PvP Blademaster Skill Build in C9 Online

Comment: You can level this skill high for more damage or you can just leave it to 1 if you need the extension on the normal hits rather than the damage.

Here is my level 63 PvP skill build for Blademaster in C9 Online: 

Blademaster Action Skills

Blademaster Command Skills

Blademaster Passive Skills

For some PvP Basics, I would like to share my adapted strategies on PvP for Blademaster by Aphonia of C9 US SERVER. Basically, I have learned a lot from him and this is why I have decided to put up a PvP Blademaster guide for C9 Online. I thank him and give credit to him as for without his knowledge, this guide wouldn't be created.

Here's what Aphonia have to say in terms of PvP Basics for Blademaster in C9 Online:

PvP Basics 

6 armor judgements(the edge of your character will be colored): 

• Invincibilityz(white outline): Cannot get hit/grabbed 

• Superarmor(red outline): Motion does not cancel at all, but you can get grabbed 

• Guard(no outline): Motion does not get cancelled normally, but can be grabbed and can be cancelled by guard breaking skills 

• Semi-superarmor(blue outline): Motion gets cancelled if hit by semi-superarmor breaking moves, can get grabbed 

• Crouch(no outline): Motion does not get cancelled by projectiles, but gets cancelled by melee hits. 

• No armor(no outline): Motion gets cancelled if you get hit. 

Attack judgements: 

• Semi-superarmor break: cancels semi-superarmor moves by opponent 

• Stun: Stuns opponent for a sec or so 

• Grab: Grabs opponent, cancels up to superarmor moves 

• Guard break: Breaks opponent’s guards 

A skill can have more than 1 attack judgements and only 1 armor judgement; for example choke flat of taoists has stun+guard break+semi-superarmor break for the attack judgement and invincible for the armor judgement. Back end upper for fighters have semi-superarmor break attack judgement and invincible for armor judgement. 

All skills have 3 distinct parts: Startup-attack animation-recovery. Knowing when your armor judgement helps to properly guard enemy attacks when executing your own skills and knowing enemy recovery times for skills are important in taking advantage in general. Blademasters have an easier time counterattacking on enemy recovery frames because they have the high ms. The startup/attack/recovery times are different for each skill, so learn them all. 

Example 1: Press Kick 

Startup – (turns body, invincible armor judgement) 

Attack animation – (the blue kick, no armor judgement, guard break/stun attack judgement) 

Recovery – (very quick recovery, no armor judgement) 

Example 2: Shadow Dash 

Startup – (dashes forward, turns invisible. invincible armor judgement) 

Attack animation – (turns visible, grabs if you successfully time your click, no armor judgement, grab attack judgement) 

Recovery – (no recovery if grabbed, pretty heavy recovery if failed to grab, rolls forward, no armor judgement, no attack judgement) 

Example 3: Tao Stinger 

Startup – (reels the staff backwards preparing to dash, invincible armor judgement) 

Attack animation – (dashes forward, semi-superarmor armor judgement, semi-superarmor-break and stun attack judgement) 

Recovery – (almost no recovery if hit, short recovery if missed, no armor judgement on recovery) 

Knowing your and your opponent’s recoveries and skill judgement is key. Always try to use skills with quick activation after a skill with long recovery. 

Now, the opponent has two different moves that can be used to escape from your ground combo or juggle. They are the evasive dash(shift+direction while being hit) and evasive attack(rm+lm while being hit). They both have a cooldown of 24 seconds, and cannot be reduced by cooldown reduction stats(which will be available on souls and auspices). Obviously, utilizing these two evasions is key to being good at PvP. 

Evasive attack can only be used on the ground, and knocks back/downs the opponent. The animation is different for all classes, but for all classes there are no startup frames, there are invincible action frames, and a slight recovery frame in which you have no armor. 

Evasive dash can be used both on ground and in air, thus making it the more important than the evasive attack. Certain classes can change the direction of evasive dash, opening up a new route to counterattack. 

Since you can only properly execute a ground combo when both the evasive attack/dash of the opponents are on cooldown, it is hard to execute a ground combo if your skill levels are similar. Thus, air juggles are the more dominant way of executing combos, since it is necessary to take out only the evasive dash of the opponent to execute an air juggle. Each class has certain moves that can be used to air juggle; stun into grab is the most common way, and picking up the opponent from the ground is another common way of starting an air juggle. 

