Weapon - Bane of the Winter King
Head - Merciless Exalted Helm of Vitality
Chest - Stonehide Exalted Platemail
Legs - Empowered Legplates of Valor
Shoulders - Exalted Shoulderplates of Nature’s Bounty
Arms - Resistant Exalted Handguards of Amarasta’s Flurry
Belt - Consecrated Exalted Belt of the Winter Storm
Necklace - Consecrated Imperial Necklace of Readiness*
Ring 1 - Slith Primal Ring
Ring 2 - Impervious Opal Signet of Attack
Medal - Mark of Divinity
Relic - Scourge
Need a few more levels to equip this, using an Amulet of Attack in the meantime.
Maybe I am just daft…but I only see a handful of skills active?
ABB + Lethal Assault, Veil of Shadows + Night’s Chill, Shadow Strike + Nightfall, Menhir’s Will, Military Conditioning, Scars of Battle, Oleron’s Rage.
Maybe its just because I’ve never done a full 50/50 build but that seems thin?
Is most of your healing just from life on hit/leech and menhir’s will? Surprised this survives ultimate with almost no defensive skills. Though maybe that one devotion is enough?
Yeah, it only has a few active skills and some passives to support it. I get a lot of life leech from the Scourge relic and Nightfall, Behemoth contributes a lot too. Menhir’s is a literal lifesaver but it doesn’t actually go off all that often. The mobility from Shadow Strike has a lot to do with it, I think.
I toyed with using Pneumatic Burst early on but energy was a problem. Then again, I now have an Arcane Spark to help with that so maybe it’s worth revisiting, especially with some points in Shadow Dance.
I’m not really familiar with ABB builds, so I can’t comment on whether it is good or not until I see a video of a Log/BoC run. I can point out a few things I noticed though. You don’t have Pneumatic Burst or a point in Blade Barrier, which are invaluable for a build like this. Since you have Whirlpool and Nightblade at 50, put a point in Blade Spirit and let that proc Whirlpool. Each Blade Spirit can proc it’s own Whirlpool, so it isn’t unusual to see 4 on the ground at the same time.
I think that if you survived Ultimate the build is ok, BUT if you’re asking about optimization this a completely different story:
HP/Resistance are solid.
OA/DA should be improved (2200 on each at least)
DPS i cannot judge because i suppose you have a CD skill in the main attack slot.
Armor could be ok, given some physical resist.
ABB + SS only isn’t a good combo at all. Better chose one (SS i might suggest) and then, if you want to stay 2h (about this, see below), take one of the following:
Cadence + Zoltan + Markovian (better, but requires more skill points)
Beronath’Shard + Zoltan + Markovian.
About the 2h question, sadly BM are better with DW or 1h+shield.
About devotion. Acid Spray, Falcon Swoop (2h only) and Blind Fury are the best option for your main spam. and you can link Assassin’s Mark (physical/pierce only) to somewhere else (a WPS?). What is better depend on your setup.
That weapon is cold based. This is a big no-no for a two handed BM, because the setup that focus on this is inferior to the one that focus on pierce/physical. However you can build a funny SB around this sword.
These are only my opinions. ofc, but since you asked…
Yeah I might give Pneumatic Burst another go. Maybe take the points out of Menhir’s Will and Scars of Battle and put them in PB and Shadow Dance.
Also that’s a really good idea about Blade Spirit, I didn’t know each spirit could proc things individually.
Thanks for the feedback.
That’s quite a lot of OA/DA, I’m not sure how to get that high without making some harsh sacrifices.
I suppose I could try moving the points from Blade Burst to Cadence and see how that fares. I always did like Cadence even when it was weak.
I know two-handed cold isn’t exactly traditional for a Blademaster; do you think a Spellbreaker would work better? I considered both but went with the Blademaster for better toughness and self-healing.
OA/DA at 2200 is VERY easy on a BM (you can see up to 3500+OA or 2800 DA on some builds posted) , so you have several options:
1- Field Command (Why don’t you have it?)
2- Pneumatic Burst (Again, you should take this)
2- Rework your devotion map.
3- Get better gear (you also need something with +skills/skill tabs on it)
Notably get a Peerless Eye of Beronath (amulet). If not mistaking, you can find one in the trading forum.
About the SB question, i once had one that used the skill on that blade (or was in the helm??) as the main attack, and there’s a guide in this forum about this exact build (by jajaja???) that’s the only one, imho, that can fully utilize this weapon. But i haven’t tried it in the latest patches, so i don’t guarantee anything.