sense. Let's say the defensive blademaster for example:

Blademasters have the chance of being one of the most defensive classes in the game, let's break it down.

1. Decent hp
2. Decent 1h weap damage
3. The ability to spec in both parry and shield
4. Evade 3, 10% to evade
5. Advanced Evade, 10% to evade 360 degrees.
6. Reinforced armour (Alright, nothing special, but better than just leather...)
7. Flurry (works in a hurry).

Put it all together, let's say if you spec:

1. 44 Blades/Thrust, 46 Parry, 42 Shield, you get off parry/off block styles, a decent chance to block and use slam, and with +parry, a whopping 30% chance to parry attacks too.

2. 39 Blades/Thrust, 50 Parry, 42 Shield, about the same, except you have more parry.

I play PvE most of the time, its challenging enough, I never hit 30 before

Well, imho, never underestimate the power of Flurry, Evade, and specced Shield/Parry.

 

[elerand]

Originally posted by Kyo Shunketsu
I like speccing in weird and funny character builds, but some do make sense. Let's say the defensive blademaster for example:

Blademasters have the chance of being one of the most defensive classes in the game, let's break it down.

1. Decent hp
2. Decent 1h weap damage
3. The ability to spec in both parry and shield
4. Evade 3, 10% to evade
5. Advanced Evade, 10% to evade 360 degrees.
6. Reinforced armour (Alright, nothing special, but better than just leather...)
7. Flurry (works in a hurry).

Put it all together, let's say if you spec:

1. 44 Blades/Thrust, 46 Parry, 42 Shield, you get off parry/off block styles, a decent chance to block and use slam, and with +parry, a whopping 30% chance to parry attacks too.

2. 39 Blades/Thrust, 50 Parry, 42 Shield, about the same, except you have more parry.

I play PvE most of the time, its challenging enough, I never hit 30 before

Well, imho, never underestimate the power of Flurry, Evade, and specced Shield/Parry.

Evade 3 is 15% base evade, 5% per lvl.

My bm spec is 50 pierce, 42 shield, 36 parry and 16 cd, rr5.

I find with duellists reflexes and +15 cd I swing offhand just find so I get the best of both worlds, I never use cd styles anyway.

If the fix for block/parry is actually a working fix then we rock for defense, give us mastery of blocking as well

 

[old.Kian]

The major drawbacks to going shield as a BM are the difficulty in swapping from shield to 2 weapons if you want to crank out damage (can't hotkey the change whe way hybrid heroes do), and the fact that Flurry damage is supposed to be based on CD spec.

Any shield BMs care to post how much damage they get when they hit that Flurry button? I'm seeing about 200 on a yellow con opponent (44+14 CD spec)...

Oh and Elerand - you're missing out on a nice, damaging parry chain from CD

 

[old.mattshanes]

Why rarely do bms spec 50/50/28 peirce? you will not rely on parry in rvr much... can get 40 base parry from mastery of parry 2 anyway,i rather do more damage than parry.

 

[crd]

Will be intersting and scary to see what they will do about blademaster defense in 1.62 tho =/

And flurry isn't exaclty a fightwinner, tho the nearly 200 extra dmg / fight is nice.

Matt, yes with the 1.62 defense nerf and the improved last CD style I think that is a good spec.

 

[elerand]

Originally posted by old.Kian
The major drawbacks to going shield as a BM are the difficulty in swapping from shield to 2 weapons if you want to crank out damage (can't hotkey the change whe way hybrid heroes do), and the fact that Flurry damage is supposed to be based on CD spec.

Any shield BMs care to post how much damage they get when they hit that Flurry button? I'm seeing about 200 on a yellow con opponent (44+14 CD spec)...

Oh and Elerand - you're missing out on a nice, damaging parry chain from CD

Simple, I choose in advance my tictacs

In a grp my role is a simple one, protect casters from tanks, I have prevent flight so that's easy
Slam is useful on just about anything still moving, a theurge or runie with pbt gets bub popped then stunned, his friends are now eaiser to kill.

I do (depending on resists) 120-180 dmg with flurry, 16+15 cd
Actually I don't use it as a fightwinner perse, I do the bard dd type killspam stealing thing lol

Oh and the parry chain is ok but the growth rate on pierce moves happens to be rather nice, I use anytime (yes I do get the whole 4 moves off quite often) diamond back and shock horror I use tarantula a lot too, very nice dmg and I've blocked 9 attacks in a row from 3 infs on a druid so I had a field day

Since I have pf I use the rear moves and the dmg on copper head from the side is quite nice too, I likes pierce very muchly

Got 4 lvl 50 bm's in aop, normally 2 of us in a grp in rvr, I play a cc style game while the other tanks do the rest, I'm not big number obsessed and rather enjoy my role

 

[ravenslore]

im a big number obssesed tho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! giv dm spam!!!!!!!!!

 

[elerand]

Originally posted by ravenslore
im a big number obssesed tho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! giv dm spam!!!!!!!!!

N00b