Blue Protocol: Star ResonanceStormblade Iaido Slash Spec GuideBest build and how to play the class.

Basic ATK

Judgment Cut

Skill

Iaido Slash

Ultimate

Oblivion Combo

Slot 1 - Mandatory

Overdrive

Slot 2 - Mandatory

Volt Surge

Slot 3 - Mandatory

Flash Strike

Slot 4 - Flex

Raijin Dash

/

True Sight

/

Scythe Wheel

Thunder Sigil - Thunder Sigils (Sigils for short) are our main resource, which we need in order to use our most powerful abilities, “Spenders”. Spenders can be used as soon as you have at least 1 Sigil, but have their ATK scaler multiplied by 25% per Sigil consumed. Because of this, our abilities are at their strongest when used with maximum Sigils.

Note

Here is how the math of Sigils works on a 150% ATK scaler ability: 150% x (1 + (25% x Sigils Spent)). Sigils do not multiply the flat damage of abilities.

Blade Intent - Blade Intent, Stormblade’s energy bar, it's only useful for increasing the attack speed of our spenders through their inherent abilities and talents. You always want Blade Intent, but it’s also generated for free without doing anything in our rotation, so you can ignore it.

Fixed Skills

• 

  Judgment Cut
  - Stormblade’s basic attack is only useful for Iaido during downtime in order to trigger one of the class's core talent effects, Piercing Slash. You’ll be spamming it during downtime for this effect, but nothing more.
• 

  Iaido Slash
  (Evolved: Thunder Cut) - Our best Sigil spender that makes up a huge amount of our damage, it has a 1-second cooldown and can be instantly cast at 100 blade intent
• The skill can evolve into Thunder Cut, but we don’t use that talent currently.
• 

  Oblivion Combo
  - Our ultimate deals solid AoE damage and generates maximum Sigils after use. It also pulls all eligible enemies in front of you to your position, serving as a grouping tool. Use it to gather enemies or while
  

  Volt Surge
  is on cooldown and there are no stacks of piercing slash.

Mandatory Skills

• 

  Overdrive
  - Our baseline Sigil generator that generates a measly 1 Sigil on use but has 5 charges. Used to kick start our combo during Volt Surge for maximum Sigils, or after triggering Piercing Slash, which upgrades its generation from 1 to 3 during downtime. Usually not worth using outside of these cases. It can be animation cancelled and is highly recommended to significantly speed up rotations and reduce downtime.
• 

  Volt Surge
  - Responsible for our godlike burst damage and the majority of our DPS. Causes all Sigil generation to instead generate the maximum amount for 12 seconds. Also provides Flat ATK, %ATK, and Super Armor. With the right talents and enough crit rate, Volt Surge allows us to spam 6 sigil spenders back to back continuously.
• 

  Flash Strike
  (Evolved: Dracoflash) - Our other Sigil spender, which while weaker than Iaido Slash, is crucial to use during our Volt Surge combo to fill in gaps during Iaido Slash’s 1-second cooldown. Despite its 15-second cooldown, there are talents that in most cases completely bypass its cooldown via resets and quickcasting.
• The skill can evolve into Dracoflash, but we don’t use that talent currently.

Flex Skills (Choose 1)

• 

  Raijin Dash
  (Evolved: Phantom Slash) - An optional alternative spender to Scythe Wheel that deals considerable damage in multi-target situations. Has a huge 25-second cooldown, but this can also be completely bypassed with talents. This ability is not preferred for a majority of content due to its lengthy animation time, but can optionally be used for AOE in content such as Stimen Vaults and Adept Trials.
• The skill can evolve into Phantom Slash, but we don’t use that talent currently.
• 

  True Sight
  - Our sole defensive tool. Grants full immunity for roughly 2 seconds on use. If hit during this period, you will counter, with the option to recast for an extra attack that maxes out your Sigil count.
• Note: The most useful flex slot given proper mastery of the content its used in and recommended over all other flex slots in master dungeons
• 

  Scythe Wheel
  - Summons a spinning scythe for 35 seconds to continually strike enemies. The damage from this ability isn’t impactful but the extra hits it provides can help keep certain Imagines and effects active such as Muku Scout. If you’re using Muku Scout you can use Scythe Wheel to boost its consistency.
• Tip: Can be summoned before combat. Also the direct damage portion of this ability is negligible and can/should be cancelled by using a dash during its animation. Doing this saves time but will still summon the spinning blade to achieve our goals.

