How does it compare?

CapnK - Sanctuary wrote: »

Duskblade is kind of a mix of all the melee classes.

Aoes like BMs (not as spammable, but close)
Damage reduction like barbs (not as long of duration)
teleports and stealth like sins (better teleports, worse stealth)
skills designed to combo together like seekers (no range attacks though)

So they're a jack-of-all-trades, master of none kind of thing.

They do a lot of damage, and are a lot of fun to play.

Id argue, with my limited experience that they are kings in few things. Single target CC and single target damage. Only reason really to roll sin over DB at this point would be tidal but I heard DBs got some kind of tidal too? They are indeed bit squishy wearing LA but gear gap in this game can take care of that quite effectively.

Duskblades are by far superior to Sword BMs and seeker when it comes to dmg..heck while being in Reaper Form they can Out-DD everything and at least in demon nearly being perma sparked.

Single Target CC is without comparision to date. Nothing compares to Dusks on that account.

Playing a sword-only BM is senseless and stupid and is not a viable option and has never been. You might wanna roll seeker if you wanna be a good DD with nice Debuffs that can take quite some dmg and is also a factor in mass-PvP/PvE scenarios.

If you like 1on1s and mainly wanna be the top DD in your squads...search no longer..go for the duskblade. But they are no factor in mass PvP...well if you exclude the buff.

on the Buff account...ya well..the dusk buff is also better than the BM/Seeker buff in PvP (whole group) and PvE. Their buff makes even lowgeared twink duskblades more viable in a TW/NW squad than another max geared r9rr player (assuming there are alrdy 9 of these in the squad). Yes the buff is that amazing. Not to mention that the same is true for PvE due to the 15% more dmg on mobs add to the buff.

Dragoneast - Sanctuary wrote: »

So which of these would be hardest to play? As in keeping up all debuffs to maximise dmg output?

If you're strictly speaking PvP duskblade is harder, I wont say 10x harder than a BM, but I will say just a little harder. The reason they are harder is because they are heavily CC reliant to survive in virtually every scenario. A BM or Seeker has much higher overall spike damage so they can afford to mess up a stun or two because they might end up one shotting the person anyway.

For example if a BM messes up a stun rotation they slightly higher base defense,anti stun and self buffs to fall back on to help keep them alive in a group fight or 1v1. Unlike a duskblade, they don't have the same escaping ability without having to blow a long CD skill like veil or stealth to exit a fight or kite around to avoid heavy damage.

It's also not just a matter of their overall survivability, it's also because a majority of the duskblades CC skills are short, very spammable in your transformed state but short(for balancing reasons obviously). Meaning you really don't have a lot of room for error when moving to the next part of your skill rotation.

Those are not all the reasons, but I would say those are the 2 key reasons why duskblade is harder.Sure yes some may argue and say they have a ton of CC like a sin, but the one thing they don't have is long duration Tidal(assuming they went demon), which in my opinion changes everything.

Dragoneast - Sanctuary wrote: »

But in PvE? I'm really 95% PvE and maybe 5% PvP if I feel like it. At endgame?
And does it help the squad in some unique way? Like some want debuff the entire squad benefits from? Or a buff they have themselves that only applies when he's close, making him wanted in the run, and not just for buffing before?

DBs have Moon Chant. Increases skill dmg to non player targets and reduces critical damage taken. Buff disappear upon eneterig/leaving instance. Mines demon and dmg increased is 15%, critical damage is reduced by 45%. So the buff is significant in both PvE and PvP environments.

So up above I saw someone say seekers and sword BMs have similar damage output to DBs, I disagree there... Being a dex based class DBs have naturally higher DPH due to more damage-functional stat build and higher crit from the dex build. I have to say overall damage output DB>Seeker>Sword BM I'd put DB up with similar geared sin spamming Life Hunter in terms of damage. (meaning R9RR DB is = or > R9RR sin in terms of damage when DPHing) Personally I find my DB can hold aggro off sins of equal gear.

As far as CC skills, yeah ours are short CC (with the exception of our mark skill and our sleep) but we can keep someone incapacitated for a long time if we use them correctly. I've lost count of the times people in NW have PMed me that I CC too much... Also we have more skills that let us stop someone who's anti-stunned AND a reel in skill. Plus our 9 second AoE disarm (9 seconds if fully charged). Another great thing is being able to steal other classes skills. Stealing HF from BMs is amazing, QPQ from seekers, added utility of being able to do elemental damage by stealing from wizzies or archers, and the skill we steal for PvE? Ridiculous damage. Zerk Crit on that and your damage can go well into the millions for a single hit. Overall I'd say DBs if played right are up there with BMs in terms of CC and support skills.

But all this does come at a cost, the difficulty to play of this class is higher due to a few factors...
1. Squishy- We have less defensive skills than our sin/archer LA counterparts, we don't get a Tidal (maybe sage do IDK off the top of my head) we have only 2 run buffs, one costs a spark and is also our stealth, the other is added to an attack skill, both are short and not super useful for the purpose of running. We also only have one anti-stun. All our survivability comes from our CC utility. Our biggest defensive oriented skill is easily countered, and given our inherent squishyness isn't even THAT useful against the main people it protects us from (R9RR archers can still hit ridiculous damage at decent range against R9RR DB. x.x)
2. Have to use our skills very carefully and very combo-oriented. Much like a BM our skills when used by themselves are far less useful than when used in tandem with certain other skills. When someone breaks our combo we have to quickly decide on a new combo and take into account what skills are on CD.
3. Often have targets painted on our backs- Given how easily we can be dispatched of (for the most part, though this applies a little less to R9RR DBs) an how dangerous a well played DB can be, we're often targeted first out of larger groups. While this group can excel in group PvP situations, it can also struggle to survive long enough to be useful.