blademaster help

Having some problems figuring out where my tactics are wrong. Any BLM experts willing to let me bounce questions off them via PM?

Any general advice for fighting clerics? I had been using spellkill for my last few fights before I learned you can't spellkill a prayer. Oops.

I'm failing badly vs clerics. I've tried shadowdancer and bladestorm so far. Bladestorm seems to work better overall, but I don't have enough fights in to be certain. I'll usually try to draw a polearm if I have to re-engage to attempt to get a snakespeed in, but so far my opponents are skilled enough to bypass it easily.

I think I'm failing to make good use of critical strikes, they just don't really seem to be that useful unless you have expert or mastery in the race. Most fights I'll try to get a leg strike in to help with defense reduction, but other than that I'm using onslaught.

I thought I remember reading that you can crit every round while in bladestorm. Have to test that still. That could be one of my tactical errors.

You should ask F0xx. He has great experience fighting Clerics. I only have experience fighting Blademasters as a Cleric.

Ok, things that hurt clerics:

Ironarm disarm. If he has a Cursed weapon this is a pain for the cleric.

Some less powerful critical strikes are interesting. DEX and STR. Most clerics do not cast Giant Strength, so you can pull STR penalty.

A favorite of F0xx is attriction war, by striking the Clerical regeneration abilities. Poison,Plague,Drain,Enfeblement.

But to pull this you must be already wining, in my view.

Also get a weapon that Fireblinds, like the Fire Lance. Or something with a Ember.

And stock up on Mental saves. -40 mental will be quite a aid for you. Ignore the rest of saves.

I love attritioning clerics.

which cleric? if you dont mind me asking.

Mya's suggestions are decent, though they rely on the cleric being horrible at their class.

Against a BLM any decent cleric will use holy hands, so disarm is pointless.

Most clerics DO cast Giant strength.

Poison / Plague really do not hurt them much.

Bladestorm + Onslaught will dish out the damage, however Bladestorm effects you like haste..meaning reduced healing and mana regen per tic for you. Though depending on the cleric, this could be a good thing.

Stacking mental saves is great and all on paper, however, a BLM needs to focus on Hitroll above all else. This is your bread and butter. Most clerics will have higher than average AC, so if you sacrifice hit-roll for mental saves your screwing yourself. This is mainly due to a lack of offence. If your not peeling of tons of HP a around, a solid cleric will just heal up after every few rounds letting their unavoidables like steel wall kill you.

Wielding weapons clerics do not have, and bladestorming, will get good results damage wise. Though if the cleric is quicker than you they can turn the tide quickly. Landing your crit's though, and round by round attacks will all rely on your hit roll vs their AC. The stronger (read lower AC) the cleric, the more hit you need to do the level of damage neccesary to hurt them enough a round.

Using attirtion tactics as a BLM vs a good cleric (one who uses attrition) is risky. They have more ways of disrupting you than you them, especially if their anatomy isnt your mastery/expert. They can also heal much more than your 250 once every few hours from acupuncture. With my last BLM I always went with the tact of overpowering clerics, hit fast, hard, and relentlessly.

Wow considering your words kyzarius seems that your blademaster was scary one.as for fighting clerics use spellbane, draining or telelock and put up a decent chasing.

for fighting clerics use spellbane' date=' draining or telelock and put up a decent chasing.[/quote']

Well mastery or expert in their race opens up those things. Hit roll though is your stat.

Telelocking while using murder with bladestorm and dual swords, staying on them constantly, weapons high, will down a cleric. What you want is to catch them everytime they stop to heal, murder can hit for double round and their defences will be at a disadvantage. This is where chasing is key, a real fast cleric or one who is crafty will sneak rounds of heals in one way or another. If your hit roll is high enough though, that murder round will blow past their heal rate. Draining will really put on the pressure, since they have to refresh AND heal.

Assuming you DON'T have anatomy expertise/mastery in cleric's race:

Bladestorm lessens your attrition capabilities as Kyzarius says, but then if you're trying to attrition a cleric as a BLM (if the cleric is skilled) then you're not going to get far. Onslaught is your real meat here as you can throw it out quickly and you should be dealing good damage. Don't totally neglect saves but don't focus on them at the detriment to hit and dam because again, parroting Kyzarius, you need them on the back foot and you need to be relentless.

You can also try that which communers hate, which is having a two-handed weapon wielded and let them open with a spell which you then counter with snakespeed, before either switching to dual-wield and go for broke or flee and repeat. Most people will catch on quickly and try to use area attacks to initiate, but for clerics these tend to be pretty weak and can even be neglected by standing next to big tough mobs.

If you have any sort of expertise or mastery in anatomies, then tactics change as critical strikes become more useful.

Dey

My experience as Tarim v Gogrash taught me one thing... draw is a POWERFUL command. Yeah yeah...Gogrash was a shaman, but its close to the same thing. Snakespeed is a beast, and while he has cast lag I'm using the uber command draw to suddenly get ALARMINGLY fast...bladestorming, which I found to be the BEST stance despite Gogrash always winning in the end due to my own lack of consumables, will give you a shot at 5-6 attacks with weapons that cleric shouldn't even begin to spell (swords or spears preferred for me anyway), and give you some nasty quick onslaughts (occasionally letting you get through 2 phases of the whole thing within a round, but always making you much faster on the onslaught than any other stance). Lets not forget that while bleeding from that pinwheel isn't godly damage... it still is damage. Mix in a choice crit strike or two when you think they might flee shortly... I tended to look for them to flee around 60-70% hp... and you have a decent basis of how I go about battling clerics. Another thing to think about is obviously weapon height. Low is asking for it, middle is alright, high is optimum. If you are really struggling to defend for whatever reason, consider middle but you really should be going high with those swords. Another thing to think about is that they can refill that HP bar fairly quickly, but only time will get that mana flowing again. Bust them in the mouth, do a little dance around them... oh snap they need to put back up sanc? 75 mana gone. We BLMs are only needing to type smoke black and it costs us the occasional gathering trip. Oh they tried to catch that tick? Charge!... no tick for you homeboy. Another thing to think about is... if the fight seems to be drawing out... switch stances. Oh he has adjusted to my massive damage output from bladestorm? I wonder how he adjusts to his fancy cursed mace getting snatched out of his hand ironarm style and sacced? And remember to mask that stance change... use the disarm effect of bladerush to surprise them with the ironarm disarm... don't just disarm. Those c/cs think they have all the tricks... they don't even know.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I'll see if I can put them to use and turn things around a bit.