Skill Priority

Iaido Slash

>

Flash Strike

>>>

Volt Surge

>

Judgment Cut

=

Oblivion Combo

>

Overdrive

>

True Sight

/

Scythe Wheel

Ensure all abilities you’re using are levelled to 30 - only advancement requires consideration.

Focus on advancing

Iaido Slash

Flash Strike

Volt Surge

True Sight

Raijin Dash

• Overclock Wave: Releases an energy wave, interrupting all targets within 5m.
• Provides us with an interrupt to stop elites from casting annoying skills and interrupt some raid and dungeon boss mechanics.
• Unyielding Spirit: Grants 35% additional Resistance for 5s. This skill can store 2 charges.
• A great defensive option to use when we know we will take a big hit.
• Master of Stealth: Conceals the caster's presence to prevent Aggro generation and cleanses all debuffs from the caster for 10s.
• A good tool to use when the tank is pulling enemies in a dungeon to avoid drawing aggro to yourself.
• Energy Reflux: Instantly recovers 50% Stamina and increases Movement Speed by 15% for 5s.
• A good tool for situations when you need to dodge often or chase after high movement enemies.

Important!

In order to utilize this talent tree to its maximum potential, it is assumed that you have 50% Crit rate minimum when standing in town.

Gameplay Altering Talents

Below is an outline of all the gameplay-altering effects you need to be aware of in the Iaido Slash spec.

Base Stormblade Tree

• Iai Thunder Dance - Every 3 Sigils generated causes your next Special Attack to deal its damage twice. This talent is double damage for
  

  Iaido Slash
  and grants it 2 chances to Crit instead of 1, making our rotation far more consistent. Further incentivizes only using spenders with a high Sigil count.
• Keen Strike - Grants Basic Attacks a 10/20% chance per hit (scaling with enemies and number of hits) to trigger Piercing Slash, dealing damage and causing our next
  

  Overdrive
  to generate 3 Sigils instead of 1. A must have for Sigil generation while
  

  Volt Surge
  is on cooldown, consume Piercing Slash during downtime as soon as available.
• 

  Overdrive
  will glow purple when enhanced by Piercing Slash.

• Swift - Improves our Haste% → ATK SPD% scaling from 1:0.6 → 1:1.6, making Haste a far more valuable stat to build, despite the fact it isn’t one of our “thumbs up” stats.

Iaido Slash Tree

• Flash Frenzy Blade - Upon critically striking with
  

  Iaido Slash
  , gains a fixed chance to reset the cooldown of
  

  Flash Strike
  / Raijin Dash based on how many Sigils are consumed. Enables the ability to form chains of alternating
  

  Iaido Slash
  es and
  

  Flash Strike
  s, which make up the backbone of our burst combo.
• Zen Moment - Allows us to consume and immediately regain our Blade Intent on Crit, maintaining a constant 100 with enough Crit Rate, improving our attack speed.
• Thunder Sigil Rewind - Boosts Sigil generation by refunding after consumption. When combined with
  

  Volt Surge
  ’s ability to convert any Sigil gained into 6, this becomes incredibly potent.
• Dual Blade Intent - Massively accelerates
  

  Flash Strike
  and Raijin Dash animation while at 100 Blade Intent. Also improves the Crit Rate of both abilities and their evolutions by 10%. The speed gain from this talent makes it a must-have.
• Does not cause any of these abilities to consume Blade Intent.
• Duel Awareness - Doubles the chance for Thunder Sigil Rewind to trigger during
  

  Volt Surge
  but halves our Sigil Multiplier from 25% to 12.5%. Hurts our damage ceiling but is what allows us to spam exclusively 6 sigil spenders during our burst window, making our average rotation much more consistent in power.
• Vacuum Slash - With the recent balance patch buffing the animation speed of this ability, it is a great option to take to deal extra damage.
• Thundrage / Thunder Might - These talents make up the “evolution” playstyle that is currently not considered optimal due to evolved abilities not benefiting from Blade Intent speed bonuses. Without it, these abilities take far longer to cast and cause the playstyle to fall behind a pure
  

  Iaido Slash
  -focused build.
• Wind Assault I & II - These talents grant a crit rate increase and a luck decrease. They are a must since we are so reliant on crit and luck does nothing to contribute towards our kit.

