The Strategic Sword and Heavenquaker Spear pairing is built to do one thing extremely well: stack bleed, then detonate it for huge bursts while your damage-over-time quietly erases health bars. It’s a close-range PvE setup that rewards clean rotations more than brute-force stats.
Core idea: play around bleed stacks and short buffs
Both weapons sit on the Bellstrike – Umbra path and revolve around the same status effect. Strategic Sword applies bleed quickly; Heavenquaker Spear turns that bleed into self-buffs and amplified damage-over-time (DoT), then Strategic Sword comes back in to cash everything out.
| Piece | What it does for the build |
|---|---|
| Strategic Sword | Applies bleed stacks with skills, then detonates 5 stacks in a single hit with Sword Horizon follow-ups. |
| Heavenquaker Spear | Gains Sober Sorrow buffs off combos, then uses Sweep All and charged attacks to buff your damage and boost DoT. |
| Bleed stacks (5 max) | Baseline DoT on the target; when detonated at 5 stacks, they deal a one-time burst of “high bleed damage”. |
| Sober Sorrow | Heavenquaker Spear Martial Arts Skill that grants a self-buff and interacts with Wolfchaser's Art. |
| Soul‑Shaken debuff | Applied by the spear’s charged heavy; increases all damage-over-time the target takes. |
The rotation is essentially a loop:
- Strategic Sword: build bleed to 5 stacks.
- Heavenquaker Spear: gain Sober Sorrow and Soul‑Shaken while the target is bleeding.
- Strategic Sword: detonate all that amplified bleed with a Sword Horizon finisher.
Martial arts: how each weapon should be used
Both weapons are locked into their Bellstrike – Umbra paths here. Their roles in the rotation are distinct.
| Martial Art | Key skills to lean on | Role in the loop |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic Sword (Bellstrike – Umbra) | Inner Track Slash (Q), Inner Balance Strike III (combo finisher), Charged Heavy Attack (hold R) with Crisscrossing Swords from Sword Horizon | Main bleed applier and detonator. Uses Q chains and charged attacks to reach 5 stacks quickly, then pops all stacks with the Sword Horizon follow-up. |
| Heavenquaker Spear (Bellstrike – Umbra) | Sober Sorrow (Q), Sweep All (special skill), Charged Heavy Attack (for Soul‑Shaken) | Plays off already-bleeding targets. Gains Sober Sorrow stacks more easily via Wolfchaser’s Art, adds its own bleed and defense debuff with Sweep All, then boosts DoT with a charged hit. |
The synergy only really clicks once you’re comfortable swapping mid-combo. You open with Strategic Sword, swap to spear once bleed and Sword Horizon are set up, then bounce back to Strategic Sword to finish.
Inner Ways: the bleed engine that makes the build work
Inner Ways (Internal Arts) are where this setup stops being a generic melee loadout and starts behaving like a dedicated bleed DPS spec. Four stand out as the backbone.
| Inner Way | Effect | Why it matters here |
|---|---|---|
| Wolfchaser's Art | Lower combo requirements for gaining Sorrow Without Wine (Heavenquaker Spear’s buff) and, when hitting a bleeding boss, has up to 100% chance (at 5 stacks) to increase combo count further. | Lets Heavenquaker Spear reach its Martial Arts buff faster, even on single targets, and rewards you for keeping bleed up. This keeps Sober Sorrow cycling reliably in boss fights. |
| Sword Horizon | After Strategic Sword’s Martial Arts Skill, Special Skill, or Charged Skill, pressing the same button at the right moment triggers Crisscrossing Swords. If the target has 5 Bleed stacks, it consumes them to deal a single large bleed hit. | Adds an extra move to Q, tilde, and charged attacks and converts 5 stacks of bleed into a burst finisher. This is your main “bleed detonation” tool and also improves mobility by adding dashes to your skills. |
| Fivefold Bleed | Any damage has a 10% chance to add one stack of Weeping Blood for 5 seconds, hitting once per second up to 5 stacks. At 5 stacks, Weeping Blood is removed and deals a single piercing hit. | Adds an independent DoT track that aligns with your bleed theme. Because it procs off any damage, both weapons and even Mystic Arts can feed it, which is valuable if your affinity rate is still low. |
| Morale Chant | Attacking or healing has a high chance to grant a temporary buff that increases physical damage and healing per stack, up to five stacks. | A simple, always-on damage pad. With the speed of Strategic Sword and the multi-hit nature of both weapons, it stays at or near max stacks during real combat. |
Alternative or supplementary options sometimes used in similar builds include Adaptive Steel (for an extra sword Martial Skill) and Breaking Point (for extra penetration and crit damage against “exhausted” or downed bosses). Those lean more into burst windows rather than raw DoT uptime.
