Hey everyone. I made a guide for 2.4 Blade Sin. Hope it’s okay to link to reddit:
Let me know if you can see it and what you think!
Its ok I guess but I shudder at your gear choices.
If you wanna test in game with me, let me know. Im on ladder.
Sin name, Blade
We can discuss gear choices here. What would you do to improve? I’m curious.
annoying that guides and builds always assume fully equipped players… what about those who do not have so much stuff^^ ?
I’m playing a Blade Assassin hc self-found completely without items from the start.
i played through the entire game to lvl 84 by myself without getting pulled or getting help with bosses. That’s the way I enjoy it the most.
currently she is lvl 84 and in act 5 hell with the Ancients task (which is still too dangerous for me) and have massive problems with the attack value and of course with the physical immunes. i use a Unique throwing axe with very high elemental damage but the AR value is incredibly low…
i don’t really know what to do about it except keep playing until i find something better than the axe^^
I’m not really someone who welcomes changes to the game but in the case of the Blade Assassin something is wrong with the AR value and the balance.
(as long as you don’t use claws and the masterys for it. What I do not want with this char)
Actually I have gear recommendations for ladder-start and leveling up. They are in the guide. I have 6 sets of gears in total in this guide. What is more relevant to HC might be the Natalya’s set, because of its insane defensive set bonuses. Before that, the leveling set will solve your AR problem: Angel’s set, Cleglaw’s set and Hsaru’s set. With all three sets, the AR bonus is 1440 at lvl 45 and 2560 at lvl 80 (you will probably only need one or two sets at this point). For weapon, other people may argue for Cleglaw for its 50% DS and massive CB, but I think Lawbringer is fantastic for safety measures and phys immunes. And if I can convince you to switch to claws, Natalya’s claw is cheap and great.
–Correction after finding out that you are playing self-found exclusively. In that case, it will be difficult to even complete Natalya’s set. So Lawbringer, Angel’s set, Cleglaw’s set and Hsaru’s set might be the best for quite a while. The next goal would be to maximize deadly strike with Guillaume, Gore rider and Lance guard.
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im not worried 
the Time will come^^
Cleglaw’s set is definitely a good way to go
another way to do this is if you happen to have a 3os Aldur’s Rhythm, socket 3 Eth into it. That way you have -75% target def and your AR requirement would be reduced greatly
I think you mention you don’t want to use claw…however…finding a “Fool’s claw” is also a good way to deal with AR issue
just FYI the AR boost from Claw mastery does not work towards blade fury
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You can also use sazibas set.
Dmg reduction, all Res, skill points, ITD and a huge life boost. Go max Block with stormshield, Rare triple Res boots, Gorerider or goblintoe.
Yeah. Sazabi would be a nice alternative. Problem with Sazabi’s set is the same as Natalya’s set though. They are hard to come by. He got to use what he found. I wonder how his journey has gone so far.
Cloak of Shadow can strip a monster of almost all of its defenses when the level is high enough.
Some critic:
Plague isn’t a good BF weapon. Of course, all 3 skills are important but main damage is done with BF + some DS, not with BS or Blade Sentinel. Plague is lacking there. Eth fury in a proper base or etheral death ettin axe beats it by a mile. Etheral fleshripper sockted with an eth rune is also better than plague in effective dmg (actually hitting stuff). Even better would be a fool’s etheral war first with 200ed+ (max is 300) and 2x open sockets for 2x lo rune or 2x eth runes. ITD, -% defense and/or huge amounts of attack rating are a must for BF.
The second thing missing in your guide is, you can strip monsters of almost all of their defense by using cloak of shadow. You should use it actively. Best merc would be an infinity might merc act2 who lets you hit 95% of the time, increases your dmg, helps kill act bosses fast with CB and amplifies fire dmg done with death sentry. Cheaper version would be a reaper treachery merc but you’ve got enough crowd control with mind blast, CoS and blockers and do obsene amount of dmg with phoenix shield. Chance to hit 95% of the time is more usefull for ALL of the blade skills.
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You’ve raised several very interesting points. I want to address them in reverse order.
Cloak of shadow is a powerful skill, which I agree. I tend to use it as often as possible. But it also suffers from an undocumented weakness, which is a CD that’s as long as the defense boost. Because of that, +COS skills on a claw is usually undesired because they increase CD. I would love to see this undocumented CD removed in future patches. It also doesn’t work on bosses. In my guide, I suggested high dex, which makes sure that you have 85% or above hit chance. Without high dex, a fool’s claw is recommended.
