Seen a lot of build questions, here's a few tips!
With the release of MBlade, everyone's getting into building him and trying to fit him in so many different teams and with many different levels of investment. A lot of these questions can be very quickly and easily answered but the final answer really depends on *your* account and what you like to play (e.g., some may have E1 Tribbie, some may have E0, some may have no Tribbie). Here's a few tips a somewhat lengthy guide to hopefully help with the many posts about what might be best for you! Please correct me or help add more things you guys might want to note about Bladie~
Synergies & 'Should I Pull?'
MBlade is the closest to a near universal character with incredible vertical investment, high damage floor AND ceiling, and incredible hypercarry opportunities. Below is a list of different archetypes or teammates he does well with but anywhere you can fit an amplifier, he can probably do a good enough job replacing whatever is the usual. Many of the usual buffers don't provide him much in the way of stats he doesn't already have high saturation in or provide attack buffs, even though their mechanics may pair really well (*cough* Cerydra). This means that unconventional buffs have much better returns, such as pairing him with Ruan Mei, given her accessibility, speed and break efficiency buffs, action delays, and not wasting huge attack buffs or giving him more crit damage (she has energy issues though, do be warned).
- RMC, Tribbie, and Hyacine: very frequent attackers with strong buffs that aren't oversaturated like crit stats.
- Ashveil, Feixiao, Moze, etc.: he is a follow-up character, and his charges are purely based on attack frequency to stack them up, so why not get the best ones at it?
- Acheron: He is literally wheelchairing her to high heaven because she finally has a strong teammate that fulfills her teammate conditions and gives her the most charges for her ult per rotation.
- Mydei: Very frequent attacker, share best in slot supports, and both are HP scalers so amplification isn't wasted at all. The taunt from Blade and also placing them beside each other can ensure Mydei always takes the brunt of the damage when his taunts might not be enough or blast-type attacks that may not hit him now being easier to guarantee he takes the hit. They're also basically unkillable (if you play correctly).
- Welt: After the recent novaflare, Welt (especially after E2) becomes a really strong pairing with Blade because you can reach 70% defence reduction, and Welt is quite SP intensive, whereas Blade can't even use skill points, so they tend to flatten out SP consumption. Really fun pairing to take the old sustainless support and the new one to make some unique teams that wheelchair quite well. Do be warned that Welt has insane energy needs to ensure he has his ult in two skills, and that he does need to reapply his ult debuff more often.
- DoT, Break, Memoslop: In order from least to most synergistic, these archetypes all benefit from him a lot, however, they often come at the cost of you removing one of their best in slots. DoT teams are quite frail and need a strong sustain like DHPT usually, but some bosses are more forgiving with sustain checks. Break as an archetype has its own mess but his amplification is something that break dpses actually benefit from, unlike most of the general buffers. Mono-rem comps are HP scaling -> Castorice needs HP fluctuations -> MBlade drains HP -> Dragon go boom. Simple as that.
Basic Stat Thresholds
- Aim as close to 80 crit rate out of battle; crit damage should be as high as possible for any dps/subdps usage but doesn't matter for support builds (check relics section)
- Get above 5000 HP at the very least without his light cone, and as close to 6000 - 7000+ with his light cone. Most builds run speed boots (for good reason) so your planar ornaments should preferably either be HP/HP orb and rope, but you can get away with DMG/Hp or HP/ERR. You just can't have both.
- Speed boots or HP boots? Absolutely speed boots as the key for him is attack frequency. You want to at the very least meet the first speed breakpoint (like 133/134, please correct me) for any build type. HP boots are quite difficult to run in most teams, especially if he's the pseudo-sustain / subdps (e.g., Ashveil will struggle for ult if Blade isn't attack frequently, can't take a turn to force taunt to protect squishy allies, etc.)
- ERR rope or no ERR rope? Again, this is quite subjective. I think that for subdps builds, non- follow-up teams, and any Blade that isn't E1 would benefit a lot from running this instead of HP rope. It is a noticeable dps loss, but it provides much better uptime and can let you play more risky. Without E1 (and E2), you also can't be greedy with your ult usage without meaningful energy being wasted by overcapping, but ERR rope can you let you run this.
Relics & Ornaments
Eagle or Divine-Querying Master? At lower investments and for support builds, Eagle is far more comfortable and can let you hit (effective) speed breakpoints that would otherwise be quite hard to reach without sacrificing other important stats like crit or hp rolls. However, his new signature set is by far the absolute best for his personal damage due to the uptime being 100% and the small teamwide buff increasing overall damage per rotation.
One set many don't often consider, though, is also seen as one of the more forgettable relic sets: Guard of Wuthering Snow. Remember that one "trash" set that's unfortunately paired with the quantum set? Well, for pseudo-sustain MBlade in drawn out battles, this might be worth checking out due to the tankiness, healing, and energy it can provide!
Ornaments are much simpler: for 95% of cases, use the Bone Collector set, and for some Eagle builds, use Vonwacq. The first one is just better in almost every way, and it has 100% uptime with a measly 5000 hp requirement, and you'll likely farming it anyways if you have Tribbie and/or Hyacine, making it trailblaze power efficient.
Light Cones
Tutorial or Choreo? Cipher signature? Perhaps Pearls? Or maybe even another light cone? Nihility has so many different (and amazing) choices and the one you pick is mainly up to you, but, I do recommend trying out a few, especially for subdps/support builds, just to get a feel for how you manage your energy and general damage per rotation.
Tutorial is a highly contested light cone in many accounts, and depending on your team comp, use, playstyle, etc., the answer can be quite challenging so I encourage experimenting. But to give an answer, if you can't run ERR rope, Tutorial is a near must without a janky setup, and even with an ERR rope, some teams lack attack frequency, so it might be more comfortable. However, Choreo is the best accessible choice for his own damage, Pearls is great for most teams (at the cost of his personal damage), and if you have the Cipher LC, well that's just too long for this short(ish) guide.
Eidolons
I put this at the absolute end because I know many people wonder just how much E1 and E2 can really provide or what synergies they get from it, but even at E0S0, MBlade does amazingly. However, both eidolons are good investments in my opinion. E1 provides resistance shredding and better ultimate uptime. The res shred is awesome but the action delay on his ultimate state ending is definitely a major change in how you can play him, and can let you never leave the state after activating at the start of battle.
The second eidolon is the biggest damage increase, one of the best eidolons in the game, and so versatile that it could take an essay or three to go into depth how it can be used. The point is, this is when double or triple dps comps become quite viable, such as Acheron/Ashveil/MBlade/Sustain. To use this team as an example, each of the dps characters all have very self sufficient buffing, making conventional amplifiers generally more diminishing due to buff saturation. Pretty much, Acheron ults a lot -> Ashveil gets a lot of energy -> Blade gets a bunch of follow ups -> Acheron and Ashveil get more stacks/energy -> Repeat until enemy is dead. This is just one of many fun comps, and is honestly better for Acheron even at E0.
For anybody that made it to the end and is an absolute nerd about team building, please check out 'The M3' on YouTube and their recent video on Blade. It's lengthy but it's a great and unconventional guide that can lead to some really fun and practical concepts with more details on things like energy management.
