The Blademaster

[Sigurd]

This appears to be the least popular class in the game. I've never actually (to my knowledge) fought against a blademaster myself, but the stats:

The Blade master is a light tank, along the same lines as Berserker and Mercenary.

Berserkers get: Studded armour, Evade 3, Berserk at level 5, with a 7 minute "recast" time, and throwing weapons.

Mercenaries get: Chain armour, Evade 1, Dirty Tricks at level 20, with a 30 minute recast time, and short bows.

Blademasters get: Studded armour, Evade 2, Triple Wield at level 20, with a 30 minute recast time, and short bows.

Cleary Blademasters come off the worst, or is Celtic Dual just that much better than the other realm's dual wield? I'm just wondering, why a class like this exists - it seems that there is no reason to roll one at all

Feel free to correct me on any of this, or give any reasons why Blademasters are better than they seem to be....

 

[fl3a]

i rolled one on PvP. i had a reason: i knew they sucked just wanted to know how bad they actually suck.

also, dont forget that a zerk is on the same hp table as the warrior (pure tank hp table)

 

[[DK]hakke]

I've met talivar, thank god BM is underplayed.

 

[Gahldir]

Those who think Blademasters are indeed Gimpmasters haven't meet Almecunia or Talivar. Think BM is the most popular tank atm on the upcoming ppl on hib/excal.

Originally posted by fl3a
also, dont forget that a zerk is on the same hp table as the warrior (pure tank hp table)

Same goes for BMs afaik as Alme has about as much hp as my Hero. Think he got a lill more bcuz of +hp items etc

 

[starblade]

BM are a very good class and loads of fun to play. And without the CD, you can make an excellent defensive character even tho you will miss a part of the fun as CD is what makes the Blademaster so great.

Atm, they just suffer from 'wrong impressions' by a large deal of players just like Albion Paladins or Cabalists once did.

 

[old.Biffsmash]

BM's are full tanks on same HP table as Hero/Warrior etc afaik.

They also get evade III

They are great fun to play too

ps: I am a gimped hybrid Shield/CD Blademaster (or will be by the end, and love it ))

 

[Dorin]

played a blademaster with the following spec

-blunt 50
-cd 50
rest in parry.

This class is much fun in RvsR combat, no idea why people keep talking crap about Blademasters
Only crush-polearmsman and berserkers were the tanks that could beat me 1on1, course i beat them too so it was like 50-50%. With lvl 50 blunt you get a nice 9s stun of parry chain, no comment if you can do that the enemy tank is dead. Paladins, armsmen, warriors, skalds, thanes, mercenaries falled with ease. This is no bs, play a blademaster then bitch about it. Evade III, flurry, triplewield. The holy mercenary stuff can be purged/resisted, the triplewield thingy not. Assassins beating up heros and champions are no problems for duel wielders, infis/sbs sucking big time against blademasters. Albion and Midgards luck they are underplayed ).

 

[Carlos Bananos]

Originally posted by [DK]hakke
I've met talivar, thank god BM is underplayed.

Amen, They kick ass. Just happy they aint FOTM class

On my skald i can beat the odd hero...but even buffed i cant keel BMs.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Blademasters are really quite good

Their TW is better than dirty tricks (except for duels, Tricks is the 'I win' button for melee duels... except when it resists of course)

Their styles suck however... Celtic dual does about 40% less damage than left axe from an equal specced/equipped berserker using left axe.

(I think mercenaries are about 20% less than zerks, but have no data to back me up - we _seem_ to be somewhere between zerks and bms for damage)

Basically, the CD style line has no improvement over the basic Blunt/Pierce/Blade lines, DW has a small improvement in damage - but a lot of hard to use styles,
LA has a huge improvement in damage - and the styles aren't hard to pull off.

If CD hit as hard as LA then there would be a _lot_ more berserkers

(and before anyone starts reacting defensively the comparison was made in tests between a level 50 zerker and blademaster with stats within 5 of each other, crits were not included, just purely styled damage on the main hand...

Zerkers always swing with left axe
BMs only swing a percentage of the time
To balance this, zerkers have lower base damage on their axes... it just about works out even...

except when you compare the style damage )

Like anything in this game, 'gimpness' is over-exaggerated to a large extent... anything seen as slightly weaker than something else is given a big 'gimp' sticker and shunned by all

 

[Chameleon]

I have a bm alt and enjoy playing it very much. Imho a bm is an excellent tank! Blades/Blunts, Celtic Dual and Parry can all be specced close to 50, which seems (from my current spec anyway) to work very well for damage dealing and he takes hits very well too. In pve groups, even with no shield spec, having shield enabled, parry spec, plus evade means you can quiet nicely do the hero/champ role.

 

[-logical- Chimp]

well, my main is a pm (piercemaster), and i have to say they are a lot better than i had been lead to believe.

yes, its true that the CD styles aren't much better than the normal ones (well, pierce anyway - cant speak for the others), and that i normally use the pierce styles. the only CD styles i use are the parry reactive ones, because pierce has no parry style.

i do find that when im not the primary tank, i have to take care, as speed of the pierce, added with the dual attacks, means that i can often peel agro from the tank without resorting the taunting...

im hopefull that this will carry forward to rvr (it seemed to in BG1, but i also know bg is not directly equivalent to RvR). add in the damage bonus vs. chain armour, and a piercemaster is very effective indeed.

The changes to parry etc mean we get a chance to stay alive longer, and the dual attacks make it easier to punch through bubble-shields etc.

