Shadowblade starter tips please

[old.Hendrick]

After witnessing Azal wipe our whole caster force on saturday at Benowyc (and silently laughing at casters who always sit in the very same place only waiting to be killed again ), I decided to roll a kobold shadowblade on Stonehenge (german server). Now I am wondering how to spec and thought I might as well ask the experts. I'm sure this has been asked before, but please bear with me .
So here I go:
Critblade? Shadowzerker? Huh? I have seen templates with high sword and some left-axe spec - what is the point of that? I personally like the look of the big badass sword, so I'd like to train sword a lot and do major damage with a 2-handed weapon. Could someone let me in about the general concepts of shadowblades and give me a few hints on how to spec? A few short tips on nice training grounds are also welcome. Thank you very much in advance.

 

[klavrynd]

Templates etc

Hunting guide (stolen from vn boards)
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Levels 5 and 6:
Svewolf mothers north og the Audliten fort. They are level 5 critters, and weak to your slashing attack. They also have a weak attack against leather (thrust).

Levels 7, 8, and 9:
Get thee to Fort Atla. There are poison vendors and a trainer there, so this will be your base of operations. Head south towards Galplen and cross the bone bridge near Naliten. To your left will be a larghe field of carrion crawlers and carrion eaters (and a few tawny lynx - avoid them like the plague). These critters are very good targets for shadowblades, since they have a thrusting attack. They also are not social or aggro, so you can count on fighting one at a time. When these critters start to go green on you, there are higher level ones a little farther south and west. Go to the south shore of the lake and follow the road west. You'll run right into a group of the higher level ones. This can easily take you to level 10.

9-11 - Silverscale Drakelings. (social tho)

Levels 10-11:
Head south to Galplen and bind there. wim across the lake there toward the hut on the other side (Gna Faste). While swimming, keep a sharp lookout for Njessi, the lake monster, as she'll ruin a perfectly good swim otherwise. Our targets for this level are grey worgs, shadows, and decaying trolls, all of which can be found in the area right next to the Gna Faste hut and guard tower. Their armow is weak against slashing, and their attack is weak against leather - what a combination!

One thing worth trying is the guard in Dvalin when spindly rock crabs con blue/yellow or blue/green to you (11 or 12?). I did this with my skald and got really lucky since at least half of the tasks that he gave me were these crabs which are about 15-30 sec away near the water just out of town. I think he gave me like 5 or 6 of these in a row which gave me about 3 bubs in 5 min. He also gave me a lot of small hill cats which were just up the mountain (there's a small group of them). Needless to say that level went really fast.

Levels 12-16:
Trees Trees Trees! From Gna Faste, head along the road southeast from the guard tower, along the lake shore. To your left will be a stand of weeping willows. These critters are aggressive, but not social - you can often pull one away from a friend standing next to him. Their armor is very weak against slashing - they will go down fast. However, they do have a nasty direct damage spell that can and will take you out once or twice in these levels. There are two other areas of these willows if you head northwest from the Gna Faste hut along the road, on your right, by the lake shore. These are popular to hunt and will often be camped, but I have found there to be no better targets for these levels.

I would definately suggest Vendo's W of the road near Mid Port Fort for level 13-14, MUCH better than trees especially because they don't have that BS DD that absolutely owns you if you get behind at all or if you are running away. The stun thing is kinda comical tho with the Vendos, also if you get a second add he will debuff you while the other tanks you. Kill the guy you started with and run, they don't pursue far.

Huginfel at lvl 14 you can do kill task that give you 50,000(exp). Lots of Blue - Orange's out there.

Good place at 14 was the vendo bone-collectors patch south of Svasud Faste. All con yellow then and i could always kill the add when i get one, because it first trys to cast some spells on ya, in this time you can kill your first target, switch weapon and wait for the add.

From 15-17 or so Hug was the place for kill tasks.

Levels 17-18:
From Gna Faste, head northwest along the road until you get to the weepin willow area. Turn west and head into the forest. You will soon hit tinglers, great tinglers, and arachites. The tinglers will be green/blue to you and not a big problem, but not very great hunting either. Th great tinglers and arachites will be from blue to orange and are excellent hunting. Thheir attack ir weak against leather (noticing a trend here?) but they are social and will mob you if you aren't careful. In particular, watch for the arachite priests - they cast root on you and will heal their friends, so they are your primary target if you happen to pull two at once. These levels are tricky, and might be better done in a group.

