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Bladestalker - An advanced Bladedancer soloing build
NOTE: Because there's been some confusion, I feel the need to clarify: this spec is for open world content, mainly solo questing. Do not use it in dungeons, raids, or PvP. If you want something with a similar playstyle for group content, try 61 Bladedancer.
I've had a fair number of people ask me about the soloing spec I use, so I decided to write this guide. I've found that it's more significantly more effective than any other level 50+ solo build out there, but it's also a quite a bit more complex to play.
Unfortunately, though, the spec doesn't work all that well until level 50, and is essentially nonfunctional before level 30. For that reason, I'll be focusing on level 50 and up in this guide.
If you rotate your dances properly, you have incredibly powerful AoE DPS and are borderline invincible, but Bladedancer still brings pretty good single-target DPS to the table. Combine these and you have a spec that can mow down huge packs of enemies at once, while still finishing off single enemies and bosses very efficiently.
That being said, this build isn't as simple to play as some of the other soloing builds out there. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's hard, but it can take some getting used to if you're unfamiliar with Bladedancer, and this may not be the best choice if you want a more mindless spec for grinding.
Talents
At level 60, you'll use 51BD/21RS/4Tact. For lower levels, just take points out of Riftstalker. The core of the build is 51BD for full dance uptime, 4 Tactician for Curative Engine, and 8 in Riftstalker for Boosted Recovery. Everything past that is nice, particularly the extra survivability from the Riftstalker gift, but it's not crucial.
You have some leeway on where to place your points, particularly in Riftstalker. If you want to focus a bit more on defense, try dropping some points from Planar Boost or Shadow Assault to pick up some more resists or endurance.
Buffs: Curative Engine, Planebound Resilience, Combat Preparation, Stalker Phase
Why not take Reprisal?
If you macro Reprisal in, it's actually a DPS loss, because it uses up Deadly Dance charges on a very weak attack. If you don't macro it and alter your ST rotation to QS->KS->QS->KS+Reprisal->Finisher every time you get a proc (or, for AoE, TS->TS->TS->Reprisal->Compound), it's a very small DPS gain.
But considering how low your avoidance is, I find it to be way more trouble than it's worth. To put a talent into it, you'd have to drop either a stronger ST DPS talent, or sacrifice some AoE damage, and, in my opinion, neither of those are good trade-offs.
Why not take Defensive Pose?
It guts your energy regeneration and isn't very good to begin with. On top of that, it means you'll need to give up something else more valuable. You can use it if you really want, but again, I've found that it's not worth it, since this build is already extremely durable.
Masteries
61: Planar Replenishment
62: Ascended Biology
63: Sprinter's Guile
64: Timed Focus
65: Planar Variation
The Basics
If you've played 61 Bladedancer at level 60, then this will be very familiar.
Let's start off by covering the basics.
Bladedancer is all about the dances. These are a set of five 21-second self-buffs with 60-second cooldowns, and they overwrite each other if you try to use them while another is already on. In practice, this means you can have one up at all times. They are:
Keeping an eye on which dance you should be using can be daunting, so you may want to use an addon for that. Check the Addon section below for help on setting one up if you need help.
On top of those cooldowns, you have Dancing Steel (DS) and Hundred Blades (HB), which both do massive AoE damage over six seconds, and have thirty-second cooldowns. Dancing Steel does damage in a circle around you, and Hundred Blades is a cone in front of you. Hundred Blades does slightly more damage than Dancing Steel. These two abilities will make up the bulk of your AoE damage.
Now, your dances are good for different situations. Dualism is a huge increase to single-target damage, but doesn't affect AoE at all. B&SP is by far your strongest cooldown, and it also raises the damage of HB and DS. Double Coup affects both ST and AoE builders, but not HB or DS. Blade Tempo does affect HB and DS (although it's weaker than B&SP), but is worse than the other dances for everything else. Side Steps makes you virtually immortal and also boosts your damage by making you get Strike Back procs like a madman.
Put the following abilities on your bars:
- Keen Strike
- Precision Strike
- Quick Strike
- Dauntless Strike
- Twin Strike
- Compound Attack
- Hundred Blades
- Dancing Steel
- Meditative Trance
- Sprint
- Blade and Soul Parity
- Dualism
- Double Coup
- Blade Tempo
- Side Steps
- Shadow Shift
- Shadow Assault
- Shadow Blitz (you can macro this in with Shadow Assault if you want)
- Flash of Steel
- Weapon Barrage
- Instigate (optional, but occasionally useful)
- Disengage (optional)
- Untangle (You can macro this to Break Free if you want)
Cooldown Management
Now that that's covered, let's look at how to manage these cooldowns.
You'll want to have a dance up any time that you're in combat. For single-target damage, B&SP>Dualism>Double Coup>Blade Tempo, but I tend to save B&SP for AoE whenever I can.
For AoE, the priority is a bit more complicated. If you're using Hundred Blades or Dancing Steel, then B&SP>Blade Tempo. If you're using Twin Strike and Compound Strike, then B&SP>Double Coup>Blade Tempo. I try to save B&SP for when I'm fighting four or more enemies at once, and use other dances for smaller packs if they're available.
Side Steps isn't really a part of the DPS-focused rotation, but if you can pull 6+ mobs to you at once, then you'll probably want to use it while burning them down with Hundred Blades. As mentioned above, it will still increase your damage somewhat due to all the extra Strike Back procs you get.
For the most part, cooldown management just takes practice. As you grow more experienced with this build, you'll start to manage your dances intuitively so that you can sync your highest damage spikes to the largest enemy packs you can find.
