This is a very good description of the situation blade is in at the moment. +1
Also @Elenoe that’s a very nice summary for blade you put together. I may have missed it when I skimmed through but is there any reason (other then the fact you use 2 abilities from ele) that you don’t use Hone with its passive? Seems it would be quite good at max crit glyphs.
I suppose the question is if someone decided not to use the Voltaic Shunt and instead use an offhand that took only one slot would you recommend Hone at max crit rating?
I tried inverter + hone combination. It didn’t work that well. First it grants 2 energy and 1 chi every 20s. That’s pitiful. You get more energy from “of energy” weapon (which is not much) and 4x more energy from red Vali. You get more then twice chi from Focused Breathing. So much for active part.
Passive part means you get 40% (only for blade) for 5s. Compare that to Opening Shot which grants 30% for 8s (which also is group buff and doesn’t need passive to work ffs FC!). And even opening shot brings you barely 3% boost. Take that you need to sacrifice another passive, Resonance from my build, which is 2% of damage.
So you get nearly nothing in return. It’s real usage is further more hindered by the fact it’s 20s CD while your main rotation is 13s. So you either use it every 26-28s or you will use it on basic attacks. Both variants sucks (as you should already know if you’ve ever tried to “use” opening buff window which doesn’t work very well with blade).
If I had one more slot (an actual free slot, imagine that freedom, as all others are mandatory) you could rather pick Soothing Spring and be free from any environmental damage or any detrimental ever. Or an AoE skill for which there is no space in blade builds if you also need single target.
I know of people who use blade/ele for scenarios. I don’t know if they use Spirit Blade; personally I wouldn’t because Chi Overload is a solid self-heal and a source of healing is necessary in scenarios.
That’s good to hear. I might try a no Spirit-Blade run and see how it works out. I haven’t gotten to the later scenarios past e4 yet. I’m using Crystalized Flame + Blizzard for AOE (using an Inverter) with Blade Tsunami as single target only. Though for all I know Ele might be outputting more dmg than Blade but oh well. To add to this, I really do like the self heals on Blade.
Yes. Personally I wouldn’t want to rely on only them, but that’s a matter of taste.
(I personally use Thirst, Starspawn, Contradiction, Anima-Touched Blade, Chi-Overload, and Paradoxical Restoration, but I like building a lot more tanky than most people do.)
I have always been of the opinion that the faster things die the less chance they have to kill you and the more chance you have to prepare for other events in scenarios. However it is a balancing act. Aim to kill spawns with a few seconds to spare in between spawns because if you get behind it’s an uphill battle. Likewise dieing will set you back equally as much. Personally all I use is Anima touched blade and cruel delight for healing + some healing from supreme harmony. Also 90% of my damage comes from blade. But this is unique to having an Anima touched blade I would suspect some defensive cd or additional healing might be required with another blade.
Also since I forgot @Elenoe thanks for the input on hone. I don’t personally have the same ele focus as yourself but I do have a fully levelled Maul and KSR and have been playing around with them utilizing the second active slot. Certainly seems like an improvement removing Hone, either parsing the same or higher with the few setups I’ve tested this far.
Perfectly. Slots are kinda limiting. But blade is actually very coherent with scenarios. While path there was not always easy I still managed to not fail any scenario while running the highest tier I could due to IP.
While I can only speak from the E10 perspective now a few things I’ve learned along the way (so not all things were tested/used on lower tiers, but they will apply the more the further you will be):
use your final sword - Blade of Seventh Son (that gives significant bonus to spirit blade)
use your blade AOE with passive (blade has strong AOE thanks to boosted spirit blade), it almost matches single target skills in damage
learn to use Supreme Harmony ASAP, that skill is necessity. Provides you chi, speed, cleanse and damage boost. When I finally gave up ele Elite because of bladestorm instead of ascendant it made my life so much easier in many ways
use signet of bladestorm or ascendant in head. Eventually when fully leveled you may use Harmony boost for every wave
use signet of cruel delight, that and AOE will make you alive through any wave eventually, nothing else ever needed. That thing will heal you for 1.3k per second eventually. Thirst is not an option for blade that is (it’s usefulness ends somewhere at Mythic 1).
