Welcome to the powerful Blade Warden Tank Build for Blue Protocol (BP). The Blade Warden is a master of sword and shield, and its skills are perfectly suited to the tanking role – Blade Wardens can taunt, crowd control and debuff their enemies, allowing them to effectively defend their allies and make combat encounters easier for their entire group.
This guide will explain how to build a powerful tank for group play in Blue Protocol.
Please note that this build is a Work in Progress, and will continue to be updated while we wait for the international release of Blue Protocol.
Table of Contents
Blade Warden Class Guide for Blue Protocol
In this section, we are going to take a look at how the Blade Warden works in Blue Protocol. This is important because you need to understand the basic mechanics of the class to be able to succeed with it.
The Blade Warden is a melee fighter, and is very durable because it has access to damage reduction, shield defense and self-healing skills. Additionally, you also have access to crowd control abilities like stuns, roots or taunts. The only downside you have is that your damage is slightly lower compared to other classes – but for a tank build this is of little importance.
The Shield Gauge – Blade Warden Mechanic
The main thing you will have to focus on as Blade Warden in Blue Protocol is your Shield Gauge. This is displayed in the center slightly to the left. This is used to block and counter incoming attacks and it can be refilled when you aren’t blocking. If your Shield Gauge drops to 0 while you are blocking it will break and you won’t be able to block for a few seconds while it regenerates.
- Block Attacks
- Counter Attacks
- Refills when you aren’t blocking
- If it drops to 0 your shield will temporarily break until recharged
- Successful counterattacks also recharge the Shield Gauge
Blade Warden Tank Build Equipment
Now that we have explained the basics of how the Blade Warden class works as a tank, we will begin detailing the build itself, starting with equipment. Unlike in many other MMO and RPG games, armour in Blue Protocol is entirely cosmetic – the only item in the traditional sense that impacts your stats is your equipped weapon.
Instead of armour, Blue Protocol builds may equip a variety of “Echoes” to alter their stats.
Blade Warden Tank Weapon
We are using the Night’s Price Iceblade for the Blade Warden Tank build. This is a max level weapon with a high Resilience score of 32, making it ideal for tanking.
Blade Warden Tank Echoes
We recommend using the following Echoes for the Blade Warden build. You can click on the Echoes to learn more about them.
Battle Echoes
- Palelight Watchman – Buffs your Resilience.
- Elenye – Buffs your Strength and creates an AOE around you that increases the damage taken by enemies.
Enhancement Echoes
- The Bandit Roost – Boosts your Defence and Resilience
- A Fallen Civilization – Reduces your damage taken from melee attacks
- A Horned Goat on the Rocks – Reduces all Stamina costs
- The Elder Trickster Sings – Increases your Stun Resistance
- The Quad-Arm’s Destructive Powers – Increases your Paralysis Resistance
Blade Warden Tank Build Skills
Once your equipment is figured out, the other thing you need to figure out is which skills you will use.
Skills in Blue Protocol are divided into three types – Basic, Tactical and Ultimate.
Basic Skills describe the basic functionality of the class and do not need to be manually equipped – they are always active. They get more powerful as they level up, to a certain point. We will touch on this in this build guide so you understand how the Blade Warden works as a tank.
Tactical Skills must be manually equipped before you can use them. You can change your equipped skills outside of combat. You can equip four Tactical Skills at once. Tactical Skills will grow stronger as they level up, with four tiers for each skill. At the final tier, you are able to choose one of two variants of the skill, which can make a certain aspect of the skill considerably better, or may entirely adjust how the skill works.
Ultimate Skills are extremely powerful but have a very long cooldown – in all but the longest of fights you’ll only get one chance to use your Ultimate Skill, so try to use it in the best possible moment for maximum effect. You can only equip one Ultimate Skill.
Blade Warden Tank Build Basic Skills
Your Basic Skills are always active, they determine how your class and weapon works in certain situations.
- Blade Flurry – This is your basic attack, involving various sword slashes. There are four stages to the Blade Flurry – some of them can be altered by moving in a particular direction when you perform the attack:
- Moving left or right on the second attack changes it into a spinning AOE attack.
- Moving forward on the third attack changes it to a stab that deals Light Damage.
- Moving backwards on the second attack changes it to a shield strike that reduces your Shield Gauge Cost by 10% for the next 40 seconds.
- Warden Guard – You can hold up your shield to block attacks. Blocking consumes your Shield Gauge. If Shield Gauge reaches zero, you will be unable to block until it recovers.
- Dodge – If you perfectly time a dodge, you recover 30 Shield Gauge.
- Aerial Attack – Performing an Aerial Attack will Bind the target for 3 seconds.
The most important thing to note from our Basic Skills is the shield bash that can be activated by moving backwards on the second Blade Flurry strike. The 10% reduction in your block cost is really handy, so try to do this at least every 40 seconds to keep the buff up during combat. Look out for opportunities to perform perfect dodges too, as this will restore some of your Shield Gauge.
Blade Warden Tank Build Tactical Skills
You can choose four Tactical Skills to slot. For this Blade Warden Tank Build, we recommend the following skills:
- Divine Surge – AOE taunt that affects enemies around you. Taunted enemies are forced to attack you. It’s vital for a tank to have a good taunt skill to protect your allies from bosses and dangerous mobs.
- At Level 50: Choose the skill morph that reduces the Attack Power of enemies hit.
- Dawn’s March – Charge to an enemy and deal Light Damage in an AOE shockwave. The basic version of this skill is not important for this build, but the morphed version makes it much more useful:
- At Level 50: Choose the morph that causes the AOE shockwave to pull nearby enemies to you. This allows you to stack mobs together, making it much easier for your allies to DPS them down.
- Circle of Valour – Creates an AOE that grants allies damage reduction.
- At Level 50: Choose the morph that also grants a 10% Attack Power buff. This turns the skill into a very strong offensive and defensive buff for the whole group.
- Regeneration – Heals you over time for 15 seconds.
- At Level 50: Both morphs are good, you should choose whichever one suits your preference. One of them increases the total amount of healing you get, while the other gives you the same amount but in a shorter time.
Blade Warden Tank Build Ultimate Skill
We are using the Exaltation Ultimate, which grants you an extremely strong defensive buff for its duration. You’ll get a large heal, immunity to negative status effects, increased armour and 100% shield save. If you activate it when your Shield Gauge is depleted, the Shield Gauge will be immediately replenished.
This ultimate makes you almost immortal for a few seconds, so it works great as a panic button or in anticipation of heavy damage. It’s especially useful for beginners but experienced players can still get plenty of value from it.
How to Use the Blade Warden Build in Blue Protocol
The idea behind this Blue Protocol Tank Build is to be an asset to your group – it allows you to do more than just taunt and hold block.
Make use of the build’s tactical skills and ultimate to buff your allies and reduce the threat presented to them by enemies. The Circle of Valour skill in particular is an excellent buff that you can give to your team, reducing their damage taken and improving their damage output by 10%.
