Blackguard

[xary 18]

I’ve been playing Vandal this campaign. Although nice in some areas I’d like to try Blackguard next.

How is everyone fairing with them? Cons? Pros?

It seems they may be easier to gear as ore feels easier to get better quality faster. Survivabilty on paper also looks nice. Wondering about killing power?

 

[Silverback 59]

the trickle of healing from the poison was very limited. I was hoping that they might get access to better poisons and thus better lifesteal ability. I was thinking about going bow at one point and have multi-person arrow shots to increase the poison delivery. 

Being able to dissapear, move and pop up to heal while your doing damage would be survivable

 

[ZeFx 46]

With the changes in 5.8.3 I wish the poison paradise was a bit higher since 8% does not really give you a lot of healing back. Now we have lost weapon discs this makes assassin pretty low on valid skills. 

I think that both Blackguard and Cut Throat are still viable. The biggest issue I have with Vandal is the large amount of CC that is around in general. What's worse is that you don't get the severe bleed if the target is stun immune. 

[EddyDeadly 2]

I switched from cutthroat to blackguard and I have no desire to change back. Mail armour is an absolute win. I'm sitting on 12k HP and you wont make me swap that in a hurry.

As for dmg dealt, it's pretty simple: you aren't doing dmg when you're dead. You also aren't doing dmg when you're disengaging to stealth and heal. So in general Im putting down way more dmg in blackguard just from being in the fight longer, despite on paper having less dmg.

I can stand toe to toe with champions and win. I'm sure they are pretty surprised to see my HP staying steady whilst there's dwindles.

It may have something with the +20 slashing i've stacked up for my axes.. I'm not a number cruncher.. I just pew pew

All I know is I'm engaging every target and the only loss I've had so far was to an epic geared knight... and honestly, I dont know how that fight would have ended up if i had tried to fight instead of run, as I didn't actually throw a punch. I suspect I might have lost, if I'd fought to the death, but i'd probably have forced a disengage and gotten away.

[PinkFluffyPanda 48]

What about after the armor changes, as far as I have understood they tend to remove the HP gain from armor and only rely on mitigation? 

 

So wont that hurt the Blackguard really badly? Thus making the Vandal a really good option since it would be the best at the hit'n'run game? 

If the Blackguard loses a lot of its survivability, why not choose the Vandal with the 30% bigger Dot? 

 

If the Blackguard cant go "head to head" due to the loss of HP pool, why choose it? Or am I missing something? 

Edited April 25 by PinkFluffyPanda

[Silverback 59]

The hp loss with hurt the blackguard , but also your opponent, so its relative.

[PinkFluffyPanda 48]

1 hour ago, Silverback said:

The hp loss with hurt the blackguard , but also your opponent, so its relative.

Yeah but what i mean is that after the armor changes, wont that hurt the Vandal less (because its leather wearer) than the Blackguard (a mail wearer)

 

So if you are comparing only Vandal to Blackguard, the Vandal will suffer less of the armor changes.

That in return should mean that the Vandal will not being as "far behind" the Blackguard as it used to be? 

 

If you get what im trying to say? 

Edited April 28 by PinkFluffyPanda

[Silverback 59]

I just tried Blackguard again and thought i would try and craft armor with extra lifesteal, added poisoner disc and I was still getting the 13 points back every attack, sometimes up to 36 or down to 6 so its still the trickle unless they really raise the poison damage. 

With the mail armor and added 1k hp's...I thought I could focus on area damage and get multiple attacks (dagger spins/multi arrow shots and cone attacks) to make it a strategy in large combats. (like a myrmidon) Nice but what do you lose?

You lose the assassin focus, the big hit single target stuff. The generic backstab that everyone gets is doing 2-300.

Vandal gets an suppressing backstab and un-defendable stun from stealth (so you can stack damage)and cutthroat gets Ambush (the single best attack in the game) plus 30% bonus damage from behind. 

 

[Siruss 2]

You're on the right path thinking about area damage, but not with those skills and certainly not poisoner. Nature poison does a lot of damage and it spreads with diffusion. There are other ways to get it to spread. 

But no, lifesteal blackguard is not a good single target build at all. It's a great anti-group/zerg build though because the more people around you, the more healing you receive. So you have good constant AOE DPS and can sustain... So yes you lose the assassin focus, but that isn't good in group fights anyway. But you can hang and bang in the front line all day.

Edited August 15 by Siruss

[Fefner 99]

keep tinkering with builds you'll get there and yes there is a good lifesteal build in which you can tank very well. Oh and yes the blackguard line is the best line, i wouldnt bother with the other two lines, they need a boost especially vandal.