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Blademaster combat
So there are obviously threads in this section posing questions and getting answers for various situations. I wrote up a synopsis of how a Blademaster can kill and wanted to post it here for future people to be able to read should they need it! If you want to add anything, or tell me I'm wrong and correct me, please feel free to do so!
Thanks
Blademasters
As a Blademaster, your main goal is to kill through stacking bleeding which allows you to BrokenStar your enemy. To BrokenStar, your enemy has to have a minimum of 600 bleeding. There are several ways to do this, and also some techniques that do not require any bleeding prep at all. Below will be a synopsis of these strategies.
-------------------------------------------------------Stances------------------------------------------------------
We have several stances at our disposal. We have Doya, Thyr, Mir, Arash, Sanya (in order you get them in TwoArts). Doya is a slow stance that does increased limb damage, better accuracy for a speed reduction. Thyr is the fastest stance, with reduced limb damage. Mir is the slowest stance, with greatly increased defense but with the limb damage of Unstanced. Arash is slower than Thyr but faster than Sanya, but does tremendous damage. Unfortunately, your damage taken also increases tremendously and this stance should be used only when you are sure you are capable of surviving shortly after. Arash gives the highest limb damage per hit. Sanya has increased Shin generation, increased offense and unchanged defense.
Primarily in 1v1 or group situations, you will want to use Thyr/Sanya/Mir/Arash/Doya in terms of importance. Obviously this will change depending on the situation you find yourself in.
-----------------------------------------------------Kill Methods-------------------------------------------------
Firstly, you have to be able to stick Impaleslash on your opponent in order to get any of the bleeding levels you want. Impaleslash makes clotting use more mana thereby making it less effective overall.
The next few strategies will be with pre-impaleslash. To do this, you have a few options: You can pommelstrike/strike knees on your opponent using a long balance. You can use paralysis stacking (pommelstrike/strike neck 3 times with lvl3 band, 4 times with lvl0 band unhindered) which allows you to beat herb balance. If they are paralysed you can impale. When you impale, you are guaranteed a balance of action before they writhe (IE Impaleslash, bladetwist). You can also do this with voidfist and pommelstrike/strike neck. When your opponent shields, you can raze/strike knees and you will get balance before they do thereby allowing you to impale as well. Figure out some other methods on your own, there are lots of options!
-----------------------------------------Pre Impaleslash – Two legs broken------------------------------------
First, you have to prep both of the legs by legslashing on alternate sides. Left/Right into a “prep” which allows you to slash on either side and break both legs. You will need to practice this more than anything else, as breaking limbs simultaneously is absolutely required on anyone who knows how to fight a Blademaster. To bypass parry you can use the paralysis stacking as detailed before, or you can use your Striking ability Airfist. Airfist gives about a 50% chance of bypassing parry, but 100% against Monk guarding.
When you legslash/strike knees to break both legs. You will impale, and you will get the time to bladetwist 4 times (assuming you don't make any mistakes). This usually equates to ~700-800 bleeding depending on your opponent. They will writhe, and you will get balance to BrokenStar immediately before they stand. This is the easiest kill method, but also the one that works less and less as you get into more advanced fights.
-----------------------------------------------Two Legs, Torso-----------------------------------------------------
As before, you'll prep both legs for the break. Also, in this method you will be prepping their torso. You can do this by centreslash, or by compassslash. You will want to slash to break torso, then slash to break legs/prone immediately after. With a broken Torso, each bladetwist does an increased amount of bleeding. You'll want to impale and on balance Impaleslash. You will have time/balance to bladetwist twice more after this. They will writhe off, and you can then re-impale or Brokenstar depending on their bleeding. I usually recommend impaling once more and twisting, just to try to make sure. When they writhe they will stand and can then leave the room, so choose carefully. This method is a bleeding burst that usually outstrips your enemies attempt to clot.
-----------------------------------------------Head, Torso, Two Legs------------------------------------------
This is a slight variation of the above. In this scenario you also prep their head and torso to break in one slash. Most enemies will apply to their head when you break torso/head. You can then break legs/prone and impale right as they apply to their leg. In this method you have the same options as above. Impale/Impaleslash/Bladetwistx2/(Impale or BrokenStar). What this does is ensures that they do not have the salve balance to heal their torso before you can break their legs.
------------------------------------------------------6 limb--------------------------------------------------------
This scenario is the hardest to execute correctly, as your enemies will have many options and times to get away from you. Here we will prep both legs, head/torso, and both arms. You will want to break Head/Torso then Arms, then Legs. Depending on your speed (band), you can force them to apply to arms before you break legs, which gives you time for an extra bladetwist after your impale – or you can break legs immediately after arms, whereby they do not apply to arms but immediately to legs after their head. This sequence gives you the option of locking, or brokenstar due to the broken arms. Most enemies will not stand around long enough to allow this, but you can use some breaks as decoys (break arms randomly, let them leave and come back to break head/torso>leg/leg, etc).
