I am not an expert on leveling but I wouldn’t recommend leveling with PB. Super mana hungry skill that doesn’t do good damage without endgame gear support. Level with something else.
Phantasmal blades is not excellent for leveling.Energy cost at higher ranks is too expensive for vast majority of levels.For example there’s beginners blades Reaper,which start as Necromancer,with Ravenous Earth.Dervish is better leveled as acid Amarasta or shield build with Aegis.
Yeah, you clearly don’t. There’s hardly any energy issue because you can just invest in Nether Edge and Heart Seeker and those hardly increase the energy cost of the skill while giving a lot of flat damage.
I’m talking bopping Krieg in less than 10 seconds for both forms and the energy bar doesn’t go below 80%.
Here’s the guide Imo about Reaper.It’s not updated to the new forum [Sir Spanksalot's / malawiglenn's beginner friendly guide for Phantasmal Blades Reaper]
It’s supposed to start with RE and later switch to PB.Dervish got early opportunity to use energy regen from Virtue.Still main skill is pretty expensive.Using mods only softens the problem.
My suggestion for cheap PB build is Reaper.If you have Demonslayer set-Dervish.
If you don’t have any gear and/or planning to play self-found, I don’t recommend Dervish or any Nightblade except Infiltrator.
I recommend looking at beginner’s and leveling guides on these forum and learning from them. Your best bet is probably Death Knight - with it you can actually farm endgame set of gear (Krieg’s set) by yourself.
Sure. But my advice: just have fun with your first character. Explore side quests, dungeons, try out different skills and skill combinations. It’s the most fun you gonna have in Grim Dawn. Don’t be in a rush to make an endgame monster.
I also can confirm: Levelling with PB is very easy, no mana problems. Had (sorry, forgot the name) that green goo in all rings and medal - never ran out of mana while drinking potions.
just be careful leveling base skill with pblades it costs stupid amounts of energy, focus on nether edge and heart seeker instead. go to 8/16 pblades for the extra blade when you can afford energy
Positioning is also important for saving energy. Try to heard a bunch of mobs before you cast PB on them. I.e. try to hit everything from the same “angle”
Just realized today and hoping for confirmation:
Bleeding is not to be preferred on PB. Especially the nice looking item skill modifier on Mark of Consumption: Concerning shotgun quality of PB, bleeding cannot be added together (DoT).
Let´s say, the Mark of Consumption lifts the DPS by 4k. But that 4k cannot - as you´re used to - be multiplied by 8 knives. Right?