[b41] Arcane Blades can clear now!

[SageAcrin]

http://te4.org/characters/10195/tome/13 ... 55a1a94601

General thoughts;

-Arcane Blades in b41 have a strong start and finish, but the mid and mid-lategame are rough. They tend to rely on a lot of synergistic support skills in the end, and early on they can ride on having, well, a decent spellset at first, but the inbetween period is a problem. It takes them forever to get good saves, too, due to their incredibly scattershot focus(Strength for Physical Save, Magic for Magic Save, and Cunning for Mental Save); This makes the midgame even more dangerous. I died no less than three times due to this combination of iffy saves and so-so raw power, all three times barely getting clipped by status/damage just long enough to drop despite my decent raw HP.

(The fourth time I was an idiot and moved twice in view of one of those switch guarding sets of Corruptor/Necromancers in Rak'shor. I exploded. Sadness, never play half asleep.)

-They do a lot of damage with a physical, but so does a Berserker-they do more damage than a Berserker, in fact, if built up pretty well(More than a Mindslayer's physical, even), but the main damage is range 1, and they're only as mobile as you invest them to be(And constantly leak Mana every attack). Fortunately they have enough points to splash around for a few support abilities. I went with Earthquake and Flameshock there, which helped out against crowds quite a lot, especially once the stats got going. And of course, they generally should build their primary two(or three, if you go Stone, as Earthen Missiles does a *lot* of damage.) spells, as well, which even with the worse cooldown, are still a big help.

-Arcane Blade statistics are, eventually, hilariously good. Check out the Physical/Spellpower on that one(Granted, the Staff is equipped, but even without it it's still impressive). They particularly can run everything, to varying degrees, off Cunning. Just have to invest enough Class points. This is part of why they have a lousy midgame, though, since they don't really have good stats until they invest that ton of Class points.

-I am under no delusions that that build was optimal. In particular, I am not sure about Inner Power(I got good milage out of the stats, particularly since having all the saves I could get was good, especially once my saves actually got good. But it was not very impressive until very late.), and I really could have used Rush at high levels(Getting to enemies with just Phase Door is a surprisingly large pain.). Still, not a lot of things I really regret.

-Stone is great here. Earthen Missiles, Earthquake and Crystalline Focus all work really well for Arcane Blade.

-Upon playing this class, you will develop an unique and impressive hatred for Dreads. You may think you don't like Dreads now, but after playing an Arcane Blade, you will understand.

So yeah, that was a lot of fun. Decent class now, neither massively strong nor cripplingly weak.

[Dervic]

Personally I don't like where the Arcane Blade class went this last patch... in terms of power they should be ok, but just the fact that you're forced to spread stats all over the place and your mana pool being insufficient for anything except the basics really turn me away from the class.
Second problem is that dualwield ABs, which were fun in their own right before this patch, are extremely difficult to do now since you can't really pump dexterity anymore (and the other option if finding one of the 3 possible artifacts for the offhand).

[Grey]

They were stat-spread and mana-strained before. They're a bit more now, but not noticeably different to me.

Dual-wielding before was simply too obvious a choice - I think the balance has been redressed, but getting the dex for daggers is tough. I did personally prefer when dex was the focus stat instead of cunning, but that's partly because of my love for skellie ABs ;) But overall actually I'd prefer Willpower, as that seems more thematically consistent with the class and would help them build up enough mana for their power-hungry. Cunning just doesn't make much sense to me.

The class certainly feels less cat-point hungry now, but still has lots of options. The big thing I miss from before is Stunning Blow, but I guess having that would railroad them down the two-hander path.

[Atarlost]

Strength for damage and tree access. Dex for accuracy and defense. Con for not dieing. Magic for spell power and tree access. Will for mana and fatigue limits. Cunning for spell power and tree access. That's three stats required for tree access, two for critical resources, and one for defense because they can't afford to be wearing heavy armor with their mana draining core mechanic.

This is what we in the pen and paper world call a multi-attribute dependent, or MAD class. MAD classes suck. They're just not viable in a point buy system. They would have been viable under the old "farm stat potions until you max everything" system, but with the current system you just can't make so many stats important to one class when most of the others only need three and the archmage can get by with just two.

[darkgod]

Did you try them or are you randomly bashing ?

You dont need dex, just put 5 poitns into combat accuracy.
You dont need wil, you are not supposed to be a heavy caster

[SageAcrin]

They also run every single stat off Spellpower, if you go for Inner Power.

This is why that Arcane Blade clear has some of the highest stats of any character you'll see in the Vault. Inner Power granting +8 to all stats was definitely part of it.

They run their spellpower off Cunning, they run physical power off spellpower(off Cunning). Dexterity is not a requirement with good Combat Accuracy levels, and with +2 HP modifier, they are not frail. An Arcane Blade that never builds Constitution is still probably going to end up more durable in practice than, say, a Shadowblade or Rogue that gets up close, so they don't *have* to build Con.

A remark I found myself making on the run was "This class runs off CUNNING! And whatever else you feel like building.". None of this is broken because they have uses for every stat, as was said-they get all of these statistical bonuses, but also need them.

It works out, and makes them decent enough, more or less, though it is subtly one of the reasons they aren't incredibly good(All of those skills take a lot of Class points, which limit their versatility in other areas, or they have multiple stat dependancy issues if you ignore all their statistical skills.). But not every class needs to be top tier. It is certainly interestingly unique.

Edit: Also, on the comment about heavy armor...there's nothing especially wrong with mails, by lategame in particular. Check out that armor on the character shown-that's a mail. Even if you don't get an awesome merchant armor, Chromatic Harness is quite a common artifact to be able to pick up, and Kroltar exists if you don't get it. Both are perfectly usable endgame armors. 12% Fatigue is very much something you can handle.

[Grey]

They're one of the more fun classes in my opinion, and always have been. There's this constant feeling of never quite being perfect but always improving. They don't have any single all-powerful ability, and there are a lot of hard choices on what to progress and when. Which is fun and engaging. Archmages and Berserkers are very boring in comparison.

[Atarlost]

Did you try them or are you randomly bashing ?

You dont need dex, just put 5 poitns into combat accuracy.
You dont need wil, you are not supposed to be a heavy caster

I've tried them repeatedly, and I don't buy that they don't need will or dex.

They've got tons of must use sustains (without all the stuff in spell/enhancement they've got nothing on a berserker) which leaves little mana for activated spells. They can't use armor because of fatigue, which prevents them from getting armor hardiness off the armor training talent which in turn means they need dex for defense.

The lack of mana regen doesn't help. An archmage or alchemist typically gets more than twice as much mana out of a manasurge rune because of the regen boost. It's a distinct stylistic thing, but it makes having enough max mana to not run out even more important.

[Grey]

Arcane Blades should only stick to low cost spells. All their triggered spells are cheap. And though you'll want several sustains you can't have them all - you have to be choosy.

I've never had trouble with mana reserves on an AB I must say, and I've never put points into Willpower, and I usually go with heavy armour (though wear fatigue reducing items when possible). Equipment can help, of course.