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When you first make a character inDune: Awakening, you’ll be asked to select from a handful of different starter classes. One of these is the swordmaster class. By selecting this class, your character will have an innate prowess with blades and other martial weapons, as well as access to a handful of unique skills that can help with melee combat.
If you’re interested in fighting in close quarters and becoming a master of the blade, the swordmaster is the class for you. So, if you’re diving into Dune: Awakening for the first time, here’s what you need to know to build a great swordmaster.
Level 20 Swordmaster Build
After you’ve progressed through the main tutorial of Dune: Awakening and have more free rein to select skills, you’ll want totailor your build around the following abilities, techniques, and passives.
Reckless Lunge
Confidence
Keep in mind,you’ll likely gain other passivesbeyond the three listed above.These are just the three most importantfor your build.
Abilities
Knee Charge
This is one of the starter abilities you getwhen you select swordmaster as your class, but it’s also one of the most helpful, especially early in the game.
With this ability equipped, you cantake down early-game enemies in a single hit, charging them and either killing them or staggering them.
This abilitydoesn’t work against enemies who have a body shield.
Deflection
This ability is another starter swordmaster ability, but it’s also incredibly helpful, especiallyagainst large swarms of enemies.
With this ability equipped,you’re able to deflect incoming dart firefrom enemies as long as your stamina keeps up.
Foil
Because swordmasters are likely to be in close combat most of the time, you’ll also want to prioritize the Foil ability, whichallows you to counterattackafter you are struck in melee.
When you do so, you numb the enemy’s arm,reducing their damage output. This is a great Hail Mary move if you’re in over your head and need to escape combat.
Keep in mind, at the start of the game,you’ll only have two active ability slots available, so you’ll need to select just two of these abilities to begin.
Techniques
Dance Of Blades
The Dance of Blades isone of the most important early-game swordmaster techniquesyou can have equipped.
When you have this technique equipped,you’ll gain a significant damage boost to your next attack after felling an enemy. Your weapon of choice will glow green when the damage boost is active.
This is extremely important, asexecuting combos against swarms of enemiesallows you tokeep your damage output high. Play aggressively.
Disciplined Breathing
Unlike troopers, or other classes that focus on gunplay,the swordmaster is heavily reliant on their stamina reserves.
That’s why you’ll want to equip Disciplined Breathing, whichallows you to recover stamina more quickly. you’re able to also improve this ability twice to increase your stamina recovery rate further.
One of the worst things that can happen to a swordmaster is to find oneself depleted of stamina mid-fight, sokeep an eye on your stamina meter!
There are a lot of open areas in Dune: Awakening, meaning you’ll need touse your sprint ability constantly.
Combining this with Reckless Lunge, whichincreases your damage mitigation during a sprint attack, is a great boon for swordmasters.
Passives
Field Medicine
Particularly if you’re playing in a group, your party is going to expect you totake a decent amount of damage.
That’s why you’ll want this passive equipped, which allows you toregain more healththan you normally would when healing.
General Conditioning
This next passive synergizes well with Disciplined Breathing, as itincreases your maximum stamina reserve.
Again, as a swordmaster, you’re going to want totry to max out your stamina as much as possibleso that you may stay in the fight longer, and not get caught out with no gas left in the tank.
Midway through your Dune: Awakening run, you’re going to start encountering a lotmore enemies with shields,which require slow blade attacks to penetrate.
Confidence is a passive thatincreases your damage mitigation when you attempt slow blade attacks, meaning you’ll be more successful when you make these attacks, and you’refar less likely to take critical damagethat might take you out of the fight.
While the above abilities are only available in the swordmaster skill tree, you should alsoprioritize completing the trooper training, as you won’t be able to fight in melee for every single combat encounter in Dune: Awakening.
Best Starting Weapons For The Swordmaster
Early on in Dune: Awakening, you’llonly have access to short blades and daggers. While these are useful, you’re going to want toprioritize a long blade as soon as possible.
Within the game’s opening hours, you’ll be prompted toconstruct a Kindjal, which is a decent enough short blade.
However, once you progress to the Vermillius Gap, your first task should befabricating a Standard Sword. The range on this weapon is slightly better, and youcan hit multiple targets at once.
Plus, once you progress to the Vermillius Gap, you’ll have a lot ofaccess to Iron, and the Standard Sword requires Iron Ingots to craft. So, taking this time tocraft the Standard Swordis going to be the best use of your early hours in Dune: Awakening.
