Tanky Bladesworn: a great way to teach your friends PvE

[ASP.8093]

A common topic with instanced content, Dragons' End meta, &c. is the big damage gap between more dedicated and more relaxed players.

 

I've been messing around on Bladesworn a bunch, and I think the style of tank + burst build epitomized by Lord Hizen's video here (stacking toughness, power, and ferocity and using special abilities to make your Dragon Trigger always crit) is really nice for teaching yourself some concepts and gameplay patterns while you're just doing open-world stuff by yourself:

What's nice about this kind of "tanky + burst" build is that you've got a ton of easy survival and sustain, but almost all of your DPS is compressed into your burst combo, and you have a lot of little moving parts you use to maximize it. Stacking might, stacking vuln, stacking your unique damage and ferocity buffs, managing flow so you have Dragon Trigger available when you want it, managing your positioning, and using aegis, stab, and condi cleanse to make sure you actually land your one big attack. It's a very different playstyle from a typical "DPS rotation" but I think it's a good teaching tool for getting people to sweat the little details of the game mechanics — and understand the importance of boons and timing your burst phases. (Also, with Immortal Dragon, half of your sustain *is* your burst.)

I just want to draw people's attention to this kind of thing because I think it's a viable approach for helping your friends have fun and improve, and one thing I've noticed with just telling people to run Berserker stats all day is they'll go through encounters faster and get a little bit better about dodging, but still don't really stack their boons or manage their skills to get above 5k-10k dps (because you often don't even notice the difference in open world) anyway, and tend to avoid certain hard bits because they just get downed constantly in a way that isn't super conducive to learning. Plus, you know, a lot of people like the "tanky knight" class fantasy and this sort of thing does deliver that pretty well, in a form where you're not just doing nothing and taking forever to kill stuff.

Edited April 21, 2022 by ASP.8093

[JunkJunk.8971]

This is such bad advice

Edited April 22, 2022 by JunkJunk.8971

[Stx.4857]

I love how they nerfed sustain across the board including spellbreaker which was hilarious but then all the new elite specs including bladesworn have crazy high sustain.  

 

The fact that you can build 100% cavalier and still put out that much damage is a little crazy...  the only other power spec I can think of where this is possible would be Reaper due to all the crit traits they have.  I have tried to build a full valk/cavalier Thief using crit GM trait but the damage is horrible.  

 

Sorry, i know this topic isn't about spec balance but I really hate the playstyle of bladesworn so I am jealous that it is so good compared to other warrior specs.

[Buran.3796]

51 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said:

I love how they nerfed sustain across the board including spellbreaker which was hilarious but then all the new elite specs including bladesworn have crazy high sustain.  

   I think that sustain wise Willbender, Vindicator and Harbinger are quite low. Sure you have some nice mitigation tools in some of the new specs, and in terms of damage most are strong, but some of them have low self-sustain and must rely on bursting fast the targets to prevent going down.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

There's a low-impact build (well, roughly) on Bladesworn that just auto attacks with axe, uses DT, and then swaps back to axe.  I can't find the video right now, but it does around 30k DPS with full buffs.  That's pretty high when considering it just presses 1, f2, 1, then f1 in a 15 second span.  

[AliamRationem.5172]

6 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

   I think that sustain wise Willbender, Vindicator and Harbinger are quite low. Sure you have some nice mitigation tools in some of the new specs, and in terms of damage most are strong, but some of them have low self-sustain and must rely on bursting fast the targets to prevent going down.

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

11 hours ago, ASP.8093 said:

A common topic with instanced content, Dragons' End meta, &c. is the big damage gap between more dedicated and more relaxed players.

