I decided I was bored with just piercing on my shade. I made a script in game to explain it (I get asked more than I used to on my MA doc). The following is the script contents explaining some basics.

I didn't expect to get enough interest to write this all up but I have. I'm not the first MA Shade. I'm not even the first to make it 220 viable.

There is no burning NEED for a Shade to have more damage, especially if they're using a crit scope and not playing on DEF. Except for fun.

Martial Arts for a Shade?

2100 MA skill templates (aka 'Martial Arts Item' with 2000 being an OK amount for a 220 Shade):
[MA] [Shade] [Others]

... yep, Shades have the WORST MA weapon and it's fairly slow at 1.65/1.65 (meaning you can't go full DEF and get your max damage with crit scope).

But ... with the right weapons you're getting:
* Extra attacks from your fist
* Brawl as a new Special
* An off-hand weapon with better damage than any Shade weapon
* Nice MA special attacks

NOTE: This isn't for ALL shades to bother with ... and probably will suck until you have 220/20/80 and final gear, don't level as a MA shade ... standard Shade Piercing works much better for leveling.

Gear / IP / MA Attack Notes

2 examples of MA Special Attacks:
* Blessed with Thunder QL300
* Flower of Life QL270

This setup REQUIRES you to spend IP to max MA/Brawl/Phys Init and you may need more IP in Fast Attack for the slower weapon.

You'll want 2K+ MA to get the best template (unless rebalance changed the breakpoints). For gear you'll want +dmg and +crit and the Strength foot spirit.

REMEMBER:... once all said and done your main damage still comes from perks BUT the damage increase is noticeable, especially when able to get your attacks to 1/1

BOTH weapons must have the 'MA for combined attack' stat, otherwise, stick with traditional weapons unless you just want extra base damage without getting MA specials, which is sometimes useful (I switch the the Medi-Blade in right hand on occassion when solo).


Weapon Selection A

At 220 you'll be looking at either:

R.Hand:
Aleksander's Blooded Punchknife
(AI city Generals)
+
L.Hand:
X1-R4 Viral Force-Blades
1) QL250+ Kyr'Ozch Rapier + Energy Redistribution Unit from APF35 = Blades of Boltar
2) Blades of Boltar+Action Probability Estimator from APF13 = Viral Force-Blades

Pros: Better min damage vs high AC, fast attack/recharge, higher sneak and crit from Viral Force-Blades, easier Brawl req
Cons: Harder to farm, Lower max dmg than Bloodlust BUT won't affect your sneaks

-OR-

Weapon Selection B

R.Hand
Bloodlust
(Shadowlands Drop)
+
L.Hand:
Kuma Tonfa - Left Hand
LADY of Wisdom + Xan Weapon Upgrade Device

Pros: Higher max damage, much better buffs, easier to buy+farm
Cons: SLOW 2.2/2.2 on Bloodlust, Sneak is on Bloodlust for this, Brawl on Tonfa is a pain

NOTES:

If you switch to MA and start testing, be aware that you WILL NOT get your Fist attack until you've zoned with 2 weapons on that have 'MA for combined attack' (similar to if you don't meet the MA combined skill level).

Likewise if you swap to a non-MA weapon during combat you will lose your fist attack until you have zoned with the MA weapons equipped.

This may be a bug or due to playshift requirements on the Fist weapon.

Archiving the in-game script here. I don't expect a single other person will ever use it.

save it as "mashade"

run as "/mashade" to dump into your current chat channel.

run as "/mashade /v" to drop in vicinity (/t for team, etc).

run as "/mashade /tell <character>" (where <character> is the person you want to send it to) if you want to send to a specific player who might have asked about it.

I don't recommend MA shade.

The main problem is the 15% crit scope being at odds with the MA fist weapon (low crit, high att/rech).

It's a bit dumb, considering shades have support for MA, but I understand why it is the way it is (if it was good, it would just be so over-the-top strong).

I've been playing it for a week. It's just fine.

Crit scope is optional, but, with Combat board and strength foot symb (swap to defensive for healdelta), you don't need much on Agg/Def to overcome the init issue.

Have you done any damage tests?