• Crit DMG Variant

Iaido Slash Crit DMG Variant

If you want to create your own Talent tree, check our tool:

Talent Planner

Important!

All gear & talent related info is based on extensive in-game testing, parsing, theory crafting and simulations. If you want to learn more about how damage works to understand our decisions, check out our Damage Formula Guide.

Note!

The percentage value shows the impact of the module compared to not having any module equipped (each module is calculated based on it being +6).

Here are the best modules for Stormblade - Iaido Slash - listed in priority order:

Lvl 3: +0.98%

Lvl 6: +8.35%

Special Attack

Since Iaido Slash, a Special Attack, makes up a massive share of our damage, meaning a Special Attack Elemental DMG% increase is one of the best gains we can hope for.

Lvl 3: +0.98%

Lvl 6: +8.11%

Elite Strike

A great module for damage, since we are often fighting at least one Elite or higher-level enemy. Not active outside of Elites/Bosses.

Lvl 3: +0.98%

Lvl 6: +7.57%

Agility Boost

Providing Agility and General Physical Damage once at the max level, making it the strongest buff overall.

Lvl 3: +0.84%

Lvl 6: +6.45%

Attack SPD

Falls behind our top three options, but still a reasonable choice if it’s all you can assemble, thanks to its ATK SPD% increase. We can also opt for having Atk% lines instead of Attack Speed, since this node can cover the amount needed.

Lvl 3: +0.37%

Lvl 6: +6.36%

Crit Focus

CRIT DMG is a powerful stat, but having one portion of this module's stats be defensive holds it back. Roughly as strong as the Attack Speed module.

Lvl 3: +0.63%

Lvl 6: +5.28%

Strength Boost

Even if it provides strength that is not useful, it does provide Def ignore once at the maximum level. Unfortunately, this is not enough to make it a very competitive option.

Lvl 3: +0.37%

Lvl 6: +1.60%

Luck Focus

It provides Luck DMG Multiplier, but since the majority of our abilities can’t Lucky Hit, it's not a good option.

Premium

Rorola [A2+]

+

Muku Chief [A1+]

F2P

Muku Scout [A5]

/

Brigand Scout Leader [A5]

+

Muku Chief [A0]

Universal

• 

  Rorola
  - This imagine is overall the best DPS imagine that we can ask for, providing a 10% unique multiplayer during his active and a stacking 1.2% bonus added to that multiplayer based on hits done up to 5 times. Those buffs last essentially for 35s due to the extension properties this imagine has, providing essentially a 16% final multiplayer that is very strong and makes this imagine the best overall on every DPS. Additionally this imagine provides 1% lifesteal and has 2 Charge making it able to be used roughly every 60s instead of 120s as others, Making it having an almost perfect uptime on burst windows.

Top Gold Imagines

1. 

   Muku Chief
   - Muku Chief provides passive +%CRIT DMG alongside a powerful active ability that grants even more +%CRIT DMG as well as +Flat Crit Rate. Furthermore, it has two charges, allowing superior uptime compared to other Imagines. Chief not only boosts our damage but also boosts the consistency of our combo as well.
2. 

   Phantom Arachnocrab
   - Phantom Arachnocrab grants passive +Flat Mastery and additional +%Mastery on use. Mastery boosts the damage of our finishers, which we’ll be spamming constantly during Volt Surge, making the crab a great choice.

Top Purple Imagines

1. 

   Blackfire Foxen [A5]
   - This Imagine offers substantial flat Mastery through its passive effect and additional Mastery% when activated, enhancing our mastery scaling and making it stronger than the A2 or lower Arachnocrab.
2. 

   Brigand Scout Leader [A5]
   - Brigand Scout Leader grants 10% Agility passively and a further 20% temporarily on use, which together form a tremendous damage increase. While powerful for Agility classes, it is specific to exactly that attribute, making it a less flexible investment than more generic options.
3. 

