Assassin or Arch-Militant for Kibellah?

[Axetwin]

I cannot for the life of me pick between these two archetypes for Kibellah. Assassin is probably the obvious answer but I feel like she would be able to get stacks of Versatility quite easily (easier than Argenta) because the Bladedancer archetype wants you to alternate back and forth between different attacks. So I turn to you for advice. Who has played her as Assassin and who has played her as Arch-Militant? If you've done both, which do you prefer?

Edit I've gone with Arch-Militant Executioner for now, but feel free to continue to explain why you agree or disagree because I may change my mind later.

[la_nague]

I play her as Executioner xD

[Trolleur_Durden]

I've tried Assassin and found it pretty underwhelming. Executioner on the other hand is both tankier and does more damage.

[Taifun_Vash]

I play her as executioner too and she is damn strong with it. Now for arch militant I don't know if the game really sees her attacks as different kinds of attack to build versatility, you would need to test that. If it did she would also be damn strong in that, you can always reskill her if it didn't.

[Frienby]

Arch militant using single attacks and area attacks with her blade, using that talent for bladedancer that makes area attacks 1 AP less might work for building versatility stacks, it's an interesting idea for a 2handed version of Kibellah that I actually want to try out now.

[Harukage]

Executioner. Bladedancer is literally built for that. A lot of atacks stacking insane bleed stacks on everyone around. Kibellah is not as optimal as a specialy built psyker Bladedancer/Executioner who can also stack toxin and flame, but is still pretty strong with her unique buff/debuff with blood sprays/pools and ability to use death cultist unique gear.

[Frienby]

I mean, executioner is probably the best, yeah. With 1 handed swords so you apply more stacks with blade dance. But OP was looking between assassin and arch militant. Assassin compliments her mobility problems, put danse macabre on her and she's never missing another fight. But I do think arch militant is an interesting idea. lol

[Taifun_Vash]

Originally posted by Frienby:

I mean, executioner is probably the best, yeah. With 1 handed swords so you apply more stacks with blade dance. But OP was looking between assassin and arch militant. Assassin compliments her mobility problems, put danse macabre on her and she's never missing another fight. But I do think arch militant is an interesting idea. lol

There is a trinket which gives you danse macabre even while not being assassin, don't know what it was called, I think you could buy it from a trader in act 4.
Laughing God's Pendant, Kasballica rank 19.

[Axetwin]

I feel like I should explain the reason I hadn't considered Executioner is because from what I can tell it's DoT based which would work well with something like a Pyromancer but for Kibellah a lot of her extra actions depends on getting kills immediately and not on the enemy action.

[Ronin Gamer]

I'd say it's more between assassin and executioner. I went assassin personally.
Also I don't know if the mechanic is specifically kills on her turn or just in general, but I also don't worry about it all that much. If the ability is there I'll use it, if it's not I'll do something else. I don't hyper focus everything personally.

[Taifun_Vash]

Originally posted by Axetwin:

I feel like I should explain the reason I hadn't considered Executioner is because from what I can tell it's DoT based which would work well with something like a Pyromancer but for Kibellah a lot of her extra actions depends on getting kills immediately and not on the enemy action.

The Executioner gives you bleed as a base dot, if you go two onehanded weapons you could give her a drukhari venom sword, would get the poison through that too. Her attacks stack immense dots for every hit and she can heal through that too, you would also get death from above stacks through killing them from from triggering their dots and so on. But it's your call, build what you want.

[Balekai]

If I had to choose, I would go with Arch-Militant instead of Assassin.

Mostly because Militant fixes the mobility issue of a Bladedancer getting from point A to point B with simply taking Reckless Rush. Kibellah can't be a Psyker and do Psyker stuff to fix that.

I also acknowledge that Blademaster does have conditional talents that help a lot with Movement too, but they're conditional.

The other thing is that you have at least three different attack types to trigger Versatility stacks and gain that added WS/BS (or Dodge/Parry with Cautious Approach while removing some status effects when above 4 stacks), which in turn reduces the AP cost of Wildfire for an extra cheaper down to 0 AP attack.

Those different attacks are Strike (Single Attack), Cleave (Area Attack), and Blade Dance (Burst Melee Attack). I'm not sure if Death From Above counts as a melee attack and I wouldn't know what its classification would be. :p


Executioner is best pick though for DPS and can survive very well with Deflection form Toxins. I could go into more detail but that would be off topic lol.

[Axetwin]

I went Arch-Militant because as Taifun_Vash pointed out, I can always respec if I feel like it's not working out.

I can tell you right now Death From Above is considered an AOE melee attack and Blade Dance is considered a single target attack. In my experimentation in one round I used Death From Above, normal single target attack, 2nd Death From Above, 2nd single target melee attack and a Blade Dance, and I ended up with 4 stacks of versatility not 5. And I was paying attention to when I got them and when I didn't, and I didn't get it when I used Blade Dance. However that Blade Dance was used on a single target so maybe it's context sensitive, if used on 1 enemy it's considered a single target attack but if you hit multiple enemies then it's treated as an AOE or even an AOE burst attack. I will continue to experiement and if people are interested I can keep this thread updated with how the build is progressing.

[jonoliveira12]

Archmilitant is literally the best secondary class any damage dealer can get. Versatility stacks, Wildfire free attack, Kick is broken at times, Confident Approach and Devastating Attack work wonders with Blade Dance...

It is just so freaking good with damage heavy Soldier or Assassin builds!

[la_nague]

Originally posted by Axetwin:

I feel like I should explain the reason I hadn't considered Executioner is because from what I can tell it's DoT based which would work well with something like a Pyromancer but for Kibellah a lot of her extra actions depends on getting kills immediately and not on the enemy action.

the executioner converts dots into immediate direct damage. And with the special 1st lvl ability of it, you can do that x3 once per round. This gives kib the single target damage to keep the blade dancer machine going.

[Desktop]

There is no wrong choice here, she is a very strong character.
I went assassin because it seemed to have a few decent mobility options that helped you save your death from above for dealing damage. Danse macabre has so much utility, you can cast it for free, combine that with blood oath and you can go basically anywhere. arch militant is a great class but you can never have enough AP or mp. I wouldnt go AM unless i had some kind of ranged option for her. Its difficult to get decent damage out of an offhand gun on a melee character. Maybe i just have not found the right gun for her but id rather keep her 100% melee. Oh yeah, blood oath and killing edge go together very well. they get 40% extra dodge but your next attack after blood oath cannot be dodged. Assasins get alot of lethality from agility so i find it all fits together very well.

I used toybox to swap Yrliet to a soldier/AM and oh my god shes is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. I find AM is great at giving ranged characters some melee options. Shuriken cannon goes BRRRRRRRRT. The shuriken pistol is also brilliant. Its probably not as good as Argenta with a heavy bolter but i find having a Dire Avenger on my team to be very cool. I think Yrliet is a little stronger in melee because of this pistol. She has more dodge and alot of parry thanks to the fractal blade.
Maybe i should do a bladedancer/AM for Yrliet. Have the shuriken pistol as that ranged option. Theres some drukari two handed melee options for her.