Spellblade weapon - which do you prefer, 2h or 1h? Catalyst or Shield?

Hi fellow Spellblades,

I thought I’d get a thread going as the Any Alluvion Builds Yet? thread was getting a little bit “magey”

My personal preference is for a 1h and shield. Using Shatter Strike and Mana Strike.

I use Eye of Reen, as I get fast attacks, lots of ignite stacks and a bit more defense.

I’m not a fan of slow 2h weapons as they gimp my ward generation and I find them a bit clumsy.

What are other spellblades using, what skills do you prefer and what are your reasons for doing so?

Discuss!

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I’m a fan if 1h + shield combo, too… since the block effectiveness buff you can get a good amount of mitigation and block chance on your shield without any passive related boosts that Sentinels have.

Like that playstyle. But also I’m curious what dual wielding will bring for Spellblade.

Even moar dots!

Went for 1h + catalyst worked well too.

But is dual wield going to be for all classes or something exclusive to the rogue ? Bladedancer is explicit about it but is it going to be the only one to allow that ?

There were some hints within some other classes skills or passives. The Spellblades shatter strike had a node for dual wielding (not sure if it is still in) and Lich has a passive node that sounds like it’s made for dual wielding.

The Primalist wields 2 axes on the login screen.

I hope this all means there will be dual wielding. I suppose there will be a general dual wield mechanic that works for all classes, while bladedancer gets some nice support for it.

Maybe I’m wrong. I hope this is not the case :grin:

I like big hits and always a fan of 2hands; also, 2hand scales well with increase to attack speed. also, more a leecher and rarely play ward builds. And the aesthetics I like better. Not a fan of dots, too.

I basically went 2 hand with every class, for just that reason. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Nice to see variations in playstyles. Especially one that doesn’t rely on Ward!

Are you getting all your leech from Prism Wraps?

I did try Morditas’ Reach for a while and will give it and Alluvion another chance to see how they handle in Arena, but they do feel a bit too slow with Shatter Strike as my primary damage dealer.

Even Shard of the Shattered Lance doesn’t help in Arena for me because Eye of Reen gives more damage benefit from the ignite than I get from Shard’s cold damage and a bit of freeze chance, or even the Deicide proc.

DoT’s suffer badly from slow attacks, so I can see why you’re not a fan!

But with Shatter Strike fast attacks, the ignite on Eye of Reen stacks so quickly that it feels like a massive boost to ‘on hit’ damage, rather than a DoT you apply and leave to do it’s work.

Any my crit numbers are nowhere near the ones you can get with a 2h!

It’s very, very hard for me not to use Eye of Reen right now - everything else I’ve tried so far gimps my build and playstyle a bit.

That could be very interesting.

I did not yet try the new spellblade because my old SB did get erased with my new Laptop. But my sorcerer, using 2hand staff and mainly Lightning blast (from static / desintegrate / arcane ascendre or how it is called), using disentigrate only for the mana reg and “on Channeling buffs”…

And it keeps my life full with Prism Wraps, with semi-good protections. So my experiences so far are optimistic :slight_smile: Using a 8% ele leech roll, which I think is high (80 life on a single 1000 Damage crit) - if thats calculated correctly.

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Added this from the Alluvion thread as it’s really good Spellblade info.

Thanks to @vapourfire

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Loving Spellblade… not as crazy fun as Captain America Shield Throwing bouncing shields all over the place, but very good… Cannot believe how tanky a “mage” class can be.

After my Alluvion disappointment I am probably going to refocus my build to be less spread between cold/lightning… Are you using Chillflame in ShatterStrike to convert the Ignite stacks from Eye of Reen?

No. I’m keeping the damage as fire to balance out the damage types, so cold + fire.

Chillflame takes up too many points, so I have t5 frostbite chance 105% on chest instead.

I lose some lightning damage by speccing Mana Strike for +40% base crit chance node, but reen stacks quicker on larger packs and the extra mana is nice.

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Not to flip flop around, but I’ve changed my Spellblade to using a crafted 2h Sword with melee lightning & frailty… (yes a fake ‘sort of’ Alluvion) … As much as the 1h/shield/cat worked very well, I have found that I could sacrifice some tankiness/offhand boosts for the harder hitting 2h. Just got a little more ward & attk speed to make up for the time it takes to build up the stacks needed for the nukes… and overlapping all the difference stacks with 2h levels of base damage means I regularly two shot (two nuke shots, not taps of course) mof map bosses.

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