It’s only because flat damage is extremely important to DW builds. For same reason Abomination is absolutely must-have for those builds, prefferably with CDR to have higher uptime. Necromancer does the same for vitality DW pistol builds, while also having RR and 2 WPS skills.
AAR weak? Devastation weak? TSS weak? Really?
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At which point?
Because some masteries are fantastic early on but start losing potential HARD.
I.e. Inquisitor is easily one of the fastest and most reliable characters until 60; word of pain just removes the entire screen while lightning tether completely wrecks bosses. However it quickly starts struggling afterwards.
Anyway, to me it has to be Nightblade.
I’ve never made a dual weapon nightblade work and I’ve played this game since it’s been released; I’ve tried everything, including an acidic Dervish dual wielding Rashalga’s weapons (was it Mad Queen’s Claw?), and a Chaos variant with dual Voidspire. It always ended up disappointing in damage and way behind other classes in survivability.
Blade Spirit is fun to follow till level 50 where it essentially clears the game for you, but even with full Chillwhisper I struggle to see it doing much later on.
I believe there’s a decent build based on the Blade trap, but unless you run the specific set, it’s mostly useless since without trap resistance reduction it won’t work on things you’d want it to work against.
Shadow strike, idk. To me the Nightfall part is underpowered, I wish it was stronger but the aoe is small and the damage later on feels nonexistent - great idea, poor execution - I could get it to +10 on my chillwhisper IIRC and it still wasn’t anything worth mentioning. Shame. Other than that it’s just a basic mobility skill, you can get a better one from runes for every character.
ABB, never worked for me, really.
Some people say Demo but at least you can slap 7 mortars on the screen and dick around. You won’t kill Ravager this way but it’s fairly fun and different. Nightblade doesn’t have even 1 skill that I consider that way without extensive focus on full set +backing items.
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Looks like a tough transition from Normal to Elite 
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Hey I always like those parts of the game kek 
Ok it doesn’t mean much obviously but leveling an Inquisitor works extremely fast due to his skillset, it just works early on, kill speed is insane.
Only the Oathkeeper is better because of Vire’s Might “fire ground” skill, that thing is bonkers early on, hits multiple times per second and can be stacked for uttermost insanity. It remains relevant till 75-90 unlike Tether which falls off after 50
I don’t think it’s possible anymore. I remember pyran set having +1 as a bonus but it got changed to AoE instead. Maybe with an infernal mask and that green tome and those gloves, it becomes 6 at max.
Even tho it’s a small mistake, that 1 mortar makes a huge difference 1 thing I also don’t like about mortars is that u need to keep recasting them + their recharge time is sluggish. Once u place all 6 of them at that point u only really planted 3 and all enemies are kinda gone at that point.
Ah sry, it’s been a while since I played the mortar build, it may have changed along the way. But IIRC the big one got buffed significantly instead.
Anyway, with just the green tome and +skills you can iirc reach 4 or 5 and that’s quite enough and unlike blade spirits, those things remain powerful till the very end of the game so it’s pretty fun to play.
I believe I couldn’t kill Ravager with that build though, the damage wasn’t enough and the sustain wasn’t good at all, so I abandoned it eventually, but I do have fond memories of the levelup period 
My build combined mortars with Inquisitor’s rune traps, with the Magi constellation that was quite a lot of projectiles lol
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Say that to bleeding builds with Demonslayer set and Scarab Shell shield, with 4 Blade Spirits that make a very significant part of total DPS and can clear packs for you in endgame too.
Phantasmal Blades???
And no, you dont have to have Demonslayer set or something - just Spectral Arbalest is enough, or Conduit with Aether PB mod, or a 2-h sword crafted with faction blueprint - all are easily obtainable.
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I really doubt they are bad on Chillwhisper (conversion + damage mods).
Also on your general Pierce / Bleed hybrid (often with Elemental → Pierce conversion), they should be good.
And they have been buffed a bit recently, I’d like to think it’s partly due to my whining here and there.
Lol I literally forgot about the skill
To make things worse, yeah that’s the char I’ve used to beat Hardcore mode untwinked for the achievements, lol. Vita trickster.
Now I look like a total fool
It is pretty good, yeah. Stays relevant till the end, even though it does get a bit ehhh later on.
I have a rather well geared Chillwhisper dude and they really don’t contribute much.
Most of my damage comes from drain essence.
The blades are there, and of course they do something, but it’s not really gamechanging
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They are.
You see, the main problem with Blade Spirit is that it has 2 second CD on its “main skill” (projectile nova), and its “main attack” is just an aura that doesnt even stack from multiple BS. That’s why direct damage isnt that great for BS, while DoT (bleed) is perfectly fine.
yes it does, it’s why bleed spirits are so darn good
blade spirits aura is not the same as wind devils, wind devils use debuff aura, think Aura of Censure - meanwhile BS uses attack aura, think Whirling Blades from Seal of Blades
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and here’s a video proof on 3p Chillwhisper (I modded out their Blade nova attack)
(remade the test with damage numbers this time)
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Blade Spritis are a big chunk of damage in Chillwhisper since they were the reason the set was nerfed a while back. Anyone saying they hardly matter, try to play without them in Chillwhisper and notice the big drop in damage.
I see. But itshould stack with its bleed with projectile burst too, and both get bonuses from Scarab shell too, right?
yes
that’s what i’m told, legit never tested/confirmed it myself tho
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I prefer Mines because
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they proc much better on single target (each mine procs)
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longer duration
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easier to see / hear that it’s working
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Ye I actually really like mines. But Im weird cause I also like Wind Devils. 
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Wait I thought mines work like Wind Devils and operate as an aura debuff, without stacking damage. Never actually tested it though…maybe the Rag’Nadar chaos mines + SoC build I’m planning isn’t an utter and complete meme!