Warshade builds

The first thing you need to understand about Kheldians is that they have such a variety of powers, you’ll be hard pressed to decide how to build one. The recommendations I’m making are a build that I would choose for my style of play. Use the knowledge I give you to choose your own style because Kheldians can be many, many different things.

Level 1 to 24

These levels tend to go fast especially with early travel powers. Start by getting used to your new character’s playstyle and powers. There won’t be much in the way of combos or jaw-dropping moves at first.

01: Shadow Step

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01: Absorption

01

01: Shadow Bolt

01

02: Gravity Shield

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04: Gravimetric Snare

04

06: Dark Nova

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06: Dark Nova Bolt

06

06: Dark Nova Blast

06

06: Dark Nova Emmanation

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06: Dark Nova Detonation

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08: Shadow Blast

0815

10: Starless Step

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10: Shadow Recall

10

12: Dark Matter Detonation

1213

14: Shadow Cloak

14

16: Hasten

161717

18: Gravity Well

18

20: Black Dwarf

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20: Black Dwarf Strike

20

20: Black Dwarf Smite

20

20: Black Dwarf Mire

20

20: Black Dwarf Drain

20

20: Black Dwarf Step

20: Black Dwarf Antagonize

22: Stygian Circle

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24: Sunless Mire

24

Combos

• (The double mire)Dwarf Form Mire+Human Form Mire - To do this, start in dwarf form because the effect is much larger and if you take damage, it will be lessened. Switch to human (but not using the bind that launches dark detonation… in fact, you might use a different bind or a macro to switch to human and launch human mire at the same time). Now that you have the double mire effect, you have wicked attack strength and accuracy for any other combo. For best results, do this when someone else is controlling Aggro
• Starless Step+Gravity Well - Use to take out nasty enemies (like voids).
• Dark Nova Emmanation + Dark Nova Detonation + Human form bind - If you set the human bind to fire Dark Detonation as I recommended, you have a very fast, high damage combo that works even better on enemies that are held (so the knockback effects don't spread them out too much). Open this combo with a Double Mire if you can.

Play Tips

• Your playstyle up to level 24 will be mostly Nova. Human form is used for the Starless Step/Gravity Well combo, sneaking around (Shadow Cloak), and using Shadow Recall to bring friends to you. It's also used for Sunless Mire, but the reason I left that until level 24 is because until you have the dwarf or Super Speed (which gives you full invisibility with Shadow Cloak) to get you close without the danger, I found it too hard to use to be useful at this point.
• You automatically get Shadow Recall (the warshade version of Recall Friend) at level 10, but you won't have full invisibility unless you get Super Speed. A few ways of "sneaking" to the end of a mission to shorten the mission time are:
  • Change to dwarf and just run. Teleport past enemies if there's room, but just take the hits if there's not. Becuase of the new aggro limits the Devs put in to prevent herding entire maps, they'll stop following you eventually.
  • Use Shadow Cloak to reduce the range that enemies can see you and then use Shadow Step to teleport past groups. This doesn't work well in caves, but most other maps it works fine.
  • If you're in an open map or a warehouse, you can often just fly to the end with your Nova form.

  Once you're at the end, recall your friends.

• No matter what you do, take Stygian Circle at 22, learn it, and love it. It is this power and this power alone that prevents you from having to use the fitness pool. When you start to lose life, endurance, or both, just walk up close to some dead enemies and use it.
• Part of playing a WS well is using your forms to your advantage. Use the JTAG ERROR: kheldian_customizing doesn't appear to be a post_name, link_note, or url to change forms always from Nova to human to Dwarf or Dwarf to human to Nova (never Nova to Dwarf directly). The reason is that by firing Dark Detonation when shifting, you get a few seconds to change while the enemy is busy getting up from the knockback.
• In battle, if I find out there's a strong mezzer or some control effects that cause knockdown or such, I'll switch to dwarf until the effect/enemy are gone. Also if I'm starting to get in over my head, switching to dwarf for the defense firing Dwarf Drain to recover life. Your endurance will come back fairly fast because your attacks are too slow to drain it quickly.

Level 35 Rebuild

Once I hit 34 and did the Repec trial (by the end of which I was level 35), this was my build:

01: Shadow Step

01: Absorption

01: Shadow Bolt

02: Gravity Shield

04: Gravimetric Snare

06: Dark Nova

06: Dark Nova Bolt

06: Dark Nova Blast

06: Dark Nova Emmanation

06: Dark Nova Detonation

The only major change in this section is the lack of slots on the first 4 level powers. I found that in the end, the first level powers are just not used that much. The Nova slotting shouldn't surprise anyone.

08: Starless Step

10: Hasten

10: Shadow Recall

12: Sunless Mire

14: Shadow Cloak

16: Super Speed

18: Gravity Well

20: Black Dwarf

20: Black Dwarf Strike

20: Black Dwarf Smite

20: Black Dwarf Mire

20: Black Dwarf Drain

20: Black Dwarf Step

20: Black Dwarf Antagonize

I left Super Speed unslotted because I just don't need the extra speed. I'm using it for stealth, not travel. It's at this point that I realized that a tech like Shadow Blast is a waste of time when Gravity well hits harder and is a hold too. Spend slots on it before any other human form attack. As for Dwarf Step and Antagonize, I just don't see any useful slotting for them. They work fine with no slots unless you really need to be tank-like with your taunts.

22: Stygian Circle

24: Dark Matter Detonation

26: Gravitic Emanation

28: Inky Aspect

30: Unchain Essence

32: Dark Extraction

35: Quasar

And finally, no surprises with this either. I have yet to make good use of Inky Aspect, but I expect it will come into its own soon. Either way, there's no point in taking damage from it if you don't hit them so I put 2 Accuracy.

Combos

A really big combo. I didn't capture the Stygian Circle at the end and I did this before I figured out that starting with the Dwarf Mire is faster, but otherwise, this is pretty much how it works. 9.5Mb AVI

• Double Mire + Dark Nova Emmanation + Dark Nova Detonation + Human form bind (Dark Detonation) + Gavitic Emmanation + Unchain Essence + Stygian Circle + Dark Extraction - This combo rocks, though it pretty much requires small groups or that someone else has the majority of the Aggro.
• Double Mire+Quasar+Blue Inspriation+Stygian Circle - This is a fairly standard combo for people who have both a Nova and an edurance recovery power (like Dark Extraction or Consume).

Anyway, that's all the further I've gone with my WS. So far, she sucks in PvP and I expect that the only way to resolve that is to go straight human (which I'm just not going to do on this build). When it comes to PvP, I'm thinking that the Defender-like WS is at a disavantage so you're better off using the Scrapper-like PB.