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.

[Axetwin]

Originally posted by Desktop:

Originally posted by Axetwin:

If need be, use Bring it Down on her so you can get Veil of Blades off right away.

Yeah it would work better if my main character was an officer/MT. Maybe for my next run instead of using these broken OP builds ill try to hold back a bit. Try to do more of a tank/healer/dps thing. Right now my team is just buff the OP characters in my party.

Officers no longer get priority with combat turn. You need a Grand Strategist for that now.

[Axetwin]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Because you don't need raw WS or BS to increase your damage on melee characters.

Versatility is insane on range because you have a lot of BS% damage increases via items and talents.

Again i am just saying it wouldn't be optimal. You can play anything the way you want.

Best kibellah nukes come from where it hurts or killing edge.

If i would be asked what to pick for kibellah, assassin is best, executioner is second best.

Ok, that's fair. I figured AM probably wouldn't be optimal, but I thought it would still be fun. I don't play on Unfair so optimal isn't absolutely necessary. But I get what you're saying.

[Gengisgame]

Originally posted by BIG E.:

Again i am not saying it wouldn't work, bladedancer is very strong just on its own.

I am just saying it falls less optimal than assassin and executioner.

I mean i don't need to really explain where it hurts, its broken. Most important part here is blood oath means killing edge always hits. Also death from above can just hit openings without any issue.

Parry is... for me not really important since by the time i can get meaningful parry from versatility i have over 200% dodge.

Who is to say until we've worked out the numbers

But that wasn't the original point, you said WS doesn't increase weapon damage, I was correcting you. It does by default with crit increase and blade dancer talents and abilities.

Parrying with Veil covers everything and can generate so much additional damage.

[Frienby]

blade dancer also can hit openings so fricking easy with assassin, jumping back and forth to hit them as they appear on bigger targets. I made my MC a blade dancer assassin while Kibellah does executioner and basically everything is dead by turn 3. Giving kibellah gear that adds any stacks of dots with carnival of misery means that she can clear the entire map without even moving after a couple turns. It's sort of bonkers

[dwarfpcfan]

I've made her an executioner and it's honestly just bonkers at how fast she can carve through enemies. I've just unlocked it but as a whole there's no denying the effectiveness.

Given it's focus on over time effects like bleeding, poison etc Kibella seems really geared towards abusing the later game Drukhari blades since all those weapons have nasty over time effects by default.

[Balekai]

I just did some more testing last night and the damage scaling on Executioner DoTs is just nuts with Bladedancer, because as you hit you increase the levels of your DoTs while applying new ones. When you provoke instant applications by various means (see my post on the last page for more details), you have OP upfront damage. Not to mention just killing stuff encounter wide because you used Carnival of Misery with Bleed, Burn and Toxin application on use upgrade III

It's also a good idea to get talents that decrease enemy resistance, in addition to Carnival upgrade 1 so your Burns and Toxins bypass defences like direct damage Bleeds.

You can easily start doing thousands of damage with the DoTs instantly and over time and could care less about your actual Blade damage. It's dwarfed by the DoT scaling even though both benefit from say Reckless Abandon. The best part is that Bladedancer + Executioner can be built like Vanguard for DPS. Upping health from stuff like "It Will Not Die," wounds based off Medicae or Exemplar health talents will give you way more % damage than most damage talents.

[Lord_Eol]

The thing with assassin is most of the attacks are geared towards single attack / opening and nearly all of Kibellah's bladedancer attacks are multiple units hence opening rarely comes into play if I understanding how assassin works; even death from above isn't a "single" target / attack when you are doing 5x DFA's a turn, that one "create a opening" is worthless. TBH the main advantage I find to assassin over the other is the evasive/hide ability means i can send her off unsupported to destroy the backline all by herself and nobody will ever bother her so she basically lives forever killing all enemy support solo while everyone else focuses on the boss / mainline. And likewise I can use all her wasted assassin level ups on other more generic anybody/background/etc perks.

[Taifun_Vash]

Originally posted by Lord_Eol:

The thing with assassin is most of the attacks are geared towards single attack / opening and nearly all of Kibellah's bladedancer attacks are multiple units hence opening rarely comes into play if I understanding how assassin works; even death from above isn't a "single" target / attack when you are doing 5x DFA's a turn, that one "create a opening" is worthless. TBH the main advantage I find to assassin over the other is the evasive/hide ability means i can send her off unsupported to destroy the backline all by herself and nobody will ever bother her so she basically lives forever killing all enemy support solo while everyone else focuses on the boss / mainline. And likewise I can use all her wasted assassin level ups on other more generic anybody/background/etc perks.

