Rift Bladedancer Strategy Guide

Bladedancer Soul's Skills, Specs, Macros and Builds in Rift

The Bladedancer is an offensive Rogue Soul. Of all the rogue souls, BDs tend the most toward the warrior's mindset -- skillful use of a blade with no stealth capability. They can effectively berserk with their blade dances, disarm, parry, and stun their foes. This soul goes very well with all other Rogue melee souls. BD is not as impressive when you are not under attack, as most of the dodge and parry abilities will be lost. For those situations, Bladedancer will be overshadowed by Nightblade and Assassin builds.

The Dance of Blades
Bladedancers excel at dodging and parrying enemy attacks. When they do so, they get buffs, and may strike back at opponents both automatically and with the triggered Disengage and Reprisal abilities. Their combat style follows a rhythm, requiring Keen Strike to allow follow up with the more powerful Precision or Quick strike.

Rhythmic Actions (RA)
Rhythmic Actions are Bladedancer buffs that start at 15 seconds (improved to 21s by the Blade Hustle talent). There are six in total: four damaging, one movement speed, and one defensive. These abilities are all useful in their own way and affect the flow of combat differently.

Bladedancer Rotation and Macros

Here is a basic combo builder macro for a Bladedancer. If you have other abilities, such as Puncture you can slip it in before or after Precision Strike.

#show precision strike
suppressmacrofailures
cast precision strike
cast quick strike
cast keen strike

Precision Strike and Quick Strike rely on Keen Strike to be used first, so they will trigger at the appropriate times with the macro. You want Precision first since it has a cooldown and should be used quickly to make the best use of time.

The only other macros I use with my Bladedancer are to group Blade and Soul Parity with Blade Tempo and Double Coup with Dualism (in those orders). The first pairing affects all bladedancer skills, while the second is more specific to building combo points on a single target. Condensing them this way makes it easier to keep them active during combat.

Bladedancer Skills and Special Abilities

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Deadly Strike Deadly Strike - Points Required: 0
Ability Info: If you invest heavily in Bladedancer, this will be your go-to finisher. It gets a bonus from Blade Finesse, lending it a 25% attack power bonus. It's a simple, but potentially very damaging attack.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Keen Strike Keen Strike - Points Required: 0
Ability Info: Keen Strike begins the Bladedancer combo, followed by either a Quick Strike or Precision Strike. Its damage can be boosted by 10% after a Quick/Precision strike with points in the Blade and Fury talent. That's good, as compared to Quick/Precision this strike is a bit weaker. Gives one combo point.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Side Steps Side Steps (RA) - Points Required: 0
Ability Info: This boosts your dodge chance by 50%, as in, 14.65%+50%=64.65%. It can allow you to survive some thick engagements with melee attackers and even temporarily dodge tank to protect another. A highly valuable ability that must be hotkeyed. It makes Bladedancer a decent choice for a third soul if your Rogue will be melee, being 0-point. It seems to be affected by the Vivacity talent, which boosts the damage of Rogue abilities by 10%. If you've got it, you'll get 55% dodge instead when using this rhythmic action.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Quick Strike Quick Strike - Points Required: 2
Ability Info: A nice strong attack which should appear second in a basic Bladedancer macro. Gives one combo point.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Twin Strike Twin Strike - Points Required: 4
Ability Info: This will hit up to five nearby enemies. The main target gets the main hand, with the other four taking damage from your Rogue's offhand weapon. It can do a lot of damage, very quickly. Since you'll draw a lot of attention this is a good ability to use with Side Steps. It adds a combo point to the main target. You can mow down a lot of mobs in a hurry using this along with the Compound Attack area finisher.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Combat Pose Combat Pose - Points Required: 5
Ability Info: This boosts the Rogue's dexterity for an hour. The amount will increase periodically as you level up, later replaced by Combat Preparation for the entire raid.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer False Blade False Blade - Points Required: 6
Ability Info: The false blade finisher will give your Rogue 5% dodge for up to 60 seconds. If you're in a long fight, or are likely to encounter more melee it's definitely worthy of your combo points. With Improved False Blade, it will give +6% parry as well. That's an 11% chance of avoiding melee damage, which gives you a better chance to use instant attacks like Reprisal. There's also the Turn the Tide buff and Strike Back. As a result, this will improve your DPS in scenarios when your Rogue is under melee attack.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Compound Attack Compound Attack - Points Required: 10
Ability Info: A finisher that hits the same area as Twin Strike, giving the Bladedancer some aoe capability at close range.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Flash of Steel Flash of Steel - Points Required: 10
Ability Info: A Rogue's charge. It deals damage on impact and stuns the enemy for 2 seconds. You can use this to interrupt casters, and more importantly get in close to deal damage quickly. It's good on fleeing PVP opponents, perhaps with a follow up Maim to keep 'em slow. Flash of Steel gives two combo points, so is a great way to start a fight. The Unabating Steel talent will give your Rogue immunity to control and movement effects after using Flash.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Weapon Barrage Weapon Barrage - Points Required: 12
Ability Info: On a successful interrupt, this dagger attack will silence a caster for five seconds. It doesn't do damage, so can't be used for pulling.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Maim Maim - Points Required: 14
Ability Info: Maim deals some damage and reduces an enemy's movement speed by 50% for 10 seconds. It's only really useful in PVP but it can lend a hand in certain dungeon scenarios.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Precision Strike Precision Strike - Points Required: 16
Ability Info: This ability is like Quick Strike in that it's usable after a Keen Strike, only more powerful. The 10-second cooldown means you'll want to get it out as early as possible so less time is wasted. Put this at the top of your primary attack macro.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Dauntless Strike Dauntless Strike - Points Required: 18
Ability Info: Gives a buff for up to 60 seconds that grants +5% critical hit chance to all raid members. This is very helpful party-wide and more than makes up for the reduced damage over performing a Deadly Strike. Keep this buff up as often as you can and your party will thank you (OK maybe not).

