Blademaster Guides

Okay first of all, I want to say welcome to Perfect World International. If you are looking at this guide, you might be new to the game, visited the website and thought that maybe a blademaster would be right for you, or you may just want some tips on the blademaster class. Either way, this short and easy guide will help you with all of your questions on your journey to become a blademaster!

Facts
You might be wondering to yourself, "What is a blademasters purpose in this game?" or "Why be a blademaster?" Well that's what I'm here to tell you. First of all, before all your attribute adding and skill learning, there's a few things you need to realize as a blademaster.
 * 1: You will mostly need Strength as your attribute all through the game.
 * 2: You will be spending a lot of money as a blademaster on skills.
 * 3: Depending on what kind of blademaster you want, your builds will be different.

Heres why you need to know these things above. As a blademaster, you are an attack class. If you thought that it was a warrior class and wanted to be a tank/defense class, Barbarian might be better for you even though you can put some points into Vitality. Spending money on skills is a big one. Blademasters have many skills that do many different things, and at times when you are buying skills, you may find it frustrating that you can only buy 2 out of 10 skills available due to low spirit/coins. You shouldn't be too worried however because you don't really need all those skills at once.

As I said, your builds will be different depending on what kind of blademaster you are. Now yes you might be confused and start asking yourself, "There are two different kinds of blademasters??" Well the answer is no, so stay calm. What I mean by "what kind" is that you can either be a solo blademaster, or a party blademaster, depending on whether you like to work with others a lot. Now this usually doesn't effect your build, but sometimes it can. I will talk more about soloing and parties in my next chapters.

Solo Blademasters
Now I explained in my last chapter about a soloing and party blademaster, and in this chapter I will talk about soloing blademasters. First of all, a soloing blademaster is a blademaster who kills things alone, easy enough. But heres the catch, if you don't have help, your HP will be the thing that kills you. Blademasters generally have a decent physical defense, and a low magical defense, with mid HP. This makes the blademaster die pretty fast if you are unprepared. Here are 2 things I would recommend as a solo blademaster.

The first is the powerhouse build. Basically, put almost all of your points in Strength and don't bother much with Dexterity or Vitality. Other than to get your minimum requirements for equipment. What this build will do is give you a chance to mutilate the monster with a ton of attacks at high Strength before it kills you. This can however be risky at mobs that are higher level than you. The second build is putting most in Strength, then alternating between Vitality and Dexterity. For example, you have 5 attribute points at level up you would put 3 in Strength, and 2 in Dexterity, and then next level you would put 3 in Strength, and 2 in Vitality. What this will do is give you some decent HP, with some good Dexterity and a good Strength, which can keep you alive for longer while you still hit high.

These are just example builds though, I'm not telling you what to do, you should choose what you think is good your you :].

Party Blademasters
This blademaster mostly stays in parties and mass kills mobs for exp, this isn't too common at lower levels, but higher levels, parties will be necessary to kill bosses and other tough mobs. If you are in a party, almost everyone will depend on the blademaster for serious damage dealing. Leave healing and tanking to clerics and barbarians. If you plan to go in parties a lot, then the barbarian will take most the damage, and clerics will heal people, so don't even worry about Vitality that much here, what you need to worry about is Strength and Dexterity. Your build throughout most of the game should be +3 Strength and +2 Dexterity, but sometimes you might want to go +4 Strength and +1 Dexterity for more attack power. Strength will determine your base attack, and is also a requirement to wield weapons and armor. Dexterity can increase your critical hit rate (which is important) and is a minor requirement for most weapons and armor, along with a few other things. Whichever build you choose, just make sure that you have plenty of strength or you wont be very wanted in parties.

Weapon Builds
Blademasters have a great ability to wield almost any weapon in the game, but there are certain builds you need depending on which weapon you want to use. The main areas for weapons is Axe & Hammers, Polearm, Blades/Swords, and Fist Weapons.

Axe & Hammers: require the most Strength out of all of them. No matter what the build, you should always put 3-4 points in your Strength, or you will not meet the requirements to wield these powerful weapons.

Polearms: require a Strength based build, but not like Axes & Hammers. I use polearms myself and I put around 3-4 in strength, and then maybe 1-2 in Vitality or Dexterity, so I mix it around a bit, almost always Dexterity though.

Blades/Swords: requires a balanced Dexterity and Strength level. Usually put most of your points in Strength, but occasionally some Dexterity for requirements.

Fist Weapons: requires more Dexterity than Strength. I don't recommend fist weapons for one reason, they aren't strong. Your main duty as a blademaster is high Strength but its near impossible to get with fist weapons because of the Dexterity requirements. If you are more of a quick attack fan, then try it if you want, but its not the strongest one at all, keep that in mind.

