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	Phoenix-Hawk Gateway:  USEast 2. Traps - Blade Skills | 8/22/2004 00:00:00 PM GMTST Traps - Blade Skills: The blade traps saw some real improvements in 1.10 as they now do a percentage of the damage you can do with your weapon in a normal attack. Below is a listing of what works and doesn't work with the blade skills and some basic info on them in general to give you a better understanding of how they work. Blade Skills: The blade skills all take a percentage of the damage your weapon can do with a normal attack which includes elemental damage from all sources and Venom if active then adds their own damage value to that. (normal_weapon_attack_damage x noted% + skill_damage) % weapon damage relates to all the damage done with a normal attack, both physical and elemental. So stats, skills (Claw Mastery if using claws and Venom if active) and items that boost the normal attack damage value also boost the damage of these skills. All properties that work with any of these skills can come from any source. Although if wielding two claws at a time it will take the damage and active properties (only passive ones like +skills and resistance can come from the second claw) from the one in the left slot of the inventory screen. If using a throwing weapon the melee damage value is used. Blade skills are not considered melee attacks so the Iron Maiden curse will not effect you when using them. Their attack rating seems to be the same as the attack rating of the active weapon your damage is based off of when using a normal attack. The base skill damage of all the blade skills will be of little to no use outside of Normal difficulty even at higher skill levels so look to your weapons, Claw Mastery, Venom and items to boost the damage of each, not extra skill points. Since these skills will not really be effected by increased attack speed (only helps in the actual casting of Blade Sentinel) it would in general be better to use Fade with assassins specialising in these skills rather than Burst of Speed as that would really only increase your movement speed while Fade reduces the elemental and physical (at 1% per skill level) damage taken as well as reduces curse lengths. Poison and Venom duration is not scaled down when using blade skills, just the damage. There seems to be a penalty of about 50% of a weapons physical and perhaps elemental damage when using two handed weapons even though it doesn't show up in the character info screen. Not sure if the penalty or the fact it is not displayed properly is the glitch/bug. Due to the penalty with two handed weapons and as there is no reliable way to increase your attack rating when using anything other than claws, claws are still your best option. A good damage claw with high level Claw Mastery will do pretty good damage with Blade Sentinel and Blade Fury. Only way two handed weapons might work is if you had some big elite ethereal weapon then stuffed a rune word like Hand of Justice or Breath of the Dying in it and had plenty of items that boosted your attack rating. Builds working around blade skills may work then but it's certainly harder to get those than usable claws and means you can't block. Mind you a Chaos (another rune word) claw would be better than either of those in such builds anyhow. For gear look for a high damage claw then the rest should be items that boost your Shadow Discipline skills, resistance and reduce physical damage. You can get by with just stuff purchased at shops if you hit them enough rather well. Blade Sentinel: Does 37.5% of the damage your active weapon does with a normal attack plus its base skill damage. While speed at which it moves along it's path seems to be fixed a faster attack speed will increase the speed at which you initially throw the Blade Sentinel out. Using this skill won't wear down the durability of your weapon. The damage and properties of an active Blade Sentinel are fixed to those that were available at the time it was cast so changing your weapons or gear after one has been cast will not effect that active Blade Sentinel. Can not be thrown past/through an obstacle you can not walk through/over (i.e. rivers, raised areas, ponds, etc...). Starting point is the place you were standing when it was thrown out so if you move it will still move back and forth from there and the indicated ending point till time runs out. It can be knocked off course and change its path at times if cast near an obstacle (walls, trees, raised areas, etc...) and it seems to also do so at times when striking at least some monsters. Has a casting delay of about 2 or 2.5 seconds so can not be thrown out in quick succession. You will not be able to attack or use any skills for a short period (about 0.5 seconds) after using this skill. Also it will activate the casting delay on Dragon Flight and your Shadows but not the recasting delay of Cloak of Shadows. Casting your shadow will prevent you from using this skill for the length of the shadow casting delay (6 seconds). It seems like it is possible to interrupt the casting of Blade Sentinel if you're attacked in mid cast but the casting delay and other delays will not kick in if it is interrupted. Properties that do work with this skill: __Ignore target defence (this should not work or at least as well on bosses and perhaps unique monsters as well) __any elemental damage __% extra gold from monsters __% better chance of getting magic items (likely since % extra gold works but can't really tell for certain) __+% damage