 

I've been messing around on Bladesworn a bunch, and I think the style of tank + burst build epitomized by Lord Hizen's video here (stacking toughness, power, and ferocity and using special abilities to make your Dragon Trigger always crit) is really nice for teaching yourself some concepts and gameplay patterns while you're just doing open-world stuff by yourself:

What's nice about this kind of "tanky + burst" build is that you've got a ton of easy survival and sustain, but almost all of your DPS is compressed into your burst combo, and you have a lot of little moving parts you use to maximize it. Stacking might, stacking vuln, stacking your unique damage and ferocity buffs, managing flow so you have Dragon Trigger available when you want it, managing your positioning, and using aegis, stab, and condi cleanse to make sure you actually land your one big attack. It's a very different playstyle from a typical "DPS rotation" but I think it's a good teaching tool for getting people to sweat the little details of the game mechanics — and understand the importance of boons and timing your burst phases. (Also, with Immortal Dragon, half of your sustain *is* your burst.)

I just want to draw people's attention to this kind of thing because I think it's a viable approach for helping your friends have fun and improve, and one thing I've noticed with just telling people to run Berserker stats all day is they'll go through encounters faster and get a little bit better about dodging, but still don't really stack their boons or manage their skills to get above 5k-10k dps (because you often don't even notice the difference in open world) anyway, and tend to avoid certain hard bits because they just get downed constantly in a way that isn't super conducive to learning. Plus, you know, a lot of people like the "tanky knight" class fantasy and this sort of thing does deliver that pretty well, in a form where you're not just doing nothing and taking forever to kill stuff.

It's hard for power builds to work around that 3-stat requirement for sustain builds in solo play.  So, it's nice to see builds like this.  Hizen has plenty of condi builds for this sort of gameplay, but not many power builds.

[Buran.3796]

15 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

   Roul saiys in the description that condi Rene is still faster despite He expects now a larger time with Rene due the nerfs to the sustain in the runes of tormenting, which susprises me due  condi dps Rene runs Ninghtmare (and is way faster at killing things with them). 

   My point is: WB does amazing damage but is a bit lackluster in self healing (Litany's cooldown is large without Valor's Monk Focus, and taking Valor crushes your damage); condi Herald, condi Necro, condi Soulbeast and condi Mirage are still tankier than most of the new specs despite the nerfs in sustain (the nerfs also didn't affect Soulbeast or Mirage) so I don't agree with the Stx.4857 argument of "ANet nerfed the old specs nerfs and delivered better new specs". That could be the case with the Bladesworn (but I will say that Hizen runs mostly the same stat combinations with the Bladesworn as He ran at his older Spellbreaker and Firebrand builds).

   I take that claim a bit personal because in some of the new specs in batlanty not true: Harbinger is not better than previous Necros at being tanky while dealing damage and Vindicator is one of the frailest specs ever made: it does way lower damage than condi Renegade and can put yourself in downed state faster than the glassiest Ele build. Soloing HoT maps with a core Rev instead makes you feel like a god...

Edited April 22, 2022 by Buran.3796

[DanAlcedo.3281]

In Openworld. 

Spellbreaker >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bladesworn. 

MMR + Sun/moon style + Dual Wield. 

Dagger/Dagger. 

Put a might on crit sigil on if you feel fancy and you will never die just by auto-attacking. 

The dmg output is also high enough for basically everything the game throws at you. 

 

I would never recommend Bladesworn to a new player just for the fact that it teaches players a none fluid gameplay. 

 

[America.9437]

12 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

In Openworld. 

Spellbreaker >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bladesworn. 

MMR + Sun/moon style + Dual Wield. 

Dagger/Dagger. 

Put a might on crit sigil on if you feel fancy and you will never die just by auto-attacking. 

The dmg output is also high enough for basically everything the game throws at you. 

 

I would never recommend Bladesworn to a new player just for the fact that it teaches players a none fluid gameplay. 

 

 

in openworld?  i run this this build, more or less.  can get 25 stacks of might easily.  also gain health with might.  i have 100% crit.

 

and i die to easily to  single trash mobs all the time.   i have exotic marauder and ascended weapons, jewelry. 

 

you cannot survive open world (post core) with just auto attacking.  you will go down repeatedly and often with all the conditions mobs will apply.

