guide for blade

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Introduction
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After have read a few posts about new Bladers and them being oblivious to what skills they should chose, I decided to make a small guide with pointers according to Rank.
This Also covers the combo dilemma most Bladers have.
This guide almost only covers attack skills, support skills will have to be put in on your own personal decission.

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Skills Explained
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Skills can be sorted like 3 courses of a meal :

1 : Starters
Starters would be fast and short, just to get the thing going.

2 : Main Course
Then you have the main course, they make sure you?re satisfied or in this case, the enemies almost dead and makes room for the finisher. Later refered as “Filler”

3 : Finishers/Dessert
Finishers kill the mob instantly, or atleast finishes them. These skills have to be slow so you can take your time to select the next target.

Note:Remember these numbers, as I?ll put them next to the skills according to their use. Some skills are multiple purpose skills and can be all three of the above, for those there will be nothing stated.

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Skills By Rank
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Don?t bother getting Dash or Fadestep till you feel confident that you can use them correctly.
Fade Step is in my opinion not useful for bladers, as we?re more the close combat types.

Novice
As a Blader starts, he only has skills with fast cast compared to later skills. This will give them a chance to get used to the speed of their skills during combos.
Don?t bother getting Fade Step, it?s of no real use to us Bladers IMO.
Also try to grind as much as possible on these low exp mobs, cause you?ll need to rank up to Apprentice Rank asap.

Skills to get at this point :
Stab & Slash

Apprentice
Get Double Slash(1). This is your first Starter skill untill later.

At this point skill exp will start to slow down to a snailpace. But if you don?t pay attention to it and just grind it up on mobs, it shouldn?t be a problem.

When you hit Apprentice 8, get Triple Slash(2). This will be your real first Filler. Drop Impact Stab for this one.

Skills To Get :
Double Slash

Regular
Don?t bother getting Rising Shot! NO! I SAID DON?T TOUCH IT! Good student, well then.
You ask why not to take this skill? Well here are my points :
1. Single Target
2. 1 hit
And at this point, a single target 1 hitting skill just will NOT do for a Blader.

Get Blade Force now, it?s a very helpful skill till you get Blade Aura. Adds quite a nice smack of attack.

When you can, drop Flash Draw, and get Double Rising(1,2). 3 Hits. Knock down, and AoE. Pretty Sweet huh?

If you want to get Death Cross(3), you?re gonna have to drop a skill. Let that be Stab & Slash then.
Death Cross will be your first Finisher skill.
Note : I personally dropped it later on for another skill, Hasing Dance(2,3)

Expert
This is when things start to get fun *big grin*. No, I?m serious, they do. Anyone who played a Blader till this point will agree with me that Assault IS the most usefull skill you can get. It?s Basicly Dash + Attack in one.
So get Assault, no discussion about it, DO IT!
Assault is the best starter you can wish for.
Though it is buggy in all channels apart from channel 5 & 7 on Mercury. Don?t use it in a combo in any other channel.

The next few things are up to you, since you also have Iron Skin, which will help you survive alot more.

Later get Hasing Dance(2,3), it?s the most beautiful (and deadly) skill you?ll get on this level. It has AoE and Knockdown, which is quite usefull and impressive. Double Slash HAS to go.

Now then, after lvling your skills high enough (40) you should get Storm Grind(2), delete Triple Slash for it.

A.Expert
If you didn?t get Iron Skin yet, get it now. Mirage Step is pretty useless in my opinion, don?t get it.
Also don?t touch Round Cut, just keep lvling your skills and get Mirage Grind(2,3).
I was commented that it looks like a Tornado. And in a way it does, cause that?s the effect, a tornado of damage. 720 degrees of pain.

After you get in your 30s with skill lvls, replace Blade Force by Blade Aura. Why just now and not sooner? Because else you would have walked around with a 60 second buff that gives less attack. And you really don?t want that.

Master
You get 3(!!!) skill slots for reaching this level. Get Dash (and Concentration) now if you didn?t earlier. Dash is very usefull when you max it to 9.

The skills here are expensive as hell. The only skill I?ve gotten my hands on now is Twin-Moon Slash(1,3), and I just LOVE it.
Blader using hit and run? I?ve done it, and I like it. All Bladers lower in Rank just kept chasing me while I Dashed and Twin-Mooned them.
I recommend this one.

Vital Intefere works like a charm against those that don?t use combos.
Stuns them for 3 seconds or so, give you enough time to cast a spell and stun them again, up to you how high you want to level it.
Good PvP and War Skill.

Also Aura Barrier shouldn?t be touched till later for the same reason as Blade Force and Blade Aura.

A.Master
Blade Cry is the only skill to get at A.Master, but it?s a great one. Use it as a last skill though because of the cooldown.

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COMBOS
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This is probably one part you guys were looking for, the combos.
The combo orders stated here mostly work best at lvl 3 or higher, since the cool down isn?t as big a when you get it. There for the combo spamming is easier.
These are for Rank Apprentice of Higher most of the time.
Also, fast skills are easier to get to high combos with.
Most of them have been tested. But as many say, Practice Makes Perfect

Flash Draw ~> Stab Slash ~> Double Slash (~> Triple Slash)

Double Slash ~> Triple Slash ~> Double Rising

Double Rising ~> Triple Slash ~> Death Cross

Assault ~> Hasing Dance ~> Storm Grind (~> Mirage Grind)
Nice for mobbing

(Assault ~>) Double Rising ~> Hasing Dance (~> Storm Grind) ~> Mirage Grind (~> Twin-Moon Slash)

Double Rising > Hasing Dance > Mirage Grind (> Twin-Moon Slash)

Hasing Dance ~> Storm Grind ~> Mirage Grind ~> Blade Cry
(Personal Favorite in grinding)

Taken from Combo Video of the website :
Assault ~> Triple Slash ~> Double Rising ~> Twin-Moon Slash ~> Hasing Dance ~> Death Cross ~> Blade Cry ~> Storm Grind)

Contributed :

Assault ~> Double Rising ~> Death Cross
Contribution from SupaPat

Storm grind ~> Hassing dance ~> mirage grind ~> storm grind ~> round cut
The Saitoshi Spiral Storm