You don’t need cloud saving to play online.
Oh, wow I guess that was just a big assumption I made. I figured that was just how they allowed people to mod or cheat but keep it offline. Hmm… whatever. Transmuting really doesn’t seem that bad. I turned one helmet into a chest. It’s really just farming the Chthonic Seals now since I used a lot recrafting all my gears components… a couple times… lol. These are probably my least favorite thing to farm…
Blood Grove is your best bet I believe.
Tomb of Korvaak, before Ford Ikon, is a very good spot as well. For some reason I gain more seals there than other spots.
When I was a beginner I made the same mistake as you did: based my builds on full endgame gear (legendaries and impossible greens) crucible/SR speed farmers instead of the beginner builds available in the forum. If you still don’t know it, there is a beginner builds section in the build compendium from Stupid_Dragon (Build Compendium X (Forgotten Gods)) and a separate beginner build compendium from Ulvar (Beginner build guides Compendium (for AoM + FG expansions)). If you don’t have a deep understanding of the mechanics in GD, it is always safer to follow a guide from someone who does until you understand the reasoning behind all his/her decisions (gear, devotions, skill points).
Stupid_Dragon himself has a great up to date beginner guide on blademaster ([1.1.9.0] Beginner's Forgotten Blademaster), which I just looked closely and agree with basically all his gear/devotions choices (considering you don’t have access to better gear). When comparing his build (https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GEKnJZ) to yours, most of his gear choices would be better for you: his medal, chest, shoulders, amulet, belt, and relic. These are all also very easy to get. There is also a great medal from solael faction (https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/11575) that is vastly superior to yours.
The only gear pieces that you have that are superior imo are your rings, pants, and maybe the helm (debatable because you don’t have capped slow resist like in his build) and that is mainly because you should never recommend random drop legendary gear in beginner guides (especially barbaros pants, you got pretty lucky there). Also keep in mind that you already have 190% attack speed without the procs from the rings and that the cap for attack speed is 200%. Thus, in terms of attack speed, your second proc is not doing anything. A different ring (like this one https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/9025) would be a better choice for the second one.
Regarding your relic, Azrakaa’s Epoch shines on blademaster builds that are not skill point hungry (like belgothian’s set, because then you don’t need to max cadence) and that have high amounts of OA to proc the relic skill consistently. Your build only has 2800 OA, so a 33% proc on crit skill will be really unrealiable. Furthermore, the main point of the relic is to provide AOE clear to crucible speed farmers, which is not your case. Serenity, as you noticed, is quite a popular choice in cadence blademasters because of the +1 to all skills and the fact that is a good all-around defensive relic (works in almost every build). Since your build is starving for skill points, I would go for either Belgothian’s Carnage or Serenity (even if you improve your OA).
Regarding the flat RR discussion, I made a quick search on the strongest pierce blademaster builds and all of them have flat RR sources somewhere (you probably just didn’t notice). Examples: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVAXlY62 (has flat RR from gloves, as Stupid_Dragon said), https://www.grimtools.com/calc/mN491Yx2 (has flat RR from Tips the Scales devotion), https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2p9JLaV (has flat RR from Tips the Scales devotion as well). If you want to keep both Azrakaa and Unknown Soldier devotions, then I would suggest copying the devotion map from this build from banana_peel: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/mN491Yx2. Reasoning behind it: you get both tier 3 damage devotions without losing the safety/sustain from ghoul and keeping the flat RR and little sustain from Scales. The only issue is you would lose Ulzaad, but getting Unknown Soldier might be worth it.
Finally, I would still like to point out that your OA is too low for a pierce blademaster build. The reason why OA is so important in this build is that several very important devotions are procced on crit (Living Shadow, Blades of Wrath and Assassin’s Blade). To fix it, appart from the gear suggestions, I would start by changing your skill point allocations. All top blademaster pierce builds keep anatomy of murder at 11/12 (sweet spot) or max it because of the cunning bonus and racial damage. Cunning double dips your damage by increasing both your pierce damage % and your OA, so the more the better on a pierce build. After that, field command and pneumatic burst are good choices to increase your OA further. I think both skills (especially field command) are better investiments than Fighting Spirit and Fightning Form. Even after the buffs, I would only cap Fighting Spirit on a less skill point hungry build like belgothian’s blademaster. Fightning Form is great, but mainly maxed in crucible speed farmer builds to increase the aoe. Both skills are good tbh, but there are just better alternatives. The builds that skip OA boosting skills on pierce blademaster probably have 3.2k OA+ already (two of the ones I linked have 3.5k)
OK this post got really long. Hope it was helpful.
