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The Dagger and Staff weapon combination, known as the Spellblade, is one of the most potent Damage Dealer weapon combinations inThrone and Liberty. It has multiple different ways it can be played, with many different gear sets that accentuate its strengths.
There are two primary mechanics to tinker with when it comes to these weapons, and they both require some specific Skill Specialization in order to make them work. That’s not to say a build can’t stray off the beaten path, it certainly can, but the builds here are going to serve as a good baseline from which to start.
The Poison, Burning, And Damage-Over-Time Build
This first build is primarily going to be concerned withsingle-target damage. That’s not to say it can’t be used against groups of enemies, it can, and some abilities will hit them all at the same time. But in general, you’re going to bemelting one enemy at a time; you’re just going to be doing it very, very quickly.
The Mechanics
This build revolves aroundusing your Daggerstoinflict your target with Poison, and using your Staff toinflict your target with Burning. Both of these are going to cause adamage-over-time (DoT)effect that’s going to passively deal damage while you attack.
This DoT is going to be solid, but it’s not all that this build is about. That’s going to becomplimentary to the other effects of your skills, almost all of which are going to be enhanced in one way or another but targeting an enemy already affected by these DoT effects. Played correctly,these abilities are going to be extremely strong. If played incorrectly, these abilities are going to be weaker than usual.
Cooldown Reduction (Inject Venom),Effect Duration Increase (Inject Venom)Increase.
Umbral Spirit
Dealsextra damage on a Critical Hit, and dealsadditional damage to Poisonedenemies.
Cleaving Moonlight
Deals damage in aradius in front of you.
Consecutive Use (Cleaving Moonlight),Attack Speed Increase (Cleaving Moonlight),Additional Damage (Cleaving Moonlight)on Poisoned targets.
Additional Hit (Vampiric Strike),Skill Effect Enhanced (Vampiric Strike).
Fatal Stigma
Deal damage after a short period to a target,increasing the damage for each stack of Poison.
Damage Increase (Fatal Stigma).
Shadow Strike
Move behind your target, deal damage, andgain a chance to Bind them.
N/A
High Focus
Skill swapped to increase Max Damage,increasing your damage ceiling with every attack.
Base Damage Boost (High Focus).
Serial Fire Bombs
Hurl fire bombs at an enemy that deal damage and have achance to apply Burning.
Instant Casting (Serial Fire Bombs).
Inferno Wave
Create a fiery explosionaround you in a radius, dealing damage andincreasing damage to Burning enemies.
Fireball Frenzy (Fireball Barrage).
Hellfire Rain (Infernal Meteor)
Createmeteors that fall out of the skyonto a radius, dealing damage andBurning enemies.
Increases your Critical Hit Chancessignificantly.
Murderous Energy
Increases Poison duration and damage over time, allowing you to get more stacks of Poison at the same time.
Increases your Critical Damagesignificantly.
Flame Condensation
Increases the Burning DoTand the Heavy Attack Chance for each stack of Burning. (This is going to significantly improve the odds ofInferno Waveapplying Burning.)
Increases Max Mana and Max Health.
Increases your Evasionafterusing a Mobility or Movement Skill(Shadow Strike).
Manaball Eruption
Grants the chance tofire additional fire bombswhen already firing fire bombs.
The Rotation
The only skills in this build that don’t either interact with Poison or Burning areVampiric Strike, which is there for a little bit ofextra survivability,Shadow Strike, whichinteracts with a passiveskillincluded with this build and willincrease your Evasion, andHigh Focus, which willincrease your damage across the board.
Apart from that,keep your Poison and your Burning effects up, and everything you do is going to deal significantly more damage. Once you’ve got these effects rolling, this build is going to keep aconsistent damage burn on enemies, and is particularly potent when taking down enemies with a higher amount of health, allowing you to continuously roll through your rotation instead of having to reset for new enemies.
The Thunderclouds, Frost, And Area-Of-Effect Build
The second build here focuses entirely on different mechanics with the Daggers and the Staff:Thunderclouds and Frost. This build is going to be significantly worse for single-target damage, and overall, is going to bealittle bit less versatilethan the Poison and Burning build.
