There are 3 stance types:

• Offensive stance
  
• Defensive stance
  
• Ultimate stance

Both offensive and defensive stances have 3 levels after which Blade Master goes into the ultimate stance. Once one of the ultimate skills is used the stance is removed and Blade Master will have to start a new rotation.

Each regular stance also provide small offensive/defensive bonuses, while ultimate stance provides both of them.

Blade Masters also have an option to regroup, which will immediately drop current stance and will give Blade Master 1 AP. This skill is useful if you need to either quickly get 1 AP or realize that current stance is no longer fitting the your strategy

On top of 5 mian stanceless skills (available regardless of the stance) each of 7 available stances gives access to it's own unique set of skills, which are available for that stance only. Once any of those skills is used the stance will progress to the next stage and new set of skills will be give, while old skills will no longer be available.

This means that even though that Blade Master knows 38 battle skills only ~9 of them will be available at any given moment of time.

Depending on the build of the Blade Master his team role and combat style may differ a lot. Here are some most common options

• Two-Handed + Strength - a pure damage dealer. A bit fragile but can do tremendous damage
  
• Two-Handed + Wits - damage dealer focusing on crits. His damage output might not be as steady as with the Strength build but his crits are devastating
  
• Perseverance + Constitution - a pure tank focusing on big pool of health, many protective abilities and protection from negative statuses
  
• Perseverance + Finesses - tankish combination, which focuses on superior dodging
  
• Leadership - offers various playstyles all of which focus either positive or negative statuses manipulation and multiple team-wide bonuses. Blade Masters with high leadership can easily penetrate enemy armor-related resistances and apply statuses that are normally blocked by armor

Blade Master benefits from main abilities and attributes in a way different from other charcters. Some give him extra bonuses (all bonuses are applied on top of what attributes or abilities give by default):

• Wits: +1% critical damage for every point over 10
  
• Finesse: +0.5% dodge chance for every point over 10
  
• Constitution: 0.5% chance to auto-cleanse negative statuses when they are applied to Blade Master for every point over 10
  
• Perseverance: grants a spirit shield on entering the combat. The higher ability - the stronger the shield
  
• Leadership: every teammate of Blade Master has 2.5% chance per point in leadership to regain back positive status for 1 turn once it is removed. Blade Master gets 2.5% chance to refund 1 AP after every skill used for each point in Leadership (some skills get twice the chance)

Blade Master dedicates a lot of time for his martial art and has little capacity of learning other skills. On top of that certain forms of magic can easily severe the soul-bonding link between him and his sword and thus these schools of magic are not available for Blade Master as well.

• Warfare does not give any damage boost to Blade Master
  
• Strength and Two-Handed provide much smaller damage boost to Blade Master to counter quite high base damage and keep scaling less steep
  
• Necromancy, polymorphing and summoning schools are restricted for Blade Master because one way or another they interfere with a fragile soul-bonding link between him and his sword
  
• Blade Matser is not a lone wolf by definition. He is a party-guy constatly chatting with his trusted sword and initimidating enemies
  
• Obviously Blade Master is restricted to two-handed swords as his weapon
  
• Many standard skills are not available for him, especially buffing, healing and mobility ones. In order to achive supremacy Blade Matser fouces on his dedicated martial art and has very small capability of learning skill beyond it

Lone Wolf talent is restricted by default to ensure the best mod experience for new players but can be enabled in mod settings available in dialogue with Blade Master Historian

Lack of 2h sword in hands will force immediate class deactivation. Other restrictions are applied by making adjustments to player stats (everything is reverted to normal when class is disabled)

Please note that the skill names in the list are "internal" skill names and sometimes it might be hard to guess the actual game skill behind them. I will add proper game names of the skills later

• BlindingRadiance
  
• Windwalker
  
• SmokeCover
  
• EvasiveManeuver
  
• EvasiveAura
  
• Fortify
  
• OilyCarapace
  
• MendMetal
  
• MassOilyCarapace
  
• FirstAid
  
• TacticalRetreat
  
• FrostyShell
  
• Restoration
  
• Cryotherapy
  
• HealingTears
  
• VampiricHungerAura
  
• VampiricHunger
  
• MassCleanseWounds
  
• CleanseWounds
  
• FrostAura
  
• CryogenicStasis
  
• ChainHeal
  
• MassCryotherapy
  
• ArcaneStitch
  
• BurnMyEyes
  
• CloakAndDagger
  
• BatteringRam
  
• GroundSmash
  
• BlinkStrike
  
• Taunt
  
• Challenge
  
• ThickOfTheFight
  
• Overpower
  
• PhoenixDive
  
• CatFlight

Reactive Armour skill removes Spirit Armor

When it comes to protection Blade Master relies a lot on a signature protection skill - Spirit Shield. This shield provides a temporary layer of armor, which is used to keep Blade Master safe. The main drawback is that it is limited in time and once it expires all excessive (unused) armor of spirit shield is removed (original armor is not touched).
The other important point is that while spirit shield is active all and every armor mending affects spirit shield only so you cannot med your own armor while spirit shield is active

Here's the basic list of pros and cons to the spirit shielding

Pros:

• Powerful
  
• Many skills give it

Cons:

• Has short duration
  
• Is fully removed once duration expires even if it wasn't completely destroyed
  
• Original armor cannot be healed/restored while spirit shield is active

Almost every skill Blade Master has scales with his abilities gaining not only raw damage but also (depends on each skill):

• Range
  
• Radius
  
• Extra targets
  
• Extra effects
  
• Removal of friendly fire
  
• etc.

Most of the skills have 7 tiers, starting with tier 1 that requires just 1 point in one of the Blade Master abilities and ending up with tier 7 which is granted on 20 points in ability.

Some skills may scale with level, and some may scale based on the "best of" of several abilities.

Reaching last tiers (ability from 15 to 20) is not an easy task but skills at those tiers are especially powerful and represent the Blade Masters art in its best.

In order to reach 20 in a certain ability Blade Masters often put 10 base points in it, give an oath of honor and try to get specific gear, which will be boosting their desired abilities.