Pole VS Sword Blademaster

Poles.

Fists have better DPS than swords and axes have better AoEs than poles. Poles have meteor rush and farstrike though (although MSS from the sword path is smexy).

poles for range, which is excellent for PKing. the ultimate is only useful to speed up boss kills.

for squads you'll like sword ultimate for cutting all damage dealt by the enemies by 50% (lvl10) and that's a nice thing for rebirth, certain bosses and when you have a laggy cleric. as you already have fists you won't be using normal attack with a single sword so I suggest you get dual swords (which unfortunately have poor avaiability) for skills as they deal higher damage.

at least in my server it's quite easy to get good refined polearms and swords for cheap so getting the skills maxed should be the only problem.

Mage bane is pretty much useless. The 100% accuracy is nice and it does an OK amount of damage but there are better uses for a spark. Piercing winds is an AoE that costs 1 spark. Again, there are better uses for a spark but compared to mage bane it's a better choice. Pole

Spirit chaser and farstrike are pretty much the same thing; a ranged attack that does lots of damage. Farstrike happens to have more range and damage. Pole

Atmos strike does lots of damage (a LOT of damage) and knocks the target back. Meteor rush also knocks the target back but does less damage than atmos strike. Meteor rush is an AoE skill though so it's nice to have. It's up to you to decide which is better.

Myriad sword stance is, as I said, smexy. It costs 2 sparks like all the other level 59 skills but it does a ****ton of damage and reduces the target's attack for a while (which can save the tank's **** on certain occasions). Oh, and it's AoE. In comparison, glacial spike doesn't look too great. It also does quite a bit of damage but not as much as MSS. The defense debuff from glacial spike sounds good but the amp from heavens flame (you did mention you were a fist/axe BM) is more useful. Sword

Okay comes down to this

Pole=Range
Sword=launch backwards

Swords are horribly useless weapons and shouldn't be used for anything but MSS, which is only really useful in rare/situational PvE cases.

Swords are not horrible nor useless weapons, and are actually a great starter weapon, it's just that fists have better dps which makes them a better endgame weapon since they're best for regular attacks, and axes are a must for any BM since they have a lot of AOE skills and the best 2 spark skill, heaven's flame

However, sword skills are indeed not too useful, mage bane plain sucks, if you're able to use fists and equip a misty forest ring the acuraccy you will get from that will rarely miss, atmos strike is awesome damage but the pushback effect is awful considering we BMs fight at short range (would be best without it), and spirit chaser is much better damage and range than drake beam, but the channeling time is too long, myriad sword is awesome crude damage and can 1-hit-KO arcane classes in duels and TWs, but the side effect is not exactly eye popping, it might save the tank and stuff, but usually you take a tank that can hold on on it's own with just the cleric's healing, and if the cleric is lagging they can do BB or use a macro
Poles have piercing winds, which is an AOE bleed that stacks with draw blood, so very useful against bramble hood venos, farstrike is more or less the same as spirit chaser with same channeling but a longer casting time, meteor rush is an AOE pushback weaker than atmos strike but affects all lined up enemies, and glacial spike... i have only met a single BM who uses that skill, for 2 sparks best choice at all times is HF
So if you want added range, pole is your best choice, if you want high crude damage use swords, also remember, myriad sword stance is the skill with the highest crude damage a BM can get until about lvl 100, so if you want to be able to 1-hit-KO arcanes and even weaker light armors use myriad and hope for a critical, which shouldn't be rare if you're a fist build

Granrey - Sanctuary wrote: »

Just keep in mind always, every time there is a situation in which a non-axes skill is the best choice for you to use in squad. Nobody in squad will QQ because you did not use it.

when using a non-axes skill is important, nobody is expecting you to use it, as they dont expect you to have it and they will not understand what's happening either.

For instance.

In bh69, I went many times with crappy tanks/clerics. without MSS, the squad would have failed in some ocasions, the issue is that they never knew it and the fun is that they will never know it eitherb:laugh


In many cases, the tank will think that he could actually tank the boss without me using myriad.


BTW, ask yourself. Have I ever been in a situation in which I need to move the mob from one point to another? that's why the knockback skills are there. Again, nobody is expecting you to do it.