Finally, you can do something that’s called a stunlock combo. Each hit of this combo has the stun property, meaning that opponents cannot use evasive dash or attack. However, to compensate, they are often very short(3-4skills long) and deal significantly less damage then regular combos. For blademasters, they have a really good stunlock combo that is about equal to 7-8 seconds of air juggles, but other classes do not have such good stunlock combos. 

Now, downing the opponent is really important as a blademaster or a combo character in general, because ground combos pick up the opponent from the ground and don’t give him a chance to use evasive attack. There are 2 moves that can be used to get up: rising attack and the roll/standup. Both have a cooldown of 10 seconds; if both abilities are on cooldown and the opponent gets downed, he will need around 3 seconds for your char to get up naturally. This is a really good timing for you to do a ground combo, forcing your opponent to use his evasive dash. 

Furthermore, the roll takes a bit of time to execute, allowing you to go into a ground combo if you’re quick enough, and the rising attack is almost instant but has a significant recovery that you can take advantage of if you expect your opponent to use rising attack. Mixing up your strategies is therefore important; sometimes go straight into a ground combo and sometimes try to fake your opponents’ rising attack so you can go into a stunlock combo or grab. 

Combos 

Combos are the core damage dealing mechanisms of blademasters. The thing to keep in mind is that after 7 hits, damage will decrease, down to 30% of the damage normally dealt when combo count is around 20. Thus, since only the first 7 hits will hit for the full amount of damage, it is important to concentrate the damage dealing moves to the front of the combo. Remember that the primary damage dealers are assault smash/thrust kick for blademasters. 

Basic combo: 

Back upper -> press kick -> assault smash -> Bash 1, 2 -> Thrust kick/gain -> grab. 

Grab -> assault smash -> 1 normal hit -> Thrust kick/gain -> Bash 1, 2 -> 3 normal hits -> grab 

Ground combos: 

Bash 1, 2 -> Thrust kick/gain -> 3 normal hits -> assault smash -> grab 

Assault smash -> 1 normal hit -> Thrust kick/gain -> bash 1, 2 -> 3 normal hits -> grab 

Check his channel http://www.youtube.com/2010dchoi for some more basic combos. 

PvP skill chaining 

Now, if you’ve read the pvp basics section, you should know that each skill has a recovery frame that can be utilized by opponents. Therefore, you would want to primarily use skills with small recovery frames, small startup frames, and have some sort of decent armor judgement. 

For blademasters, the primary skills that are used close range are: 

- Back end upper -> press kick 

Invincible time on back upper continues to invinc time on press kick, almost no recovery 

- Back end upper -> thrust kick -> cancel shining cutter 

Invinc time on back upper – superarmor on thrust kick – cancel into invinc time on shining cutter. Shining cutter has a bit of recovery though, be cautious about using it 

- Back end upper -> cancel counter smash 

Invinc -> guard, be cautious because counter smash has a massive recovery if not hit. 

- Back end upper -> target guard 

Different from counter smash because back upper cannot be cancelled; but lower risk than counter smash because its recovery is small. 

- Back end upper -> storm wheel wind or moonlight cutter 

Invinc -> full superarmor, use to take opponent’s hit safely without getting cancelled 

- Back end upper -> grab/backhit grab 

Invinc -> grab judgement attack, grab allows for subsequent combos while backhit grab is more defensive. 

Another important thing to note in skill chaining is cancelling. You can cancel some skill animations and go into another skill without delay(recovery frames of first skill). By convention, action skills are cancelled by command skills and vice versa, but this is not always the case. Each class has different cancelling skill chains, so practice. Blademasters rely on back end upper -> cancel into any action skill chain. 

PvP Styles 

For blademasters, there are a couple of different pvp styles. First, there’s the “charge” style, where you basically get close to the opponent as fast as you can and disrupt his moves with the normal attack (yes, blademaster’s normal left click attack is the fastest with shadow’s normal left click) and the skill chains that I described above. The key here is to never let your opponent catch their breath. I found this style to be particularly useful against shadow/assassin/rangers. 

The second style is the “fake” style, where blademaster stays just out of the opponent’s range, and uses his superior movespeed and precise timing on target guard/counter smash to lure out opponent’s moves and attak on the recovery. This style requires in depth knowledge of your opponent’s class as well as your own class, since you need to properly utilize your invincible moves and need to know when the recovery times of the opponents are. I personally use the “fake” style in most of my matches, and I’d say most other top ranking blademasters pvp based on the “fake” style, changing only to the “charge” style briefly to mix things up a bit. 

However, just keep in mind that pvp style is ever evolving; if some different style fits you, go on and develop that style.