Armor Builds
As far as armor goes, there isn't really a specific build for armor, but light and heavy armor require different stats so to speak. Heavy armor requires more Strength to equip than light armor does, and light armor takes more Dexterity to equip than heavy armor does, thats pretty much it. No matter what your build though, you should be able to wield any armor you want at your level as long as you take some Dexterity and some Strength. The point is you have to choose which kind of armor you want. Light armor will be balanced, so magic attacks wont hurt you as much as if you have heavy armor, but heavy armor defends against physical attacks. For soloing, I personally use heavy armor to defend against strong attacks, but if you think you might be fighting mages or things that have magic attack, you might choose light. Just go with the armor that suits you best.

Blademaster Skills
I explained before that a blademaster has many skills and can be expensive at times. In this section I will list all the blademaster skills from 1-59. Once you hit 60, you should be a very advanced and strong blademaster, and you can choose easily for yourself. I will list the importance of the skill after I describe it to help you choose which skills to buy when you level up.

Level 1: Tiger Maw This skill is the first skill you get in the game and is used throughout all of your levels, it does a lot of damage at higher levels and can be a good skill at any level. I would not max it right away because of other skills that are better later on but this skill will be your main one for a while.

Level 3: Draw Blood This skill is one of my favorites at a high level. The damage it does as a hit is kind of weak, but it can cause bleeding damage to up to 2000 over 15 seconds at higher levels, this skill shouldn't be first priority, but its good to have since your are doing damage over time while you're using other skills to take down the enemy.

Level 6: Drakes Ray This skill is excellent. It does pretty good damage, and its a ranged skill, so you can draw back enemies in a crowd instead of running in and getting all the mobs on you. I recommend leveling this skill as soon as you can.

Level 9: Steam Strike This skill isn't that good since Its not too powerful, and it draws attention to yourself, which makes it bad in parties since you want the barbarian to attract the monsters. Plus it uses chi, which means you cant use it as often as other skills.

Level 9: Cloud Sprint This skill should be leveled up as much as possible until you hit level 30, because its a really fast way to travel on foot until you can fly. It increases your running speed by a good amount and its a pretty handy skill to blademasters.

Level 16: Alter Marrow Magical This skill is great if you are against mages, because blademasters are generally weak to magic. What this does is it decreases your physical defense to increase your magic defense. So whether you are in PvP or fighting magic mobs, this is a good skill to use.

Level 19: Aura of the Golden Bell This skill increases physical defense for 30 minutes. I recommend maxing this skill, but not until more important ones like Drakes Ray or Aeolian Blade.

Level 19: Aeolian Blade This skill is great for damage dealing, it does more damage than all of my skills and its a quick cast. I highly recommend maxing it, maybe even before Drakes Ray.

Level 23: Roar of the Pride This is an area effect stun skill. The higher level the skill, the longer the enemy is stunned. The skill is alright, but I don't use it too much because its just a waste of MP to stun them for only a few seconds.

Level 23: Alter Marrow Physical This is pretty much the same as Alter Marrow Magical but instead of increasing magic defense, it increases physical defense. It's alright but as a Blademaster you don't really need too much physical defense since you already have a lot. If you are wearing light armor it might be a good buff though.

Level 26: Oceans Edge This skill is good at damage dealing as well. Not as good as Aeolian Blade in my opinion, but it has a pretty cool speed decreasing effect that can be good for those pesky rangers that move back every shot. The slow effect could possibly be good for PvP as well.

Level 29: Tiger Leap and Leap Back Both of these skills are usually really pointless, but there are some creative uses for them. For example, Tiger leap, can be used to instantly leap forward so you don't have to run up to those rangers that move back a lot. And if you do Leap back, and then do Drakes Ray, you can form a little combo against physical mobs or players. I would only upgrade them once for the extra boost.

Level 29: Diamond Sutra This skill is the only healing spell a Blademaster has, so I recommend upgrading it pretty fast. However, its always good to use so no hurry to max it before Aeolian Blade or Drakes Ray

Level 34: Fan of Flames This skill does some pretty good damage in a fanlike AoE. It's pretty useful so I would upgrade it pretty high if you plan on fighting multiple enemies at once.

Level 44: Drake Sweep Similar to the Fan of Flames AoE except it a lot stronger, and has a wider radius. This skill is worth upgrading if you fight multiple monsters.

Level 59: Will of the Bodhisatva This skill is just like Cloud Sprint except it's faster, and it prevents stun and slowing effects. At level 59 you wont be traveling on foot that much, but its worth buying because its maxed as soon as you buy the skill.

Now those are just the common blademaster skills, I didn't include the special skills for Axe & Hammers, etc because I don't know anything about them. At level 29 you will get your skills that specialize in the certain weapon categories, when you get to that level you should know what you are doing so you can choose what you think is good, I'm just here to give you the basic idea.

Conclusion
In this guide I told you about the blademaster, an excellent strength based class that can be very valued in parties, and around the Perfect World. The information above was guidelines to help you understand the blademaster easier, but the real blademaster is in you. You have to be the one who decides your skills and attributes so you can have a fun, exciting time as a blademaster.

Thank you all for reading my guide!