I mentioned this build back in my earlier build post as the only other Physical Blademaster I made work. This build was actually better during the earlier days of the test patch but then Voldrak mace got nerfed to not break DK when warborn got Necro support. I had to do some adjustments and here we are again
How on earth did physical blademaster become viable?
It’s cadence. Two handed cadence. Physical. On a blademaster. That’s like one of the simplest builds in the whole of GD.
But seriously there’s a reason why BM became a viable choice for cadence following the phys reworks. Physical is one of the, if not the strongest damage type in the game right now. That doesn’t mean it automatically works for every soldier or oathkeeper though. Nightblade provides a lot of cunning (which in turn means %phys), OA, attack speed, racial for humans (very important cause maiden is resistant to phys), a very good proccer, dodge, movement - basically everything a cadence build wants bar RR which is fine because of the new changes making enemy armor lesser than before and the fact that with this setup you get 21/12 Break Morale.
It doesn’t mean this is better than Witchblade, DK or Warlord but it’s close.
Gear
Voldrak Mace - BiS weapon for 2h cadence. Covers your AoE and damage. If farming legit, prioritize Barbaric prefix with a decent suffix but use whatever you get best
2 pieces of Warborn instead of 3 - More Cadence points and phys res and armor on the maiden shoulder- attack speed on the 3pc bonus isn’t really needed unless you get horrible rolls on your mace (I don’t) and the cunning you can get on the affix offsets the damage loss on the 3 pc bonus. Don’t hesitate to use warborn shoulders if you don’t have a better maiden shoulder tho. The other warborn pieces are self-explanatory.
Gloves - is just as mandatory as Voldrak.
Pants, Medal, Rings - Capping important skills. Prioritize one Oleron’s Wrath affix on jewelry.
Amulet - Mogara over Kaisan for flat damage. +1 Nightblade doesn’t do much considering how little investment the build has on NB side.
Belt - Good MI is best for stats but Oleron belt is okay too.
Relic - Default relic for phys builds that didn’t test anything else
Crucible
4:30 run - channeling my inner banana:
A more average run at 4:53
I average around 5:00 for my runs, nothing too strong but not weak either.
Shattered Realms
No SR for now. I forgot to play it but I’m sure this will do SR80 fine. Looks like every build made exclusively for fast cruci runs can do it fine as well.
Closing
Shoutout to @banana_peel for some piloting tips back when I started testing this during the public test and cause I stole a lot of his ideas when I reworked this build recently.
I actually just posted up a physical blademaster which is pretty viable ^^ Unless the measuring stick you are using is the fastest crucible clear time, in which case yeah, it will not be that. But all other content it can do.
It’s still not the fastest build, far from it but before 1.1.9.2 the damage is far, far behind what it is now due to armor changes and less damage for physical for you to take advantage of the cunning. Also for cadence specifically, warborn damage sucked before this patch.
Deffo not disagreeing, I am super glad for the changes. I don’t really want to think of what my build would have been like if I had created it earlier than that.
Question, doesn’t binding Maul to Deathstalker not heal you because the skill doesn’t have weapon damage? Unless you are specifically concerned only with the armor shred, in which case I suppose that wouldn’t matter, but it still is a nice heal.
It doesn’t heal because it heals the deathstalker instead. I guess you can bind it to blitz/ss but I hate having to press my movement skill against a single enemy and not proc anything cause it’s only got 68% proc chance. Better put it on deathstalker and have a chance to proc it every second.
You could switch up Assassin’s Mark/Maul bindings between Cadence and Deathstalker, that’s essentially what I’ve been doing (except with BA) and it seems to work pretty well since Mark will proc off the Deathstalker’s AoE aura.
Assassin’s Mark lasts for 18 seconds so I mean. And with your insane OA you (i.e., the Deathstalker aura) will crit far more than once every 18 seconds.
It’s also single target. You proc maul once and you cover everyone around you for 5 seconds. You can proc it again during that 5 seconds and it refreshes the duration. However, you proc mark once and you still need to proc it again on the next enemy. That’s why you need to proc it more frequently.
Actually, you can also change Maul to War Cry, which gives 100% chance on attack (unlike what it shows in Grimtools). Then put Ulzaad on something else, say Blitz since you only need to proc that every 22 seconds so that’s pretty flexible.
That actually came up on a discussion (private with other forum people) with another build. Personally I still don’t like it cause I have to spam blitz whenever Ulzaad is down and if it doesn’t proc when I blitz once I lose quite a bit of damage which is important against bosses.
This is btw one of the reasons why physical builds nowadays need good proccers, and by extension why Oathkeeper is very good right now with Vire’s Might and Guardians of Empyrion both being excellent at that.
Well Maul affects a radius anyway, so I am not sure what you mean?
And yeah x1, I’ve struggled with that too. Assassin’s Mark and Bear automatically get whatever best two proccers you have, and then anything else… if you have anything else (depending a lot on build)… yeah good luck.
Yeah with ‘anything else’ I meant good proccers. Any physical build will for sure have one of those two, Oleron/Azrakaa. My sadgeface at having to go 50/50 in Nightblade literally just to have another decent proccer.
Sorry for not being clear. I mean with 16 meter radius target on WC, won’t Maul just hit random target in WC area of effect, potentially hitting far away weaker mob instead of the one we’re currently fighting.
