Alrisaia's Guide: The Razor Shield Blender

[Alrisaia]

So - for the nox users there's the Noxbox.

For the trap users - there's the blender

For the past 10 levels I have been using the Razor Shield as an offensive skill... think of the Scythed Chariots with archers on board - not only were they deadly archers loosing arrows into the necks of their opponents, the wheels of their chariots had razor sharp blades attached and would cause way more damage than their bows ever could - dismembering limbs and all around decimating the enemy as they drove their horse drawn chariots through seas of men.



I'll try to explain it as best I can and hopefully it will help some folks when running elites (note this is a pro strategy that I find really anyone can pick up on and use, it’s rather simple and felt very comfortable to me since I started using it).

The idea behind the blender is that the rogue using the tactic is standing very close to or on top of the tank (who hopefully has all the aggro) from the pull. If you're using a choke point properly, all mobs with the exception of the ranged attackers will be within range of your blender (Razor Shield). The tank pulls the crowd of mobs over to a corner or choke point and the rogue joins in. Pro rogues do the pulling themselves since tanks don’t always know this tactic – thus, you instruct the tank to fight inside your smoke, and you mark your spot with a Shadow Veil and everyone jumps into the smoke with you (hopefully the tank is ready with HOR to protect you and pull aggro) because it gets ugly very fast.

Once the mobs are in place – we’re talking 3 – 4 seconds after the pull, you turn on the blender.
SV is already up
Hit RS, traps, and pet skill in rapid succession. Spam Autoattack between skills.
Continue to spam AS and the above three skills as they become available – charge nothing (except for SV). Hold Still. Spam health and mana pots. If your trap draws in the crowd – prepare to gain all the aggro from the tank, especially if you’re not positioning your traps correctly. You will be dead in under 2 seconds if you’re not spamming pots and ready for this. Luckily – the RS offers an additional 20% dodge, and your SV will help reduce some of the damage you’re about to take. If you’re combining a crit pet with your blender – prepare to see a massive amount of yellow fly and all but pro tanks will lose aggro regardless of whether or not your trap deploys properly.

PRO tip – Use Malison to start with, this will help reduce the amount of damage you take since you line up the pet skill (increased dodge) with your blender, and thus when you pull aggro, you will dodge most hits.

Tanks playing with a blender need to understand that they must hold still – if they move around – even if it’s to peel an add off of a squishy – this whole tactic falls apart. Tanks – hold still.

If you have a mage in the party – make sure they understand your strategy – the best mage spells to combine with this are ice, timeshift, and wind (the mage using the wind to move mobs INTO the blender – not out of it).

Battles with 20+ elite mobs will last about a minute, usually a little less. That’s enough time to deploy the blender twice, maybe three times.

See below for a few shots of this in action:

This one is combined with using crit pets: Look at all that yellow



Non-Crit Pets