Originally Posted by
xtreme702
That's the build I followed, very similar to OrangeGuy's but, there's really no need to max Mastery since it only gives 1 acc. I would delay the 1 point into rush and have it all together later on. Also Booster should not be maxed because of the fact that the speed does not increase, only the time length does, and a lvl 12 Booster is usually more than enough time. I find it easy to recast.
Recently remade a Dawn Warrior, it's much better to keep Soul Blade at 21 after Mastery and Booster, then immediately max Rush, followed by 19 Rage. Then master Final Attack, dump extra points in to Booster, max Soul Blade if you want.
Oh yeah, FA is a must, unless you're using 1h Swords. Otherwise, Power Strike is insanely slow, same with Brandish. Sure, Final Attack doesn't affect Soul Blade or Soul Driver but, it still helps a lot.
Not a huge lot, the extra animation makes it harder to control, but it's still cool as hell.
ON A SIDE NOTE: At level 80, I find myself rarely using Soul Blade, except for that rare chance of luring a stray monster to my position. Soul Driver has close to the same range and does tons more damage. My newish sorta build, is to sacrifice 8 points from Blade and use them on Booster which ends it as:
19 Mastery
Max Booster
13 Soul Blade
Max Rush
Max Rage
Max Final Attack
Just a suggestion, based off of my experience.
13 Soul Blade is nearly as bad as maxing Soul, it's next to useless. Either you get it to 21 (maximum range + number of enemies attacked), or you leave it alone. The points would be better used in maxing Soul and Iron Body if you were to do that.
EDIT: @limtengy, Dawn Warriors are not meant to use Axes, and as you start maxing Sword Mastery, your damage will start to look better.