Blade Fury

Throw spinning blades to slice up your enemies.

Blade Fury is the Assassin's ranged weapon attack (Traps tree, level 18, requires Blade Sentinel and Wake of Fire; it unlocks Blade Shield). Held down, it throws a steady stream of small blades, each a weapon hit at range. The numbers that decide it are the 75% weapon damage every blade carries, the attack rating bonus of +10% a level, and the 5-frame interval between blades that no speed stat changes.

The numbers

The skill's own damage is MinDam/MaxDam (HitShift 8, read as written): 8–10 at level 1, then +3 a level to level 8, +5 to 16 and +8 from there for both ends (LevDam1–5 are 3, 5, 8, 8, 8): 101–103 at level 20, 181–183 at level

1. The attack rating bonus is ToHitCalc lvl*10: +200% at level 20. Both read lvl, so +skills count.

Each blade carries 75% of the weapon's damage (SrcDam 96 of 128) and the Basin says 3/8 with a two-handed weapon; the share does not change with level, so it is not in the table. Mana is 1 at level 1 and rises an eighth a level (lvlmana 1 on a mana shift of 5) to 3.38 at level 20, but the skill needs at least 3 mana in the pool to start (Param3, "Min Mana required to cast"), the same at every level.

How it works

Each blade is a missile ("bladefragment1") thrown by the Assassin herself, and the row's ContinueCastUnselected flag lets it keep firing while the button is held with no target under the cursor. Param4 is the delay between blades, 5 frames, five a second; the Basin says this is D2R's figure (6 in the older game) and that neither attack rate nor cast rate changes it, so Attack Speed and Faster Cast Rate do nothing here. The Basin says the blades do not pierce.

Every blade is a weapon attack: it rolls Chance to Hit with the +200% bonus against the target's defense and deals physical weapon damage, see Dealing Physical Damage. The Basin's page lists what rides on it beyond what Blade Sentinel carries: -% target defense and Ignore Target's Defense, Crushing Blow, -% enemy resistance, chance to cast on striking, Slows Target, Freezes Target, Hit Blinds Target, Hit Causes Monster to Flee, Knockback, Prevent Monster Heal, Open Wounds, life and mana stolen per hit, life and mana after each kill, and added elemental damage. Leech is cut to the same 3/4 as the damage, the Basin says, rounding down: 8% becomes 6%, 1% becomes 0%. Cold length is cut to 3/4 too; poison length is not.

The Basin's page says two things do not work with Blade Fury: flat "Damage +" (Grief's) and chance to cast on attack; and that Claw Mastery's attack rating bonus is not applied when throwing from claws.

The Basin also notes the blades cost no weapon durability, that with two claws only the primary claw's damage and bonuses count, and that the character screen adds the skill's damage after +% damage when the game adds it before.

Synergies and +skills

DmgSymPerCalc reads the hard points in Blade Sentinel and Blade Shield and multiplies the sum by Param8 (10): +10% damage per hard point in either. +skills raise Blade Fury's level, damage and attack rating but not the synergy. Blade Fury's own hard points are a +10% synergy to Blade Sentinel and Blade Shield.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player; the same page covers how Crushing Blow and Open Wounds are scaled down against people. The Basin's page says nothing else specific about players.

Build notes

• The weapon is three quarters of every blade, so a claw with Crushing Blow or Open Wounds does the most: both ride on every blade, five a second.
• Nothing speeds it up: five blades a second at any attack speed, so put the gear budget into damage and attack rating rather than Increased Attack Speed.
• +200% attack rating at level 20 is large; a hard point buys +10% and about 8 damage, a point in Blade Sentinel or Blade Shield buys +10% on the whole blade.
• Mana is trivial (3.38 a blade at level 20) but the pool must hold 3 to start throwing.