Regarding Assassin Blade Traps

[Kharohz]

This is starting to sound strangly like the following: (Assume 1.09)

An assassin joins the game with a Demon Machine. As soon as this Assassin is seen she is spammed with comments like this "OMG NOOB, WINDFORCE IS BETTER!!!!" or "OMG, WHY USE BOW!!"

Im sure people who played variants of some sort has ran into ignorant people like these. So you know what I mean.


--


Anyways, my point is this. Perhaps I should of stated it differently. Blade Sentinel is potientially better than Blade Fury in the fact that it is simply ORIGINAL (Assume 1.10 BETA) *wink*, isn't a one-point wonder (Assume Lame, obviously bad balance on Blizzard's part, but this is a BETA, I expect changes), It has a form of crowd control, and the best part is you can use it as a support attack skill. Yes you can use BOTH blade fury and sentinel at once ;).

The casting delay isn't a bad thing. Being how the duration of the trap goes up per level. Yes thats right! You have around 15 second blade sentinel at level 20. Throw two of those bad boys out. And work with Blade fury at the same time for great results.

You really should look at the Pro's before you just go CON CON CON! But speaking of which. The Cons aren't that bad at all. A static 7 per blade mana cost is extremely cheap, at a high levels with even no mana+ gear this shouldn't be much of a problem.

No Crushing Blow? I guess you could call this the biggest flaw... but I don't hear people jumping up and down and bragging about having crushing blow gear ;).

Doesn't Transfer Chance To cast gear: Quite realistic, being how the Blade is it's own man. The only true Chance to cast that would help would probally be AMP damage.

Hit Freezes Target really isn't all that useful in Hell (But then again, no character build is as of 1.10 BETA :P), would also limit your gear choice.

Hit blinds target: I believe assassin's have a skill for this ;) CoS anyone?

Knockback: Not a big loss with Sentinel. Would work good using knockback with blade fury + Sentinel combo.

Open wounds/Cause monster to flee/Slow Target: Open wounds does damage? You don't want monsters running away with sentinel, Slow Target.... they say they fixed the desyncing........................somewhat ;) Not a big loss.

I believe Blade sentinel is a very underestimated skill indeed. It could be used with a martial artist build. Whereas Blade fury wouldn't be all that useful. Would take the point away. I could go on!

[Dagni]

It isn't based on player AR (IE:  Always hits)

Actually, in skills.txt it is listed as having some kind of AR bonus per level (in the passivecalc1 column of skills.txt, iirc). So it's not that it always hits, it's that - at high levels - it has good AR bonuses, so well hit plenty often, whereas Blade Fury deosn't have this AR bonus.

- Dagni

[unless]

You really should look at the Pro's before you just go CON CON CON!  But speaking of which.  The Cons aren't that bad at all.

I think the main con is that it does really lousy damage. You're right in that it may be viable as a variant build. But I don't believe that it'll be more than that.

Now, if it had a synergy with BF raising its weapon damage percentage...

[Ice]

Im sure people who played variants of some sort has ran into ignorant people like these. So you know what I mean.

With 90% of my builds being variants or some oddball deviations from the mainstream, I'm more than used to such comments already.

The blade skills all have their uses in different builds. I'm just stating for a fact that blade sentinel does not have a lot of functionality that blade fury has. Yes, crushing blow gear do not fall from the sky but is honestly not all that difficult to find. Static field on strike is also available for a um (broken imo but still, this is 1.10 beta). Both of this could be very valuable in bringing down the insane monster life at times. A kicksin could easy get crushing blow from cheap runewords like strength or black and deliver quick crushing blow kicks.

Other than that, blade shield (barring the typo greatly reducing its effectiveness) is also an excellent complement for a martial artist build. Having it up and attacking effectively gives you approximately an extra attack per second. But like blade sentinel, blade shield does not transfer effects like blade fury does.

Perhaps this is a good balance decision because both sentinel and shield can be fire-n-forget skills, passively doing the damage while the assassin can carry on her own attacks at the same time, whereas for blade fury, the assassin has to be actively casting. With good weapon damage, the loss of the special effects could be a fair price to pay for the passive damage.

[DSTheHermit]

For what it's worth, I say go cloak of shadows and blessed aim merc. This should solve most AR issues with -52% monster defence and +ungodly AR.

And then there's +AR% items, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Swallowed his facade, 'cause I'm so eager to identify..." Tool - Eulogy

[Kharohz]

Does Blade Shield support knockback? ;)

[DSTheHermit]

Well, on the character screen, BF lists no AR, and if there's also no AR bonus in the .mpq, are you sure it rolls to hit? I have yet to see a blade hit something and not do damage, including Andariel. Oh, and I equipped Leadcrow - Deadly Strike works. Will amend this post later with PMH findings.

Things keep looking up, so sayeth The Hermit.