to demons/undead __+Min/Max damage __deadly strike __critical strike Properties that do not work with this skill: __Life/Mana steal __+Life/Mana after kill __% to cast on attack/strike __open wounds __cause monsters to flee __knock back __crushing blow __slows target __freezes target __blinds target __prevent monster heal __pierce target (Blade Sentinel could be said to already have 100% piercing so more makes no difference) Extra skill point increase the duration (3.95 + 0.48 x (skill_level - 1) = duration in seconds) and base damage of the skill by a little. The mana cost is fixed at 7. A good skill to cast out into a crowd for a melee assassin so you can attack multiple targets. Generally you'll only want to put in one point and let +skill items increase the duration but points in here to boost the duration for some builds such as those centering around the blade skills could be quite useful. With more points into this you can use them to create an area that has several spinning around in it then try to keep critter in that area as long as possible with your shadow, mercenary, Mind Blast, Cloak of Shadows, running around it, the terrain and anything else you can think of as well as tossing in an extra whenever the casting delay ends. Blade Fury: Does 75% of the damage your active weapon does with a normal attack plus its base skill damage. Increased attack speed and faster casting rate items do not seem to effect either its actual attack speed or initial casting. Using this skill won't wear down the durability of your weapon. Can be thrown past/through obstacles you can not walk over (rivers, raised areas, ponds, etc...) but not most of those you can not walk through (trees, wagons, solid walls, etc... but will pass through broken walls, rocks, logs, etc...). Two blades are tossed out per attack and the attack rate is not related to the attack rate of your weapon so weapon speed means nothing and you don't need any increased attack speed with this skill (it's supposedly sends out one blade every 6 frames or 0.24 seconds). Your total Blade Fury damage seems to be split in half per blade as two are tossed out per attack. So the damage listed is per attack cycle, not per blade. Properties that do work with this skill: __Life/Mana steal __+Life/Mana after kill __Ignore target defence (this should not work or at least as well on bosses and perhaps unique monsters as well) __any elemental damage __% extra gold from monsters __% better chance of getting magic items (likely since % extra gold works but can't really tell for certain) __% to cast on attack/strike __open wounds __cause monsters to flee __knock back __crushing blow (but at reduced effectiveness) __+% damage to demons/undead __+Min/Max damage __slows target __deadly strike __critical strike __freezes target __blinds target __prevent monster heal Properties that do not work with this skill: __pierce target Extra points increase the base damage of this skill a little and mana requirements by 0.1 point of mana per skill level. You will not want to put more than one point in this for any build as it really only increases the mana cost since its base skill damage is very small and will be of little to no use outside Normal difficulty, even at higher skill levels. Blade Shield: Does 25% of the damage your active weapon does with a normal attack plus its base skill damage. While its attack speed does not seem to be effected by increase attack speed or faster casting rate items faster casting rate items will increase the speed at which you initially cast your Blade Shield. Will attack in all directions every 1 second or so as well as at the time of casting (so casting continuously will cause it to attack more frequently but who would do that?). Using this skill will wear down the durability of your weapon. Its attack range appears to be fixed regardless of your weapons range. Some creatures such as the lancer rouges in Act I will be able to attack from outside the range of your Blade Shield. The damage and properties used will change if you swap weapons or gear after casting. Properties that do work with this skill: __Life/Mana steal __Ignore target defence (this should not work or at least as well on bosses and perhaps unique monsters as well) __any elemental damage __% extra gold from monsters __% better chance of getting magic items (likely since % extra gold works but can't really tell for certain) __% to cast on attack __+% damage to demons/undead __+Min/Max damage __deadly strike __critical strike __prevent monster heal Properties that do not work with this skill: __+Life/Mana after kill __% to cast on strike __open wounds __cause monsters to flee __knock back __crushing blow __slows target __freezes target __blinds target __pierce target (Blade Shield could be said to already have 100% piercing so more makes no difference) Extra points here increase the duration by 5 seconds per skill level, the mana cost by 2 and the damage a little. For most builds this skill is not really worth getting or just worth one point if you already have Blade Fury, if you want it getting it off of a claw in your second weapon set may be the way to go. Only if you have a good bit of elemental damage from various sources including plenty in Venom, have claws with lots of physical damage, plenty of points in Claw Mastery and at least some of the usable properties will this be somewhat useful in Hell for melee assassins. While it can leech life and mana don't expect to leech much anything in Hell or even other difficulties.