Generally, the Storm Swordmaster is a class reserved for the veteran Dune: Awakening player, or for one who's confident in their melee combat skills. However, holding a long blade isn’t enough to sow fear into the hearts of your enemies. So, keep reading to learn how to build your Storm Swordmaster in Dune: Awakening, and start cutting and slashing the flesh and bones of your enemies.

Dune: Awakening Swordmaster Overview

The Storm Swordmaster lies at the peak of controlled aggression. This class's origins lie in the fallen Ginaz School, known for dominating close-quarters combat through lethal precision and impeccable stamina management. A player who chooses the Storm Swordmaster build in Dune: Awakening can take advantage of a deadly art of dance and body. Use relentless pressure and defensive parries to control engagements. Study your surroundings, and use the environment and your tools to close the distance, ensuring fights occur and end on your terms.

Storm Swordmaster Skills & Abilities

The Blade

• Blade Damage: You've learned the difference between a cut and a slice, a point and an edge. You do more damage with bladed weapons.
• Dance of Blades: Defeating an enemy with a blade empowers your next attack with the blade for a brief period. The skilled swordmaster dances between opponents, keeping their damage high.
• Retaliate: You enter a heightened state of awareness, and when next attacked in melee, you parry and counterattack with a savage riposte that bleeds and damages your enemy.
• Long Blade Damage: Your training with long blades such as swords and rapiers gives you increased damage with those weapons.
• Eye of the Storm: You pirouette with your blade, becoming a whirlwind of piercing damage that cuts everything around you. While seemingly chaotic, the Swordmaster maintains calm - the eye at the heart of the storm.
• Foil: You enter a heightened state of awareness, and when next attacked in melee, you parry and counterattack with a precise strike that damages their arm and numbs them. For a short period of time, their damage output is reduced.
• Precise Parry: When your blood is infused with melange, your parries expose additional weaknesses in the defense of your enemies. Their ability to mitigate damage is decreased. (Requires Prescience).

The Will

• Deflection: You enter a defensive stance, deflecting darts that are fired at you. This ability lasts as long as your stamina holds out.
• Bleed Tolerance: You have become harder to bleed due to a combination of training and resistance. Bleeding status takes a longer time to build on you.
• Reckless Lunge: Lunging at an enemy will often provide them with an easy opening to attack, but you have learned to turn a lunge into an advantage. Sprint attacks provide bonus damage mitigation for a short while after a lunge.
• Solid Stance: As your training increases, you have learned to avoid being knocked around by enemy attacks. You can take more poise damage before being staggered.
• Confidence: Every time you attempt a difficult attack like a sprint attack or a slow blade, you gain increased confidence, which reflects as damage mitigation.
• Thrive on Danger: When you are low on health, you regenerate health faster, receive less poise damage, and reduce all stamina costs for actions.

The Way

• Knee Charge: You propel yourself forward into battle with a terrific knee charge into the enemy. Deals damage and severely staggers your opponent, but costs stamina.
• Field Medicine: You recover more health immediately when using healkits due to your excellent conditioning.
• Optimized Hydration: Your body knows how to make optimal use of water, so you have additional stamina reserves when well-hydrated.
• Crippling Strike: You move in, striking at a low angle to cut your enemies below the knees. For a while after being hit, your enemies are slowed, and their dashes require more stamina. While not the most honorable of attacks, the Swordmaster understands that there is a difference between a duel and a war.
• Disciplined Breathing: When you focus on your technique and breathing, you can recuperate your stamina reserves more quickly.
• Inspiration: You inspire yourself and your companions to greater heights, increasing the damage of your melee attacks.
• General Conditioning: Your extensive physical training has increased your maximum stamina.
• Desert Conditioning: You have trained yourself to deal with the rigors of the deserts, decreasing your max stamina loss while dehydrated.
• Prescient Strike: When your blood is saturated with melange, you see multiple ways in which to damage your enemies. After using any swordmaster ability, your next strike will strike twice, reflecting two possible versions of the future converging in a single spacetime. (Requires Prescience).

Swordmaster Best Skills & Abilities

The Blade

• Blade Damage
• Dance of Blades
• Long Blade Damage

Channel the power of the devastating synergy of focused offense through these skills in The Blade ability tree. Blade Damage, in particular, is the core ability of the Swordmaster in Dune: Awakening, making each sword swing into a decisive cut. Then, defeat one enemy to activate Dance of Blades, which empowers your next attack. Long Blade Damage is the cherry on top, empowering your explosive melee damage even further.

The Will

• Deflection
• Reckless Lunge
• Confidence
• Bleed Tolerance
• Solid Stance

With these skills in The Will ability tree, your Storm Swordmaster’s lethality transforms mere aggression into calculated, relentless momentum. In particular, Deflection and Solid Stance are at the core of your defenses, allowing you to hold the line. Then, create openings with the Reckless Lunge and Confidence combination. Finally, Bleed Tolerance ensures your stance isn't easily broken, making you an unstoppable typhoon of focused destruction.