And that is why you level the skills to 1 and carry around an NPC weapon. Sword is by far the least useful path. Sword was made for skill spam yet all of the dual swords are trash. If I want to rely on crits/zerks/face roll, to kill someone, I would much rather use Dragon Bane + HF + TE/BrambleRage than Myriad. As for the person who said glacial is useless... there are areas in the game where things are immune to HF, so unless you are at ~2.86 atk/sec or better you are probably better off using chi on glacial. It is also a nice way to dump your chi when fighting something that hits too hard for you to tank. Finally demon glacial is 100% win.

TL;DR

Sword is beyond terrible, learn Poles. (Just farstrike and Glacial really.)

Magebane has a possible use against archers though. One defensive tactic they use is to boost their evasion by 1000%, making it much harder to hit them. Since they rely on it to keep them alive till charm tick, they don't tend to make themself immune to damage during that time; instead relying on food healing. Using Magebane guarantees a hit with decent damage using TT90 gold sword, maybe use 100% accuracy genie skill damage to augment it as well? Funny that the most useful part of the skill only got added on during a patch, the normal part just isn't that useful. Just wish demon Atmos had 100% chance to halve evasion rate.

EDIT: Making magebane interrupt on initial hit with the debuff after would actually make the skill much more useful and worth the spark.

daikaz wrote: »

Swords are not horrible nor useless weapons, and are actually a great starter weapon, it's just that fists have better dps which makes them a better endgame weapon since they're best for regular attacks, and axes are a must for any BM since they have a lot of AOE skills and the best 2 spark skill, heaven's flame

However, sword skills are indeed not too useful, mage bane plain sucks, if you're able to use fists and equip a misty forest ring the acuraccy you will get from that will rarely miss, atmos strike is awesome damage but the pushback effect is awful considering we BMs fight at short range (would be best without it), and spirit chaser is much better damage and range than drake beam, but the channeling time is too long, myriad sword is awesome crude damage and can 1-hit-KO arcane classes in duels and TWs, but the side effect is not exactly eye popping, it might save the tank and stuff, but usually you take a tank that can hold on on it's own with just the cleric's healing, and if the cleric is lagging they can do BB or use a macro
Poles have piercing winds, which is an AOE bleed that stacks with draw blood, so very useful against bramble hood venos, farstrike is more or less the same as spirit chaser with same channeling but a longer casting time, meteor rush is an AOE pushback weaker than atmos strike but affects all lined up enemies, and glacial spike... i have only met a single BM who uses that skill, for 2 sparks best choice at all times is HF
So if you want added range, pole is your best choice, if you want high crude damage use swords, also remember, myriad sword stance is the skill with the highest crude damage a BM can get until about lvl 100, so if you want to be able to 1-hit-KO arcanes and even weaker light armors use myriad and hope for a critical, which shouldn't be rare if you're a fist build

Okay swords are not useless, just far less useful than every other weapon a BM can use skills with?

Mage bane is actually decently useful, but slowing down channeling is more of a PvE thing since you'd be better off using Drake Bash in PvP. Spirit Chaser just sucks, if you're going to switch to another weapon for a range attack use Farstrike. If you're going to argue that you want to use Drake's Ray -> Farstrike -> Spirit chaser you're an idiot and should stop wasting time and run up to your target instead. Atmos Strike is pretty useless too, even if it does relatively high damage... it's going to do low damage. BMs don't do high damage per hit, period. MSS isn't a skill you should be spamming either, means you need to find a better party. More of an "oshi" skill if the cleric needs to stop healing to res someone, if the tank died for whatever reason, rebirth, etc.


And I have no idea what the hell you're playing if anything gets oneshot by MSS in TW, but it sure as hell isn't endgame or serious. I'm going to laugh at you if you really waste 2 sparks on that garbage in TW. And no, HF isn't always the best choice as some bosses aren't affected by it. That and you might be building enough chi to use both HF + glacial spike on cooldown. If you have no intention of tanking it's better than triple spark and it's definately better than MSS.

