Post 1.1 Bladedancer ownage

[Hokonoso]

Since tons of NB builds out there and for some unknown reason no BD builds I will post mine.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...0Azsoohbz.V0xM

Basically I perfer this over the nb/sin/rng build for 1 simple reason, 5% hit chance means I can stack crit and still not miss. I have about 43% crit with dauntless strike running and beat everyone besides beastmasters in single target dps, and i mean everyone (including nightblades). To put it simply, bladedancer abilities hit MUCH harder than assasssin and nightblade abilities and there are way less of them with 0 dots in the rotation making a very simple rotation for high dps.

I literally have 1 macro and then have my finishers on my bar. Macro looks like this

#show Weapon Barrage (this allows me to see when it is off cooldown)
cast Precision Strike
cast Quick Strike
cast Keen Strike
cast Weapon Barrage (you have to spam it when on gcd for it to go off, allows you to maximize dps or hold on to it for an interrupt)
cast Blade Tempo (easy to not activate if you dont want, but more dps if you do asap)
cast Double Coup (chains right after blade tempo for max burst)

That is my only macro, you also want to use dancing steel right after blade tempo, and use Lethal poison and Hellfire blades.

A max dps rotation will start expose weakness -> dark malady -> blade tempo -> dancing steel for 50% bonus dmg to it which is insane, then spam 1 till 5 cps then finishers (dauntless if no bard)

This build pulls high threat so be careful, I have Side Steps hotkeyed so when I get aggro i can mash it asap!

Basically this build requires 17 in sin 12 in nb and 32 in bd leaving you with 5 leftover points to do with as you choose, I put 1 in bd and 4 in sin for perma stealth, improved stealth and blind, 3 things I find very useful in experts AND world pvp, you have no idea how many times blind has saved me in both and improved stealth with perma stealth is mandatory if you wish to CC or world pvp at all.

for world pvp this build gives you a disarm, charge/root, 50% snare that lasts for a very long time, and tons of burst dmg from stealth if done right.

For a reference point on dps since i have no parses ready. Fully buffed I do about 600 ranged dps as a saboteur (cookie cutter build, prob more if I went ranger or whatever for ranged auto attacks). This build stays in the 700-800ish range depending on movement and much higher for trash, topping around 2900 when dancing steel is up on aoe pulls.

I've only tested this build in t1s and t2s so dunno what it will do in a raid situation, but this build beats nb for me and allows better itemization so you dont need that crappy hit gear which lowers your dps tremendously! also the rotation is warrior-esque (ie 2 buttons) and doesnt require the use of any dots whatsoever, though puncture may increase dps some i have no idea, quick strike seems to do a TON of dmg and is nearly spammable...

On a side note, I stack crit, I do not have a single piece of gear on me with AP, every last piece is dex/crit or dex/hit, to achieve this I have to mix-match blues... note the 43% self-buffed crit. I also never run out of energy with a bard/chloro, I can simply spam abilities every gcd for the duration of a fight!

[Heimer73]

Ty will give it a try when I get home.

[Fidler]

Nice build, i use almost the same, call it the " shaft build"

Why not put some of the sin points to better use, With puncture in ur rotation, u build combo points much faster, and we can always use more dots.

likewise i dont see the point, in using points for stealth, if u are gonna use it as a dungeon/raid build. I choose to go with 3 points in fire and death attunement for 3% more dam.
and 1 point in combat culmination, for 5 energy refund p. unused combo point.

[Hokonoso]

Also should put a pros and cons to this over the nb/sin/rng build

Pros: easy rotation (losing your rotation once and drop your dps by 100 as nb, losing 1 fiery spike is huge!)
3 cooldowns instead of 1 to help maximize dps every 2minutes
never run out of energy (nb still does)
start with 120 energy instead of 100
more utility (charge/root, snare, disarm, interrupt)
0 dots 0 spell dmg (feels like a pure melee class, what paragon should have been)

Cons: not a warrior
no knockback immunity (again not a warrior)
0 ranged dps (if fight has knockbacks you will lose to a nightblade... or warrior )
0 dots to help with ranged dps
only good for trash and tank/spank situations

With that said, I believe the pros outweigh the cons. I find my pvp saboteur build does more ranged dps than nightblade so I will stick with that for ranged fights and use this for everything else. I always end up tanking or barding bosses anyways so It's no loss to me really.

[Hokonoso]

Nice build, i use almost the same, call it the " shaft build"

Why not put some of the sin points to better use, With puncture in ur rotation, u build combo points much faster, and we can always use more dots.

likewise i dont see the point, in using points for stealth, if u are gonna use it as a dungeon/raid build. I choose to go with 3 points in fire and death attunement for 3% more dam.
and 1 point in combat culmination, for 5 energy refund p. unused combo point.

yeah those last 5 points are your preference, I personally wanted a build with 0 dots, the tiny if any dps gain is outweighed by the fact that I dont have to use dots. And I refuse to dungeon crawl without perma stealth and improved stealth, I love being able to double sap mobs, I'll never drop that, I also use it in world pvp so all my builds end up a hybrid of sorts. Maximizing dps to the last drop might be useful in raids, but they have no place for the world-pvp such as myself that doesn't even touch greenscale.