Levels 16-21:
Great tinglers are a fine target, since they have a penalty to their attack against leather. They can be found near Gna Faste, to the NW.

Try minor fideals from 16-18. They're strong vs our attack, and a pain in the ass to kill, but they drop some very nice stuff. I got some magic leather, a +1 stealth cloak, a +6 con ring and a +2 stealth belt. They also raise woodwoman faction (skogsfrus, but not svart skogfrus..wierd :/) They are up the road from huginfell, past the svartalf camp, around the lake by the blodfelag town.

At 18,19 I have been getting tasks from the guys in Ft. Atla. All the tasks have been for kills down the road West of Hug: svartalf hunter/chanter, minor fideal, wind wisp.

Level 18, what I found that is good to hunt is just plain old Werewolves and Svart Skogs, they are generally spaced out well enough to backstab. and Werewolves are weak against slash.

So, running back toward Gna Faste I ran across a small valley of Werewolfs - blue and yellow to a level 19, where I promptly laid waste to them for 2 hours since they all stand far apart from each other and got a full level - plus a left hand axe, an augment/piety jewel, and studded boots.

They were located kinda near a couple of the larger envy drakes, I'd say West beyond the Wolf fort for a minute then a prompt left, Northward...they were in between the Drakes and trees in a small valley.


Levels 19-22:
More Trees! We've graduated to Shrieking Willows now, who are a lot like their little friends the weeping willows, but these have a lot bigger direct damage spell. They can be found all around the lake to the west of Gna Faste.

The Werewolf spawns by the Shrieking willows near the entrance to Skona. No adds, Quick easy kills. They sit still for you

21: Frothing Sveawolves are even good at this level. The camps where Vana belt and the Soothsayer rings are all green/low blue by 21 and so they are easy farming.

22 at. Southwest area of Skona ravine towards the corner is a spot with giant tree frogs, woodland badgers, and dryad blossoms and greenthumbs. These were all yellow, but went down fairly easily. I had maybe 3 deaths and I did a complete level here. It is off the beaten path, so it is rarely hunted. The mobs all have a nice bonus, which really helps. Adds are possible here, but by this level if you've been soloing a SB you know to check your 6 before attacking.

Another spot to go in these levels is West Svealand to hung rabid and frothing sveawolves. If you go this route (they are usually less camped than the trees), bind in Audliten, head to the fort to the north of there, and follow the road west. When the road branches to the north, heading to Vindsaul faste, just keep going west. Eventually, you'll see a fortress ahead of you. Do not try to make friends there, it's full of blodfelags. There will be a place where the road forks again. This is the start of the wolf spawning area. They are levels 18-22 or so, and are ideal targets. The only bad thing is that they are aggro and social, so be careful of your surroundings while hunting there.

21-24 or so, the Rabid Sveawolves nearby the Bloodfelags are great EXP. Extremely easy to kill because they are weak to slashing and have a penalty against leather.

Levels 23-31:
The frontiers and Muspleheim offer good hunting for these levels. In Muspelheim, the fire ants and soor harvesters are nice targets - but be careful of the ants, they will go boom (a direct damage spell) and like to gang up on you. In the frontiers, either Uppland or Yggdra, you'll find chislers and frosty scuttlebugs to hunt. Up to this point, you could probably handle yellow con critters just fine, but I personally backed off and started fighting blues during these levels. When the scuttlebugs and chislers go green on you, it's time for white wolves, but only the blue ones!

plasmatasms near the lord fire spawn in Muspelheim, from the bridge it takes them a while to get to you so usually they dont get even 1 hit in. plus there's lots of them so you only stop for endurance.

Level 32
I'm not taking on raukomaz, seared skeletons and mephic ghouls. I prefer teh raukomaz but they spawn slowly, ghouls are great as the spear of elements gives a nice fat bonus against them

Levels 35-39
The Werewolf Guard spawns along the edges of Skona Ravine. Same reasoning. No adds, Quick easy kills. They sit still for you. *with these make sure you move after you kill em, and fast. Sometime they will respawn in 5 seconds, meaning you have to fight another.

