Blademaster or Master of None?

Grim Dawn Public Test Discussion
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Current test patch feels like it’s been going on forever. It started however with one big change - Physical resist on Dual Blades was changed to armor. That, along with several other changes affected one class the most - the Blademaster. Arguably underpowered compared to other Nightblades (or Soldiers) before this test patch, Blademaster has been somewhat rejuvenated. Or has it? Here is my experience with several most prominent Blademaster archetypes this test patch.

1) Belgothian

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4:15 SR 30-31 run

Belgo BM received couple of cosmetic buffs this patch and in general is performing well. It’s quick, relatively easy to gear (only Tyrant’s Derma Slicer will take some time to farm out), easy to play. It’s main problem was always how it was faring against Belgothian Infiltrator. Latter having access to more rr and flat damage was usually ahead on damage front, however BM usually boasted higher armor and was much easier in terms of stats and hp. With the latest Dual Blades change and Inquisitor’s Vigor buff that has changed. Here is how this BM looks in-game currently:
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And here is how our top20 Belgo Infiltrator looks in-game:

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As you can see, both builds have identical devotion maps and gear with minor difference. Both wearing “Formidable of Vitality” pants. However both end up having similiar hp (with Infil not wearing Prismatic Diamond) and armor values with Infil having more Physical resist. Despite Blademaster being more streamlined and having much better wps pool (30% of double boosted multi-target Markovian’s Advantage is godly) Infiltrator still pulls ahead in damage department regardless of how you put it together: with single target damage focus or with aoe focus like in this example.

Suggestions:

Some hp mod to soldier passive would help a lot. Offensively set is doing fine when put together properly. Also some kind of 15 dr mod to somewhere would mean that Belgo doesn’t have to rely on rare (for Derma slicers) mod “Tyrant’s” for optimal performance.

2) Spite

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4:57 SR 30-31 run

With several buffs to PB and Spite sword this build came back to life. It’s not great by any means: it barely has enough energy for farming areas (Ravager of Flesh is out of the question) despite having Scales, tripple Arcanuum Dust augs and freshly buffed Raven in devotions. Conversions on it are awkward: for some reason it only converts half of chaos on PB (with other chaos half conversion nowhere to be found) and to convert Elemental/Cold to Pierce you have to use a setup like I used or use Treacherous Means belt (which is a worse option since build is so hungry on skill points). And using double Bladetwister and Chosen Epaulets just for Elemental conversion hampers the build a lot.
Its main problem is dodgy tank: only reasonable source of damage reduction is on Shadows which are very awkward to proc here. And then build doesn’t have impressive hp or armor despite soft capping Field Command and taking Military Conditioning to 8/10.

Suggestions:

A mod to Spite that gives something like 15 dr to PB would go a long way. Maybe flat energy regen mod or %increased energy regen mod to one of the Soldier’s passives (already suggested it before).

3) Pierce RoS semi-spam


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SR 30-31 4:15 run

This beast was enabled by the core change to RoS mechanics: it now hits with two hands when dual-wielding. It’s a great build, especially after I took some time to figure out what works best for it. It requires a lot of greens, but all of them have realistic affixes. The only downside is clunk (but nothing you can do here) and relative lack of hp (which is a problem for most Blademaster now). It does well compared to its Infiltrator counterpart too.

Suggestions:

No suggestions here, build works really well all in all. It could use more hp from somewhere tho.

4) Cold Cadence

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Haven’t tested it in this test patch but it was doing somewhat decently before. Problem was patchy Cadence sustain and lack of skill points.

Suggestions:

I think adding +1 to Soldier to Executioner’s Judgement would go a long way. Also something like +4 to Cadence to Winter King helmet and maybe +2 to Cadence to Hag gloves.

Overall Blademasters are starting to find their niche among top melee dogs again but imo they still need a few mostly defensive buffs. I will try adding Pierce Blade Arc BM later if I have time to test it.

8 Likes
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Thanks for sharing!
At least Belgothian Blademaster is more straightforward as you don’t have to cast Word of Pain and Word of Renewals (less words, more action).

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Yeah, Belgo BM is a beautiful like that, always was. Just one button and kill or be killed mentality.

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Soldier represents the main problem with balance remaining, and it’s actually getting a little worse: dependance on %rr.

We have constant balance passes on bases of skills and mods, and they are mostly very good, a lot of skills have become playable and more evenly matched with each other in power. So when you get a rr-less mastery into the mix as a support, not a dmg provider, you are instantly gimping the main skill that was balanced around being competitive with everything else on the even rr% ground.

This is exactly what happens with Belgo BM and Spite BM. The biggest thing Soldier has as support is War Cry and both these builds don’t have cdr or skillpoints for it. So why Soldier when you can do Inq with decent bonuses and rr% on top?

Arcanist also suffers from it, and it’s no wonder that most strong Arcanist builds actually have access to additional rr% sources to compensate for the mastery: like elemental PRMs Mhunters (gear procs, bonus rr to WoP and Box), like aether PRM Binder and Uroboruuk (mainhand and ring procs), like Trozan (bonus rr to Devils), like Diviner (gear procs and Omen rr), etc. etc.

