Blade and Soul Class Overview: Lyn Blade Dancer

Blade and Soul has finally made it to the US and boy, is it a fun game. Blade and Soul at its core is a free-to-play, PVP balanced, Action RPGMMO featuring a Wuxia artstyle… Which sounds like a mouthful, but it has been executed successfully and is regularly receiving content patches and balance fixes. Personally, I would highly recommend it if you are looking for an action MMO!

Today we are going to talk about the first class I started out with, the Lyn Blade Dancer.

Restricted to the Lyn class, the Blade Dancer has the play style of a block-less Blade Master and a hint of the Force Master’s elemental attacks. Dance around your opponent and wear them down with tons of tiny cuts or go all in and unleash the elemental forces at your will. If you decide to play the Blade Dancer, you can look forward to

-Being Cute, Fuzzy and able to Kick butt all at the same time.

-Unbelievable burst.

-No pure defense / counter options unless spec’d that way.

-A very diverse skill tree

-Switching stances between “cooldowns/focus management” and “IT’S GO TIME”

-Hardcore Resource Management

-Cooldown Management

-Spinning to Win.

Here we are going to go over the basics of the Lyn Blade Dancer class. We are going to cover just the basic moves as this class does have an overwhelming amount of options. (and this is just an overview guide, not an in-depth analysis.)

This is your 2 focus cost spin to win button. This is a multi-hit AOE that branches off into having different special/beneficial effects. For most standard Blade Dancer PVP builds; if you ain’t spinnin, you aint winnin.

Each of your basic attacks have a different property, take note that your last attack in your string returns 2 focus. Your basic attacks hit in an area so focus return is per enemy hit.

Your wind orb generating right-click attack. You can either hold the button down or keep clicking to keep casting it. The more you cast it, the faster the next sunder comes out up to a maximum speed. If you get a critical hit with sunder you get a wind orb. 3 wind orbs lets you cast Rolling Typhoon which returns focus and deals a ton of damage. Some points in other abilities lets you start with Sunder at max speed or ”boosted”.

One of the branches gives you "Wind Sunder" after a critical hit, this is just a more powerful sunder that comes out instead of your next sunder. (It happens automatically)

Foot to face action! On a successful hit this provides 1 hit of knockdown for 2 seconds. Essential for stopping characters before executing a hard hitting move. The cooldown for it is pretty quick compared to your 3. Feel free to throw it out when you want to.

Points into this skill can either take an enemy out for 30 seconds or debuff dodges.

Dash towards the enemy and strike, business end first. This move starts as your basic distance closer but it’s branches offer you a high amount of diversity and choice. This move will most likely change properties based on your build/playstyle.

Usually, players that use their Q and E will g into the first branch. Wind spec will usually go into Multislash and most people generally go into the third tier in PVP for the stun.

This starts as your other knockdown outside of Body Kick. You may use it as a Joint Finisher with Body Kick for the larger/more resistant enemies. If this move is successful in knocking down, the enemy stays on their back for 3 seconds. The move starts at a whopping 3 focus but can be knocked down to 1 with some effects or changed to fissure which is a high-damage focus-recovering Area of Effect ability with no stun.

Embrace the dark-side and force pull and grip a nearby enemy. This ability here is your “Hold”/”Grapple”/”Pin”/”Whatever.” From here you have many choices to stun, deal damage, steal focus… it’s your choice based on the situation and the way you place your skill points.

You throw your sword like a Jedi pro and it comes back to you. People usually go for the focus return build, but I’ve seen a few go with the knock-down for another CC.

Both a gap-closer and utility ability, Five-Point Strike can be focused into two forms. The first form comes as a HP return ability and the second form turns into a multi-person daze / launcher.

GET READY FOR THE BURST. Seriously. If you are rolling electric spec with your Blade Dancer you are not pressing this button until you are ready to drop your enemy. This cooldown is one of your higher cooldowns for good reason. This puts you into your draw stance which allows you to use your more damaging abilities.

This is your Draw-stance left click. Each hit deals a high amount of damage each attack and (if points get put into it) after a crit your next flicker attack is a special attack named “Flicker Echo” which deals even more damage.

This is your Draw-stance right click. This move causes you to quick move behind your opponent and deal heavy damage. Without any points this move costs 2 focus and has a cooldown of 9 seconds. This move can have points to be used multiple times, used as a long cooldown stun, or it can be changed to the Bladeguard skill which can nullify attacks if timed correctly.

Flash Step is instant but requires an electric shock stack/orb. Most people put points to change it into Lightning Flash which is the more damage oriented of the two, but if you lack movement options in your draw stance, don't be afraid to give Flash-step a shot.