That said, in the right situation,where there is acluster of enemies all grouped together,this build cankick out someserious damage, bursting from enemy to enemy and taking all of their health bars down at the same time.
Instead of the Daggers inflicting Poison with this build, more or lessevery applicable skill is Specialized into Thunderclouds, instead. Thunderclouds decrease enemy Endurance for a certain amount each stack, and stacks up to 20 times.
The Thunderclouds effect canspread to other enemies in the vicinitywith certain skills, lowering all of their Endurance at the same time.
Other Dagger skills are going to make use of those Thunderclouds for extra effects,dealing incredible damage in a wide radius.
For the Staff’s part, the Frost combined with the other skill effects are going toWeaken other aspects of the enemy’s defenses, keeping them from being at the top of their game. Inflicting Frost and using other abilities is going toenable those abilities to deal damageto every enemy in the vicinity, further enabling this build to be anarea-of-effect (AoE) nightmare for the enemy.
Description/Specialization
Lightning Infusion (Inject Venom)
Swapped skill,applies Thundercloudsto all enemies hit, and reusing spreads Thunderclouds to enemies nearby.
Lightning Infusion (Inject Venom),Cooldown Reduction (Inject Venom).
Thunder Spirit (Umbral Spirit)
Swapped Skill,deals extra damage on a Critical Hit, anddeals extra damage in a radius if the target is affected by Thunderclouds.
Deals damage in a radius.
Consecutive Use (Cleaving Moonlight),Effect Accumulation (Cleaving Moonlight)to apply Thunderclouds to enemies.
Effect Accumulation (Shadow Strike)to apply Thunderclouds.
Lightning Throw (Knife Throwing)
Swapped Skill,throws knives in an arc in front of you, dealing damage, reducing enemy Endurance, anddealing extra damage to a nearby enemy if affected by Thunderclouds.
Deals damage and teleporttoeight nearby enemieswithin six meters.
Cooldown Reduction (Brutal Incision),Effect Accumulation (Frenzied Sword Dance)to apply Thunderclouds.
Thunderclouds Bombing (Brutal Incision)
Swapped Skill,deals damage and removes Thunderclouds, dealingsignificantly extra damage for each stack of Thundercloudsand increasing Critical Chance if the enemy isbelow 50% health.
Thunderclouds Bombing (Brutal Incision).
Frost Smokescreen
Teleport forward andleave an ice field in your wake,applying Frostto enemies.
Additional Damage (Frost Smokescreen).
Ice Spear
Throw an ice spear at enemiesthat passes through them and deals damage,inflicting Frost.
Damage Increase (Ice Spear).
Icebound Tomb
Entrap an enemy in iceand deal damage, with a chance toinflict Frost to all targets nearby.
Icy Mire (Icebound Tomb)reduces enemy Evasion.
Chain Thunder (Chain Lightning)
Swapped skill, deals damage to an enemy,creates a damaging fieldthat constantly damages enemies, anddamaging enemies affected by Frosttransfers damage to nearby enemies.
Chain Thunder (Chain Lightning),Damage Transfer 2 (Chain Lightning).
Judgment Lightning
Deals extreme damage to your target, and that damage isalso inflicted to nearby enemies if your target is affected by Frost.
Significantlyincreases Max Health and Max Mana.
Increases Mana Regenconsiderably.
The rotation for this build is alittle less strict than the last one, simply because there is awider variety of skills that inflict either Thunderclouds or Frost.
For the most part, it’s also good tohave Lightning Infusion up when you can, andalways have Thunder Spirit up for that extra damage. Otherwise, ensure you’ve gotmultiple stacks of Thunderclouds on a target before you use Thundercloud Bombing, and refresh Thunderclouds immediately after.
For the Staff,keep your Frost-inflicting abilities in rotationso you’re able to continuously get the most out of your Lightning abilities. The Frost abilities on their own aren’t so impressive, but theChain Thunder and especially Judgment Lightning are.
The Damage Transfer Skill Specialization applied to both of those ensures that thefull damage is spread among enemies inflicted with Frostinstead of that damage being reduced, and it’s going to take enemy health down in big chunks.
