So I’ve been leveling a character I wanted to try out in this class combination, who uses Grasping Vines with Rend attached, Phantasmal Blades with Falcon Swoop, and Devouring Swarm with Twin Fangs. The idea was to attack from range and hit enemies with these three moves in succession, and aside from undead enemies and guys like the Cthonian golems it was pretty fast, and even they died reasonably quickly thanks to the Bleed RR. It was also pretty safe thanks to all the attack damage to health stuff and Pneumatic Burst.
Now I’m at Ultimate and the lack of gear for that kind of playstyle has become pretty apparent. I gathered all the Bloodrager’s set for him, and the proc is nice, but it’s really obvious it was meant for a Warder and all the physique and health buffs the Soldier class offers, so I can’t take full advantage of the Savagery bonuses without being in some danger. No Relic for that sort of character either, although Oleron’s would still be helpful. I could retool him to be a Warder, but I did like playing him like a skirmisher rather than just ramming into enemies. Any advice for tweaking it while still remaining a Trickster?
Hey! Superfluff is good so any advice he gives is probably good, but I just wanted to add that a ranged Bleed caster Trickster is certainly viable, it just won’t ever be a teir 1 build and it needs creative gear/skill choices.
First off, if you want the ranged skirmisher type build you need Blade Spirit. It’s the largest source of Bleed in a skill outside of the Soldier tree so it’s worth investing. You also need good sources of % Bleed damage, so Blood Pact is worth at least 1 point.
Grasping Vines is a meh skill IMO because the bleed damage and life leech is really low and it does physical damage which is worthless to you. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but taking out those points and putting them in Blade Trap/Devouring Blades instead would probably be better. It accomplishes the same things as GV (CC trash mobs while applying Bleed damage and life steal) but with bigger numbers.
As for gear, if you’re sticking with what I’ve said so far then Demonslayers Set works well for you, because it buffs Blade Spirit and Blade Trap and converts Pierce and Cold, which are w/e to you, into Vitality which has MUCH more support in your build. To get more bleed though, get the gun Gutripper as it’s massive Bleed stats and bleed proc make it BiS on any ranged Bleed build.
This kind of build will be very glass-cannony unfortunately and not as efficient as bosses, but the upside is that everything you can outrun will die eventually.