 

oh.  and its a lot harder if you dont have a food buff or utility buf.  but even with these, you will still get murdered by 2-3 mobs.

 

the mobs post-core are hyper aggressive and can apply conditions and strip boons easily.  oh, and lets not forget, the spawn rate on the mobs are insane.  you can be fighting a mob and one just spawns on top of you.

 

people who say open world (post core) is easy are not playing the same game or they always run with a partner or in groups.

Edited April 23, 2022 by America.9437
quote system is funky to operate. millenials.

[AliamRationem.5172]

8 minutes ago, America.9437 said:

People who say open world (post core) is easy are not playing the same game or they always run with a partner or in groups.

Class, build, and player ability produce a ton of variance on this question, though.  People who say they don't struggle with open world aren't making it up.  Their experience may be dramatically different from your own for the above reasons, however.  This isn't WoW where builds don't vary much and players just stand there trading hits until the health bar runs out.

An event like this isn't going to be doable solo by every player and every build.  And something like this could very well be next to impossible with most builds.  But don't put anything out of the realm of possibility in this system.  It's quite flexible! 

[America.9437]

5 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Class, build, and player ability produce a ton of variance on this question, though.  People who say they don't struggle with open world aren't making it up.  Their experience may be dramatically different from your own for the above reasons, however.  This isn't WoW where builds don't vary much and players just stand there trading hits until the health bar runs out.

An event like this isn't going to be doable solo by every player and every build.  And something like this could very well be next to impossible with most builds.  But don't put anything out of the realm of possibility in this system.  It's quite flexible! 

meh.  still not impressed.   bosses have patterns, so once you learn them they're pretty much binary as in your profession can solo them or not.  do the second video on a warrior.  then i'll be impressed.  the first video is deceptive because the mobs could be tuned down depending on each event.

 

 im just going to assume that elementalist has the highest tier gear available and can experiment with it to find optimal play styles.  can't do much experimenting when you are stuck in static exotic gear.  it would be nice to have the next tier of gear and be able to change their stats on a whim. would also be nice to swap sigils and runes on a whim as well.  but when you're poor...

 

(but once a majority of the playerbase has that gear, anet will just make another tier to keep the hamsters on the wheel)

 

a  large majority of my warrior deaths are due to a lack of  mobility and condi cleanse.  i run into every fight now with the quickness buffs from the mounts because it feels like im playing my warrior without being kitten.  the mobs will still strip that quickness with a slow condition, but at least im fighting at net 0 for mobility instead of net negative.  there's no timing dodges in open world.  the code is set up so that any direction you dodge the mob will spawn an aoe condition field(s) at that dodge spot.  like the direction i just happened to dodge to always, always, gets hit with an aoe condi field.  or the aoe field is too wide to single dodge out of and double dodge takes too much time.  way of the road bubbles.

 

warrior is the toughest profession to play solo because it's the weakest when all mechanics are factored in. (its why i main warrior).   and warrior can shine in groups but then again so does everyone else.

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, America.9437 said:

meh.  still not impressed.   bosses have patterns, so once you learn them they're pretty much binary as in your profession can solo them or not.  do the second video on a warrior.  then i'll be impressed.  the first video is deceptive because the mobs could be tuned down depending on each event.

 

 im just going to assume that elementalist has the highest tier gear available and can experiment with it to find optimal play styles.  can't do much experimenting when you are stuck in static exotic gear.  it would be nice to have the next tier of gear and be able to change their stats on a whim. would also be nice to swap sigils and runes on a whim as well.  but when you're poor...

 

(but once a majority of the playerbase has that gear, anet will just make another tier to keep the hamsters on the wheel)

 

a  large majority of my warrior deaths are due to a lack of  mobility and condi cleanse.  i run into every fight now with the quickness buffs from the mounts because it feels like im playing my warrior without being kitten.  the mobs will still strip that quickness with a slow condition, but at least im fighting at net 0 for mobility instead of net negative.  there's no timing dodges in open world.  the code is set up so that any direction you dodge the mob will spawn an aoe condition field(s) at that dodge spot.  like the direction i just happened to dodge to always, always, gets hit with an aoe condi field.  or the aoe field is too wide to single dodge out of and double dodge takes too much time.  way of the road bubbles.