------------------------------------------------------Damage---------------------------------------------------------
In this scenario we will be using more Fists, and switching stances. You will want to prep both legs for break, in whatever stance you are comfortable with. At this point, you will want to run away and switch your stance to Arash. We run away for two reasons: Give the impression that you were worried, and they do not know you switched stance. When you go back, you will want to Flamefist your enemy. Flamefist negates rebounding, and makes it so that you can string attacks without worrying about hitting it for a time. Here we will break legs.
Now, after we break legs, we want to immediately begin balanceslash/strike sternum. This is the highest damage attack that Blademaster has in a PK setting. While your enemy is prone, Arash cannot miss. With a double leg break you will either get 4(lvl 0 band) or 5(lvl 3 band) hits will prone. With that you can do balance/sternum 3x, and Multislash as your finisher. Now, you have two options to increase your chances of landing this kill – your infuses.
Infusing ice will hit the enemy with shivering>frozen>disrupt. Using this in conjunction with your leg break, you can throw off salve timing by them applying caloric. Also, using Ice infuses turns your damage into Ice, which there are few ways to mitigate.
Infusing fire will set the enemy ablaze. Everytime your fire infuse hits after they are emblazed, you get a small damage hit from burning them.
Usually, the Ice setup works a bit better than the Fire setup, as there are more resistances to Fire damage than Ice damage.
You can also engage after your multislash, so that if they do survive and stand up and try to run, they will also get hit by engage.
---------------------------------------------------Locking------------------------------------------------------------
You have a few options for Locking. Primarily you can prep both legs, prep both arms, break legs, break arms so that they will cure both legs and stand before even applying to arms. This is 9s-10s of time that you can stack afflictions. Pommelstrike/strike is your fastest way of afflicting. Hypochondria is currently the only way that a Blademaster can give Impatience to seal a lock, therefore you need to afflict that first and ensure that you stick it. Impatience, Weariness, Anorexia, Slickness, Asthma (paralysis/prone) are the afflictions that you need to be sticking.
Another method is stacking using pommelstrikes. This is more difficult as most classes can hinder you enough. However if you unhindered enough ever 4th pommelstrike (lvl0 band) or every 3rd (lvl3 band) affliction beats herb balance. Meaning you can do neck, neck, neck, asthma – and your asthma affliction immediately follows a paralysis cure. Meaning you can then hit paralysis again and now you have “stuck” asthma.
Another option is through Voidfist. Voidfist has a chance of making an eaten herb have no effect. Through this you can stack quickly because they are unable to cure anything. Given enough afflictions and time, you can lock them.
Blademaster has a lot of options and avenues to setup kill strategies. Work on your own methods and see what you can come up with!
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Comments
Why use pommelstrike when they're off balance to pre-impaleslash, rather than balanceslash?
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
1) Alternating sides (left-right-left-right-etc) will double-break on an odd-numbered slash.
2) Alternating sides will double-break on an even-numbered slash.
3) One compass to each limb, then alternating slashes will break on an even-numbered slash.
So if you're doing alternating slashes and suddenly one of your slashes only breaks one limb, compass the other limb (to break it and reset the count), then compass both, then you know it will double-break one arm/leg/centreslash sooner than it single-broke.
So if you do left-right-left-right-left and that last left breaks just the left limb (rather than both), compass the right to break it and reset its damage, compass the left and the right once each, then it'll double-break on left-right-left-right.
You'll still want to try to make/find a proper limb counter so you don't have to do a test-break first, but once you know this, if your counter is ever wrong and you single-break, you'll know exactly what you need to do to prep for the double-break without any further testing against the person (so you'll only ever be wrong about the correct prep path against someone a maximum of one time).
If's a good guide!
When do you try to go for locks, if you do so at all?
What kind of strikes do you do for your limb prep? Do you just alternate slashes or stack certain numbers of strikes on each limb before moving on.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Versus tumble, just follow on balance and impale again. If runies them evade so no naira hit. Can't writhe off balance, so be fast and tumble basically is free twists.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
And is there some hidden use for thunderstorm/blizzard? The eq/shin cost and the afflictions for what you get seem a bit minimal. Maybe have a team of blademasters do it in unison but you'd just hit each other.
When I tested thunderstorm, sometimes it gave paralysis instead of epilepsy. Maybe blizzard deals more damage the more frozen someone is??
Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.