Power Quickness Bladesworn

August 2022

Power Quickness Bladesworn provides permanent Quickness and Fury along with some Might, Stability and Resistance.  Alacrity is mandatory for this build to function properly.  The quickness version of Bladesworn is one of the power quickness builds with the highest damage potential but its unique playstyle requires experience of the class and encounter.

Build Fundamentals

Most of your damage comes from Dragon Slash - Force. Use it mostly off cooldown with 10 charges.

Make sure to not cancel Dragon Trigger. It can be interrupted rather easily by moving or using any skill during its animation.

The needed Flow for Dragon Trigger is gained by being in combat via Gun X Sword, activating Unseen Sword, "To the Limit!" and Axe Mastery. In comparison to the full dps version of Bladesworn, we lose access to Flow Stabilizer. You should still have enough Flow for your rotation but make sure to not enter Dragon Trigger too early at the start of your rotation. If you ever find yourself lackingFlow utilize Axe Mastery or even "To the Limit!".

There are some conditional damage modifiers you want to keep up, most notably Fierce as Fire. This goal will be met following the rotation but is harder to achieve in the quickness version since we are missing Flow Stabilizer and Overcharged Cartridges. The precasting of ammunition skills in Gunsaber mentioned later is therefore a bit more beneficial.

Since we choose to run 3 Banners for Quickness we only need to change one gear piece to diviner-stats, making gearing quite easy.

While the pulsing boons from your banners are also valuable, your most important boon Quickness is only applied from your initial placement of the banner. So don’t place them before the boon strip that’s happening when the encounter starts.

After the initial placement, you can use Banners off-cooldown, either after Dragon Slash - Force or the axe/pistol section of the rotation. You can delay placing them by a few seconds, especially if they come up during Dragon Trigger.

Try to place your Banners in a spot where your group will benefit from them the most. For example, if a boss is about to move, place them between your current position and where you’re about to move to. Keep in mind the 360 boon radius.

Due to Superior Rune of the Thief bonus, you want to flank enemies as much as possible.

Rotation Tips

Before a fight, you can precast all charges of Break Step, Blooming Fire, and Artillery Slash on Gunsaber (don’t do this if it delays your opener).

After pre-casting "To the Limit!", start on Gunsaber and make sure you are near the boss when using Sheathe Gunsaber to proc Unseen Sword.

Triggerguard and Flicker Step in Dragon Trigger are used to deal with mechanics. They can also be used to maintain Fierce as Fire stacks on safer encounters.

During the Axe/Pistol section of the Loop rotation you will need to keep track of your Gunstinger cooldown and Dragon's Roar ammo.

• If Gunstinger is off-cooldown, always use that first when swapping to Axe/Pistol.
• If Gunstinger is on-cooldown, use Cyclone Axe Throw Axe Dragon's Roar Auto-attack chain Dragon Trigger.

Crowd Control

Your only CC to consider are your 3 Dragon Slash skills with the trait Unyielding Dragon. Banner of Strength provides some CC but your Banners will be used off-cooldown for quickness uptime and cannot be timed perfectly for CC mechanics.

You will have to judge if slashing a breakbar is worth it as it might heavily decrease your damage. That said its still the best option if you get a Dragon Slash off for free and it’s always worth CC’ing to avoid one of your friends being jumped on and sacrificed to Samarog for example.

Alternatives

Banners

• Banner of Defense can be used instead of Banner of Discipline or Banner of Strength if Fury and Might are covered. Keep in mind that Banners are used off cooldown to provide permanent Quickness, so the benefits of Aegis and Barrier from Banner of Defense cannot be timed perfectly for specific mechanics.

Gear

The build shown above exchanges one piece of equipment from Berserker stats to Diviner stats. Your shoulders, gloves or boots will be enough and guarantee the most damage, but feel free to exchange any one piece you like as you will still cap your critical strike chance regardless of which you choose. This will result in a very small amount of DPS lost for a bit more boon duration.