use “Draw sword, draw blood”, it’s coherent with scenarios (usually replaces your dung “Focused breathing” which doesn’t work in scenarios)
ele offhand is not the best there. I used flame + overload (interrupt + purge is more useful) but going offensive with Seventh Son + Harmony + Hurricane made it much more quicker and easier. So I use flame + mjolnir but they are subpar compared to Hurricane. Helps only for single targets and range pulls. Any burst weapon would do better job. Ele is slow and in scenarios anything except inverter can’t be overheated. And if you have inverter, you have that one missing slot for single target blade ability
don’t try to use Anima-infused blade, it’s not worth it. Being there. Done that. The only AI blade that would be remotely worth something is “of Restoration”, and only for new PvP mode, and only if they ever screw AR. I have serious doubts about last two things so that’s about AI blades
don’t try to use Techsword in mainhand. No active skill will grant you what Seventh Son does.
I’ve always had 3 scenario/survival variants. One AOE described above with interrupt gadget. One with Swallow cut instead of Hurricane for bosses. And one super defensive where you replace Spirit blade with Soothing Spring and get Immortal Spirit and Clairvoyance. In this build you get passive heals, passive barrier, active heal at disposal and chi overflow all the time. But it’s been very long since I’ve used it. It was before Cruel Delight era as Thirst did bad job keeping me alive through constantly received damage. It took ages to kill boss this way. But where you need heal, you don’t need spirit blade.
If you don’t know/use, Boobuilds mod is great. First it allows you to switch builds even when skills are on CD (important in scenarios). Second it hijacks weapon swap key so you can switch last two builds with a key allowing you to switch ST/AOE at will anytime outside combat. (Or set macro keys on keyboard/mouse to switch to specific builds, that’s what I use.)
Blade seems to be the go-to solo weapon with self-heal and passable dps.
TBH, though, I think Blade should be reworked completely and given a proper role in group scenarios. The animations are quite horrid, too, and the slot tax is stupid. It was one of my favourites in TSW but is probably my least favourite now.
I dont like ppl that always encourage ppl to go meta when they ask for a proper build for a non meta weapon,those guys are killing the diversity and by that killing the game.Non-meta weapons can work.For example I do 34k even 37k dps with blood on mbs and regionales,competible with random same ip meta guys(but surely not good ones).Good Blade players can do just even more because Blade has more raw potential.Once you are good with mainten sb and being melee,you can go 40k as I know.
Not sure that you can really claim that comments made over a year ago are killing the game. Reading the thread, most of the posts have already made the point that blade can work. The OP asked if the damage output was high compared to the amount of effort involved, so comparing meta is actually relevant.
It’s a bit of a necro by Ceruleana, but it’s mostly pretty supportive of blades.
I still love using blade in DA on lower characters it’s not always the fastest method, but it’s a great way to practice melee skills and maintaining a high up time on the boss without standing in too many fires!
well ar–particulary ksr is actualy very broken.top ksr players are doing constantly 42-45k dps and 50k+ dps in short fights.I expecting a weapon overhual in the furture but well…who knows,they even make nemain signets to make ksr more broken.
just comparing the capacity of doing dps and the effort it needs of meta weapons to non meta weapons,you Will know why they are broken.Yes every mmo would have something “best” balance o not,but a unbalanced weapon system the best is way too superior comparing with other weapons.This is a problema,and also the unblance of weapon system is responsable for killing the pvp.
The level of broken-ness is fairly subjective. I’m not going to argue that the weapons are balanced, but just because a weapon does more DPS than yours doesn’t make it broken. It’s most extreme when compared to blade, because blade performs poorly in comparison to almost everything.
I’m half remembering stuff here, but I think that the MIRV can out parse the KSR, but is a bit more subject to RNG. The KSR is popular because it simplifies the grenade mechanic.
PVP has all kinds of problems, laying them all at the door of the weapon imbalance is an epic over-simplification.
mirv cant out parse ksr,it only theoricaly Works better on very largr hitbox targets which are rare situation.And,theoricaly.In real fights I only see ksr/maul users abal to do constantly 40k dps and 50k+ burst dps.none of other weapons can,not even close.
