Is it just me or is blade rather underwhelming?
It has a nice cleanse & self-heal, but in terms of damage & its passives it doesn’t seem to give much damage for the amount of effort it requires (including Spirit Blade which already takes one slot). Or am I using it wrong? Is it meant for end-game stats? Any tips?
Use another weapon 
Most people seem to agree that blade is on the lower end of the scale when it comes to DPS, it has been since launch.
Doesn’t become noticeably good until endgame. I parse 25-30k DPS on regional bosses with it at endgame stats but it wasn’t until after 1000 IP that it started competing with other weapon types for me.
Also its a rather demanding weapon in terms of mechanics and the build will alter based on your crit rating, at least for me Tsunami was a better power ability to use until I was around 30% crit. Then Swallow Cut started to shine more. Supreme Harmony also starts to become a larger factor when your able to get a max level cd reduction signet in the headpiece (makes it much easier to maintain 100% spirit blade up time with no additional passives dedicated to generating chi).
The largest flaw you will see with blade at endgame is that it offers almost zero group support. Its the only weapon that has not Elites that debil or expose and it does not offer any group cleansing or target purging.
@Drenneth can you please write more about builds one can use with Blade as main weapon? I was about creating new thread asking about this because so far Blade seems a weapon I’m most comfortable to use and wish to do best I can, at least, not care much about ‘as good as everyone else’. 
Though what you already wrote is a lot, thanks!
For Blade builds, I suggest AR or Hammer.
=_=;;
Only half joking. Maybe a quarter joking.
Otherwise, Blade can almost be decent with passive procs stacking, but it also suffers from being very bugged in that many of the boosts it gets don’t apply to all Blade skills… especially that awful slot tax, Spirit Blade. Almost nothing boosts it, which is a shame, as it’s critical to your dps.
Resonance, Masterpiece, Deluge, Draw Sword Draw Blood and Storm Surge all are passives worth looking at. Tsunami vs. Swallow Cut depends on your crit and weapon (consider keeping Tsunami for Razor’s Edge sword, for instance), but every Blade user should have Supreme Harmony and seriously consider using Hone (especially if your offhand isn’t the energy boosting SG).
Well sometimes I need to know who my target audience is and what content you are running because mostly the builds I have are only focused on maximizing dps output for group endgame content. So it may not be as practical for someone who’s just questing and running through the story.
If Crit % is lower then 30% then I’d suggest:
Actives: Flowing Strike, Spirit Blade, Supreme Harmony, Hone, Tsunami, (secondary power ability)
Passives: Draw Sword Draw Blood, Storm Surge, Masterpiece, Keen Edge (secondary passive ability)
If signet of Bladestorm in NOT max level you may need additional chi generation to maintain 100% up time of spirit blade. Replacing the secondary passive ability with Focused Breathing should help with that). Or use a blade that generates chi as Merihem mentioned like razors edge.
If Crit % >30%:
Replace Tsunami with Swallow Cut and replace Storm Surge with Hardened Blade (The hardened blade passive with a max Bladestorm signet and Supreme Harmony is normally enough to keep your spirit blade up all the time).
Now weapon choice is the next big factor. Honestly DPS wise I don’t think anything right now competes with Blade of the Seventh Son MK3 of Energy (preferably) Havoc is nice also. With this weapon the combination of Swallow Cut and Spirit Blade damage accounts for about 70% of my damage output. There are a few options to counter the damage received from this blade. Personally I rely on the Healing from Supreme Harmony so that I can still run laceration signet. However this is not optimal for scenarios, so either a second tali with a cruel delight or a Seventh Son of Restoration is another option. You will of course take a slight loss in dps with each of these options though.
My practice shows that you can run story with almost everything… It can be hard and more struggle than it is for other weapons but you can make it. I did it. 
So I’m interested in scenarios and group stuff so I would feel less useless while still feeling comfortable.
Speaking of weapon choice, what do you think about Soviet Techsword? You kinda can drop Spirit Blade ability with it, can’t you? Or will it still be worse than of Seventh Son one?
Techsword always converts Chi to Spirit Blade hits at the lowest possible ratio, so it’s inherently going to run you short on Chi compared to other swords. No slot tax is nice, but I’d only suggest it offhand.