//dont kick me when it's not entirely true i only c&p'ed

 

[klavrynd]

and the rest

Levels 38/39
trees in SW skona by the skogs. Clear the skogs with a friend till no scouts are left then do trees with no problems.. you often find hunters here pickin off trees too, so you can work together to get rid of skog scouts. Sometimes other groups come through and nail the skogs while trying to find the 1 drop spawn.. you'll know where it is if you hang here a while. Don't tell 'em, its fun to watch 'em squirm!

Levels 40-45
Spindels that are inside on the left hand side near the crab room in Spindelhalla, i know i take people in there to PL and as long as you get your styles down you can get a yellow, needs more testing but i think it can work... so if your template is strong and you should be able to take the yellow cons

Spindels and Spindel Silksters. These are non BAF, no aggroes in the whole area. They hit really soft with huge negatives to damage. I usually see 100 damage (-21) on these. Even when they were red.
Spindels have been bread and butter since level 41 or so, and I woulda been there sooner if I had known about them. I'm still soloing there at 45, just because they die so fast and cause so little damage. To get to spindels, go to spindelhalla, head into the crab/scorpion area from thralls and make two lefts. The whole area is full of neutral spindels, with an occassional arachite or hallaratta that might be aggro. Be aware that the arachites will sometimes call for help which will bring the spindels down on you like a ton of trolls. Also, every 1000 fights or so the spidels will baf on you even when solo. I've had this happen about 5 times now, and had an arachite call for help once. Needless to say, your life expectancy goes down a lot in these situations

WW's in Varulvhamn are good,

 

[old.Hendrick]

Thanks

 

[old.Andro]

Since I have started a shadowblade myself and gotten to level 38 I can give info in how I did it.

First 5 levels I got a bigass sword well knowing that I'd break it. At level 5 I specced all in axe. The following levels I kept raised axe at my level and CS one below. When reaching levels where you get a really good new CS move I put points into CS instead and raised that to my level.

Example: At level 33 I had 33 pts in axe and 32 into CS. Then I dinged 4 and put all into CS keeping axe at 33 and got creeping death. After this I keep going max axe until lvl 39 where I get the 3rd hit in the chain. Autotraining stealth.

From this you might be able to tell that I go for a critblade.

Doing it this way you will gimp your stealth which might not be the wisest thing to do but it has worked for me so far.

In the early leves you don't have much problems finding groups. You tank as well as almost any other tank. Later on it might gt a lot harder finding groups. So count on soloing a lot. There is one thing that makes your life as a shadowblade a whole lot easier:

Get some player crafted armor and weapon and enchant it. It will help you out A LOT.

As for what to hunt I see the previous posters pasted the SB solo guide from then VN Boards. This is pretty much it.

 

[old.Hendrick]

Aye, critblade is the way I will go, but I just like the sword, so I will use that. And no need to tell a weaponcrafter about the value of crafted items For stealth: I see this shadowblade as a part-time character, so I won't worry much about it and just get him up in PvE as far as possible. At higher levels I will be able to get stealth up fairly quick, and before that it will autotrain, so no big deal.

What about poisons? Seems not of much interest in the templates I've seen.

 

[~Mobius~]

wow thx alot for the hunting guide!
i recently made a sb

 

[old.Andro]

Originally posted by Hendrick
What about poisons? Seems not of much interest in the templates I've seen.

Poisons are nice but you have to buy some all the time which makes the effort too much compared to the gain. Just spec weapons for damage,

 

[Damon_D]

Originally posted by Hendrick
Aye, critblade is the way I will go, but I just like the sword, so I will use that. And no need to tell a weaponcrafter about the value of crafted items For stealth: I see this shadowblade as a part-time character, so I won't worry much about it and just get him up in PvE as far as possible. At higher levels I will be able to get stealth up fairly quick, and before that it will autotrain, so no big deal.

What about poisons? Seems not of much interest in the templates I've seen.