Since we're talking about it, I'll be explicit about what my perceptions are with it, but since I haven't tried it these are only heresy for the moment, but perhaps you can shed some light on them if you're actually doing it.

1. Crit - You mentioned that the scope is optional. In my opinion the 15% crit scope is an important component in the damage build and I have never found a way around this. In a standard shade setup (Xan of poking+can opener) you're generating more than double your base (or max damage) on a critical hit, with crit modifiers generally being about 50% MORE than double base i.e. (500-315)/315 = 59%

Of course, shades have a enormous number of hits per minute which places a lot of value on add damage as well, but nothing comes close to beating the 15% crit scope in terms of sheer damage boosting.

The problems with this are three fold: First, the inits (you mentioned aren't really a problem, check!)
Second: the crit modifier on the MA weapon is garbage (can't get around this)
Third: Because of the way the triple wield works, you're getting 1/3 of your hits with a low crit weapon while simultaneously removing opportunities to hit with HIGH crit weapons, consider:

2 weap approach (improved hacked medi blade + xan poker)
36 attacks per minute:
* 18 @ 860 crit (315 base) * ~5.3 = (4558 crit, 1669 non crit)
* 18 @ 850 crit (300 base) * 5.3 = (4505 crit, 1590 non crit)
+10 fast attacks/min with main hand medi blade

at 50% crit:
28*(4558*0.5+1669*0.5)+18*(4505*0.5+1590*0.5) = 142k/min

This is strictly normal damage + fast attacks with zero add damage, procs, etc.

But then, when you add the third weapon, you lose attacks from the two high crit weapons

45ish attacks/minute
* 15 @ 1022 crit (307 base) (X1-R4) * 5.2 (lower AR with MA) = 5314 crit, 1596 non crit
* 15 @ 675 crit (210 base) (Blooded) * 5.2 (lower AR with perks in MA) = 3510, 1092 non crit
+10 fast attacks @ 675 crit (210 base)
* 15 @ 957 crit (130 base) (punch) * 5.2 (lower AR with MA skill) = 4976, 676 non crit


OK, I'm starting to get interested in this... I'm hoping I'm wrong about the normal damage, I didn't realize the X1-R4 damage was so high! Assuming you can retain 50% crit rate, then:

151.7k damage per minute!

Ok, so the triple weapon setup edges out the piercing weapon setup by about 10k damage on 1 minute of continuous fighting with 50% crit.

My gut feel here is that piercing perks will significantly out damage MA perks, but, there will be more chances for procs with the triple wield setup.

36+10 = 46 for piercing
45+10+4 = 59 for triple wield (not sure if brawls can proc stuff though)

2. Init debuffs: because of the higher att/rech on non-piercing weapons, there is elevated chance of dropping below 1/1 with any equipped weapon with the triple wield set up, whereas there is a much lower chance with up to approximately 1k init debuffs, using the piercing setup (piercing weaps are 1/1 meaning you get max attack speed at the relatively low 1055 melee init), MA setup also requires melee init AND phys init, however, both are green skills (I think).

3. Perks. Shade touch is not a good line, with low damage perks and some perks having low utility (consume the soul can only be used at target <15% health), spirit dissolution tied to ritual of spirit in the totemic rites line (suboptimal compared to spirit phylactery, generally). If you're using piercing mastery you're boosting your main hand AR, but then your offhand and combined fist attack suffers.

Gut feeling here is that you'd want to move away from piercing mastery as a primary line, and opt for
* totemic rites (damage/heals/reqs), (10)
* spirit phylactery (AR/def to boost damage), (10) and
* shade touch, (7) then
* acrobat for evasion, (4)
* general MA line for harmonize body and mind, and tremor hand (5); and,
* with the last 4 perks, go with either careful in battle or piercing mastery for three more damage perks (4).

An alternate setup would probably be:
* piercing mastery (10)
* totemic rites (10)
* shade touch (7)
* spirit phylactery (10/9)
* acrobat (3/4)

Kinda hard to juggle these. I think it's important to get totemic rites on the trip wield setup because you'll be more dependent on proc damage and then you'll want more add damage affecting the procs.

Well, I dunno. I'm not convinced about this setup although the X1-R4 really is a beast for damage and crits.