Also puncture ruins your rotation, unlike paragons who MUST follow a follow-up right after an opener, we can do a keen strike, finisher, dancing steel, jack off, THEN come back and do a preicision strike or quick strike. puncture ruins that rotation since with a macro it will fire off right after a keen strike and totally screwing you over on dps since quick strike and precision strike our our dps bread and butter moves. the problem assassins have is their dmg comes from their finishers and not their combo builders, ours come from our combo builders to a large degree. just look at what double coup does!

[Rowanze]

I made a few changes to try and maxamize PvE DPS. Take a look.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...Azsoohbz.V0xzh

Specifically, I took one out of Melted Skin. Only need one point there for near 100% up time.

Took point in Assassin out that were related to stealth.

Added three in Fire and Death Attunement to get 3% more damange and to unlock Dusk Strike in Nightblade tree. Its a 2 CP (ie energy efficient).

[Hokonoso]

I made a few changes to try and maxamize PvE DPS. Take a look.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...Azsoohbz.V0xzh

Specifically, I took one out of Melted Skin. Only need one point there for near 100% up time.

Took point in Assassin out that were related to stealth.

Added three in Fire and Death Attunement to get 3% more damange and to unlock Dusk Strike in Nightblade tree. Its a 2 CP (ie energy efficient).

looks good but we never run out of energy and dusk strike kills our rotation, and without any boost to spell dmg (from going higher in nightblade) it really isnt worth using imo. though the build points look good, i just wouldnt use dusk strike. well rather, i wouldnt macro dusk strike, using it intelligently should increase your dps, but if i wanted to be intelligent i could just roll nightblade lol.

[Zakath]

Considering experimenting with a similar build myself. If you want a build a wee bit more tweaked for experts and less for world PvP I'd move 4 points around.

Take away the stealth improvements and blinding powder to save the 4 points. Stick 1 in puncture and three in Fire and Death attunement. Other than that it's almost the exact same as what I've got. The one point in sprint isn't important, but there's not really anything else you need to grab so it's fine. I was a bit on the fence with puncture as well, but it's a pretty good CP builder and bleeds are good too

[Mauti]

Thanks for the post, been looking for a good BD build. Still using very crappy weapons since I can't get any of the t1 weapons to drop. Do you have trouble interrupting on, say, three kings with your interrupt stuck into the macro?

[food]

You won't get a tonne of use out of it due to cooldowns and what not... but pairing Deadly Dance with Ebon Fury and some Dusk Strike spam is probably one of the nastiest things going for rogues right now. When that burns out, follow it up with Blade Tempo.

Deadly Strike is competative with but will never hit as hard as Blazing Strike or Final Blow, however you can get some wonderful numbers on some of your heavier hitting combo builders like Puncture.

Fun fact: If you five point on a Keen Strike, you can open up with Precision Strike to gain the full 24% damage bonus as well.

build: http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1M...bso00b.VhxzhoR

Yea, that's right, one point in Heat Retention... cuz hey... why the **** not?

[Mauti]

Oh and do you bother using Poison Malice? I put it in the macro, but it takes 25 energy and I think it's totally tapping me at the start.

[Hokonoso]

Thanks for the post, been looking for a good BD build. Still using very crappy weapons since I can't get any of the t1 weapons to drop. Do you have trouble interrupting on, say, three kings with your interrupt stuck into the macro?

no because it only goes off when you spam the macro, simply only mash it off gcd and it wont go off. but three kings is so easy with purge it's a joke...

[Hokonoso]

Oh and do you bother using Poison Malice? I put it in the macro, but it takes 25 energy and I think it's totally tapping me at the start.

I thought about it until i saw the price tag... 25 energy for 1 of my abilities? 1 that I ONLY use to gain 5% crit to the party??? no thx!

[derphil]

Or move those points to twilight force and ebon fury and you have something to spam when melee isnt a option.
But isnt the general opinion bladedance is broke? I always liked the bladedancer, thx for a nice build

one question about your macro though: doesn't it just force you to spam precision, quick and keen strike? Since a macro normaly uses the first ability available without a cd in the list, or was there any change?

[Hokonoso]

Or move those points to twilight force and ebon fury and you have something to spam when melee isnt a option.
But isnt the general opinion bladedance is broke? I always liked the bladedancer, thx for a nice build

yes it is the general consensus that bladedancer is broke :P

i only use this build on fights where ranged is not occurring, i get more dps using saboteur on ranged fights so there is no point, i dont melee to melee, i melee to max dps and this build can max your melee dps when melee appropriate

but yeah, like i said you get about 5 points to play around with and do what you want that is for your flavor. i just posted my exact build since my flavor is world pvp and pure melee non dot dmg