Need Solo Survivability Build Help

[Rissann]

Ok, here's what I've been using for a while, but I'm at the point in Transylvania where the only missions available are "Hard" and I'm struggling pretty bad. I feel like I could be doing something better. Right now I only have Blades & Blood maxed out, and I've tried creating builds from those but so far nothing's giving me the damage (at least on single targets) like Business & Shootout. Thoughts?

Actives:
The Business
Shootout
Master's House
Forking Paths
Steel Palace
Spiral of Death
Martial Discipline
Whip (Aux)

Passives:
Iron Maiden
Seven & 1/2 Samurai
Flight of Daggers
Magnum
Incision
Regeneration
Increased Focus
no Aux passive yet

My talismans and weapons are all QL blue/purple 10.
AR: 1487
CR: 174
Hit: 260
Penn: 311
Block: 145
Heal Rating: 692

[Deerhound]

Ditch Magnum; weakening an enemy with Corrupted is virtually useless in PvE. I also notice that you have 2 passives to boost focus abilities, yet you have only one focus active. If you want to go with subtype synergy that's fine, but if so then I would use Hair Trigger in place of The Business and find room for Dancing Blade.

[Shock G]

The key thing here is survivability, and the healing/damage avoidance skills that bring that (usually). I haven't done the "hard" mission circuit in Trans for a long time, but if I recall you're fighting NM level stuff, and that build/gear won't get it done against them solo.

To critique, you have 692 heal rating, but only the Regeneration passive to heal yourself with. That one ability is not enough, and that's why you usually see Blade Torrent/Bamboo Cutter + Leeching Frenzy in Blade-based survival builds.

Also, with only 311 pen, Iron Maiden is nearly worthless to you because you can't trigger it often enough. You might want to use Dark Potency to boost your pen stat. The same applies to Incision, since it's based on when you get a pen hit, though Dark Potency might make it worthwhile, which would open up other things, like Circulation or Immortal Spirit for a little extra healing, and Twist the Knife for more overall damage that's not attack type dependent (like Seven and a Half Samurai, which is only beneficial to Shootout in your build, and therefore should probably be ditched; ditto Increased Focus- and with a crit rate of 174 it's no help). You could even try using the +10% damage skill for whatever builder weapon you select, since that will also buff one consumer.

Magnum is not worthwhile unless you're constantly fighting something that heals itself or has a barrier of some sort and you absolutely need that debuff.

I'm pressed for time at the moment and can't be of any more help right now, but then there are people in this cabal who are probably better for giving you this kind of build advice than me.

[fig]

You're spread pretty wide on attack types and proc triggers. As mentioned, you don't have a ton of Pen or Crit, and no guaranteed proc on either (Ele Force or Fatal Flourish), so Iron Maiden and Incision will have little uptime. You have Forking Paths, which provides an easily triggerable direct self-heal, but IIRC it's only a tiny amount. Also you have a single target and multi-target builder. You're better off just taking a multi-target builder and using the extra active spot for a cleanse, defensive cooldown, or a heal. The loss of DPS from always using a multi-target builder should be more than offset. Your afflicts are either periodic (Flight of Daggers) or proc based (Incision), meaning you'll have gaps in your afflict uptime. Master's House is a cool elite, but it's not super awesome from a survivability perspective. Grab Art of War. In addition to being an AOE impair, it gives you multiple guaranteed glances every cast. With the Blades survivability skill, glances => health.
Honestly, unlocking leeching frenzy ASAP is probably the best survivability tweak you can make.

Here's a suggested tweak to your build:
Blade Torrent
Martial Discipline
Surging Blades
Cleansing Drone (Cleanse + DPS)
Clearing the Path (or Steel Palace)
Shootout
Art of War

Perfect Storm - Reliable, mid-duration afflict.
Circulation - Afflict triggered HOT
Perserverance - Frenzy triggered direct heal
Iron Maiden (if you take Clearing the Path) or Dark Potency
Accuracy or weapon damage passive (if one weapon is doing the bulk of damage)
Fatal Flourish/Elemental Force (don't worry about the counter, but sync it to CtP/SP/Shootout if possible - This keeps FD/CCC up)
Fluid Defense/Cool Calm and Collected (DPS + Damage Reduction)

[Rissann]

Thanks soooo much! Your explanations really make sense.