YouTube Build Guide : Dancing Strikes Shadow Cascade Dex Stacking Blade Dancer, Last Epoch Build Guide Patch 8.3 - YouTube
Timestamps :
00:00 - Intro
03:40 - Skill Rotation
05:18 - Shadow Cascade
08:10 - Dancing Strikes
10:30 - Smoke Bomb
12:36 - Shift + Shurikens
14:31 - Passives
18:54 - Gearing
Build Summary :
Hello, this is Dr3ad from Epoch Builds, and in today’s forum topic, we will go over Dexterity Stacking Dancing Strikes Shadow Cascade Blade Dancer, a build for the people who want to do the one thing that matters in the world…dance.
So Dancing Strikes has a history. It is by far one of the least dps skills in Rogue’s arsenal. Even with the buff that makes it deal more damage based on your attack speed, it is still insanely bad at doing damage. If Quinn were to play Last Epoch, Dancing Strikes would be the perfect skill for him to use. But it doesn’t need to do damage, that’s what Shadow Cascade is for. It also boasts a lot of utility. You can make it create a shadow every 2nd attack out of 4, meaning it gives us a way to generate shadows, and we also gain a stack of Rythem. We gain 5% more damage per stack of Rythem, going all the way up to 10. Its an easy way to scale damage and actually makes Dancing Strikes useful. These two skill nodes actually cost us a lot of mana, meaning we need to regain it. Thankfully Shadow Cascade gives us mana back on use, so we are actually mana neutral with a mana regen roll or two. All of this + the ability to always be moving while doing damage, is what makes Dancing Strikes strong, especially since we get that sweet 25% reduced damage taken while moving.
Shadow Cascade is an insanely strong DPS skill as you may very well be aware, but the problem with it is creating shadows. You could go the easy route of running Synchronized Strike, but that version has its own problems, mainly mana related. It’s also very squish to play synch strike, as it locks you in animation and doesn’t count as moving, so we don’t get benefits from the -25% damage taken. And since Dancing Strikes and Smoke Bomb carry our shadow generation, we don’t miss Synch Strike too much.
We are also scaling a large amount of our damage through dexterity stacking, utilzing the boots Mourning Frost. You could easily play this build without Mourning Frost but it would be much less effective in terms of gearing. Since Blade Dancer gets so much from dex while wearing the boots, 4% increased damage, 4 dodge (which is multiplied by 1.15 thanks to the mastery) and of course the 1 flat cold per, and since we can easily reach up to 70 dexterity with good gear as a Rogue, it means its the easiest way to scale damage, and lets our katana’s be focused on attack speed and critical strike multiplier, which bring our dps to a new level.
One other important thing I’d like to note about this build, we are actually taking advantage of Crit vulnerability heavily. Being able to hit so many times between Dancing Strikes, Shuriken Blade Shield or just how many times we hit with shadow cascade, it means we only need to build a small amount of critical strike chance to always be critical hitting with our shadow cascades.
All in all I really liked the build and can recommend it to others.
Leveling Guide :
Level’s 1-20 : Bladedancer, Level 20 (LE Beta 0.8.3e) - Last Epoch Build Planner
So this build is actually very easy to level, thanks to the interaction between Puncture and Channeled Flurry, allowing you to gain an insane amount of bleed stacks on single target early on.
Level’s 20-40 : Bladedancer, Level 40 (LE Beta 0.8.3e) - Last Epoch Build Planner
As you gain levels you can start adding on top of your bleed, with a little bit of poison as well thanks to Acid Flask being so easily set up. Start deciding on what version you want to go for at this point, as eventually you should as it will make it easier to craft and make gear. At this point you should be close to finishing Tomb Of Moridatus, (big tree dude) and you can finish your side quests to have full idol slots unlocked, making it worth to hop into the monolith of fate. Try to look for HP on hit suffixes too as that will carry you early on in monoliths!