Yes, that is one of the biggest problems I see too with her, or blade dancer in general as assassin. With DfA you could also trigger the openings multible times, but at the same time it would most likely not reach the same amount of dmg you would get out of a single focused attack.

[Aradner]

I love her as executioner, it has a skill that replaces toughness with medicae when deciding the amount of wounds you have, she has the most HP of all my party. Arch militant is op in general on my Argenta, but never tried it in melee. Assassin feels like a good synergy for her, so it may be fun to try

[Lord_Eol]

Originally posted by Taifun_Vash:

Yes, that is one of the biggest problems I see too with her, or blade dancer in general as assassin. With DfA you could also trigger the openings multible times, but at the same time it would most likely not reach the same amount of dmg you would get out of a single focused attack.

Yeah people are way to overexcited about JCRG's where they are like "OMFG I DID 1,000,000 DMG cuz I'm a 1337 combo button masher" as if it matters to a bunch of trash mobs with 25 hp. The fact is the most optimal way to beat this game is simply clearing battles fast and that means doing optimal, not max, damage and the ability do lots of attacks per round / AOE / high mobility and then survive until the next round to mop up.

The assassin "hide" skill is worth it's weight in gold in practice for Kibellah and the rest are irrelevant, simply there as winmores or to free up slots to be used on more useful things outside of her class, basically the combat oriented grand strategist where the entire skill tree is just ignored minus one or two things. For assassan that's simply hide and create an opening.

[Taifun_Vash]

Originally posted by Lord_Eol:

The assassin "hide" skill is worth it's weight in gold in practice for Kibellah and the rest are irrelevant, simply there as winmores or to free up slots to be used on more useful things outside of her class, basically the combat oriented grand strategist where the entire skill tree is just ignored minus one or two things. For assassan that's simply hide and create an opening.

Yes it's, my RT at the moment is a operative/assassin sniper and the battle against the Sire, genestealer act 4, with the dogmatic oath it was worth it weight in gold, had the thing standing right besides my RT and eaten not a single attack the whole battle. But Kibellah doesn't really need that, she has many really good abilities that, combined with dodge and parry, nothing really takes her down except a lucky shot and that only in blade dancer without even thinking of the other abilities she can take.

[Frienby]

Originally posted by Lord_Eol:

The thing with assassin is most of the attacks are geared towards single attack / opening and nearly all of Kibellah's bladedancer attacks are multiple units hence opening rarely comes into play if I understanding how assassin works; even death from above isn't a "single" target / attack when you are doing 5x DFA's a turn, that one "create a opening" is worthless. TBH the main advantage I find to assassin over the other is the evasive/hide ability means i can send her off unsupported to destroy the backline all by herself and nobody will ever bother her so she basically lives forever killing all enemy support solo while everyone else focuses on the boss / mainline. And likewise I can use all her wasted assassin level ups on other more generic anybody/background/etc perks.

Not really, assassin has talents that buff you as you hit openings even with DfA and area attacks. You just keep jumping from opening to opening as a blade dancer/ assassin and end up 2 shotting bosses. It gets kinda ridiculous.

[Frienby]

Decided to try her out as arch-militant because I wanted to focus on the katana-like blades of theirs, instead of the smaller ones. It's actually kinda busted. With reckless rush and blood haze, she can basically be naked, dodge everything and zoom around the entire field of battle, just killing everything.

[Axetwin]

Originally posted by Frienby:

Decided to try her out as arch-militant because I wanted to focus on the katana-like blades of theirs, instead of the smaller ones. It's actually kinda busted. With reckless rush and blood haze, she can basically be naked, dodge everything and zoom around the entire field of battle, just killing everything.

Right? With the All Out talent she zooms around like mad. My long term plan is to give her Confident Approach and then pump as much crit damage as I can, which between Bladedancer and Arch-Militant seems to be a substantial amount.

[Frienby]

Originally posted by Axetwin:

Right? With the All Out talent she zooms around like mad. My long term plan is to give her Confident Approach and then pump as much crit damage as I can, which between Bladedancer and Arch-Militant seems to be a substantial amount.

Make sure you don't neglect her bloodblessed talents, you can stack a lot of damage just by throwing down your phial and alternating that with the blood rain skill. It buffs your damage and makes others take more.