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Combat Preparation Combat Preparation - Points Required: 20
Ability Info: Gives a +40 Dexterity bonus to the entire raid. Warriors and Rogues of all types will like this.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Disassemble Disassemble - Points Required: 26
Ability Info: Disarms a target for six seconds, rending them unable to use melee attack abilities for the duration. It's a great defensive move, giving you a nice window to lay on the damage with none returned.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Double Coup Double Coup (RA) - Points Required: 32
Ability Info: Boosts the damage of Keen, Precision, Quick, and Twin Strike (ie all BD combo abilities) by 75%.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Mass Subdue Mass Subdue - Points Required: 38
Ability Info: Incapacitates all enemies within 7 meters for 6 seconds. It can be a life saver for you and other party members. Since damage caused will interrupt the effect (on individual enemies) it stops your auto attack. Even in big engagements this can be helpful as a target hit with it will not necessarily be under attack by an ally.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Dualism Dualism (RA) - Points Required: 40
Ability Info: This powerful Rhythmic Action will make Quick and Precision strikes deal an extra attack, doing the appropriate amount of damage and granting an additional combo point. This is extra nasty with a high crit chance, but isn't everything?

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Untangle Untangle - Points Required: 44
Ability Info: This will remove all control/movement debuffs on the Rogue and grant immunity to further effects for 8 seconds. It's a handy skill for sure, even better if you have a 0-point infiltrator soul in your third slot for Break Free.

Rift Rogue Skills - Bladedancer Blade and Soul Parity Blade and Soul Parity (RA) - Points Required: 51
Ability Info: The BD ultimate ability is a great one. This Rhythmic Action will boost crit chance and extra damage by 50% on top of your current values. For the duration, all abilities cost 0 energy allowing a big increase in DPS. It can also be used to allow your Rogue to recover energy while continuing to do damage. Keep that in mind before you pop this at the beginning of a long fight. In doing so you might also avoid the effect of getting splattered by passing the tank in threat.

Bladedancer Soul Talents - Where to Spend Your Points

0-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Quick Reflexes Quick Reflexes
Soul Talent Description:: This gives up to 5% dodge chance. As a solo player it will increase dps as you will be able to perform Reprisal/Disengage more often.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Blade Finesse Blade Finesse
Soul Talent Description:: Boosts the attack power bonus of Deadly Strike by 25%, giving the finisher some extra oomph.

