The Dawnblade is a new subclass for the Warlock class. They have Solar based abilities and can conjure a Dawnblade, a fire sword that throws waves of solar energy at their enemies. It play similar to the Sunsinger if properly built to mimic the Dawnblade with Brimestone and Angel of Light and pretend that the Radiance equipped with the Fusion grenades will be the Dawnblade.
Warlocks in general have the highest damage output in the game but the Dawnblade easily has the highest burst damage out of all the other subclasses only closely tied with the Gunslinger's Golden Gun.
Press L1+R1 to weave Solar light into blades and smite your foes from the skies.
[R1]: Ranged Attack - Basic ranged attack, rain fire down on your enemies.
Swift Strike is a powerful ability of the Dawnblade, however it requires the Warlock to be in close contact with an enemy in order for it to connect. Fortunately, the Warlock melee attack has some good range on it for a melee strike which means you won't have to be up and in all over the enemy's face when you strike with your melee, however, it does mean that you have to be close enough to the enemy thus increasing your chances of getting hit or worse, mobbed. No worries though, that's why we have grenades. Another tip is to glide very slightly above ground. This requires some practice and timing. Since the Warlock melee does have a bit of range to it, it is possible to trigger Heat Rises' recharging ability by striking an enemy with Swift Strike while gliding slightly above the ground. When Swift Strike is triggered it also gives the Dawnblade a small boost to movement and reload speed allowing the Dawnblade additional energy recharge potential from Heat Rises should the player need it.
Most gamers will already know what this means but a Perfect Skill Rotation or PSR is exactly what the name suggests. Mostly in games that have skills with short cooldowns of 10-20 seconds it is optimal to find a perfect sequence of when to activate those skills in such a way that your character should be able to continuously cast skills thus resulting in a more efficient way of dealing your damage per second. Where the other subclasses don't have the capability to achieve a PSR, the Dawnblade does.
The PSR for the Dawnblade is flexible and isn't very strict but you must be aware of your cooldowns and if your grenade is on cooldown you'll want to be hovering most of the time as you rack up those airborne kills. Another technique that you could do is to throw your grenades right after jumping into the air and then glide around as you wait for it to demolish your enemies. Doing this will still allow Heat Rises to recharge your grenade and melee energy. If there are enough enemies that died to your grenade while you were airborne its possible for a complete recharge on your grenade energy.
The Dawnblade has a strange set of abilities that make it powerful but one particular ability makes the Dawnblade interestingly fun to use. The Heat Rises ability within the Attunement of Sky skill tree recharges both melee energy and grenade energy when the Dawnblade gains airborne kills.
Sounds strange right? Right after you make us take to the skies for airborne kills, now you want us to either spam grenades (which is a really good idea) or go in close enough for a melee burning strike. It might sound weird at first but there's actually a really good synergy to this kind of gameplay.
By now, you've already noticed that the Dawnblade requires a lot of pre-planning and cooldown management to make the most out of these abilities. Upon activating Daybreak, cooldown management becomes even more essential to the Dawnblade. For each energy throw from the Dawnblade your Daybreak duration significantly reduces, eating up your Super faster. Much similar to the Gunslingers Golden Gun, Daybreak has a limited amount of uses. Allowing a maximum of 6-8 consecutive throws before you run out of Super energy. Having Everlasting Flame equipped can increase that amount to an additional 2-3 throws. Its recommended that before activating Daybreak, find a clump of enemies to throw your grenade at and make sure your grenade is on cooldown before you activate Daybreak. Upon activating Daybreak, your abilities will be immediately available. If you have Everlasting Fire equipped from the Attunement of Flame skill tree, you should be able to extend Daybreak a little while longer for each enemy killed with Daybreak active. Unlike the other subclass Supers, Daybreak has a shorter duration than the others in exchange for the high damage potential it has.
The Dawnblade can be a powerful subclass to but will require some skill management to make the most out of its intense solar abilities. Timing and pre-planning is what makes an exceptional Dawnblade.
