Ranking Spellblade builds

[Loveless]

Just something I felt like doing recently lol. Since I have crippling commitment issues and constantly create new PCs with different builds I played a lot of Spellblade builds, and recently decided to rank them from which I believe to be the worst to best. This list won't be super detailed and in-depth merely describing the best endgame Spellblade builds, not talking about items and weapons, only abilities and the best Classes and it's Level 7 perks. Also keep in mind that this is not every Spellblade build ever, if you have any Spellblade builds you want to share feel free to do so.


PS: All of these were played on Dark Mode.


6) Valkyrie Sunblade - Warrior - Level 7 perk: Iron Skin
Abilities: Sunblade - Blessing -Celestial Form - Any Summon

Quite underrated tbh. It's simply that most people stat this build wrong. Get the attack buff from Veteran. Sunblade scales of either Attack Power or Spellpower, not both. So going both Strength and Willpower is ultimately useless. And in the same way, Celestial Form scales of either Willpower or Presence, so in this build you can completely forgo any Willpower and instead take a Summon of your choosing. Still being underrated doesn't stop it from being underwhelming compared to the other numbers on this list.


5) Charge Weapon Ranged - Thief - Level 7 perk: Perfect Positioning
Abilities: Charge Weapon - Triple Threat -Estrus Flask/Acid Flask - Garrote/Deadly Shadow

I know I'm streching the definition a lot here but hear me out

This build is decent but simply can't compare to it's melee counterpart. This builds biggest strength and the main reason to go is Triple Threat which is a rather insane ability. With this ability almost every single attack buff you can get on yourself will be tripled, so things like Healer Ryn is insane with this build. Also Tank Brint is necessary otherwise getting Twist the Knife to proc becomes really difficult.


4) Blue Flame Blade AoE - Thief - Level 7 perk: Perfect Positioning
Abilities: Blue Flame Blade - Grease - Fan of Blades - Resplendant Aria

Meme build. Use this build if you FUCKING HATE THE HOBGOBLIN GANG and don't care about being rather useless against bosses. You might wonder "Why not go Eye for Weakness" and that because the extended Stun Immunity will cause your Aria refreshed Grease to not knock down your opponents. I wouldn't exactly call this build great but it will get the job done.


3) TACTICALNUCLEARBOMBblade - Charmer - Level 7 perk: Expert Inpiration
Abilities: Blue Flame Blade - Blessing - Song of Storms - Deadly Shadow

Meme build but good this time. This build basically explains itself, cast every buff on yourself then do 350 damage easy. Blessing and Song of storms is already an insane combo, not to mention Blessing also buffs both current Spellblade and base melee damage so it's a double buff. We go Expert Inspiration so Blessing is still up after we cast Song of Storms on us. And since we do billion mixed damage there is no escape from those one-shots.


2) Charge Weapon Eviscerate - Thief - Level 7 perk: Perfect Positioning
Abilities: Charge Weapon - Eviscerate - Everything else doesn't matter.

A classic. The undeniable best build once, oh how the mighty have fallen. The heavy double nerf with the Crit rework and Petal change has shifted this build from easy cheese to only really really good. But I'd say there is a new challenger here to take the king's throne.


1) Blue Flame Blade Dps - Thief - Level 7 perk: Eye for Weakness
Abilities: Blue Flame Blade - Grease -Power Wave - Deadly Shadow

This build does everything tbh. Burst, AoE, Dps, we got em all. The two turns knock down from Grease is already pretty insane. And Power Wave adds a good bit of mixed damage to the mix. The only really downside of this build is that it struggles a bit against demons.


Aaaand that's about it from me. Do you agree or disagree? Be sure to also post your ridicilous Spellblade builds (I'm not going to steal them definitely i promise yes-yes).

 

[A1teros]

Grease with thief perks and fire cleave sounds sick, but I notice that the AOE is deadly shadow which means you can only use it once. My issue with the grease -> fire or stuff that relies heavily on Twist the Knife is that you have to devote one of your own ability slots/a turn to setup Grease/a debuff for Twist the knife. It'd be great if a companion could do it for you, that's why everyone loves Bless Ryn since she leaves you free to dps but sadly we have no grease companion. Then again, you could flip the roles and setup grease for someone else like Mage Brienne or something. I tend to run this.

Charge wave DPS: Black mage - level 7 perk: Arcane Penetration
Abilities: Charge Weapon - Power Wave - Cleave( - Dawnbreak)

Typically dual wielding something with Wing of Asira for the extra hits on Cleave (and Power Wave but it's less impactful there). Arcane Penetration isn't quite as strong as Twist the Knife, but it also has no prerequisites. Having Cleave as my AOE means my Encounter slot is free to do something else, I usually go with Dawnbreak to give me another weapon buff to make cleave/power wave hit even harder, but I could use Dastardly Trick to give me a stun if it's necessary. Ryn using blessing helps but ultimately isn't necessary. With Dawnbreak it's actually rather similar to your #3 build, stacking buffs for those beefy one shots. Dawnbreak just compresses Deadly Shadow and Song of Storms a bit. That's a bit late game though, Dastardly Trick is much more accessible.

