Shalore Staff Shadowblade (Nightmare Adventure win)

[Plak]

http://te4.org/characters/121089/tome/e ... e5fb67fbd5

So I finally got a win, which is actually my first one! I have this bad habit of stupidly wasting most of my lives early in the game since I have so many, then losing the last one from endgame carelessness when I'm steamrolling the East in Normal, so I figured Nightmare would help me be more careful. I still lost most of my lives in the early game, but hey at least I made it through with only the Blood of Life left.

I wanted to see how well a staff Shadowblade would work but I hate Nightmare early game with melee characters, so I'll be honest, I just bought a mindblast torque and drowned Myssil so I could get those 5 first, painful levels done right away.
I started with a point in Shadow Combat to get some decent damage on my daggers, Rush, the two stun skills and most importantly, 4 points in Illuminate. It's kind of funny how my Shadowblade was carried by Illuminate through the early game, but that skill is just so good. Reaching Dreadfell, it's a blind with good AoE damage, which is always great. In the early game, it's a "kill everything with light" button.

Stat-wise, I rushed for 20 Magic so I could get a targeted phase door and teleport, then pumped Cunning with very little Con investment (maybe 4 points?). Shadow Feed let me ditch manasurge so I could get a regen, physical wild and shield combo from shops. Having the luxury to use a shield rune, at level 10, I chose to get Stealth right away rather than Temporal. The Cun that I kept pumping and the many class points I had been hoarding let me get a good Stealth level as well as Shadowstrike right away, giving Illuminate some of his luster back as the Flashlight of Death while preventing troublesome foes from rushing me.

At level 12 I had enough Cun to get Unseen Actions, making me ready to grab a good staff set to light and head for t2 dungeons. I got Staff Mastery asap (hoarding generics to level it up quickly), found a lantern with the moon ego to cast Moonlight Ray, Snow Giant Gloves for knockback and surprisingly decent damage thanks to Shadowstrike, and focused on Time Shield then Essence of Speed once I maxed out Stealth and Unseen actions with 3 points in Shadowstrike. I did have to spend a good chunk in Willpower to sustain Essence of Speed early while still retaining my ability to cast spells, but with both mana and stamina being essential it's a great stat for this build to level up.

I was particularly unlucky with escorts, getting 5 in Dreadfell, 1 in Daikara and two in Reknor, but at least the final one was an Anorithil so my last two cat points went to Light and an infusion that switched between mental/magical wild, movement and manasurge depending on what I was fighting. Manaclash is dangerous, but luckily by the time it became a problem I was dishing out ridiculous amounts of damage. By the end of the game my bolts typically hit for 800-1000+ damage, and troublesome enemies were introduced to 6000+ Flurries. I could probably have made it significantly higher, as I didn't start looking for damage on hit items before the prides and didn't get Arcane Might, but I think it would have been overkill anyway. I went with the Staff of Telos (Bottom) after grabbing it, but I did spend some time with the Life Drinker and thinking back, maybe I should have stuck with it. On one hand, Telos does do a bit more damage thanks to the proc bonus from accuracy (neither it nor the Life Drinker would do any damage on their own, as Telos is weak and I cant afford Dual Weapon Training nor Dagger proficiency). On the other hand, Life Drinker has some nice bonus and 15% Blood Grasp proc on spells is amazing.

Speaking of prodigies, I got Cauterize first because not dying is always nice, and then had to decide between Arcane Might, Meteoric Crash and Windblade. Arcane Might should amount to around 30% more damage on bolts and slightly less on melee hits, but I'm already great at single-target DPS. Meteroic Crash is a great ranged nuke and the idea of meteors getting extra Shadowstrike damage by burning through the atmosphere and exploding upon impact stealthily is hilarious but I felt like it was likely outclassed by Windblade, because Windblade is overpowered. That's what I went for in the end, but I probably should have gotten Arcane Might: it turned out I didn't have any crowd control issues in High Peak, and the extra damage would have made the final fight easier. Both choices are good though.

I think that's it? Staff Shadowblade is a lot of fun, and I love the combination of stealth, spammable bolts and close combat with two low cooldown mobility options in Shadowstep and maxed Phase Door, combined with high global speed. I just wish I got more spell-granting artifacts to play with. While I always focused on one particular element (Light early for Illuminate, then Darkness for Shadowstep and melee damage), the flexibility offered by Command Staff is extremely useful and I found myself quickly switching between elements to kill a rare very often. I never found much darkness penetration, but it's not as necessary when you can always hit your target's weakness.

[Faeryan]

Twas a good read, especially since I just won with a Shadowblade myself today, though mine was only on normal.

It's funny how SB allows so differing playing styles.
Here's a link for reference: http://te4.org/characters/62644/tome/46 ... decc3d04c9