A lot of people develop their own play style when playing a class. When playing a Shadowblade, it’s no different. This guide is not meant to teach you how to play, but more so how to possibly play a little better. There are quite a few other guides out there that tell you how to spec, what class to pick, where to level, etc. I am writing this to show you some Tactics that you may or may not already know.

Backup Styles

Most of you are saying right now, well yeah, I know what these are. Some may also be saying “Huh, Backup styles?” Read on.

In each spec line, there are reactionary styles. This means there are styles that can only be used after a certain action has taken place (e.g. you Evade, target parries, etc). Some of these styles also have a style that can be performed after the reactionary has been completed succefully. In order for you to set a backup style, you have to hit the style you want to use first, and then the style you want to use if your first one fails. (e.g. Hit Comeback and then Doublefrost or Garrote directly after.)

Two of the most popular styles are Comeback and Frosty Gaze in the Left Axe line. One thing I hear a lot is how some people have a hard time performing Frosty Gaze because of having to watch their styles, or combat window for that opportunity to hit. An easy way to over come this is by setting up your qbar in this order: (make sure that you type /cancelstyle and make sure your /cancelstyle stuff off)
[Slot 1: Doublefrost] [Slot 2: Comeback] [Slot: 3: Frosty Gaze]

When fighting you will hit 321 each round. What this will do is it will first check if frosty will go off, then if it can’t, it will put Comeback as your first style to use if you evade (this is due to the fact that Frosty Gaze cannot go off if Comeback hasn’t gone off) ,and set Double frost as your backup style. If you keep hitting this combo through out the whole fight, (or until the enemy is stunned, and then switch to another combo) you should catch Frosty Gaze every time (Unless of course your target blocks, evades, or parries that style).

This method can be used with a variety of different styles. Play around and you may find that your able to do stuff that was once a pain in the butt.

Kiting

There will be a few times in battle where you are forced to kite your opponent around for a bit or to run away from a situation. This is where the Long wind RA will come in handy. If you get LW1 and used a Strong Elixir of Invigoration (Which is essentially a yellow end buff for 2 minutes), You will be able to run on unending endurance for about 2 minutes (of longer if you use another potion once the 2 minute timer runs down).

Vampiirs

This class seems to be one of the best solo classes that mythic has made. Their high value Heal Over Time spell can make fighting them rather hard. Best way to combat this is to hit them with an Infectious Serum. The disease will negate their HoT and they will not gain near as much health from each tick as they would normally.

Saving imbue points

One of the benefits of an assassin are their poisons. One thing that many people do to save imbue points in a template are to get two items or crafted pieces that has enough envenom on them to take you too your cap of 11. This can also affect you though depending on your play style (e.g. if you use Lifebain and such) because if the +11 is not on you at all times, then there is a strong variance in the damage that the poison puts out.

More AF

As mids, we are forced to use charges for such things as Spec AF. The max you can get from a charge is +75. If you use an item such as a Stardrop, along with the charge, you can reach +99 AF.

Tangle Snare and Dot Mine

These ML abilities can be very useful. The thing that most don’t know is that though these two are on the same timer, they can be used at the same time. The trick is, hit your Tangle snare and then before tangle snare is done casting, hit your Poison Spike and both will be laid down.

I take no credit for all of these. Most of these have been said by other people and I have just taken them and combined them. This is by far only a small list of the different things that can help a Shadowblade in battle.