I used to run Great Heal instead of Charge weapon and primal scar instead of cleave, but Charge weapon heals you a bit and gives you that extra damage together with Arcane Penetration to just win early and not take damage.

Edit: Looking at your #3 and #1 builds together gave me an idea though, what if I brought along Viv and Queen Ryn? The former to buff the weapon like Song of Storms would, the latter to give blessing. Then I could use Blue Flame Blade with cleave, with or without using Grease beforehand, for big damage while reducing the number of turns the champ has to take. Best class would probably be Thief if you use Grease with Eye for Weakness, or Black Mage if you don't. Charge weapon could also be used to give you Holy, Frost, and Fire damage after Viv buff.

 

[Loveless]

Grease with thief perks and fire cleave sounds sick, but I notice that the AOE is deadly shadow which means you can only use it once. My issue with the grease -> fire or stuff that relies heavily on Twist the Knife is that you have to devote one of your own ability slots/a turn to setup Grease/a debuff for Twist the knife.

With that build I run a party of Tank Brint and Agni so wasting turns isn't much of a problem. With the constant threat generation of Tank Brint and massive heal and buffs of Agni this build is nearly unbeatable. I'll admit it isn't the most engaging to playstyle but it get's the job done.

Edit: Looking at your #3 and #1 builds together gave me an idea though, what if I brought along Viv and Queen Ryn? The former to buff the weapon like Song of Storms would, the latter to give blessing. Then I could use Blue Flame Blade with cleave, with or without using Grease beforehand, for big damage while reducing the number of turns the champ has to take. Best class would probably be Thief if you use Grease with Eye for Weakness, or Black Mage if you don't. Charge weapon could also be used to give you Holy, Frost, and Fire damage after Viv buff.

The problem with this party is that you'd have no tank or damage soaker for your team. And as the Dps you would be taking the brunt of threat. You would either end up instantly dying because the enemy focused on you or slowly losing because Ryn died.

Besides Viv is bugged so her level 7 perk doesn't work properly on her so she's kind of bad anyways.
Also Dawnbreak seams to somehow overwrite Viv's elemental buff, Although it shows the buffs next to Champ they actually don't add damage.

Still something like: Shielded Stance - Primal Scar - Cleave - Bull Rush/Deadly Shadow, could work. You'd go Strength, Toughness and Agility and drink Willpower Juice. Whatever class you like. Probably Ashelander + any shield. Panoply to always go first.

 

[A1teros]

The problem with this party is that you'd have no tank or damage soaker for your team. And as the Dps you would be taking the brunt of threat. You would either end up instantly dying because the enemy focused on you or slowly losing because Ryn died.

Besides Viv is bugged so her level 7 perk doesn't work properly on her so she's kind of bad anyways.
Also Dawnbreak seams to somehow overwrite Viv's elemental buff, Although it shows the buffs next to Champ they actually don't add damage.

I didn't know about Viv being bugged, thanks! Would Agni work as intended then? Probably still less damage compared to a second DPS though, and if you don't have enough damage to net kills immediately you have to worry about not having survivability. I think Agni's buff is a stance though so you might be able to just cleave immediately. With my normal build, I typically run Hexblade Cait and Bless Ryn so Cait can make sure enough damage is dealt on turn 1 that any stragglers likely can't kill. I assumed that if Viv buffed Cleave hard enough I wouldn't need the 2nd DPS but I guess that wouldn't work because of the bug.

Still something like: Shielded Stance - Primal Scar - Cleave - Bull Rush/Deadly Shadow, could work. You'd go Strength, Toughness and Agility and drink Willpower Juice. Whatever class you like. Probably Ashelander + any shield. Panoply to always go first.

The issue with this is the loss of damage, not because it's actually a bad trade necessarily but because that'd make me the tank and I feel like that falls a bit outside the purview of spellblade. Also Primal Scar with no other spells means I can't take advantage of it and would either need an elemental weapon or have a teammate do the spellcasting.

 

[Loveless]

The issue with this is the loss of damage, not because it's actually a bad trade necessarily but because that'd make me the tank and I feel like that falls a bit outside the purview of spellblade. Also Primal Scar with no other spells means I can't take advantage of it and would either need an elemental weapon or have a teammate do the spellcasting.

I was talking about that build with a party of Healer Ryn and Viv in mind. Primal Scar is good with Viv who gives Fire+Frost damage.

Specifically Viv's interaction with her weapon buff is bugged, it's supposed to extend the buff duration to 5 turns but it stays the same with 3. I casually tried this build and it was pretty good, just not always consistent. Often times you end up having to stall waiting for your cooldowns to come back up. But yeah like you said having someone else do the spellblade buffing for you might be considered "cheating".

 

[A1teros]

I was talking about that build with a party of Healer Ryn and Viv in mind. Primal Scar is good with Viv who gives Fire+Frost damage.

Specifically Viv's interaction with her weapon buff is bugged, it's supposed to extend the buff duration to 5 turns but it stays the same with 3. I casually tried this build and it was pretty good, just not always consistent. Often times you end up having to stall waiting for your cooldowns to come back up. But yeah like you said having someone else do the spellblade buffing for you might be considered "cheating".

Oh I missed that Primal Scar would benefit Viv's weapon buff, that's pretty cool.