Ghoulish Hunger on Veil of Shadow
Twin Fangs on Cadence
Scorpion’s Sting on Belgothian’s Shears
Maul on Whirling Death
Blizzard on Amarasta’s Quick Cut
Acid Splash or Dryad’s Blessing on Markovian’s Advantage
Assasin’s Mark on Blade Trap
This build has reliable single target damage output, great survivability due to life leech and % attack damage converted to health, and excellent crowd control and passable aoe thanks to Blade Trap.
So you overcome most of Blademaster’s shortcomings (susceptibility to retaliation damage, weak aoe, weak crowd control). I take it back: Blademaster can be very powerful if properly build.
How can that even function? Sorry, its just not evident and I have too many stereotypes about melee builds, a vid would be cooler.
No pneumatic burst, not even as a total speed buff? Melee blademaster without execution? No shadow strike or blitz in melee build? Nidalla and merciless repertoire maxed, is that a magic damage build or physical? If poison, why no shadow strike? Just 55 total points in masteries?
Againts mobs you have so much life steal that they can not hurt you (Ghoul + Bat + Dryad + Blade Trap) and since you immobilize them you are never overwhelmed by mobs. You can also take out ranged attackers while you are dealing with melee enemies too.
Blade Trap triggers Assasin’s Mark and since enemies fall into you Night’s Chill range they get a further reduction to Piercing resistance. You skewer them with Cadence and weapon pool skills. Devotion skills attached to weapon pool skills have weapon damage components which means even more %damage converted to health.
This build also has respectable poison damage which synergizes well with the aforementioned immobilization.
Against bosses only half are effected by Blade Trap (enough duration to inflict Assasin’s Mark) for the rest you rely on a bit of hit and run but not too much.
This buils has three key strategies:
Make enemies hit you less frequently : Blade Trap + Maul + Veil of Shadow + Nidalla’s Hidden Hand + Blizzard
Drain/heal more life than the damage you take: Ghoul + Bat + Dryad + Blade Trap
Debuff like hell: Night’s Chill, Assasin’s Mark, Scorpion’s Sting, Markovian’s Advantage, Acid Splash
Cadence and WPS typically don’t play well together because the Cadence strike takes precedence over WPS. This means that all WPS are operating at 2/3rds efficiency.
Execution is so much stronger than other WPS it’s not even funny. I’d try and get to 50 for it somehow.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever played a character in Ultimate, but it really is a whole different ball game. If you think you’re doing hit and run against bosses now, just wait. I wish you luck tackling Ultimate with such a low health pool and no PB.
Oh I thought they changed this. Then this build would be more viable as a Trickster. Change Cadence with Savagery and Military Conditioning with Heart of the Wild and you are good to go. You will gain some health lose some Physique and a weapon pool skill.
Now Im getting the idea why you thought that BMs are more than mediocre even back in 1.0.0.7.
If you need to hit and run on normal/veteran or even elite, you will do much less hitting and much more running on ultimate, that is if something doesn’t catch you up, since you are more than slow.
Sry but I just cant be even slightly optimistic about this build, its a mess imho
Ok I will wait for the Reaper (Nightblade + Necromancer) then. We already know that it has Necrotic Edge, a weapon pool skill. Hopefully it will have a default weapon attack skill too.
Why do you wait? Bring your BM to 85 and stick to your idea in mind.
If you can’t make it work at first, refine it. In the end, if it can not last in endgame without sacrificing too much of your ideas, you still have a level 85 BM, which can still be very potent as a farming char for the expansion (even if you don’t enjoy the playstyle).
This game needs more default weapon attack skills. Would it not be nice for example if the Arcanist had an Aether based one. There would be so many new builds possible.
Since Necromancer will be a summoner/caster hybrid like Occultist, it is unlikely he will get one, but still fingers crossed.
At first looking at grimcalc i though OP is trolling but it looks like he’s really serious. Jager gives you a good advice. Just level to 85/ultimate. Till this time you’ll learn more about challenges this game provide and about mechanics.
My 1st trickster was only a bit better. I invested heavily in piercing damage despite of absense of synergy between shaman and that type of dmg. It was ok till Elite. Clearing Sodden Hollow shrine was a real pain (spawned Slith with a dirty Gastris-style poison 1-shot shit, died about 10 times). After learning more I did another plan in grimcalc and respecced to Bleed dmg. It feels much better now though I had to tinker a bit with items (most of my was about piercing damage).