Mystic Arts: layering extra DoT and crowd control
The build is already bleeding enemies, but Mystic Arts fill two gaps: crowd control for large pulls and non-bleed DoT to piggyback on Soul‑Shaken’s damage amplification.
| Mystic Art | Function | Use in rotation |
|---|---|---|
| Dragon's Breath | Consumes Intoxicated to breathe fire, dealing two hits plus Ignition (fire DoT) while giving damage reduction and Fortitude. | Use while Intoxicated to frontload AoE fire damage and apply Ignition before you swap back to Strategic Sword. Ignition benefits from Soul‑Shaken’s DoT boost. |
| Drunken Poet | Lets you drink to enter the Intoxicated state, then spend Vitality on up to 5 rapid melee strikes. | Serves as a flexible burst string that slots into downtime between weapon skills. It also keeps you Intoxicated so Dragon’s Breath is always ready. |
| Ghost Bind | Roots or freezes enemies in place. | Very strong for melee AoE setups: pin a mob pack, then drop Sweep All, Sober Sorrow, Dragon's Breath, and Lion’s Roar into the clump before finishing with Strategic Sword. |
| Lion's Roar | Point-blank AoE damage Mystic Art. | Chained after Dragon’s Breath against frozen groups for a high, frontloaded burst that doesn’t rely on weapon cooldowns. |
Recommended gear sets and stat priorities
Gear choice quietly shapes how the build feels: this setup leans toward maximizing attack and using DoT-triggered armor defenses instead of chasing pure crit builds.
Swaying Heights and Eaglerise set synergy
| Set | Pieces used | Relevant effects | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swaying Heights (weapon) | 2-piece, ideally 4-piece |
2-piece: +1 minimum physical attack. 4-piece: bonus damage to targets above 50% HP, scaling from 5% up to 10% as their HP remains high. |
Most of your time on bosses is spent above the halfway mark. DoT-heavy builds chip slowly then spike, so an HP-based damage bonus aligns well with your long setup before a Sword Horizon detonation. |
| Eaglerise (armor) | 2-piece, aim for 4-piece |
2-piece: +1 physical defense. 4-piece: dealing DoT or healing stacks Eaglerise, reducing damage taken and eventually giving Eagle Guard, which massively cuts the next incoming hit (with a 30s internal cooldown and reduced effect against bosses). |
Bleed, Weeping Blood, and Ignition constantly count as DoT, so Eaglerise stacks naturally. The big one-time mitigation from Eagle Guard acts like a free mistake every 30 seconds in boss fights. |
What to look for on substats
Stat priority is straightforward for this build:
- Attack as the top priority, so every bleed tick and detonation scales up.
- Precision rate to feed both crit and affinity checks more often.
- Affinity rate if you want more stable damage based on max attack rather than high-variance crit spikes.
- Crit rate and crit damage once attack and precision are in a good place, especially if you’re leaning into Breaking Point for downed-window bursts.
Bleed and Weeping Blood both scale off your attack rather than separate “bleed damage” modifiers, so raw attack has an unusually high value here compared to conventional crit-stacking melee builds.
How to play the Strategic Sword + Heavenquaker Spear rotation
The build is forgiving in trash pulls and more demanding on bosses. Two core rotations cover most encounters: a single-target “bleed cycle” and a wider AoE routine for mob packs.