BMs are classed as pure tanks, for HP and dps output, even tho we wear light armour. (dont need heavy armour - we got such high damage output, that fights are over very quickly, one way or another).

biggest downside, for me anyway, is that Triple Wield is on a 30 min timer. having such a large damage add is nice, but i would prefer something that added less damage per use, but had a quicker timer (15/20 mins maybe)

 

[old.LandShark]

Originally posted by Gahldir
Those who think Blademasters are indeed Gimpmasters haven't meet Almecunia or Talivar. Think BM is the most popular tank atm on the upcoming ppl on hib/excal.



Same goes for BMs afaik as Alme has about as much hp as my Hero. Think he got a lill more bcuz of +hp items etc

Um.
I borrowed my guildmate's mercenary. (only R3; 95%quality crafted weapons; highest resist was 10%)
I duelled talivar: i used dirt, he used TW. he fumbled about 5 times, TW hit me for a total of 630dmg.
Duel ended with him winning with about 30%hp left after we had both IP'd...

R5 blademaster with legion blade in the mainhand (dunno offhand; some pale-green sickle IIRC) and some passive RA's (mastery of parry to some degree) vs R3 merc with crappy weapons, lousy slash resist (10%) and on top of that, given that I hadn't really played the char before, half the time i wasn't actually styling or i was using the wrong styles totally. I didn't once use my parries to get my 6sec stun chain in, for example, and i wasted loads of end on a crap to-hit style which just got parried...

Sorry, but BMs are just not as strong as they need to be. They really could use an improvement....

edit: further note - this was pre-1.52... my armor was slash-resistant for god's sake, his was... erm, whatever reinforced used to be not 15% resist like my armor was, that's for sure.

PS: I don't mean BMs are really gimped. They are still good-hp dual-wielders on the pure tank damage table, they hurt. I just don't think they hurt as much as mercs; and i definitely don't think they hurt as much as zerks.

 

[fl3a]

yes, well, they might be quite good at higher lvls, but at lower lvls (10-ish and so) i didnt see much that i liked.

all those evade III & TW & stuff come at higher lvls, while a merc and a zerk can do quite decent dmg from lvl 5.

i dunno if it actually is so, just what i have seen from my experience.

 

[Flimgoblin]

BMs will be similar damage output to mercs and zerks at level 5... well mercs anyway, I hear of zerks soloing oranges from level 5 on... maybe I was just crap back then but I couldn't reliably kill yellows till recently...

 

[old.0xygen]

zerks are still THE light tank.

I like being a BM its better than it was but we are outdamaged by spearoes and LW heroes. Which makes me ask the question. Whats the point if we dont do the most melee damage?

But hey right now our TL is doing a lot of good things, if CD styles were sorted out we would be a nice balanced class me thinks.

I can't believe I just said that

 

[Sigurd]

Perhaps Blademasters should be given scale? Or an attack speed buff...

 

[bone_idle]

At the moment blunt specced BM's have a fumble style that stuns for about 9 secs. I'd love to meet a merc and see him use dirty tricks on me, It will be an interesting fight. Shame the fumble style gets nerfed into a slow attack speed debuff next patch. .... Oh and in pve ive managed to taunt the mob from a LW hero. I hit twice to a LW hero 1 hit kinda evens it out. I'm a firbolg BM, with sh*tloads of Str.

 

[old.tRoG]

zerkerz are indeed 'dah best' light tank.

my alt one was soloing oranges from lvl5

 

[Jiggs]

would you put Friars in the light tank class? just curious

 

[Arnor]

I've met talivar, thank god BM is underplayed.

Amen bro

 

[HargloweHyfryd]

Oxy, you forgot to whine there!!!

 

[bewal]

After being owned in no time at all by friar, Id definately put em to light tank class... the selfhealing, evading bastages with big sticks.

 

[Flimgoblin]

friars are offensive hybrids

Light tanks don't get mana (or power)

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by the_chimera
Perhaps Blademasters should be given scale? Or an attack speed buff...

all they need is their styles made worth using same with mercs (although DW's not in as bad a shape as CD)

 

[old.0xygen]

Oxy, you forgot to whine there!!!

Too much cheese

Actually its a rarity for me not to whine quick get a camera

 

[Sigurd]

Originally posted by Fingoniel


all they need is their styles made worth using same with mercs (although DW's not in as bad a shape as CD)

That would be a nice start, it's amazing the difference playing a zerker and a merc, couldn't hope to solo an orange with my merc at 18

 

[Graav]

Originally posted by Fingoniel
I hear of zerks soloing oranges from level 5 on... maybe I was just crap back then

My troll zerker soloed red unbuffed when using zerk at lvl 6-10.
Seen other ppl do it to.

I was like "holy s**t !" did it a couple times more to make sure it wasnt a fluke.

After 10+ I've been limited to orange, dont have to zerk to kill orange cons most of the time tho.

So I would say zerkers are uber pve light tanks, rvr is a completely different thing ... if a merc hits me with dt I'm usually screwed.
BMs parry\evade alot and they hit like 3 times for every time I hit :/

 

[Flimgoblin]

dt nullifies one melee opponent for 30 seconds every 30 minutes...

it's damned good at what it does...

shame it's once every 30m and resistable

Now if I could just deal out silly damage all the time... I'd be far happier.

 

[Selim]

Speccing?

Um hiya i wanna stat a BM and im just wondering what to spec in Blades or CD???

 

[old.LandShark]

fully 99%qua crafted & enchanted gear and using 2 serrated lion fangs, my merc can solo slash-weak or neutral oranges with no probs....
Slash-resistant = no chance tho