The Way

• Knee Charge
• Optimized Hydration
• Field Medicine
• Crippling Strike
• Disciplined Breathing
• General Conditioning
• Desert Conditioning

Although the skills in The Blade tree focus on dealing explosive damage to your enemies, the abilities in The Way tree are the “spices” to your destructive dances. Start the flow with a Knee Charge, a devastating gap-closer that shatters enemy posture. Then, take advantage of a masterful command of stamina through General Conditioning, Desert Conditioning, Optimized Hydration, and Disciplined Breathing. Finally, Field Medicine provides crucial mid-fight recovery, ensuring battles of attrition are always in your favor.

Swordmaster Best Weapons

The unique long blade, Jolt-Sword, is arguably the best melee weapon for the Storm Swordmaster. Wielding it lets the user take advantage of the following stats:

• Damage per Hit: 110.16
• Attack Speed: 105
• Weight: 1V

Get this weapon’s schematic by completing the Swordmaster contract, The Last Stand of Seron Varlin, located at Harko Village. However, you only get one copy of this schematic after completing this quest. Alternatively, it’s possible to farm the Jolt-Sword schematic by searching for it in one of the chests in the Imperial Testing Station No. 186 and Imperial Testing Station No. 217 locations. If the schematic doesn’t appear, wait about 45 minutes for the containers to respawn and try again. With the schematic acquired, use the following items at a Weapons Fabricator to craft the Jolt-Sword:

• 17x Duraluminum Ingot
• 14x Plasteel Microflora Fiber
• 3x Plant Fiber
• 22x Blade Parts
• 5x Carbide Scraps
• 8x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust
• 280x Water

Remember, closing the gap between you and your target is only half the battle. So, choose how to deal with your battles wisely. For instance, don’t rush head-on to a foe, like a Sniper Mentat, knowing that you’re separated by a ravine. With that, don’t forget to carry secondary weapons. The Mendek’s Rattle and Piter’s Disruptor are excellent choices in this regard. Use these firearms to deal with enemies deemed too far to deal with properly.

Swordmaster Best Armor

It’s easy to fall prey to the explosive power brought by the powerful long blade. So, don’t forget about your defenses, especially when face-to-face with expert enemies in PvP combat. With that, the Acheronian Heavy Armor can be the best multi-purpose armor set for different battle instances. Each Acheronian Heavy Armor schematic can be found in a chest in Shaitan’s Grotto. Like many other unique schematics in Dune: Awakening, the blueprints to make this armor set aren't guaranteed drops. So, prepare to stay in the area frequently to complete the set. With the schematics in hand, craft each component using the following materials:

• Acheronian’s Helmet: 40x Duraluminum Ingot, 13x Plasteel Microflora Fiber, 23x Silicone Block, 20x Armor Plating, 9x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust, and 340x Water
• Acheronian’s Chestplate: 55x Duraluminum Ingot, 16x Plasteel Microflora Fiber, 30x Silicone Block, 26x Armor Plating, 12x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust, and 450x Water
• Acheronian’s Pants: 50x Duraluminum Ingot, 14x Plasteel Microflora Fiber, 26x Silicone Block, 23x Armor Plating, 10x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust, and 400x Water
• Acheronian’s Gauntlets: 28x Duraluminum Ingot, 8x Plasteel Microflora Fiber, 15x Silicone Block, 14x Armor Plating, 6x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust, and 225x Water
• Acheronian’s Boots: 35x Duraluminum Ingot, 10x Plasteel Microflora Fiber, 20x Silicone Block, 17x Armor Plating, 8x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust, and 280x Water

Note: Prepare 208x Duraluminum Ingot, 61x Plasteel Microflora Fiber, 114x Silicone Block, 100x Armor Plating, 54x Spice-Infused Duraluminum Dust, and 1,695x Water to complete the entire Acheronian’s Heavy Armor Set. As for the shield, the Holtzman Shield Mk5 is a great choice, as it deflects projectiles while active. Also, aim to use the Full Suspensor Belt in your belt slot to add extra vertical movement in your repertoire, which might even surprise some enemies.

Storm Swordmaster Build Tips & Tricks

Equipping the best weapons and armor, and allocating the right skills, won't always win fights as a Storm Swordmaster in Dune: Awakening. So, increase your chances of winning every combat engagement with these tips and tricks:

The Art of the Knee Charge

Knee Charge is your go-to ability for controlling engagement distance. It’s not only used to initiate combat with a severe stagger, but also a tactical repositioning tool. Use it to close the gap or create a hasty retreat when overwhelmed, especially when playing in a Dune: Awakening server with many bloodthirsty players.

Synergized Strikes

Remember, wielding the long blade is akin to a deadly dance. So, don’t use your abilities in isolation. Instead, use a sequence of attacks and abilities to improve your chances of victory. For example, open with the Knee Charge, then follow with a Crippling Strike. Then, unleash a flurry of basic attacks to finish the job.

Master Parrying

A good defense can be a great offense. In particular, negate blows by mastering the art of parry. This seemingly basic melee weapon mechanic turns a foe’s strongest attack into a vulnerable opening. However, precise timing is essential to break the enemy’s stance. Fail, and you’ll expose your weak points and ensure your downfall. So, practice parrying in every encounter to hone your skills in this defensive yet deadly skill.