The blademaster is a single role class with access to the blades and battle trees. They excel at ouputting impressive amounts of damage from melee range. They can also be built as tanks, however this is much less common than using them to fill damage roles. Most of the builds suited to the blademaster are just different approaches to outputting damage at melee range, in addition to a potential tanking build. They can use any armor, as well as use any melee weapons, shields and parrying daggers, and crossbows. They can be unlocked by reaching 500 reputation with the merchants alliance.

There are two major distinctive approaches to the blademaster for outputting damage and a standard build for tanking that can be modified in a few ways. The first damage build is the strength based two handed weapon build. This build focuses on using strength based two handed weapons in conjunction with heavy armor to output damage. This build competes directly with the two handed warrior and enforcer builds.

The second major damage build is the dagger build. This build uses daggers in conjunction with medium armor to build both strength and dexteriy. This build competes directly with rogues as well as strength and dexterity based underboss builds.

The tanking build for the blademaster uses the core tanking abilities from the battle tree to bulk up, as well as using skills from the blades tree to provide extra utility to the team by crippling enemies. It can be built to either output damage traditionally, use intellect based poisons for damage, or can forego damage entirely and use coup-de-grace instead. This build competes directly with warrior tanks, enforcer tanks, and spellwarden tanks.

There are currently no reasons to use crossbows on the blademaster. Blademasters are for the most part the most complete melee damage based class available.

This build focuses primarily on outputting damage at melee range using two handed weapons as well as heavy armor to build strength. It utilizes both the battle and the blades tree heavily. The primary stat for this build is strength. The best subclass for this build is debatable, though I believe the assassin subclass provides better skills for the build. This build competes directly with the two handed weapon based warrior and enforcer builds.

Core Abilities:

• Fierce Strike
  
• Cleave
  
• Charge
  
• Quickslash
  
• Pierce Defenses
  
• Exploit Weakness
  
• Deadly

Secondary Abilities:

• Bloodlust
  
• Steadfast
  
• Cripple
  
• Sap Strength
  
• Sneak Assault
  
• Enervating Poison with Preparation

This build uses skills from the battle tree to output the bulk of its damage, while using the blades tree to provide extra utility such as armor penetration. Arguments can be made for both of the available subclasses.

Which Subclass Should I use?
The two subclasses available to the blademaster are the champion and the assassin. Both of them provide means of outputting more damage in fairly similar ways but with different stipulations. The primary argument for taking the champion subclass is for the massive burst damage potential with exhausting strike and the high damage potential of overwhelm. Unfortunately overwhelm often won't work with this build because of the speed penalty from heavy armor.
The primary argument for taking the assassin subclass is the more consistent damage potential from quick slash and exploit weakness, as well as the ability to combo shuriken with preparation. Quick slash has the downside of reduced accuracy, though this can be remedied with the use of sweeping strikes. I personally prefer using the assassin subclass with this build, but the champion subclass is also servicable.

Which Fighting Styles Should I Use?
This depends largely on situation, but there are three fighting styles which you'll be using much more often than the other available styles. These are deadly, adrenaline, and sweeping strikes. Deadly should be used as your primary style for pushing out extra damage on enemies that can't simply be finished off. Adrenaline should be used to push a small amount of extra damage for a killing blow or to combat heavy stunners such as arachnoids. Sweeping strikes should be used when accuracy is an issue and as a general purpose default stance.

Critical Strike
This build has the highest damage potential in the game because of access to the deadly fighting style as well as being able to reach very high critical strike chance much more easily than most other classes. This is due to easy access to the annihalator set and sword of luck.

How Does it Stack up Against the Two Handed Warrior and Enforcer Builds?
Let's look at some pros and cons on this one:

Pros:

• Superior armor piercing capabilities
  
• Superior critical strike potential
  
• Ability to hinder enemy capabilities with use of cripple, sap strength, and enervating poison
  
• Tailored towards outputting damage at melee range
  
• Better power management
  
• Ability to strike the backline with sneak assault (sweeping strikes is very helpful here)

Cons:

• Lacks the ability to restore health on its own
  
• Has no mass debuffs outside of intimidate
  
• No access to a stun

The main reason to pick the blademaster to fill the two handed melee damage role over the other options is because it is a much more pure damage based class than the warrior or enforcer. It easily provides more damage than the warrior and enforcer under most circumstances and has stronger single target debuffs, however it lacks more generalized utility like healing and mass debuffs. If you need a character to fulfill the sole purpose of outputting melee damage then the blademaster is probably a better bet than the warrior or enforcer. If you need someone to fill this role and still provide some general utility to the team like back up heals or stuns, you may to consider the other options.

This build focuses primarily on outputting damage at melee range using a dagger parrying dagger combo along with medium armor to provide both dexterity and strength. It utilizes both the battle and the blades tree heavily. This build values both strength and dexterity highly, however dexterity gains a slight edge because more of the builds valid abilities scale with it. Like the two handed build, the best subclass for this build is debatable, though I believe the champion subclass provides a better skill set for it. This build competes directly with rogues as well as strength and dexterity based underbosses.

Core Abilities:

• Fierce Strike
  
• Cleave
  
• Charge
  
• Overwhelm
  
• Pierce Defenses
  
• Exhausting Strike

Secondary Abilities:

• Bloodlust
  
• Steadfast
  
• Cripple
  
• Sap Strength
  
• Sneak Assault
  
• Enervating Poison with Preparation
  
• Fan of Blades

This build, much like the two handed build, uses skills from the battle tree to output the bulk of its damage, while using the blades tree to provide extra utility such as armor penetration. Arguments can be made for both of the available subclasses.