"Remember, we are eternal; all this pain is an illusion." Tool - Parabola

Edit 1: Findings on this issue are important, as it has the potential to change the entire build statwise; if AR is not an issue, a Might merc is preferable to Blessed Aim, Mind Blast may be more useful than CoS, and dex may not need many points at all unless one intends to use a Buriza Do-Kyanon. Without the need for AR or a shield, it may be preferable to get an ethereal melee weapon, and take str over 200 for damage purposes (since 3/4 of this goes into the blades anyhow) and will also allow good armour which will be a large boon to a "caster" type character such as this, especially if one benefits from the defence boost of CoS - DR of 2 or 3K is possible, significantly reducing your dangers of being engaged successfully in melee. One thing that I HAVE noticed is that blades appear to be able to be stopped by shields, but this is not wholly conclusive as my shadow warrior seems to have been attempting a simultaneous attack many times. I will try to aim more for targets with shields not being kept busy. Diablo is of course the ultimate test for this.

Happy hunting.

[Kharohz]

I do believe AR is taken into equation. When testing out skills and such on DiabloClone. Blade Fury rarely does hit him. While Blade sentinel hits him alot more often. (see Diablo's Blocking)

(Edit: heh there's your shield test, Amazon's dodge can evade them too.)

[Ice]

I'm quite positive AR is taken into consideration for blade fury and blade shield. With a very low 30% to-hit, I was missing a whole lot (distinctive because each hit will take off a whole chunk due to CB) but switching to an ITD weapon solved that issue against non-bosses. IIRC it was mentioned before somewhere that blade sentinel also takes into account AR but with a high inherent bonus, it usually appears to be hitting irregardless of how much AR you have.

No idea whether any of the blade skills can be blocked.

As for knockback, I had it working with blade fury but not with the other two.

[Ignatz]

Sorry Ice, but that's the second time you used "irregardless" when you meant "regardless" this week. Just a heads-up on that if you care. If you didn't want to know -- sorry! :)

[lemekim]

Sorry Ice, but that's the second time you used "irregardless" when you meant "regardless" this week. Just a heads-up on that if you care. If you didn't want to know -- sorry! :)

They are synonyms ;)

[AtomicKitKat]

Except as a "misspelled variation of 'regardless'"

It was never a real word until too many people started using it even though it technically didn't exist, thus forcing dictionaries to acknowledge its existance...

[lemekim]

Except as a "misspelled variation of 'regardless'"

It was never a real word until too many people started using it even though it technically didn't exist, thus forcing dictionaries to acknowledge its existance...

As far as I am concerned, if dictionaries list it and acknowledge it's existance, it does exist =) It's more of a blend of "irrespective" and "regardless" anyway. Not a word I would use, especially in situations requiring proper grammar, but acceptable in everyday usage, like disregardless (which is also synonymous to regardless!)

[Striker]

This makes one weapon truly stands out... crescent moon ideally in some ethereal elite weapon.

Durablility might be an issue with the ethereal version if the blade skills affect weapons in 1.10 like blade shield does in 1.09.

But then again, the runes are fairly cheap and easy to find so maybe it won't be that big of an issue afterall ;)

[Ice]

I did not play enough with blade sentinel or shield to find out if they drop durability but blade fury definitely does not. More than six hours of play with an ethereal crescent moon and durability did not drop at all.

[AtomicKitKat]

I hate words like irregardless... Stupid portmanteau words.

[Ignatz]

Heck, one that I like is "unsatisfied". And if you know The Replacements, you know what I'm talking about.

It's still wrong though. :)

Ignatz

[Ignatz]

"Irregardless" is a perversion of "regardless", and the only justification for its use is the actual frequency at which many make this mistake. It's wrong, and considered slang at best. Just because 95% of the world can't differentiate between you're/your or their/there/they're does NOT mean that everybody should just accept all variations as correct.

I'm a fluid-language advocate (language in natural social evolution) as well, but there are lines you don't cross. If a perversion of a correct, existing word does not add clarity, add to communication, offer a variation on the original definition, or otherwise make sense outside of any particular cultural context, then it is not correct and should not be used with the assumption that it is.

Besides, I should hope that unless you want to be known for your "elective" grammatical stance, to put as positive a spin on it as possible, you'd just as soon avoid it. And when all is said and done, it's also two letters less efficient anyway.

If you like the word, use it -- just recognize that you're communicating less effectively and may be perceived as ignorant when you do so.

Ignatz

PS: Here's what the AHD says about it:

Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[Ignatz]

Other than that, blade shield (barring the typo greatly reducing its effectiveness) is also an excellent complement for a martial artist build.

What's the typo making blade shield less effective?

[Dagni]

Blade Shield only does 3/128 of weapon damage, not 1/4. That's less than a tenth as much weapon-based damage as it's supposed to do. This includes elemental damage bonuses such as Venom's.

- Dagni