 

warrior is the toughest profession to play solo because it's the weakest when all mechanics are factored in. (its why i main warrior).   and warrior can shine in groups but then again so does everyone else.

I didn't realize I was dealing with an expert. Carry on, sir. 

[America.9437]

22 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I didn't realize I was dealing with an expert. Carry on, sir. 

lol.  id be offended at that passive-aggressiveness but as a warrior main we cant be passive.  we must always be aggressive.

 

im not an expert.  after a 7 year absence, ive just been playing this game 8-12 hours 7 days a week since eod release.  took a ranger from 0-80 with no boosts even though i have 2 level 80 boosts sitting in the bank.  i did that to relearn the game and fall in love with it again.  plus it was the only profession (other than revenant) that i never played to 80 when core was the t-its.  (warrior feels like its still stuck in core, back when each profession had trade-offs.  now only warrior has trade-offs)

 

then i  switched over to warriror as a bersker for HoT cause its really my main.  ranger in soulbeast spec feels more like a warrior than my warrior.  hes tougher in close combat, has range,  can pet tank, can condi cleanse easily, has mobility, can do power or condi damage or both.  he can do that with a mix and match of  unoptimal exotics, sigils, and runes.  it outperforms my warrior in the silverwastes so i dont expect too many problems with it in HoT.    my warrior is the only one thats been through  HoT.  then i did LS3 with it.  now Im in PoF as a spellbreaker.

 

i have to take a 4-6 months break from this game because reasons, so hopefully I'll remember it still exits in October when i have time to play again.  i may forget and come back to this game in a few years, or maybe never, lol.  but when/if I get to EoD im definitely gonna try the op's build to see if it really is all that or if my account is lacking in top tier gear.  i will know this fall but i suspect my gear needs to be ascended or legendary. 

[CaffeeCup.5742]

6 hours ago, America.9437 said:

im definitely gonna try the op's build to see if it really is all that or if my account is lacking in top tier gear.  i will know this fall but i suspect my gear needs to be ascended or legendary. 

Don't do it, that build was from the beta bladesworn and no longer works.

  If you want to just play around with a bladesworn with no gear investment, but with good sustain and a 100% crit Dragon Slash, you'll have to go Shout/Tactics-Arms Bladesworn.  The damage on the Dragon Slash isn't the best, will hit for around 60k, but you'll be able to solo champs if you understand what you're doing (know how to cycle through combat stim, shout heals, sources of aegis on pistol 4 and Dragon Trigger 4, and tactical reload to keep your self topped up). 

The thing with bladesworn is you can just kite and let the PvE mobs use up their big attacks while you run circles around them and generate flow, then when you're ready for a full-charged Dragon Slash, just go into Dragon Trigger, let the enemy come to you, teleport if you need to for optimal position, then release the slash, it should kill pretty much all veteran and lower mobs.  Then you just kite around them again, rinse repeat. 

You don't have to be constantly fighting mobs in melee, just keep a good distance, poke them with the Gunsaber shots (3 and 4).  Better if you keep luring mobs around Line of Sight barriers like trees, then surprise them with Dragon slash since it hits through walls.

Obviously, once you get used to the profession and have acquired good enough power/crit/ferocity gear, you can move on to much stronger builds.

Edited April 24, 2022 by CaffeeCup.5742

[Hotride.2187]

On 4/23/2022 at 6:49 AM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I would never recommend Bladesworn to a new player just for the fact that it teaches players a none fluid gameplay. 

Tbh I never liked war in pve. So much of dodging and getting big hits in is lost, when all you do is stack and do your rotation. Dunno about the linked build, maybe if you didnt have to sit and charge a big hit (exactly what I want in an action game when there is 0 risk involved, 0 setup, etc.) it'd fit what I like about war more.