If some weapon is ridiculously better tan any others,it is consider broken.Though broken weapon dont have a huge impact in pve–it just provoke side effect like kill diversity o make content utter boring,it does being a factor to sink pvp more and it is broken as a fact no matter ppl confes o not.
It is like obj268v4,its not bug o exploit but it simple overmatched any other tanks with the same tier same role by a ridiculous amount.Its not balanced,so it is broken.Broken not means buggy,it means it is in a extreme status of unbalance.In pvp game the unbalance is more noticeble and being complained by more ppl,but it is not means that unbalance matters not in a pve game.
There could be diference and balance.Balance not means the same playstyle,balance means weapons of same role have similar potential.And they can also be very diferent experience of play by diferent mechanic/gimmick.Its like blood and pistol,for example,they have similar potential,but their playstyle/experience are totaly diferent.The same things could come to pvp mode,if you played world of tanks,lets imagine a Maus and a T110E5 and a obj277,very diferent playstyle,but they are similar potential,so they are diferent but balanced.
The unbalance is never suported diversity,instead of that it kills diversity.If something is ridiculously better tan anything else,most ppl Will just rush for that thing,eventualy,you Will see everyone—almost everyone,use the same weapon and the same build.And when things come to like a team of full overgeared meta guys melt e10 boss in 16s avoid the dungeon mechanic,there Will be no fun left.at least for me.
I can say why AR/KSR is broken from my semi-casual point of view. I posted same here year ago or so: AR+KSR combines best or good parts of other weapons without sacrificing anything.
Long range
Bust potential. (I tried to use High-Yield but stopped very fast. With KSR/Ham users in team bosses/adds are just dead or switch phase before my grenades are cooked)
AOE as part of main build.
heal including immortality heal.
purge
I was corrected before that AR damage is not that much better then other weapons but still I think +10-15% were mentioned.
Abilities are instant casted.
There are only pros without any cons. FC forgot to add cleanse though. What a oversight. We need AR signet that cleanses. Original AR has rather annoying mechanic that balances things but KSR removes it.
TSW had its own elephant - Elemental Force. Remember, there were not many builds without? SWL has two - dps meta and sustain tanking.
I bet funcom WANT to balance the weapons,thats why they insta nerfed the grimoire of foul gods,thats why they nerf fist.So if they want to make weapon system balanced,then ksr/maul is out of what they intended.I dont think any developer team INTEDED to make stuff unbalance,as I dont think they intended to make onlu sustain tank viable thus make healer in most case useless because…hey they make so much healer specific stuffs.
So if a weapon is op,in the case of weapon balance,it is broken.Perhaps you as a english man think the Word broken not fit this case,I dont know…but I think I explained what exactly I want to express so it is ok for me.
PVP and weapon balance is not a totaly separate thing,pvp is competition,and the imbalance of weapon system is a factor that make the competition either not fair o not fun----the last case is everyone going meta.Its not the only reason that pvp is dead sure,but you cant refuse that it is a factor,it matters.
If you send in a team of players with max ip then they Will melt e10 bosses with any weapons true but not in that way,10s kill e10 boss overcomed any mechanic before it even happen.4 dps with average 40k is not the same thing as 4 dps average 30k,and I see few ppl not using meta can do average 30k to be honest even with full ip.
And you are right,we are not here to derail the topic,but by the way,even if I am using meta weapons like you and many others,it also wont be dificult for me to admit that meta is utterly op.
Hammer/AR parse very randomly cause they have the largest single hits with the right rng and crit power is so high endgame. I can do low 130ks in regular group content (so, exposed+opening shot) with a crit Eruption and when that happens in a short fight it’s +10k or more dps for me.
I’m really in the same position as far as “pick the weapon you want” though… I picked hammer cause I like how its gimmick plays and I want to be able to tank, I might be better off if it wasn’t recommended as the meta weapon of choice cause I could have actually afforded a properly specced weapon instead of going with a red road of efficiency.
it’s not always the fastest method, but it’s a great way to practice melee skills and maintaining a high up time on the boss without standing in too many fires!