Well the problem as I see it to use swords , is there aint no swords with plus to left axe style , and using two weapons with same bonuses is quit a bonus As i think LA is one of those spec's that will keep on gaining dmg from speccing even above 50 ( correct me if im wrong )

 

[old.Hendrick]

Ho Hum, well I'm not fairly sure yet. but I don't think I will spec left axe much. I have a dual wielder already, and I just like the big sword thing. And to me, this is some sort of personal style thingie, after all it's me who must like the character. For me, axes dont go well with kobolds. And after speccing sword, crit and stealth, any leftovers will go into envenom I think. But thats just an idea. I rerolled the character on Excalibur anyway and am now lvl 4 As it's mainly a spare-time kobold, I am sure I will get to know things over time. I dont think I can go wrong with speccing sword and crit for the first few levels.

 

[DeSlisser]

On the subject of poisons:

Make sure u get them!!!

Free damage (5 or 6 ticks) from the Dot's and a nice debuff. Why not get some of that great stuff i ask ya. As u have 2.2 spec points it should be easy to get poison into the high twenties/low thirties. With RR and +items u should be able to get it even higher.

50Cs/39Sword/36Stealth/29Poison or 44CS/44Sword/36Stealth/34poison. Lots of options.. Why bring sword all the way to 50 as u dont need the styles from them?? Style 44 is third in a chain and backpositional. The 50 style is from behind the enemy...u have alrdy CSed him so he will be facing u now. The 44 from a parry. As that will ever happen. So no reasons to get sword to 50. So use them points for poisons.

In the lower lvl's 5-7 make sure u get CS and Sword at level or just one below. Then after that put ur odd points in poison. i guarantee ull love it.


Poisons can be set on the quickbar in patch 1.51 so no more fussing around in ur inventory.

Will help soloing alot in the early days. Makes the difference of being able to solo an orange with poison (right ones offcourse). Without ull have a high chance of being killed.

As a crit blade u wont one hit yellows in PvE and ur damage output after the first hit is much lower.. Why not let the poisons help out a bit. Put on a debuff and a DoT and u'll finish the fight sooner and with more health left.

Then there is the psycological aspect of the enemy (RvR) being hit by poison damage. They often freak out and panic.. the less experienced players that is. And since we have the BG's comming there will lots of them there then

And in one of them US patches one hitting and staying stealthed will not be possible anymore. A nice snare poison on a backup weapon can save ur hide from unwanted attention

To Damon: He won't spec LA. And i think it's CS that benefits from points above 50

 

[old.Hendrick]

That's quite the spec I had in mind, deslisser. I did not realise you get 2.2 spec points as a shadowblade though

 

[DeSlisser]

With the comming patch u do Hendrick..

Oh and count me on being nagging u about making me a nice arcanium sword when u hit 1000 weaponcrafting after patch

Edit: Oh and hendrick if u need some starting cash for those early lvls i have an Shadowzerker there who could spare u some.. can also save my old armor for ya. Name is Igguk, msg amra if im not on excal. Otherwise ill be most likely on as Amra. Thursday is the first ill be on again. Or go on NOW!!! as u roam the boards aswell i could give u some gold right away.

 

[old.Hendrick]

Erm, I'm not sure, but wasn't the 2.2 spec points infiltrator only? Or did they get 2.5? And I already went back to the forge again a bit, look at updated sig

 

[DeSlisser]

Yes i mean NOW

 

[old.Hendrick]

I am spamming the boards from work. If I was at home I'd be in the game already Thanks for the offer though. The excal-kobold is called Blixx. I may take you up on it on thursday.

 

[old.Andro]

From what I have read on the VN Boards I am not too sure that you should go 50 CS and 39 weapon. CS only raises your damage cap which you will rarely hit for on even cons. On lower cons (grey/green) you might cap damage but then a lower cap will be enough to one shot them.

Instead spec weapon higher which increses your avarage damage quite a bit as I understand it.

 

[old.Hendrick]

I checked both lines now and must say that neither sword not crit styles at 50 look very appealing. I may max one of these for increased damage, but I also find it quite appealing to spend those leftover points after getting both to 39 or 44 on something else, like envenom or stealth. But hey - that little shadowbold is just lvl 4 at the moment. I have my general direction now, and will worry about high-level-spec much much later. Thanks for the hints.