Lots of Newbie questions

Hi guys. New player here and amassed a few questions while playing for the past week or two. Would appreciate any help.

• Sometimes the help descriptions are kind of vague. What do the blade lores do? Example: Doomsinger: "further extends the principles of powerstrike, moving and attacking in harmony with the weapon's natural frequency"... No idea what that means.

• Onslaught, is it just purely for damage? Why chop vs bladerush vs pinwheel? Should I be learning them all?

• Luck? Seems useless. Someone told me it helps me with everything. But many times I have great luck, and I get terrible rolls upon leveling and such.

• Still don't quite understand what blood vow does. It just eats up my mana.

Those are the ones that come to mind. Other than that, I have a LOT of the map and items to learn. So I'll get to it.

Thanks!

Welcome to the fun! Sorry I just love new players. Although this may be a bit outdated I would start here just for some further expansion of the help files. There are plenty of vets here that I am sure would be more than glad to extend their knowledge to you on the blm class.

http://forum.theforsakenlands.org/showthread.php?t=4

Someone should stop being lazy and write a new blm essay btw.

(cough f0xx, emp, jib, sarcon)

Where to begin....

Blade lores:

• Doomsinger (two handed) - makes every attack of yours land, but the damage you deal is usually lower.

• Deathweaver (dual wield + two handed) - allows the use of the "balance" skill i.e. you can't be lagged via bash/bodyslam/trip when you are using it.

• Kairisi (two handed) - turns your weapon into whatever type you want and makes you "know" all the weapons styles, so you defend better against weapons you don't usually know.

• Bladestorm (dual wield) - gives you the affect of haste - more attacks AND allows you to use onslaught faster.

• Ironarm (dual wield) - allows you to disarm noremove wepons.

• Kyosanken (dual wield) - allows you to return fired weapons and thrown objects. Also gives you another damage reducing layer, something like mini sanctuary. Drawback is you have one attack less.

Onslaught is used mainly for damage, but has some nice addons, for example bladerush has autodisarm, and then you execute both backpin and pinwheel in one command.

Luck helps with everything, it's good to have it.

As neutral, which you are, bloodvow not only gives HUGE hitroll boost, but also gives your weapon an unblockable proc attack (wrath). Due to the nature of blademasters, if you are attacking with the hand you hold your vowed weapon, that will make it proc twice sometimes, which is not something to overlook.

The most important thing about blademasters is they are the most versatile class in the lands. Remember you can attack with either of your hands, you can keep your weapon low for more defence or you can keep it high for more offence.

Thank you everyone! That link and F0xx's info was very helpful.

In general, everyone has been very helpful, particularly in game. I'm sure I'll catch on quickly.

Good Luck and I hope you enjoy it.

A couple of addendums to foxx's post:

Doomsinger: In addition to making all of your attacks land, it also increases the chances of "powerstrike" proccing, which causes your hit to deal the max damage roll of your weapon. Additionally, it vastly improves the effectiveness of some of your critical strikes.

Deathweaver: Also causes your opponents pets to have a chance to strike them instead of you.

Ironarm: When you disarm, it counts as stunning, lagging your opponent for a round -- great in combination with bladerush.

Bladestorm: Your onslaught attacks cause half as much lag, meaning you can get from onslaught to backpin/pinwheel in 2.5 rounds instead of four. Note that any haste effect, not just bladestorm, allows this.

To further clarify on luck, it is factored into almost every roll the game has after character generation. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Being lucky is never a bad thing; it's just never a sure thing.

Onslaught, as foxx mentioned, is a chain attack. Additionally, it uses significantly less mana than your damaging critical strikes. It builds up from:

Onslaught (pure damage -- "thrust")

Chop (more damage)

Bladerush (more damage, chance to disarm)

Backpin and Pinwheel (more damage, plus wounds your opponent)

And then he pretty much nailed bloodvow. Huge boost to hitroll (something like +10 points at pinn) and makes your weapon nodisarm.

With all of that said, it's been several years since my last blademaster and changes have been made, so it's possible that some of my information is no longer accurate. Feel free to correct me, contemporary BLM players, if you see anything out of order.

And then he pretty much nailed bloodvow. Huge boost to hitroll (something like +10 points at pinn) and makes your weapon nodisarm.

Actually makes it nodrop not nodisarm.

Nice one Bali, was in a hurry when I wrote the post.

<3

Actually makes it nodrop not nodisarm.

Are you sure on this one? I'm almost certain that it makes it noremove because I've fought one not too long ago that I'm almost certain it was a weapon that could be disarmed but I tried and couldn't then continued to offhand disarm another weapon thinking that possibly I was wrong since I knew the secondary weapon could be disarmed and was told the exact same thing that I couldn't disarm it. I suppose I could've just been unlucky and gotten a bad disarm in or something, but I didn't think that was the case. If I had a log of it I'd post it, but it was on a day I wasn't logging unfortunately.

Are you sure on this one? I'm almost certain that it makes it noremove because I've fought one not too long ago that I'm almost certain it was a weapon that could be disarmed but I tried and couldn't then continued to offhand disarm another weapon thinking that possibly I was wrong since I knew the secondary weapon could be disarmed and was told the exact same thing that I couldn't disarm it. I suppose I could've just been unlucky and gotten a bad disarm in or something' date=' but I didn't think that was the case. If I had a log of it I'd post it, but it was on a day I wasn't logging unfortunately.[/quote']

Yes, just nodrop.

Those are minor things though.

One of the more important things about BLMs is understanding how their "dual wield" works and taking advantage of it. You will always be better off using only one hand to attack with, whether it is left or right. This allows for great flexibility with a smaller weapon selection.

Also, have in mind that, your parry and dual parry skills will be both leveled to the style of weapon that is in the hand you attack with i.e. if you have a sword in your first hand and an exotic in your second and you choose to attack with your second hand, then your both hand parries (normal parry and dual parry) will both take the defense stat of an exotic weapon, despite you wielding a sword in your main hand.

Also, powerstrike makes your weapon roll for its higher damage and works only when dual wielding, so if you plan to use two weapons more often, then you can neglect the need for damroll and concentrate more on hitroll.

• Luck? Seems useless. Someone told me it helps me with everything.

With human-sized, try escaping from giant's bashlock. Successfully do that three times in a row. Still underestimate luck, hmm? I always take lucky-perk. With my healers, I always aimed for high luck. I bet those shamans were rather frustrated with their voodoo, even if I had relatively low saves. With high luck, it's hard to fail with hiding. List goes on...

Haha. Never knew...

So many "little" nuances to this game that it is overwhelming. Will try to absorb them as they come my way.

Bloodvow adds a no_drop flag to a weapon. If your weapon already had a no_drop flag prior to your bloodvow, it loses it after the bloodvow runs its course. This is very helpful for dropping weapons you no longer want that you cannot uncurse-IE the battlemaster's blade.

This is very helpful for dropping weapons you no longer want that you cannot uncurse

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. It's been corrected to 'work as intended.'

Joke

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. It's been corrected to 'work as intended.'

Great. Ruin the game some more Volg...GOD!

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. It's been corrected to 'work as intended.'

Sorry f0xx

Damn you...

I just drop everything else and then carry more than 4 rares on me and leave that at the bottom and log off to get rid of it.

I think Zho fixed that already so need to mention it