Yes, the advice is very welcome and helpful. Looking at all of the links you sent. In the last few days I did some transmuting and have gotten the Belgothian set going, and I was messing with devotions some, so it has changed quite a bit.
Current setup: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYr9pA2
I will say that I seem to feel a good bit squishier, and I’m actually not exactly sure why. I was messing around a bit with the Typhos constellation, and it seems pretty good and that 10% crit damage seems really nice, and it also has 4% phys resist in it… but I must be giving up too much else where or something, because I am definitely not as survivable.
Although I was using the SR set for a few days, and man having capped Stun resist is amazing. I was trying to figure out how to get that higher, but even the builds you linked really are playing with more than I currently have.
My DA definitely dropped a bit, but my OA is way up, and my armor seems pretty good. I don’t have the flat RR right now, but I don’t think that is attributing to why I don’t feel as tanky when being surrounded by a group of monsters. I’ll look at the builds you linked and how to get some RR again since I have no idea when I’ll find those gloves… but I was really trying to fix my setup so I am tankier. It’s way more fun jumping in a group and killing it off without constantly worrying about dying, even if I am killing a bit slower.
Maybe I am thinking crit damage matters more than it does? I have such high crit chance but I suppose that is moreso for proccing everything, rather than the additional crit damage?
Anyway, I thought I was getting a better grasp on everything but yeah… still figuring things out and not understanding why I feel a lot less tanky now.
So… going off what I said above. Before changing build to what I linked, I was doing SR55-60 pretty well. Then I changed it and I actually died a few times in 45, so that kind of sucked.
I was just messing around again anddddddd changed to this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2Ggjgj2
All the sudden I feel super tanky doing a 45, and cleansing waters seems super cool.
I did that with Tip the Scales and Cleansing waters at level 1 though, so not much notice from the flat RR reduction yet. I also am almost maxed Stun resist again. I honestly don’t know how people play without high stun resist at higher levels. It feels like I am constantly stunned FOREVER. I suppose on a blademaster that matters even more since I am reliant on constantly attacking and life stealing.
Anyway… kind of ranting at this point but if anyone feels like chiming in it’s appreciated. Even if what I am doing isn’t optimal I am learning a lot, and I’m no where near optimized yet anyway so just having fun.
Edit: This last setup gets me more resists too, so I was wanting to change my amulet out… I have two others that seem viable for now: Bloodragers basically for +1 to soldier and nightblade, and I just found A Mythical Nights Embrace which seems really nice for the -resist, big of flat piercing, +1 to nightblade and +50 OA. Seems like a nice dmg boost
This setup looked very good on paper. It is hard to understand why you were feeling squishy with 3300 armor and 33% phys res. What exactly was killing you? Are you not killing packs fast enough? Lack of AOE maybe? I was going to suggest that you invested at least one point in RoS and its modifier to help with AOE and survivability, but you already did.
SR set is a very good defensive set. I would say that SR set blademasters are better for deep shards than belgos, but I don’t have experience with them.
Actually, I was looking up for belgo builds to reply to your post and most of them have low stun res. Examples: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2p9JLaV, https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4NOPrEe2, https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVlbvkoN. In fact, most of them have lower stun res than you, even the ones that use Runebound Topaz on rings. So if getting stun locked is the reason why you are dying, then I guess they are just better pilots then you or kill stuff faster.
Not sure a belgo blademaster can push decent SR shards on ultimate with this playstyle. I have no experience with the build on endgame content so you might be better off watching videos of other belgo builds or asking for advice on their forum topics.
Was that with SR set? If so, that is probably the reason.
Decent stun res is extremely important in endgame builds, yes. Not sure how belgos deal with 40% or less stun res. Maybe just don’t get hit.
Feel free to experiment with devotions if you want, but I would not change your devotions to fix stun res. The most straightforward ways to fix it would be: getting gear with stun res (belt, pants, boots) or using Runebound Topaz on rings. There are faction boots with good stats and stun res, but you would lose even more DA from your boots.
I actually think your resist overcaps are still low. You would want at least 20% overcap on the most important resistances (elemental and aether at least). Pierce, Bleed, and chaos overcaps are not as important.
Also: If you are struggling with Ultimate SR, you can farm Elite SR for now. This will help you learn SR mechanics and the drops in Elite SR 65+ are also good (this is not true for crucible though, where only gladiator is efficient for drops). It is also easier to overcap resists on Elite, so I think it is a great place to farm loot when playing less optimized builds.