   Muku Scout [A5]
   - Muku Scout 5 grants us a passive 15% ATK, provided we are consistently hitting attacks. Upon activation, it doubles the stacks, giving a tremendous 30% ATK buff, amplifying the entirety of our damage. A generic, accessible, and exceptionally strong option.
• While numerically our best option, the passive of Muku Scout is harder to keep active on Iaido Slash than other specs (although it’s still very doable). If you’re struggling or worried consider Brigand Scout Leader instead or using Scythe Wheel to boost hit count.
4. 

   Gloomy Cabbage [A5]
   - It provides fluctuating Critical Damage that averages around 15% CRIT DMG. When active, it grants bonus CRIT DMG and Crit points that scale with the equipped "Cabbage series" emblem. This makes it one of the strongest alternatives thanks to its high uptime and power.
5. 

   Boarrier Tyrant [A5]
   - Boarrier Tyrant is a Special Attack-centric Imagine, making it a great choice for amplifying our Iaido Slash damage. On top of this, you can receive a few copies of this Imagine’s Will for free through the new player rewards. Not as strong as Imagines above, but still solid.

Class

General Offensive

Defensive

Mirage Dream: When Basic Attack or Special Attack deals 12 hits to the main target (melee skills count +1), triggers Mirage Dream for 8s, stacking up to 10 times .

• Mirage Dream: ATK +18 per stack (up to +50, scaling with season level).
• Split Nodes: Battlestart - Rare -> Rapid Assault Stacks -> Class DEF -> Beauty of Refinement -> Immortal Stance

While most other classes that use this Psychoscope would opt for the 13 stacks, we opt for 8 max stacks but starting every fight at maximum due to being a burst class. It is also helpful to reach the stack max more quickly for the 5% extra crit if we are unable to upkeep the buff due to boss mechanics. We also opt for the attack speed over the def shred due to having some in our kit already.

1. Crit - The best choice to ensure smooth comboing.

Burst Rotation

Our goal with our burst rotation is to execute as many 6 Sigil finishers as possible. Open fights with this combo and execute it as frequently as you can throughout battle.

Start your burst rotation by using any available Imagines, then activate

Volt Surge

Overdrive

Volt Surge

Iaido Slash

Flash Strike

• 

  Overdrive
  if not at maximum Sigils.
• Use
  

  Iaido Slash
  / Vacuum Slash
• Use
  

  Flash Strike
  when Iaido Slash is on cooldown, and try to use it 2-3 times after using Vacuum Slash.
• Use
  

  Raijin Dash
  as filler if you miss an Iaido Slash crit, or towards the end of the Volt Surge window to spend more sigils
• End the burst window with
  

  Oblivion Combo
  to capitalize on all of the sigils we just spent.

When performing your alternating combo of

Flash Strike

Iaido Slash

Tip

If you accumulate 6 Sigils before using

Volt Surge

you can skip out on having to use the first Overdrive.

If you are playing on moderate to high ping, consider using auto combat for your burst window as it is not affected by ping, because playing on moderate to high pings can make resets come ever-so-slightly slower which is ultimately a damage loss.

Downtime Rotation

While waiting for Volt Surge’s cooldown, fill the spare time with your Downtime Rotation. Our Downtime rotation deals substantially less damage but still generates a respectable amount of Sigils for us to spend on less powerful Iaido Slashes.

Follow up your Burst Combo by dumping any remaining Sigils you have into

Iaido Slash

Oblivion Combo

Iaido Slash

Volt Surge

• Use
  

  Judgment Cut
  until Piercing Slash activates.
• Overdrive to consume Piercing Slash Buff.
• Spend Sigils on
  

  Iaido Slash

Continue this priority order until

Volt Surge

Can Iaido Slash be played on auto?

Iaido Slash cannot be played on full-auto; it must be played manually in a majority of cases. This is due to the AI not understanding the maximum range for Iaido Slash and walking towards the target after each Flash Strike (if it's small). It is possible to play on semi auto where the AI uses Flash Strike, Overdrive and Raijin Dash, and the player presses everything else.