Lineage 2/The Player Character (PC) Classes & Character Guides/Bladedancer

Bladedancers are warriors with (mostly) offensive group buffs (dances). They use heavy armor and dual swords.

All dances are gained only once and never get stronger. Many dances stack with ordinary buffs, thats why everyone loves to have a bladedancer (and/or elven spellsword) in the party, even if they themselves are not exactly the toughest warriors. Dances (and songs) only last 5 minutes, so you have dance again very often when playing this class.

Key Skills
Format: Name (max Level) - Description (Level [+Number of Advancements] [/ ...])

Dances

 * Dance of Fire - Temporarily increases party's critical damage. Dual Swords only. (40)
 * Dance of Light - Temporarily bestows sacred power to party's physical attack. Dual Swords only. (43)
 * Dance of Inspiration - Temporarily increases party's Accuracy. Dual Swords only. (46)
 * Dance of Mystic - Temporarily increases party's M. Atk. Dual Swords only. (49)
 * Dance of Concentration - Temporarily increases party's Casting Spd., and decreases magic cancel rate. Dual Swords only. (52)
 * Dance of Warrior - Temporarily increases party's P. Atk. Dual Swords only. (55)
 * Dance of Fury - Temporarily increases party's Atk. Spd. Dual Swords only. (58)
 * Dance of Earth Guard - Temporarily increases party's resistance to earth attacks. Dual Swords only. (62)
 * Dance of Protection - Temporarily bestows one's party's resistance to terrain damage. Dual Swords only. (66)
 * Dance of Aqua Guard - Temporarily increases party's resistance to attacks by water. Dual Swords only. (70)
 * Dance of Vampire - Partially restores party's HP by using damage inflicted upon the enemy. Damage inflicted by skill or remote attack is excluded. Dual Swords only. (74)

Other Active

 * Aggression (12) - Provokes opponent's desire to attack. (24+3/28+3/32+2/36+2)
 * Attack Aura (2) - Temporarily increases P. Atk. Conflicts with clerical "Might" Buff. (10/28)
 * Confusion (19) - Throws the enemy into confusion and gets them to change the target of their attack. (24/28/32/36/40/43/46/49/52/55/58/60/62/64/66/68/70/72/74)
 * Defense Aura (2) - Temporarily increases P. Def. Conflicts with clerical "Shield" Buff. (5/20)
 * Deflect Arrow (2) - Increases defense against bow attacks. (24/32)
 * Drain Health (53) - Absorbs HP. (15+2/20+2/24+3/28+3/32+3/36+3/40+3/43+3/46+3/49+3/52+3/55+3/58+3/60+2/62+2/64+2/66+2/68+2/70+2/72+2/74+2)
 * Freezing Strike (24) - Instantly freezes target area. Temporarily reduces enemy's Speed. (36+2/40+2/43+2/46+2/49+2/52+2/55+2/58+2/60/62/64/66/68/70/72/74)
 * Hex (15) - Instantly decreases enemy's P. Def. (40/43/46/49/52/55/58/60/62/64/66/68/70/72/74)
 * Poison (5) - Poisons target. (20/49/58/66/74)
 * Poison Blade Dance (3) - Sword emits cloud that poisons nearby enemies. Dual Swords only. (55/60/72)
 * Power Break (17) - Instantly reduces enemy's P. Atk. (32/36/40/43/46/49/52/55/58/60/62/64/66/68/70/72/74)
 * Sting (49) - Inflicts a serious, bleeding wound upon the enemy. Used with a sword, dagger, or two-handed weapon. Over-hit possible. (24+3/28+3/32+3/36+3/40+3/43+3/46+3/49+3/52+3/55+3/58+3/60+2/62+2/64+2/66+2/68+2/70+2/72+2/74+2)
 * Ultimate Defense (1) - Instantly increases P. Def. and M. Def. significantly. User must remain still while it takes effect. (20)

Passive

 * Dual Weapon Mastery (37) - Increases attack power when using dual weapons. (40+3/43+3/46+3/49+3/52+3/55+3/58+3/60+2/62+2/64+2/66+2/68+2/70+2/72+2/74+2)
 * Focus Mind (6) - Increases one's MP Recovery Speed. (36/43/49/55/64/72)
 * Heavy Armor Mastery (15) - Increases one's P. Def. when one is wearing heavy armor. (20+3/24+3/28+3/32+3/36+3)
 * Shadow Sense (1) - Increases Accurancy at night (15)

Outdated

 * Armor Mastery (5) - Increases P.def for heavy / P.def and Evasion for light armor. (5/10+2/15+2)
 * Weapon Mastery (3) - Attack power increases. (5/10/15)

Equipment
On c-grade, full plate set would be optimal as the other heavy sets offer no bonus that is worth the lesser pdef. On b-grade, Blue Wolf Heavy is the set of choice - and it looks damned good on darkelves, too, especially with dual Samurai Longsword. On a-grade Tallum is the best choice, as it gives more damage; Majestic however is to be prefered for PvP because of its stun protection (which is the weak point of darkelven warriors).