Single-target bleed cycle (bosses and elites)
This is the heart of the setup. The goal is to build 5 bleed stacks, buff yourself, and debuff the target with the spear, then detonate the fully-amped bleed with Strategic Sword.
| Step | Action | What you’re achieving |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Open with Strategic Sword Charged Heavy Attack (hold R) to apply bleeding. | Starts bleed stacking and often closes distance. If you don’t hit 5 stacks, go to step 2. |
| 2 | Use Inner Track Slash (Q) as needed until the target hits 5 bleed stacks. | Q chains are your fastest, safest way to guarantee 5 stacks. |
| 3 | Swap to Heavenquaker Spear and cast Sober Sorrow (Q). | Gains your main spear buff. With Wolfchaser’s Art, hitting a bleeding boss can quickly ramp this buff up further. |
| 4 | Use Sweep All (special skill). | Deals AoE damage, applies its own bleed and defensive debuff, and increases your damage against the target. |
| 5 | Charge Heavenquaker Spear’s heavy attack. | Applies Soul‑Shaken, which increases all DoT damage on the target, including bleed, Weeping Blood, and Ignition. |
| 6 | Swap back to Strategic Sword and use Inner Balance Strike III with a Sword Horizon follow-up. | Consumes the 5 bleed stacks for a single high bleed hit while all buffs and debuffs are active. |
| 7 | Re-engage with another Charged Heavy Attack to reapply bleed and reset the cycle. | Starts building back toward 5 stacks while the target is still under Soul‑Shaken for a few moments. |
AoE rotation for mob packs
When you’re clearing trash or farming, the full boss-style setup is overkill. A faster AoE pattern works better:
| Step | Action | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Group enemies and, if needed, use Ghost Bind. | Locks a pack in place so your circular attacks land cleanly. |
| 2 | Start on Strategic Sword and spam Q twice to quickly build bleed on as many as possible. | Each Q hits in an arc and feeds Sword Horizon. |
| 3 | Swap to Heavenquaker Spear and press Q (Sober Sorrow), then tilde (Sweep All). | 360-degree coverage with both skills; Sweep All also reduces enemy defenses. |
| 4 | Use Dragon’s Breath and Lion’s Roar while enemies are frozen or clumped. | These Mystic Arts delete weakened mobs without touching endurance. |
| 5 | Swap back to Strategic Sword and use Inner Balance Strike III with Sword Horizon. | Detonates bleed across surviving enemies and repositions you slightly away from danger. |
On weaker enemies, you will often kill them before you complete the full sequence. The important part is getting used to the pattern of Strategic Sword entry → Heavenquaker AoE → Mystic Art cleanup → Strategic Sword finisher.
Early- and mid-game considerations
The full bleed package asks quite a bit from your character sheet: specific Inner Ways, set pieces, and a reasonably developed Bellstrike – Umbra tree. Before that, a lighter version of the build still works.
- Run Sword Horizon and Wolfchaser’s Art as the first two Inner Ways as soon as you can obtain them; they change how both weapons feel immediately.
- Fill remaining Inner Way slots with general power picks like Morale Chant and, later, Fivefold Bleed once unlocked.
- Use any defensive armor while you farm toward Eaglerise; the build is melee and has no innate healing, so raw survivability matters.
- Keep both weapons upgraded evenly. Boss fights assume you are using paired weapons; underleveled off-hands make rotations feel sluggish.
Strategic Sword and Heavenquaker Spear scale naturally into endgame as more Internal Arts levels, set bonuses, and Mystic Arts unlock. The fundamental loop—stack, buff, debuff, detonate—doesn’t change; it just hits harder and becomes safer to execute.
Played well, the Strategic Sword and Heavenquaker Spear pairing turns bleed into a resource you actively manage rather than a passive status. Once the flow of stacks, buffs, and detonations clicks, bosses stop feeling like damage sponges and start looking like timers waiting to be cashed out.
