Hello and welcome to our latest Grim Misadventure. Today, we will continue our coverage of new content coming your way soon. As you probably inferred from the thread’s title, we will be going over the upcoming Nightblade mastery. It has evolved significantly since our last iteration, though you will still find some familiar skills.
So let’s dive in!
Expert Level Nightblade Build
“Nightblades were clandestine warriors that sold their services to the great houses of the empire. Nightblades excel with all manner of martial weapons, but are even more feared for the deadly blade magic that is the secret of their trade. Nightblades are not suited to go toe to toe with tougher enemies and rely on illusion to close for quick, devastating attacks or fight from a distance with phantasmal blades.”
Nightblades are deadly melee fighters and assassins. Unlike the Soldier, a Nightblade approaches combat with the intent of ending it quickly and decisively. Prolonged encounters can be dangerous, but the Nightblade is not without his illusions and tricks. Using conjured illusions that seem so real that they can inflict actual physical harm, these highly skilled combatants can fight their way out of nearly any situation. While Nightblades are not restricted to any particular weapon type, they excel when dual wielding swords and fading in and out of melee combat with their adversaries.
Below are some of the lower level skills you can look forward to as an assassin:
Phantasmal Blades
“A legendary technique of the Nightblades. Hurl a conjured blade infused with shadow magic that rends through flesh like paper.”
Phantasmal Blades are the core of many Nightblade techniques. This particular skill allows you to hurl several piercing blades at your enemies. Modifiers for this skill allow the blades to pass through targets, drawing vital life energy as they leave your foes bleeding out, and to add the sinister power of chaos to every blade.
Blade Trap
“Your command of Nightblade techniques allows you to entrap an enemy within a prison of deadly phantasmal blades.”
Blade Trap surrounds your target with a ring of phantasmal blades. This crafty illusion reduces your target’s defenses and causes it to bleed as if struck by physical blows. The modifier for this skill intensifies the bleeding and drains some of the damage as health for the Nightblade.
Pneumatic Burst
“Secret martial techniques of the Nightblades enable you to draw vital breath or “pneuma” from your surroundings for short bursts of speed and power. The metabolic acceleration caused by these vital breaths also confers minor healing. This technique requires melee weapons.”
Pneumatic Burst is a powerful meditative state that the Nightblade can enter, increasing his prowess with piercing attacks and accelerating his attacks. In addition, the burst of pneuma restores some lost vitality. The buff itself lasts longer than the cooldown for this skill, so you can maintain it while saving the healing aspect for more imminent danger. The modifiers for this skill increase your concentration, allowing you to evade attacks, and adding a cold component to your damage.
Belgothian’s Shears
“The brawny Belgothian was an anomaly among the lithe Nightblade masters, but he exceeded them all in raw power. Leveraging his strength in direct but lethal attacks like the shears, Belgothian could often finish an enemy in a single move. This is a dual-wielding technique.”
This martial technique is a brutal attack on nearby enemies intended to cause intense physical trauma. As it lacks the finesse of some of the more refined Nightblade methods, this skill augments physical damage rather than piercing damage, making it reliable regardless of your weapon choice.
Building your Nightblade:
Players focused on the Nightblade mastery will unlock a deadly collection of melee attacks and piercing blades. Nightblades are masters of melee combat and are absolutely devastating in close range.
Players focused on other masteries should pick the Nightblade for their second mastery if they want to augment their skill set with heavy melee attacks, deadly illusions and the ability to dual wield melee weapons. Hybrid builds can also look forward to class names such as: Blademaster, Saboteur, Witch Hunter, and Nightstalker.
Check back on 10/14/13 for the conclusion of our Nightblade reveal!
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