Dual swords are handled a lot differently than other weapons in the game. To get their SA, you have to over-enchant them once, so they become +4. It is hard to understand why, but with C4 most dual swords have been nerved, all except those with the by far strongest of all SAs (at least in PvP): Health. Dont fool yourself however: Bladedancers are no good PvP characters by themselves, even if they get Magic Resistance to help them against most attacks. In group PvP events like sieges however they are a great addition because of their group buffs. Since Bladedancers are usually one of the last to be targeted in mass PvP(everybody goes for the archer/daggers, nuker mages and healers), it seems that one of the best strategies for a BD is to stay at the back, keeping up the dances till the DDs and nukers kill each other and then dash forward and try to kill a buffer/healer. suicide runs are also common in closed spaces, when the BladeDancer runs to the enemy and uses the Poison Dance.

The best c-grade dual swords are any combination of Katana, Spirit Sword, Raid Sword, and Shamshir. As dual Spirit Sword has SA Health, it is to be recommended. If you rather want to maximise damage output, dual Katana is your choice (but the effect is really small). On b-grade the famous dual Samurai Longsword, ingame only called "dual sls", has the best Patk. - the SA is however since C4 mediocre (+4% attack speed). As it turns out, the slightly lower Patk. dual swords "Tsurugi(TSU)*Samurai Longsword(SLS)" and "Sword of Delusion(Sod)*Samurai Longsword(SLS)" produce more damage if you succeed to over-enchant them to +4. The "TSU*SLS" increase the critical rate up to 40-50% (depending on buffs) and the "Sod*SLS" increase your P.Atk by 133 during a critical attack. If you want SA Health, the rather ugly or at least strange looking combo "Sword of Nightmare * Samurai Longsword" would be your choice. On a-grade the combo "Keshanberk * Sword of Damascus" would again offer Health, while dual "Dama" (as Sword of Damascus is called ingame) would offer maximum damage output.

Symbols are hard to decide, because the stats of darkelven warriors are already so extreme - more Str than anybody else, and only one less Dex than the best race, Elves, on the other hand the far lowest Con. Lowering your Dex for more Str is an option, as well as lowering your already so low Con even more for either Dex and/or Str. The later should not be done before you don't have b-grade weapons, because otherwise your cant carry enough soul shots for longer expeditions.

Bladedancers need the following spellbooks: Level 40: Hex.

Playstyle
Bladedancers are quite okayish soloplayers, but why go solo him if parties are so much more effective and Bladedancers are usually very welcome in them? The best miniparty consists of a Bladedancer, Swordsinger and a Shilien Elder, who dishes out Vampiric Rage, apart from the other buffs.

Rule Number One for a BladeDancer: Don't dance while your party fights a mob. Dances are mass buffs and generate a lot of hate from the mobs. Even if there's only the tank attacking, on the second dance the mob usually leaves the tank alone and starts for you. So save yourself and your mates the trouble and dance before attacking. This however proves useful if you're prepared to die for your party when the situation gets out of control(Read: your party getting trained with mobs, DDs/Mages aggroing more mobs than the party can handle. When that happens, the best thing to do is dance and UD, hoping for the party to either hit BSOE, or have enough presence of mind to start healing you and attacking your mob).

Don't dance more than you have to. Your mana regain is not the strongest one and the mana cost for each additional dance is quite high. 3 dances with the occasional Hex are okay on 58+ level. If you have a buffer in the party(a prophet/overlord/elders) do them a favor and dance Concentration. this will diminish the rebuff time and eventually will extend the time the whole party can grind.

To do.

Previous comment
Bladedancers are a special class that combines group buffs with considerable offensive fighting power. On itself the class is already not that bad, but their real power only appears in groups, because many dances stack with effects from normal buffers. Additionally, they have a number of debuffs against opponents like Hex etc.

Bladedancers specialize into the use of dual swords. They can only use heavy armor effectively.