Also being able to have a power bunker is impressive on its own. Boring gameplay as usual, but usually bunkering only works with condi if you want to do dmg.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[America.9437]

12 hours ago, CaffeeCup.5742 said:

Don't do it, that build was from the beta bladesworn and no longer works.

 

 i just wanna try something other than power/prec/ferocity.  cavalier gear looks as good an alternate as anything else and im almost finished unlocking bladesworn .  i cant craft ascended armor, i need 23 more points.  so i may as well try something else in exotic and move closer to ascended armor crafting.

[ASP.8093]

22 hours ago, America.9437 said:

 i just wanna try something other than power/prec/ferocity.  cavalier gear looks as good an alternate as anything else and im almost finished unlocking bladesworn .  i cant craft ascended armor, i need 23 more points.  so i may as well try something else in exotic and move closer to ascended armor crafting.

For generic open-world pve, you can go faster just playing that same build in zerk gear (maybe with a few assassin pieces). The Cav gear forces you to pay more attention to setup since only Dragon Trigger and Pistol 5 are your high-value attacks now (which is what I was saying was useful about it, from a "learn to think about managing boons/buffs" perspective — but it does make it way slower at just clearing trash or blitzing story missions than a similar build with a normal amount of precision).

[Puck.3697]

On 4/23/2022 at 5:44 PM, America.9437 said:

people who say open world (post core) is easy are not playing the same game or they always run with a partner or in groups

Lol partner?... do we play the same game? Is a hard time getting people to join a kitten squad in world bosses. 

No ones partnering up. Open world is just easy.

To your second point on gearing: tradeskills are fast to level up and can provide full ascended sets.

I generally run around in viper ascended on my spectre and never really die open world. 

Same as I solod with a berserker armoured blsdesworn without much problem. 

And no warrior isn't the toughest proffession to play solo, it does pretty well. My mum has literally just started maining  a warrior because she said it makes her solo life easier being able yo 1 hit everything with BS lol

Edited April 25, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[America.9437]

1 minute ago, ASP.8093 said:

For generic open-world pve, you can go faster just playing that same build in zerk gear (maybe with a few assassin pieces). The Cav gear forces you to pay more attention to setup since only Dragon Trigger and Pistol 5 are your high-value attacks now (which is what I was saying was useful about it, from a "learn to think about managing boons/buffs" perspective — but it does make it way slower at just clearing trash or blitzing story missions than a similar build with a normal amount of precision).

I went about halfway through HoT as a berserker in berserker gear.  I switched to marauder gear cause it was a lot more forgiving.  Towards the end of HoT I would alternate templates between zerker/zerk-gear to spellbreaker/marauder-gear.   Solo I used spellbreaker, in groups I used zerker.    My spellbreaker went through LS3 and is almost done with PoF.  So I'm looking for something else to go through the next content where I will switch to Bladesworn and do EoD.

 

I don't think I'll do cavalier gear, it has power and ferocity.  I want to try gear like with healing/toughness/concentration to see how it performs because why not.  Gear = Build.  Skills and specialization can be easily swapped, depending on the situation.  So i don't consider skills to be as much of a factor for how a profession is gonna perform.  They're important but not as important as gear.  If i had gear that could easily change stats and such, then my warrior would just have one build; the warrior build.

 

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

I agree with OP.

I had a friend come back that left way back when HoT first released because the map design made him what might be adequately described as "physically ill".

I'm not a big fan of bladesworn mechanically (In fact I think I might actually hate it), but being able to give a clear answer to "I wanna jump back in on one of the newer specs and immediately do well/big numbers without having to learn all the underlying "warrior stuff" " definitely has its benefits.

