I'm Aju, a 1450 Wardancer main on NA East - Regulus. This build is intended for NA/EU Wardancers that want to play Esoteric without feeling like absolute wet noodles. There's a lot of glamour with the 2-spender Esoteric builds in Korea, but the truth is that our gear sets as well as accessories just aren't there yet. While yes, you can do just fine with 2-spender, it's impossible to maintain 4 bubbles for every Esoteric skill with the current stat limitations presented by Legendary accessories.
- While 2-Spender is viable, legendary accessories, even at 90+ quality, do not give us enough specialization to maintain the full benefit of Esoteric Skill Enhancement for both Blast Formation as well as Call of the Wind God.
- 2-Spender is a build that was largely made possible by the use of the Relic Set, Dominion Fang. This set provides cooldown reduction and skill damage in exchange for awakening damage. The reason why this set is so prevalent for Wardancer is that she has the ability to keep the set at 100% uptime without having to slot the Awakening engraving.*
*Note: With the class balance patch in KR on 4/27/22, this may have changed. The 1-spender build however has largely remained unchanged and in fact has outperformed previous builds at high level testing. Regardless, more testing must happen before writing out a "best build."
Stats for this build are fairly straightforward - prioritize swiftness on all accessories and go for swiftness/crit on your necklace. 400-500 crit is right where you want to be.
Engravings in order of prioritization:
- Esoteric 1 - This is a no-brainer, we take level 1 and keep it that way till very very late game as the nodes spent on levels 2/3 can be better used elsewhere.
- Grudge 3 - I understand NA/EU have a weird perception on Grudge but the Wardancer has a pretty large health pool, and not to mention enough swiftness to weave around most danger in the game. You don't really lose much for gaining 20% overall damage.
- Raid Captain 3 - Since we are stacking swiftness and Wind's Whisper puts us at a massive movement speed, we can gain the full benefit from Raid Captain
- Keen Blunt Weapon 3 (and only at 3!) - Since we have crit on our necklace, we gain much more from taking this engraving vs. 2-spender, and who doesn't love big numbers?
- Adrenaline 1 - Icing on the cake no matter how many level 3 engravings you have - great synergy with the way this build plays, just be mindful about keeping the stacks up.
Alternatives:
- Cursed Doll 3 - In the case that you don't want to take Keen Blunt Weapon
- Mass Increase 3 - We have enough swiftness that it isn't completely griefing to take this as a cheap damage engraving
- Spirit Absorption 1 - If you can't afford the jewelry for Adr 1, this is a fine budget engraving. Not too much return but it helps us hit the ceiling for Raid Captain.
The normal rotation is as follows:
- Energy Combustion to proc Conviction
- to apply Ready Attack
- Flash Heat Fang to proc Judgment
- and then to buff
- Moon Flash Kick and Sweeping Kick should bring you to 4 bubbles
- at 4 bubbles for maximum damage, this should still be within the window of your and buffs, if you are out of the window, consider using to provide ready attack as a consolation before using blast if the need arises.
- to provide Ready Attack buff (if you have enough skill points) for the downtime in between bursts.
A note on Energy Combustion:
This is a huge damage skill even for Esoteric! Ensure that you are watching your timer for the explosion (assuming you have enough skill points for level 10) so that you can time it within your buff window. This can be very difficult to get used to, so start by focusing on hitting the boss with the last tick every time and gradually work it into your rhythm.
Tripods are listed above as level 5 - prioritize these 5 for your initial tripod transfer so you can guarantee level 4:
- Quick Prep
- White Flame Kick
- Weak Point Detection or Great Explosion
- Ready Attack
- Any of the 3 tripods will do, Pure Excellence preferred
A Note on the PTR Balance Changes
While there have been changes to the way WD skills work on the Korean server, this build is generally safe as this build's performance actually improved with the PTR changes. However, time will still tell as there were some adjustments in regards to what was actually implemented in the game just this morning. Regardless, we are safe from these changes for the moment in NA and this build is not going anywhere, so nothing to worry about :).
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Comments :8
1
level 1 Bird124
This build is epic! My e-girl bard would hardly look at me before I used this spec, she was always eyeing up some deathblade. She saw the numbers this build put out once and now she doesn't even give the blade the time of day! He might as well be tickling the boss with surge compared to the damage I put out! I don't know what to do with all these bards chasing me around now! Any advice? Thanks.
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level 1 samknott
1
Is KBW still worth running after the balance changes to remove the crit rate tripod?
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level 2 ajumommy
Yes, KBW will be just fine with the balance changes because with this build you are running Swift/Crit - that coupled with Roar of Courage is enough to give some good returns on kbw as a third/fourth engraving - however it's definitely recommended to take adrenaline 1 with it in order to compensate.
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level 1 Freyon
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level 3 ajumommy
Later on once you have level 11/12 skills I think that lightning kick is viable for fights that require a good amount of repositioning, but you may not see the need once you get relic accessories/access to dominion fang set as our spacebar will be on a very low cooldown, allowing us to use it to reposition pretty efficiently while not sacrificing too much survivability. There is definitely a difference in DPS but if you're using the mobility to better position yourself it works out in real-time fights.
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level 1 ZomgSquirrel
2
Am I right in seeing that there's a wealth rune in Energy Combustion and that it's listed as the first in order priority to proc Conviction? Is this a mistake? Should Conviction be in Energy Combustion or Sky Shattering Blow?
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level 3 ajumommy
Thanks for pointing that out! I relisted the runes as previously I did have Conviction on SSB, however you should only be using it on SSB if you have the Legendary variant. At that point, it's entirely up to you based on how comfortable you are with snapshotting the two together mid-fight. Personally on anything lower than legendary, I believe it's better to use on combustion. Thanks for pointing that out!
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level 1 ZomgSquirrel
Just doing my part =D This has been, since gle handedly, the most informative take on the class I have seen in a while. Thanks to this, I'll be swapping back to my "Battlemaster." That just sounds so much cooler...