And lol... stacking your crappy bleeds on a veno that brambled is not a good idea. Continue stunlocking and don't hit in between. I don't know if you've actually ever tried PKing or PvPing but nobody's going to give a damn about bleed ticking for 100-200.

Motoko - Raging Tide wrote: »

learn Poles. (Just farstrike and Glacial really.)

Meteor Rush is nice for certain PvE situations, worth getting still.

AdvanceZero - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I disagree a bit. You will get more use out of MSS then Glacial. Anytime you want to use Glacial you will be using HF instead.

Great for when you are tank. You can't cancel every aoe with Shadowless kick, the cool down is too long.

Especially good on boss's that have debuffs. It gives more leeway for cleric to use their purify>re-stacking of IB..

If you're tanking... you should be using fists anyway. Shadowless - build chi - Triple spark - build chi - repeat. You should have plenty of time to build enough chi for that if anyone's letting you tank, if you're not capable of that your party sucks anyway. Besides you shouldn't be getting hit that hard... PvE isn't that bad in this game. At lower levels sure but lowering a boss' attack half the time isn't going to save you and it's REALLY not worth the spirit.

Granrey wrote:

I dont want to write a wall of text but lack of imagination and research dont allow you to use the sword and its skills. Don't blame the weapon for your lack of imagination.

So you basically can't come up with decent arguments and blame it on our lack of imagination? lol. Swords suck, period.

Kristoph - Lost City wrote: »

So you basically can't come up with decent arguments and blame it on our lack of imagination? lol. Swords suck, period.

I wanted to avoid wall of text but here we gob:chuckle

OP wants a third weapon since he has axes and fists.

a)AOE: he already has axes + cyclone heel and the common BM AOE skills. he does not need more AOE from pole. He can AOE with no need to stop.

b) DPS with normal attack: He already has fists, he does not need pole for that.

C) Ultimate skill:the axes ultimate and the pole ultimate are not the same but very similar on purpose and weakness. Both skills increase damage after skill is applied but you need to apply more attacks to take advange of the effects (for instance, if after you apply any of the two skills, you get stuned or opponent flee, the effect will not work). So, why to get a similar skill? why not to get a different one?

MSS (sword) rather than increasing damage it will reduce the damage your opponent does on you. which means, this skill is for a different situation and effect will always work even if opponent stun you or flee (if opponent flees, the skill still met its purpose as full deterrent).


D)MSS and Atmos are the best damaging skills on their category. why not to add them?

F) swords are cheap, easy to get.

G) Any squad can kill any boss but no any squad can deal with the damage the boss does on them. I can recall few ocasions in which my squad failed for not killing quick but 99.99999% of the time squad fail for not being able to deal with the damage the boss does. Thats where Myriad comes in, to help on dealing with damage boes does on you. Adding myriad to shawdoless kick allow to cancell mag attacks from bosses way easier plus genie skills.

True, pole has some good knockback skills and range attacks. But sword has a knockback and range skills too (not the same but meets similar purpose).

sword, might suck as a single path but becomes very handy on multipath.

So, for OP sword is the weapon to add but keep in mind he should add pole too a some point.

BTW, the pole range is great but overated, since we can use bow too.b:bye


if somebody already has fists and axes, adding pole might not be the best choice.

if you have axes only, pole is a good choice (but I prefer fists).
If you have fists only, pole is a good choice too (but I prefer axes)
If you have sword, either pole or axes is a good choice (but I prefer axes again)

if you have pole as main, axes is a good choice as secondary.

Granrey - Sanctuary wrote: »

BTW, the pole range is great but overated, since we can use bow too.b:bye

When someone's running with 10% HP left, you are not going to pull out a bow and stay in range long enough to kill them before they get out of range and ticks. You'll need 3 or more hits from bow to do the same damage and you'll have to stay in range for each of those hits. Once Farstrike starts to channel, it's going to hit unless they manage to get very far away with leap. So if they happened to get out of range after 2 seconds, FS will hit them hard once, vs you chasing them with a bow after you fire one arrow.

Yulk - Heavens Tear wrote: »

To the OP, if you have patience, it depends on how you play. I use 3 weapons on this BM.

Isn't it better to use both instead than just one?