The low base damage of the MA weap and the alexander punchknife are pretty shit ass for base damage, and the MA attack has a kinda lame crit modifier. It's sort of like you kinda have to go crit to make use of the big max damage, but the crit sucks anyway. What I get out of that is that it's only going to be useful on RK/vs aliens, and in SL it's really going to suffer.

Doom touch at -2800 AC will help a fair bit, but it's only going to dent some of the big AC in SL.

Yes, I've done damage testing. I wouldn't have posted it as a recommendation if it didn't meet things out I spent about 3 hours on dummies this week trying to convince myself this wasn't worth it and came out the other direction.

Solo on a dummy with 40% or so self-buff/crit I'm pulling 380-410K (saw 450K once during a 3 minute test but I think a trader might have drained the dummy for a bit ... otherwise it's crit randomness) depending on perks and Agg/Def setting. That's compared to 360-385K with just daggers (Xan or Medi-Blade) in similar gear/perks. So the damage add is significant. I'm using a Melee Arul + Perfected bracer to get +dmg. So overall it always seems to pull ahead. At the very least the Viral blade or Tonfa as an offhand is very useful for damage boost.

I'd pull more if I was more willing to manage Symbiosis in a Sublime Rapport (Symbiosis, which is a hidden massive boost to Ritual perks), but I mostly test with the tried and true SP setup instead of SR because of it's better solo/self-heal abilities. SR requires more management of Symbiosis timing before Ritual perks to get the almost double dmg buff compared to non-symbiosis Ritual perks. However there's no reason a standard perk layout can't be used. Lower damage but better defense.

Today on 12m with Soldier and Trader doing buffs/debuffs I was able to sustain 475K with various buffs. MoP gives a lot less DPS boost once you're selfing 40+ crit chance.

You've got the idea right that the only reason these setups are viable is that the newest MA weapons are ridiculous damage.

You can just use your standard Piercing perks. That's why you don't do this setup with Viral + Tonfa. I've been running this project with a couple of other MA shades (not coordinated, just at the same time). The MA buffing perks are also a valid selection but, as mentioned, lower soloing ability:

Piercing Mastery 10
Spirit Phylactery 10
Totemic Rites 10
Shadow (AI) 10
Acrobat 4
CiB 6 (3 if a trox without blue belt to keep Operative/Bastion out of OE)
Champion Light Infantry (AI) 10
either Atrox Primary or Champion of Nano (AI) depending on if you want to save IP for Nano

Most shades know this basic setup well and it serves very well.

However the max damage setup with good timing of perks seems to be:

Piercing Mastery 10
Shade Touch 7
Sublime Rapport 10
Totemic Rites 10
Shadow (AI) 10
Kung-Fu Mastery 3 (Tremor Hand after Ethereal Touch) ... or Genius 3 as per above for gear OE
Champion Light Infantry (AI) 10
either Atrox Primary or Champion of Nano (AI) depending on if you want to save IP for Nano

(I'm still doing the Genius 3 setup, so once I get my blue belt I'll be able to do some final number testing)

The reason the second setup works so well is 4 main things:

• Symbiosis (SR10) is "bugged" (but was kept bugged during rebalance) and you simple get the top Chthonian Symbiosis immediately for buffing Ritual perks from Totemic Rites. That means every 80 seconds you get 275 more add dmg than the basic Totemic Rites for 30 seconds.
• Ethereal Touch from Sublime Rapport gives Tremor Hand from Kung-Fu Mastery a good buff, but more importantly:
• Ethereal Touch and Doom Touch are huge -AC to boss
• with CoLI and Kung-Fu Mastery you're ending up with around 2250 MA, which due to how MA scales is noticeably better than 2K

The downsides to a MA perk setup are:

* Slightly less defense from no medi-blade heal proc
* Much less defensive without Acrobat/CiB (but you could hybrid to get them)
* Even less defensive since Spirit Phylactery detaunts mobs but Sublime Rapport TAUNTS bosses
* More babysitting buffs in NCU to make sure you don't misfire Rituals when Symbiosis is about to pop (along with not popping them when the stronger versions are up but Symbiosis isn't, because since the better Ritual is running you won't extend Ritual, you'll just lose it for a good chunk of the fight).