And -he- likes it which is great~
 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[anbujackson.9564]

4 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

 

And no warrior isn't the toughest proffession to play solo, it does pretty well. My mum has literally just started maining  a warrior because she said it makes her solo life easier being able yo 1 hit everything with BS lol

In open world? Where flow degenerates so fast, that you cant walk a few a meters while being out of combat? Where you need to press quite a few flow skills to even build up the needed flow?

Its not like you can just engage an enemy and instantly use your t3 dragon slash... You are exaggerating here a bit. Plenty of old aged players tend to use something like necro or ranger. The others not so much. Playing anything else is already an exception.

[America.9437]

7 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

My mum has literally just started maining  a warrior because she said it makes her solo life easier being able yo 1 hit everything with BS lol

Maybe i just suck.  But I have exotic marauder gear, bersker jewelry and an ascended berserker great sword.    I have 80.80% crit when i have 25 stacks of precision and signet of fury.  strength/arms/spellbreaker specializations stuff.  Given that, it takes 4-6 auto attack hits to kill a level 80 canyon spider in Path of Fire Desolation map.  it taks 6-8 auto attacks to kill an awakened mummy.  theres no way to auto-attack kill a veteran version of those mobs and often the game will spawn a level 81 mob, multiple of them, to wreck me.  One of us is lying.

 

The game right now is actually being merciful.  At the moment, I can actually play somewhat casually in joko's domain and basaltic fringe area of desolation map.  but i'll bet after an hour or 2 of playing, that canyon spider or mummy will wreck me.  Always happens.  So I'm either experiencing network/server lag when that happens or the game is kittening with me.

 

so is your mum 1 hitting critters or actual mobs. and if actual mobs. where in the game is she doing this?

[Puck.3697]

7 minutes ago, America.9437 said:

Maybe i just suck.  But I have exotic marauder gear, bersker jewelry and an ascended berserker great sword.    I have 80.80% crit when i have 25 stacks of precision and signet of fury.  strength/arms/spellbreaker specializations stuff.  Given that, it takes 4-6 auto attack hits to kill a level 80 canyon spider in Path of Fire Desolation map.  it taks 6-8 auto attacks to kill an awakened mummy.  theres no way to auto-attack kill a veteran version of those mobs and often the game will spawn a level 81 mob, multiple of them, to wreck me.  One of us is lying.

 

The game right now is actually being merciful.  At the moment, I can actually play somewhat casually in joko's domain and basaltic fringe area of desolation map.  but i'll bet after an hour or 2 of playing, that canyon spider or mummy will wreck me.  Always happens.  So I'm either experiencing network/server lag when that happens or the game is kittening with me.

 

so is your mum 1 hitting critters or actual mobs. and if actual mobs. where in the game is she doing this?

U are aware ur jade trigger does 200k Damage right?

Im using Ascended Berserker set up, With Axe / Pistol + Gunsaber.

even in ttanky builds it does a TON of damage.

 

 Heres 2 builds of people using it, Lord hizen even does fight a legendary at the end to show himself soloing it, These are tankier sure and will not 1 shot as Often. but they're still extremely strong and run 100% Crit builds in high sustain set ups.

[Lighter.5631]

7 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

My mum has literally just started maining  a warrior because she said it makes her solo life easier being able yo 1 hit everything with BS lol

 

it's not BS is so good at soloing. it is the fact that your mum probably puts no effort in her gameplay.

thus BS is the best result as it is easiest/slowest/most effortless to start achieving. 

a lot of class can be way more effective in open world when putting the slightest effort in their game play.

 

it is a resident sleeper and does the job for people who don't want any effort, but again a lot of other classes also have builds that require no effort..and warrior definitely doesnt lack simplistic gameplay, not only that BS is incredibly awkward to play, while being simple at the same time. that's why people dislike BS.

i guess people like your mum would like it as they have no expectation in game play style and don't want to put effort in their game play either. but again, warrior has always been simple to begin with, BS is just even more simple...funny how they manage to make a more simpler version of what we had before EoD, even tho we all wanted some thing more complex since forever

Edited April 26, 2022 by Lighter.5631