For safety measures, I usually resort to MB if I really want to skip an area. It doesn’t have a CD.
Infinity merc is useful especially if you have a main weapon that can impose decrepify/amp, like lacerator. Lacerator+infinity is actually among the highest damage setup after curse is triggered, suitable for high player settings. However, for a weapon without curses, decrepify from the merc is necessary. If the mob has 50% physical resistance, it boosts the damage output by 100%. It’s necessary when you encounter physics immunity too.
About CB, I usually find that gore rider + Guillaume are enough. Blade sin has a very high shear damage output. Extra CB is nice but not necessary from my experience, at least.
Now, the sticky issue with blade sentinel and blade shield. I found that blade sentinel was never viable with a non-claw weapon. The reason is that blade sentinel doesn’t come with an AR boost. It doesn’t benefit from ITD or -enemy defense from weapons. As a result, it either relies heavily on claw mastery to hit. Or you will have to have an infinity. If you don’t have a lacerator or lawbringer while using an infinity, you will have to skip mobs with physical immunity. So after considerations, I would use eth suwayyah plague (the cheapest option) to boost both damage and hitting chance. Blade shield, in this case, has to be given up.
Blade shield… oh man. First of all, two-handed damage penalty doesn’t apply here. It hits at a constant frequency. So highest output should be from something like an eth BoTD thunder maul right? But no… it’s not. Because BS can trigger damage when and only when you refresh BS with a weapon that has +BS staffmod on it. Because of that, a plague +3 BS can do hilarious damage. Either case, the BS is not as good as the other two skills. It’s just not reliable as an offensive skill. I deem it more defensive.
Finally, blade fury. Plague really shines when you have high dexterity and max claw mastery. Otherwise, you will have lackluster experience. I understand that people have sentimental value towards eth death (which you can find in table 2 of the guide). I suggest to try plague out and see if you like it. For claws, before you obtain a gg rare claw, eth fury and eth plague are both quite good.
Well, you addressed the stuff about blade sentinel and blade shield but back to infinity setup. I don’t base a char around immunities against its main damage source, in this case, physical damage because it’s ineffective in the long run. I rather amplify the main damage source and find ways to deal with immunes or skip them.
I don’t wear guilliamo’s with an edeath ettin axe. There is more than enough DS and CB from the runeword, gores and possibly highlord’s. I usually have lawbringer or azurewrath on switch for physical immunes because most of them are undeads. Regular monsters die to blade fury+ blade sentinel +infinity without the need of decrepify or amplify dmg. I concentrate on +skills to all, dmg resistance and all res. My prefered helmet is an umed shako for blade fury 
I even tried an alternative setup with my PVP CoA helmet which had 2x 15ias/100ar jewels in it. All of the equip was no different to a kicksin with the exception that trap skillers increase the damage so I usually played a hybrid but that was before patch 2.4.
20 points into BF/BS/B Sentinel
around 10 hard points into dtalon
1p dragon flight
Rest into death sentry for increased radius
Lawbringer on switch for immunes
Upped gores for better kick damage
BoS for mobility and max kick speed
Infinity merc
I never had an issue with any monster the game. Death ettin is also interesting with dtalon due to casting glacial spike on attack which freezes all non cold immunes in sticky situation.
Edit:
If you stay ranged, lava gouts are superb gloves to have on. That was my build:
https://d2.maxroll.gg/d2planner/nm02068a
Doubling blade skills plus dragon talon as I heard is a good uber build. The most difficult uber boss is Baal because of all of the phys immunes around him. Dragon talon helps with any curse procs, as long as the IAS is high. Pure blade uber is feasible, just not as good as the bugged smite skill.
My current build allows me to one shot most mobs at 1 player with blade sentinel. I usually place one blade sentinel and multiple death sentries and most mobs die. I will just finish off some loose ends with blade fury. On higher player settings (>5), I will need to use blade fury.
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I use azurewrath in Ubertrist against Baal. You can keep physical immunes away with aura ticks, outright kill them and reach max dtalon BP with fade. Demonlimb charges also help there.
My experience was the same as yours, blade sentinel takes care of DS fodder, infinity helps generating that fodder
Nats Set is good , Armor 3os load it with ED jewels along with nats claw off hand and helm also with ed jewels . put chaos in main hand with Deth Sentry and venom mods in it to save skill points . crafted blood gloves ammy and belt and you’re off to the races . have a spirt shield and law bringer weapon as back up to take out immunes and undead and maybe laying of hands to swap out for Boss and Ubbers if you really need it .