Something must have gone wrong in the design process. The damage output has been fine since the adjustments but it does pretty much nothing except for dealing damage. You already lose one slot for Spirit Blade and then your elite skill doesn’t contribute anything to group utility either. So you end up something like a Hammer DPS that can’t stun, purge, expose or deal AoE bursts. Which is really bizarre when you consider Blade is a pure DPS weapon. The other two pure DPS weapons, Pistols and Elementalism, both have so much group utility.
Yeah, when other weapons’ utilities are all multipurpose (purge+knockdown, taunt+pull, etc.) Blade’s being only stun or only dash is pretty weak compounded with already being down a slot for spirit blade. On my hammer build I can fit 2 purges, 2 impairs, expose, and still be doing most of my dps.
I came up with a setup that worked really well when I was training up my weapons… don’t recall exactly what was in it anymore though.
Had an expose, the elite that gives a damage bonus, and the 2x dash though (was that the expose? too lazy to look :). Also tsunami. You chain em all together and you can do some big damage in a short period of time… very front loaded. things melted. 
actually 1:1 would be good ratio for 2 or 3 chi you get less then that. You always need to convert 1, 4 or 5. And only 5 gives you 1 bonus chi.
Main problem with Techsword is it doesn’t do anything else so you’re effectively loosing any sword effect for one free active slot with worse chi conversion (while 61% to spirit blade is what gives you >+10% of damage). And you don’t have many better skills to put there. Namely either self cleanse, which is nice, but you already have one so not necessary. Or not that great self boost. With both having chi bonus almost compensating chi conversion loss. But neither equates damage buff from Seventh Son which you simply loose.
Anyway, the very basic rules I wrote here since more people were asking for blade:
https://notehub.org/d5i9f
Yep things dieing faster is generally the best advice when it comes to survival
Ok, but would Soothing Spring be alright in a scenario build? Or am I just wasting it when I could just go dps everything to death? I haven’t done scenarios in a while btw, so I don’t know the general idea of what to bring to them.
On another note, I know how blade could be overshadowed by other weapons in general, but I still use it for soloing/scenarios anyway. For fun and spamming dash as much as possible. So I appreciate all the tips given here and any other tips.
You should not need it for mobs. Cruel Delight start paying off quite soon.
I used SS for strong bosses I could not kill before I lost all HP buffer. But that happened first on E6. Then you may use SS instead of spirit blade (if you really need heals, you will want from blade overflow as well). Then you can stand there forever. Takes longer but you won’t be killed.
Truth about Soothing actually is it’s not bad skill at all. It helps generate chi, it’s 6s lasting cleanse for everything and with Cruel Delight it keeps you alive while standing in lava, or electricity, or death cloud even in E10 dungs. There just is not free slot for it if your secondary takes two slot.
It’s amazing how many people still think blade is a bad dps weapon =)
That’s 'cause it is.
It’s a ramp weapon in a burst game that almost completely lacks team utility. Moreover, it doesn’t even begin to shine until endgame crit levels.
As a Blade user, I say it’s mostly crap for anything outside the derptastic solo content.
I was pretty ok during the entire leveling process, that’s why I stick with it because it never felt that bad as all people were saying. It just needed to adapt build for situation several times, that’s all.
It’s not a bad weapon, it’s just consistently worse at everything except self-healing. Whereas rifle’s bad at everything except dps (and at least has its elite expose) which is a fine place to be.
I assume end-game crit is necessary to make energy more neutral to make Hardened Blade good to make Spirit Blade good? I’m right at the borderline (32% crit with my blade using 4 max mythic and 1 low level crit) and spirit blade randomly fails every few minutes due to combination lack of crits + lack of chi.
I would say the Blade is bad as criticism directed towards Funcom. It’s serviceable from a purely single target DPS standpoint, but that’s all it does. Which is a problem unique to the Blade. Arguably Fists share the same problem in DPS role (on top of the low DPS), but Fists offer great utility while healing so people tend to ignore the other half. Blade doesn’t have that luxury since it’s a single role weapon.
It’s really weird. When you look at the entirety of 15 abilities, Blade already doesn’t have much variety in group utility compared to the other single role DPS weapons. On top of that, it struggles to bring what little utility it has without significant compromise. When dual-role weapons bring top tier DPS and significant group utility with a selection of 7-8 skills, there really is no excuse for Blade’s design other than deliberately committing to creating some kind of “selfish weapon”.