Blades - The Truth

I’ve read a lot on the net about blades being not a very good weapon for any scenario - people recommending hammers or firearms instead. But many of the posts are old - is this still true? Should I move from my blade to something else?

That really depend what you want out of the game. I’m perfectly happy maining blade. I’m extremely happy about it where you need some nice healing to go along with your damage, like DA, faction missions and other scaled solo fights.

It’s still true that it only evens out in the long run and it’s hard to fight a fight hard enough to get to that long run. The popular weapons (rifle/hammer) have good first 10 seconds performance because their gimmicks just work that way.

If you are looking for bragging rights after coming top of the DPS meters, then blade is probably not for you.

If you enjoy the way blade plays, and you’re good at not standing in the fire as a melee player, then it shouldn’t be stopping you from doing anything.
It’s like taking 13 seconds to kill something instead of 10 seconds. One is technically 30% slower, and if you’re trying to do it in 9 seconds, one is much closer than the other. Either way though, your target’s still going to die pretty quickly. (numbers are illustrative only and have no exact basis)

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I like blade as a primary for dps, self-healing and cleansing. Also for the look of some blade weapons.

From what I heard sword is actually a good weapon for scenario thanks to solid selfheals. It will never outdamage AR and never outsubstain hammer but that is true for any weapon.

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I’m very fond of Blade. I used it in TSW and now in SWL. In fact, I have two characters at 50 and both are Blade/Shotgun. Also, both use the Soviet Techsword which frees up a power slot. It’s the best combo I’ve found.

If you’re into dungeons and are in a cabal with tanks who keep things at bay, probably a ranged weapon style is the best way to go. If you’re a solo adventurer like me, why have a ranged power as main? Nearly everything closes on me. The basic AoE is effective and the Blade gives me a good self-heal. I use my trusty shotgun as a ranged finisher if I need one.

I think many people complain about Blade because they’re not putting up big numbers right away for their team, but we who solo don’t care about damage stats and Blade always gets the job done.

I’m glad this game has a good soloing weapon like Blade.

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I use chaos/blade in OD on both my characters, it’s very good in there, yes.

Yes. Blade has no group synergy, requires a complex rotation just to maintain a dps that’s mediocre compared to other weapons. It’s ok in solo work (but again, other weapons are better for both damage and survivability, but in solo it doesn’t generally matter) if you’re a casual player. Beyond that, you want to ditch it for almost anything else.

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I was using the 7th son + sawallow cut,but I found with my alts low crit chance I always run out of energy/chi.So I switch to tsunami but sometimes the channeling break my sb and waste my chi even sometimes there was 5chi,so…is it good to use shattered hellblade with tsunami?O simple I need to predict the channeling hit sb costs and stay with 7th son until I have enough crit chance and use swallow cut?thx.

Unwrriten talismán for maihand,stormbringer/mantric Blade for offhand,very good scenario stuff.You get great heal by chi overflow and enemy can never stand up because evulsion spam+pandemonium.

blood can in some sustain combate out damage random ar user at same stats,and I saw a good pistol ppl did that in MB too…but thats maybe just about luck and skill,at the same skill level noboday can overcome meta weapon…
Everytime ppl telling me to go meta for more dps,I blamde funcom in my heart,dah balance killed the weapon diversity and fun.

Can blade dish out a lot of DPS? Yes. ~30-35k (without Opening Shot or Expose) Provided the fight is stationary and doesn’t involve to many melee range AoEs.
Does blade have burst damage? Yes and No. It doesn’t build up slowly like Blood but its burst is not high like hammer. In fact it is very close to the overall DPS of ~30-35k.
Sov-Tech vs Seventh Son? Spirit Blade accounts for 30-40% of the damage and so as far as DPS is concerned Seventh Son is better. Seventh Son also give the user control over forging. Sov-Tech will forge at a 1:1 ratio where as you can forge at a 5:6 ratio (chi:spirit blade attacks) manually. Yes this is a small difference but sometimes matters. Sov-Tech is much better for the casual blade user though. It eliminates the mechanic and allows the player to enjoy using blade.
High DPS with blade is dependent on maintaining 100% up time of spirit blade. Losing that cuts 30-40% of your DPS instantly. It is also highly energy dependent contrary to what many think. This is because your spirit blade damage is higher with power abilities then it is with your basic ability. So you want to use Power abilities as much as possible.
Tsunami or Swallow Cut? No exactly testing on when is the best time to switch but I normally advice <35% crit chance use Tsunami if >35% Transition to Swallow Cut. Tsunami is in fact on paper higher DPS then Swallow Cut however in practice it is not very user friendly. You will need to jump at the right times to prevent breaking spirit blade and as its a channel ability breaking that channel early wastes energy which can happen a lot in high mobility fights.
There are a number of gear and ability specifics but that at least covers some of the basics.

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No. Drenneth is correct. Shattered Hellblade is significantly worse than either of the other two options. Seventh Son is the “correct” choice, but Sov-Tech is close enough that the convenience is worthwhile to less concerned players.

Of course, the correct choice is to always put down the blade and pick up something else.

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They asked this:

And the answer is no.

And both Drenneth and I said that they’d be better getting a Seventh Son. Being correct isn’t always being right.

Who is they? I was replying in general to the OP. Viva perhaps now that I looked back. If purely comparing Sov-tech vs Hellblade then Id have to go with Sov-Tech also cause anything that eliminates spirit blade damage would result in a large DPS loss.

That parse is without Expose or any Buffs like Opening Shot. (Yes i actually just spent 80k MoF to swap my signets out to test this) How long does it take to get there? Well this is a min/max thing so 1671 IP etc.

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I was also replying in general, but apparently @Ceruleana is talking about someone specific and so took offense to general answers. :man_shrugging:

I should note that is a 30 second parse. Still just over 35k which is not bad for dungeon fights. If i were to test for 4-5 minutes though 32-33k is probably where it would balance out.

Offhand is just Crystalized Flame + passive

Screenshot%20(72)

From the parse it accounted for 18% of overall damage

Rotation is CF>Supreme harmony>Hone>Swallow Cut spam/basics
If max CD reduction signet on head Supreme Harmony will come off cd in ~10seconds (with passive) Use it immediately so that it is off cd again roughly the same time Hone comes off CD and CF so that you can start the rotation again.

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