The Swordmaster Guide (Part 2)

Common Cycles

When in combat, the Swordmaster functions by cycling through the various stances of his balance mechanic. If one looks at the skills above, a few of them seem to have an obvious synergy - this is not unintentional. Many skills have been designed to work together. Below I have listed some of the more common cycles.

For convention, when a skill name appears in [brackets] it means that the skill should be alternated into the chain at that step. The arrow -> represents movement to the next balance state.


(1) Graceful Strike -> Eagle’s Flight -> Dragon’s Talon

This chain is your bread and butter tank chain. You open with a high hate attack, then follow it up with a blow that increases your chance to avoid damage, and finish it with an attack that reduces any damage you fail to mitigate. This chain can be used with a sword and board or a greatsword.

If you have chosen to put points into the Path of Vaul and taken Crushing Advance, then the following complex chain becomes available:


(1.1) Graceful Strike -> [Crushing Advance] / Eagle's Flight -> Dragon's Talon

In this chain, you use Crushing Advance initially and wait until wears off to use it again. This allows you to increase your armor well as your block value; the results are both an increase to physical mitigation, and a higher chance to outright avoid all types of damage. If you've gone even further up the Vaul path and taken Crashing Wave, it can also be alternated in the chain and replace Dragon’s Talon every time it's available in order to knock your target down, thereby preventing them from doing anything for the duration.


(2) Ensorcelled Blow -> [Dazzling Strike] / Intimidating Blow -> [Wrath of Hoeth] / Dragon's Talon (or Ether Dance)

This chain is your basic spirit attack chain that you can use against heavily armored opponents (such as destruction tanks). By alternating Dazzling Strike and Intimidating Blow you ensure that you're opponent is able to deal less damage because of increased build up time, and has less opportunities to use morale abilities. Wrath of Hoeth is an AoE attack that also reduces your targets spiritual resist, allowing most of the attacks in this chain to do increased damage.


(3) Graceful Strike -> [Gusting Wind] / Eagle's Flight (or Phoenix's Wind) -> Wrath of Hoeth

This is the chain you should use for AoE tanking. As long as your party members are attacking your main target, graceful strike will build enough hate to ensure you keep agro. The damage from Gusting Wind and Wrath of Hoeth will ensure that healers will not accidently pull agro. This chain can also be used to multitank when other classes are AoEing. The cravat is that they need to wait a few moments so that you can build initial agro. Additionally, the knockback (or knockdown) from Gusting Wind and alternating with Eagle's Flight helps to reduce damage taken tanking.

If you are tanking with a greatsword and have gone down the Path of Khaine and picked up Phoenix’s Wing, then you should alternate it with Gusting Wind due to the increased hate it generates in addition to the frontal AoE damage.


(4) Sapping Strike -> Dazzling Strike

If you've taken the Khaine Path, this partial chain can be weaved into other chains for RvR battles. The 10 second cooldown on each skill prevents them from being used in the same manner as other Normal and Improved balance sills, but their impact can be enough to turn the tide of battle in your favor.


(5) Gryphon’s Lash -> [Quick Incision] / Intimidating Blow -> Ether Dance

If you have gone down the Path of Khaine and plan to DPS as a swordmaster, this is the main chain you need to know. The ability of Gryphon’s Lash to bypass block and parry makes a huge difference in the DPS dealt compared to other attacks. Quick incision not only adds a large DoT, but it also ensures that your target stays nice and close. Intimidating Blow is swapped in every other cycle to allow Quick Incision to finish ticking while letting you keep up the damage.

As mentioned, these are only a few cycle. In actual practice, your tactics and mastery choices dictate what skills you are most likely to use. For instance, picking up Ensorcelled Agony makes Ensorcelled Blow much more attractive for general damage if you aren’t Khaine spec. And if you’re full Khaine spec, then you would want to use Ether Dance over Wrath of Hoeth in chain (2).

The ability to chain attacks is made infinitely easy if you use a mod that changes your hotbars based on your stance. (Personally, I modified the PlanB mod and use that)
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