I never said mage bane was useless. I said that there are better uses for 1 spark than to slow channeling. One that comes to mind would be drake bash from the axe tree which stuns the target and does more damage. Last time I checked, both mobs and players can't channel at all when they're stunned.

Mage bane does OK damage and costs 1 spark. As I said, there are better uses for 1 spark. Piercing winds isn't much of an improvement but it's better than mage bane. The only redeeming feature of mage bane is that it never misses which, I suppose, gives it some limited use against sins and archers.

Also, the OP asked whether he should choose swords or poles as his third weapon path. While it would be better to go with both, lack of coins and/or SP probably limits his options.

Granrey - Sanctuary wrote: »

I wanted to avoid wall of text but here we gob:chuckle

OP wants a third weapon since he has axes and fists.

a)AOE: he already has axes + cyclone heel and the common BM AOE skills. he does not need more AOE from pole. He can AOE with no need to stop.

Pole isn't good for its AOE's... except maybe demon meteor.

b) DPS with normal attack: He already has fists, he does not need pole for that.

Huh?

C) Ultimate skill:the axes ultimate and the pole ultimate are not the same but very similar on purpose and weakness. Both skills increase damage after skill is applied but you need to apply more attacks to take advange of the effects (for instance, if after you apply any of the two skills, you get stuned or opponent flee, the effect will not work). So, why to get a similar skill? why not to get a different one?

As stated many times, there are areas where mobs are immune to HF, like CoA, DT(?), Nirvana.

MSS (sword) rather than increasing damage it will reduce the damage your opponent does on you. which means, this skill is for a different situation and effect will always work even if opponent stun you or flee (if opponent flees, the skill still met its purpose as full deterrent).

Ok? the difference between level 1 with any **** sword vs lvl 10 with a good one, isn't much for this purpose.

D)MSS and Atmos are the best damaging skills on their category. why not to add them?

Because they aren't... having a high multplier doesn't stop single swords from having **** dmg, and dual swords from having **** adds.

F) swords are cheap, easy to get.

Because they suck.

G) Any squad can kill any boss but no any squad can deal with the damage the boss does on them. I can recall few ocasions in which my squad failed for not killing quick but 99.99999% of the time squad fail for not being able to deal with the damage the boss does. Thats where Myriad comes in, to help on dealing with damage boes does on you. Adding myriad to shawdoless kick allow to cancell mag attacks from bosses way easier plus genie skills.

Kick spark kick spark etc, or kick, earthquake, kick, earthquake, or stop trying to tank when you obviously can't (You, not all BMs)

True, pole has some good knockback skills and range attacks. But sword has a knockback and range skills too (not the same but meets similar purpose).

Not nearly as good as Pole's

sword, might suck as a single path but becomes very handy on multipath.

Actually anything it can do the other 3 do better.

So, for OP sword is the weapon to add but keep in mind he should add pole too a some point.

BTW, the pole range is great but overated, since we can use bow too.b:bye

Are you trolling? If so, Bravo.

if somebody already has fists and axes, adding pole might not be the best choice.

You're right, its the only choice left.

if you have axes only, pole is a good choice (but I prefer fists).
If you have fists only, pole is a good choice too (but I prefer axes)
If you have sword, either pole or axes is a good choice (but I prefer axes again)

if you have pole as main, axes is a good choice as secondary.

Rabblerabble /10char

swords really are kinda underwhelming pre 99 cept for MSS in PVE...best skill for catching bosses we got and rather nice for the acutal tanking to lol

however im thinkin they'll make a wonderfull utility weapon at endgame

MSS deals more damage+stun chance at range

atamos gets 50% chance to make the targets evade completely useless

spirit chaser gains chi making it more usefull as a "line up to blink" skill in pve than farstrike

mage bane...can tap an archer to death through evade buff

spears at 99 would give

winds with 2x range....meh

farstrike at 120% damage and 18 meter range....do want

rush is a 33% aoe 5 second stun....woulld be great with purge spear in TW

glacial getsa 50% proc to make ya autocrit for 5 seconds

b:surrender get both honestly for pve swords are more usefull and pole are nicer in pvp