There’s a million items that support elemental Soldier. And what actually works at least to some extent? Ele DW Cadence Tactician with huge support, big tdm on the skill and extra rr from the maces and 2H ele Cadence Witchblade with huge support, big tdm and extra rr from the conduit. What does cold Cadence have? Not much at all. And as a logical outcome cold Cadence is much weaker than other cold melee with two rr% sources from masteries.

In the future, I really want to see further enemy resist reduction and rr% source reductions across the board. I don’t think there’s any other solution of said problem.

13 Likes
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And with that should finally come no RR on rings.

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I don’t have the same view on this problem. Your claim about soldier and arcanist falling behind in damage is a bit debatable, but we can assume it is the case for the purposes of argument. Soldier and arcanist are both relatively solid defensive masteries, both offering the generally-hard-to-access %damage absorb. I think that it is okay for certain masteries to not be top tier offensively–if they are making up for it defensively.

The problem is that the specific examples being discussed (dw cold cadence, belgo bm, and to a lesser extent spite) cannot access the defensive power of soldier because they are dw–or in spite’s case you are strongly encouraged to take oleron’s rage. While it is technically possible to access shields for cold cadence and belgo, doing so is fairly asinine. Without using shields or having access to bulwark for %absorb these builds indeed do not get any realistic defensive compensation from soldier, and they are not able to keep up with the damage of double RR masteries.

Because of this conceptual problem with Blademaster–where it comparatively lacks the same damage output and damage consistency of other mastery choices, and most blademaster builds do not access the defensive compensation of soldier–blademaster has indeed fallen off.

I agree with the OP wrt belgo and I have made my own suggestions about the set that utilize foa technology. I believe it should not be the case that a set which was originally made for blademaster–as the flagship blademaster set–is entirely outperformed (both offensively and defensively) by a mastery combo that is not fully supported.

2 Likes
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inquis seems to get stronger and stronger defensively “each” patch, while solder passives sometimes go down or up depending on whether an OP Warlord/Avenger/Death Knight was made :sweat_smile:
Really seems like the flashy “cross skill modifier” we saw revealed could benefit BM there, with stuff that then couldn’t be “abused” or benefit other classes,
like
+X armour/hp to Field Command to Pneumatic burst (but i don’t know if that’s how the tech work/can work of it’s only offensively?/chance resets/dmg/charges?)

3 Likes
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only bm build I have is Bleeding one, and, well, it suffers from no RR as well, despite having 2 biggest bleed nukes in the entire game. sustain is sketchy. Imagine if we had some kind of RR proc or… just rr.

also I’m all for this. occasional no RR builds like said BM, or phys commando, or any kind of Battlemage are having hard times since forever.

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Nightblade should have bleeding RR.

1 Like
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I would like to comment on the DR part, since living shadows have it, do you consider it not sufficient? Likely you have tried it more than me despite personally against nemesis it seems to work well

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It works well against bosses indeed but against packs the coverage is not ideal. Also there are rare situations you can start the boss room without shadows. Also if your build is suboptimal or like has beginner/budget gear still sometimes you can lack OA to proc Shadows against some high DA targets or when your OA is debuffed.

2 Likes
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I don’t have much to add but this is worth highlighting.

Soldier has great options for cold conversion (blade arc, blitz, cadence, forcewave…) but awful support for cold damage. Once you equip the conversion amulet or medal… then what? There’s no armor pieces that appeal to “cold” soldier. I’m not talking about a set but literally any cold items for soldier. I tried to make this work but the itemization is just non-existant.

This problem then cascades into a lack of skill points for the soldier tree (and it’s a great skill tree too). Maxing out a converted skill is basically impossible and good luck finding a relevant +1 soldier item. Oh and I haven’t discussed RR yet. Welcome to meme build territory :smiley:

I’m hoping FoA will add more cold support for soldier thanks to berserker.

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The Blitz RATA medal also being the cold conversion Blitz medal is insane to me. Leaving alone the cold conversion issues, there’s no cold retal support in existence and none of the other cold masteries sync up with it. You could legit put something insane like 200% WD to Blitz on it and it’d still be meh.

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we have some components though :rofl: :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think bleed sources of Soldier should have -flat/%armor, part of bleed builds have a lot of physical dmg. No need more -RR, though.
About sustain, could add health regeneration or flat dmg absorb procs.

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I think there is very easy solution for Belgothian Blademaster: +10-15% armor, + 10-15% hp to Field Command.
At least this would help differentiate him from Belgothian Inflitrator: one has more hp and amor, another one has RR and heal.

3 Likes
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Something like that except it would benefit more from flat HP and Armor values as it already has quite a bit of it in % values

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So I guess that’s the only thing that Belgo BM “got” (or rather Belgo Infil lost).

This change feels good. Tank and energy problems weren’t addressed but at least build became more tanky thru better sustain.

It can farm SR pretty quick, even if it’s not the tankiest of tanks.

Unfortunately, nothing else for good old bm.

1 Like
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not gonna lie, i laughed when i saw that, similar to the joke i mentioned with PRM/AAR making one look “better” by simply nerfing the other :joy:

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I’ll address it (Nadaan → Harp) :stuck_out_tongue: 5% Phys res from Lion + Wraith but lost some Evade

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