Rotation and Priority
First off, let's look at ST damage.
The single-target priority is fairly simple: you want to use at least 3 builders after each finisher (so that you use up all of your Deadly Dance charges), you want to end each builder sequence with Keen Strike (so that you can use follow-up->Keen Strike->follow-up after your next finisher), and you want to get as many follow-up attacks as possible (because they do more damage than Keen Strike).
Your follow-up attacks are Precision Strike (PS) and Quick Strike (QS), and they can only be used after Keen Strike. Precision Strike does slightly less damage than Quick Strike, but generates two combo points instead of one. Your finisher is Dauntless Strike (DS), but if you need healing, use Meditative Trance instead.
This means that the basic rotation is:
QS->KS->PS->KS->DS
This gives you five combo points and lets you start the next sequence with another follow-up attack.
During Dualism, alternate between these two builder sequences:
QS->KS->QS->DS
KS->PS->KS->DS
For the very beginning of a fight, if your follow-up attacks aren't enabled, use:
Gap Closer->KS->DS
(Gap closers are Shadow Assault, Shadow Blitz, and Flash of Steel. The first two of those will proc Rift Guard and Stalker Phase, but have longer cooldowns.)
AoE Rotation
I've already discussed how to use Hundred Blades and Dancing Steel, and those are going to be most of your AoE damage. Still, you'll generally need to do some AOE without either of them.
If there's only two targets, just use the single-target builder rotation and finish with Compound Attack instead of Dauntless Strike. For three or more, use this rotation:
Twin Strike->Twin Strike->Twin Strike->Compound Attack
Other Tips
- Use Empyrean Bolt to grab mobs from 30 yards away and group them up for AoE. If you keep hitting enemies with it while they chase you, they won't leash back to their spawn point.
- Use Weapon Barrage to interrupt casters-- this will silence them and force them to run to you, which helps to stack up enemies. Plus, interrupting the cast will cause you to take less damage.
- Your AoEs have a target cap (of either 8 or 5, depending on which abilities you're looking at), but Side Steps lets you get Strike Back procs on an unlimited number of foes. There are a few quests and IAs where you fight a ton of weak enemies at once, and Side Steps will let you kill them quickly.
- If you have Vampiric Essence from Death planar attunement, be sure to put it on both of your weapons. It'll provide a large boost to self-healing, especially during Hundred Blades and Dancing Steel.
- Hundred Blades actually has a pretty large cone, which means you can use it to kill spread out ranged and caster mobs. But because it's so big, it's also easy to pull enemies that you don't expect, so you may need to be careful with it in some areas.
- If an enemy is going to die on the next hit, and you're at five combo points, don't waste a finisher-- just kill them with a builder so you can start the next group at full CPs.
- This spec plays almost exactly the same as 61 Bladedancer, which means that if you ever end up using that spec, you'll already have some experience under your belt.
- When Side Steps is up, you can sometimes use interactable quest items even while being attacked, because dodged hits don't interrupt you. This is useful on rare occasions. You can also use Disengage to stun opponents and use quest items while they're disabled.
- In areas with lots of ranged mobs and casters, it can be helpful to find a spot where you can line-of-sight enemies around terrain to make them stack up.
Karuul Alert
I strongly recommend using Karuul Alert to track the durations and cooldowns of your dances. Try importing the following set:
With that set, you'll get something that looks like this:Code:KA::AQ0dXeNq1lt9umzAUxl+FJ+hsA7aRrwwYdRdboobdVUJucFpUChE2m7o/7z5D0hZSorGkCbl wOObk95nvHDtuG2mKunIggyxl21I+q6YfJvYKS5krR1a5s6rb0lnKpjDPjHtIxBQBSjlMIuIDBuw T3fxudFNsDIulkZ9uv32+lXdFaZ/JinVd6dtGfS+MLIufCq6v8lwz7LuMuh7zaPftGFgkvqbiphv B/nKBhUlfbve/cP9Xye+4tbn005Ac7clfQhxQzv0giH1PRJabz2bN1aZU625toOxZiR+cwgpfYZU lMs6y1ur9WqdsFOdJTCBMuPBCDDF2g9nYP2RT1k2eNUrmz9m21qZtVPamgFA4UPBLG7l+1H9Yulg eikE7MeEiTRdf9kE0krQqrDtWRm31+1eQskGUYx5z5MeRCGgIPBLOlqNtkkx3SXoFAaTnvINQrpZ Tbpnrc3yy0QnA54Bft1XeqNzpQfWUhIMZPIkwCjgROKQBSWI8e8XvugS5rNaqyR52SbP+ns7eanb somtn95lyESS9qkGEjKti33+84/0nVU/bmnHi+cAFIIkoIVQg//8UZabL8gFNZ8g04frLIFPsn9V 77OssqvuuGlXZox62y9EEnoS2Yn0XEEExCimZ3zR3ebqKVeWkWwCLX9wy6iyHhhkHR55ZbDYPXa2 G7WYzFDN2zXWrTWk7KUKJgIID6AYUxMibrWVTVLLUpikeFXyt4bGUf7bP5Mi+tTc9mjL9Bbauc7f ZPa4/hXuJNv9BvO7k8tbtXamcqG63FjiMOQhcSFyYeLZMT1hib/0hR5kB1dRx5kLQFKLz+kpb2SL T2hqgq5MB+pWRzb0ye7KuwxxMtUccT7iui32SCCH84JTCRJOFadmP70THzzN/AVCwSD0
Conclusion
This build may take a bit more effort than others, but it's definitely worth it. If you have any questions, ask away.
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Originally Posted by Cambios 
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