Which Subclass Should I use?
The two subclass available to the blademaster are the champion and the assassin. Both of them provide means of outputting more damage in fairly similar ways but with different stipulations. The primary argument for taking the champion subclass is for the massive burst damage potential with exhausting and the high damage potential of overwhelm. Because this build uses medium armor instead of heavy armor overwhelm is much more reliable than for the other builds that have access to it.
The primary argument for taking the assassin subclass is the more consistent damage potential from quick slash and exploit weakness, as well as the ability to combo shuriken with preparation. Quick slash has the downside of reduced accuracy, though this can be remedied with the use of sweeping strikes. I personally prefer using the champion subclass with this build because of the heavy damage potential that overwhelm provides.

Which Fighting Styles Should I Use?
Refer to the two handed portion of the guide.

A Note on the N-Dimensional Cube
This build is the best candidate to attempt using the n-dimensional cube exhausting strike build, if you're feeling adventurous.


How Does it Stack up Against the Rogue and Underboss Builds?
Let's look at some pros and cons on this one:

Pros:

• Can withstand the perils of the front line better due to the steadfast
  
• Can output superior AoE damage with access to cleave
  
• Superior accuracy with use of sweeping strikes
  
• Can charge the backline

Cons:

• Lacks the burst potential of the hidden buff
  
• No access to healing capabilites
  
• Lacks added utility

The main reason to pick the blademaster to fill the dagger based damage role over the other options is because it is a much more pure damage class than the other two options. It easily provides more damage than the underboss, and has stronger sustained damage than the rogue. Regardless of this it has inferior utility to the underboss and lacks the immediate burst potential of the rogue. If you need a character to fulfill the sole purpose of outputting melee damage the blademaster is superior to the underboss and better than the rogue for longer encounters. The rogue can output stronger burst damage in the first turn because it can start the encounter hidden.

This build focuses on taking the bulk of the damage for the party, and withstanding the damage through the use of skills that reduce incoming damage in addition to a sword and board load out. It primarily focuses on skills from the battle tree to tank damage, and it uses the skills from the blades tree to further reduce incoming damage and to hinder enemies through the use of single target debuffs. This primary stats for this build are endurance and strength, though there is potential to use intellect instead fo strength and focus on outputting damage through the uses of poisons though this is very uncommon. The best subclass for this build is, once again, debatable. This build competes directly with the warrior, enforcer, and spellwarden tanking builds.

Core Abilities:

• Shield Wall
  
• Steadfast
  
• Cripple
  
• Sap Strength
  
• Coup-De-Grace

Secondary Abilities:

• Shield Bash
  
• Shield Mastery
  
• Parry
  
• Enervating Poison with Preparation

This build hinges on the battle tree to tank damage, and relies on the blades tree to debilitate enemies.

Which Subclass Should I use?
This one's interesting because neither of the subclasses are really that great for tanking. Overwhelm will likely be largely useless because of the massive speed penalty from equipment that tanks tend to take. As a result this one really depends on what you want to lean your tank
towards.
Picking the champion subclass provides extra utility in the form of intimidate effectively gimping enemy damage potentials. Picking the assassin subclass provides this build with added kill potential through all of the skills available through. Because shuriken doesn't rely on damage scaling it provides a solid option for helping with damage output. Quick slash and exploit weakness provide standard baseline damage. Exhausting strike is generally a waste on someone who won't have the weapon damage to really make it shine.
In short pick the champion subclass for extra damage mitigation, or pick the assassin subclass for
extra damage potential.

Which Fighting Styles Should I Use?
Use adrenaline to avoid being stunned out of shield wall. The rest of the fighting styles really depend. I recommend taking sweeping strikes to help against high evasion enemies and the last style is really up in the air. Hold the line can eb helpful if you're concerned about damage to the backline, whereas deadly may provide extra damage potential. Use rogues poison if you're using an intellect based build that utilizes the other poisons as well.

Using Poisons for Damage
If you really want to you can skip out on traditional approaches to damage with this build in favor of using intellect to bolster the damage output of your poisons. Through use of rogues poison this build may have higher damage potential than the standard tanking build over long fights while using the miasmic embrace relic. Whether this approach is generally better or worse than the normal build is up in the air. Consider this if you want a more unorthodox, fun build than your standard tank.

Coup-De-Grace
The blademaster tank is an amazing candidate to use coup-de-grace. This is because they can simultaneously tank damage from the front line and use coup-de-grace to take out enemies within range. This is much more useful than a class such as a rogue that would just use coup-de-grace and provide nothing else to the team.

How Does it Stack up Against Warrior, Enforcer, and Spellwarden Tanks?
Let's look at some pros and cons on this one:

Pros:

• Strong single target debuffs
  
• Additional mitigation through parry even when at armor cap
  
• Access to coup-de-grace to circumvent need for damage stats

Cons:

• No access to healing
  
• No mass debuffs outside of intimidate
  
• Lower direct damage output than the spellwarden
  
• No way to cleanse debuffs

There a few advantages that the blademaster has over other tanks. The biggest one is the access to strong single target debuffs like cripple. Additionally they can choose to build intellect in order to push damage with poisons. Finally they have access to coup-de-grace which can effectively negate their generally low damage output as a tank. The primary downside is a lack of abilities to self heal and deal with debuffs. They need to depend solely on a supporting party member for these things.

Below is a list of substantial intraclass synergies. This does not include synergies that are contained entirely within one tree.

• Cleave allows for multiple procs of up close and personal
  
• Coup-de-grace can be used in conjunction with shield bash
  
• Sweeping strikes can be used to remedy the accuracy penalty of sneak assault as well as quick slash
  
• Deadly can be comboed with the +crit gear available to the battle tree
  
• Steadfast allows normally fragile dagger users with medium armor to easily hold their own on the front line for a short time

(Note, if there are any intraclass synergies that I've not pointed out here, feel free to point them out to me)