I'm planning to run the more traditional perks most of the time and run the MA/dmg perk setup for giggles when I want to mess with an enforcer. Today's 12m Bulldrone couldn't keep agg while I was trying.

Once I get my shoulders Awakened and a Blue Belt and do yet another Perk reset I'll post final numbers with all of the various configurations and 10+ minutes per on dummies, but it may be awhile.

I'm also hoping to eventually (who isn't?) score an ACDC on him. I'll probably swap out my crit scope for an Aggressive Webbing as well. 10% less crit but buffs to direct nano efficiency (if it works on perks, I'll find out) and lets me swap to Research HUDs on demand.

% nano damage doesn't help perk damage, but I could be wrong... it's happened before.

I remember discussions about that bug years ago, but I never looked into it because I didn't have a shade (at the time).

Well, that was a good read. I'm looking forward to seeing some damage numbers when you get that sorted.

I really want to work on my shade now, I think he's level 190. Of course, that thing about the grind and gear is such a big turnoff though.

Just to get some numbers in: This is me running TinyDump for 3 minutes (1 full cycle of Flurry of Blows, 2 cycles of Symbiosis but NOT full cooldown on the resulting 3rd set of Rituals) on a dummy, self buffed EXCEPT I do have The Awakening (12m buff) running.

With Perks (second set above):
Player (Damage/Damage per Minute/Hits/Crits/Crit%/highest hit)
You ( 1.748.624 / 613.500 / 282 / 131 / 46% / 13.388 )

Setup:


Things that would improve damage enough to notice:
Combat token board (still using Paragon until I get the Combat upgrade ... Awakened yeah, someday)
ACDC (ofc)
Awakened Shoulderplates of Sabotage (crit)
Blue Belt (to get Kung-Fu Mastery 3 for MA AR and Tremor Hand)
Upgraded NODROP CM helmet OR DB Spec Ops Helmet


I could swap 2 spirits as well for more attack rating, but I haven't been willing to lose the defense.

Once I have a couple of gear pieces I'll compare +dmg to +crit, but I'm relatively sure and item with at least 2 crit will outdo the +dmg of alternatives. RBP vs Op back is where I'll focus most on my testing (though I'm also going to test the Poison Injector Bracelet + 5 gem Poison Arul).


... and this is just Auto-attacks + Ceremonial Caress (nano proc) + Shadowed Gift/Blackheart for LE procs ...



Player (Damage/Damage per Minute/Hits/Crits/Crit%/highest hit)
You ( 904.406 / 190.380 / 212 / 111 / 52% / 5.566 )


... vs: Same perk setup but with Medi-Blade right hand (which disables MA Fist and Blessed with Thunder)


With perks
Player (Damage/Damage per Minute/Hits/Crits/Crit%/highest hit)
You ( 1.650.490 / 592.980 / 253 / 122 / 48% / 15.241 )

Auto-attacks:



Player (Damage/Damage per Minute/Hits/Crits/Crit%/highest hit)
You ( 786.593 / 168.540 / 183 / 95 / 51% / 5.470 )

Note:
* it's actually around the same amount of time as the MA test, fewer hits due to no Fist
* remember that this also means no Blessed With Thunder and fewer procs firing
* remember that pure dagger setup would also not allow Brawl, but Viral + Medi-Blade would enable Brawl
* these tests were short, random factors can play)

Note: I'm tired of paying 20M per perk reset ... I'll do the same set of tests (but longer duration for each) to compare perk layouts in a couple days.

pretty interesting.

680k DPM vs low AC target? is that right?

That's my guess, I'm figuring the target dummy has around 10K and then debuffs stripped around 1/2.

If so that will show up when I alternate to the traditional perks.

This is all very interesting.

I love my shade, its loads of fun. I have seen a few MA shades around but its like some kind of secret that they wont talk about. Its frustrating.

I don't know if either of you bother reading the forums anymore.

I just want you to know i found this very helpful.

I reset some IP and went MA shade lastnight with force blade and bloodknife. i find that its a fun build.

I dont really care weather its more damage or whatever. My shade has pretty much been the same for 15 years so it is nice to change things up and play differently =)