5-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Strike Back Strike Back
Soul Talent Description:: Gives 50/100% chance to strike back at the enemy with both weapons when parrying or dodging. False Blade, Side Steps, and any other means of improving dodge/parry will effectively increase your DPS when under attack by melee opponents.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Reprisal Reprisal
Soul Talent Description:: This instant attack doesn't trigger the global cooldown, does good damage, and gives a combo point. When dodging/parrying you essentially have access to this damaging option or the stun given by Disengage.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Blade and Fury Blade and Fury
Soul Talent Description:: Blade and Fury is essential to the Bladedancer vibe. After performing either Quick or Precision strike, your BD will do more damage with the next Keen Strike, up to 10%.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Combat Expertise Combat Expertise
Soul Talent Description:: Increase your hit rating by up to 25, effectively increasing DPS due to fewer misses allowing you to better fight targets over your level.

10-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Sprint Sprint (RA)
Soul Talent Description:: Boost run speed by 70% for 15 seconds. A helpful escape tool, and to help you close the distance during combat when Flash of Steel is cooling down or out of range.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Deadly Dance Deadly Dance
Soul Talent Description:: This awesome talent gives a buff granting up to +21% damage per combo point to the next three combo-generating abilities after using Deadly Strike. Note it's not exclusive to Bladedancer abilities, but can affect other powerful skills like Puncture.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Ambidexrtous Ambidextrous
Soul Talent Description:: Take this for up to +15% total dexterity. Get a slight boost to dodge, crit, and attack power all in one.

15-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Turn the Tide Turn The Tide
Soul Talent Description:: A powerful buff, giving 10% more damage dealt and 10% less damage received for ten seconds after parrying or dodging an attack. Incredibly useful when you're the center of attention.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Blade Tempo Blade Tempo (RA)
Soul Talent Description:: This boosts all physical damage by 30% for 15 seconds, nice to give Dancing Steel some extra kick along with anything else.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Combat Efficiency Combat Efficiency
Soul Talent Description:: Finishers give up to 3 energy per combo point. This will boost your DPS over long engagements when running low on energy is inevitable.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Combat Culmination Combat Culmination
Soul Talent Description:: This is a good ability for fights with multiple targets. It'll give you up to 15 energy per combo point when an enemy is killed, and give a buff of 3% for 30 seconds affecting dodge, crit, parry, and hit rate.

20-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Improved False Blade Improved False Blade
Soul Talent Description:: Adds up to +6% parry chance when you use False Blade.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Unabating Steel Unabating Steel
Soul Talent Description:: Makes the Rogue immune to control and movement effects for 4 seconds after using Flash of Steel.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Contra Tempo Contra Tempo
Soul Talent Description:: This passive will boost your attack power bonus for Quick/Precision strike for up to 10% plus an additional 12% for every point spent in the Bladedancer soul over 31.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Counterbalance Counterbalance
Soul Talent Description:: Reduces the cooldown of all Bladedancer Rhythmic Action abilities by 15 seconds. That's 12% off, and will help you to keep one active most of the time during combat.

25-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Vivacity Vivacity
Soul Talent Description:: Boosts energy capacity by up to 20, improving the duration a Rogue can burst or endure in a longer fight before running out of energy. That would probably be enough for me to take this talent, but it also boosts damage by 10% for all BD abilities.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Disengage Disengage
Soul Talent Description:: This powerful 4-second stun is usable after parrying or dodging an attack.

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Blade Hustle Blade Hustle
Soul Talent Description:: Boosts the duration of all Rhythmic abilities by up to six seconds, bringing them to 21 seconds. With Counterbalance it should let you keep a dance going constantly during most fights.

30-Point Soul Talents

Rift Bladedancer Soul Tree - Dancing Steel Dancing Steel
Soul Talent Description:: A nice AOE attack that hits enemies surrounding the Rogue, and can be used while moving to mow down weak opponents. It's great for helping with small adds and gets a nice boost from the Blade and Soul Party or Blade Tempo Rhymic Actions.

Rift Game Strategy Guide