In this article, we will be talking about putting together a build for Where Winds Meet, the wuxia open-world action RPG that was released for the global audience on November 14th.
When you are starting out, it can feel a little daunting with the variety of martial arts and skills available to you.
This guide is here to help you put together a damage-dealing tank build that will allow you to stay in the frontline through the toughest of encounters while also dealing massive amounts of damage.
Where Winds Meet: The Snowparting Storm Build
We will be looking at how to put together the Snowparting Storm build, which excels at interrupting enemies while also dealing consistent damage.
Martial Arts
In Where Winds Meet, you will be able to equip two weapons and their corresponding martial arts techniques at any given time.
Thundercry Blade
The first martial art we are using for this build, the Thundercry Blade, uses the double-handed Mo Blade, offering slow-moving, hard-hitting attacks.
This martial art has access to the Fighting Spirit special resource, which you can obtain by defending incoming attacks or generating over time. This resource can be used to amplify multiple skills of the Thundercry Blade.
Similar to other weapons, the light attack offers a four-attack combo swinging the blade in a circular motion around you, hitting multiple targets with each strike. This is especially useful when fighting groups of enemies.
Unlike other martial arts and weapons, using the Mo Blade gives us a charged light attack, which will spin around and hit the target twice with powerful slashes.
If you have Fighting Spirit, you can consume one bar to extend the charged attack into a varied combo, performing an additional two charge strikes at the end. While the charged attack and varied combos are powerful and deal high amounts of damage, they take a while to charge up.
While you gain Fortitude, which makes you invulnerable to stagger except for crowd-control and can move around while charging, you will not be able to perform any other actions, leaving yourself open to incoming damage.
The heavy attack for the Thundercry Blade has three-strike combos for the regular attack, but it also has a charged attack and varied combo.
The heavy version of the charged attack is a two-hit attack with an upward slash followed by a slam down dealing damage in an area. If you have Fighting Spirit, you can follow up with a varied combo that will have you leap into the air and slam down into the ground.
While you are charging and attacking with your varied combo, you will have Fortitude, leaving little chance of being interrupted apart from being crowd-controlled.
Skills
Regarding the skills of the Thundercry Blade, the first skill is the Predator’s Shield, which will grant us a shield equal to 25% of max HP for 8 seconds while increasing Fighting Spirit by 2 bars.
This shield has a cooldown of 12 seconds and is essential for fulfilling our role as a tank, especially during co-op sessions and raid boss fights.
The shield offers much-needed protection from attacks while we are stuck in our slow-moving attacks and varied combos. Mistiming the shield can easily knock us out during boss fights, and while it adds significant survivability, we cannot face-tank everything and will still need to dodge and deflect incoming attacks.
The second skill of the Thundercry Blade is the Sunrush Gale.
This skill will consume 2 bars of Fighting Spirit to generate a vortex pulling all nearby regular enemies towards you and then unleashing a powerful sweeping slash that deals high damage.
This skill will also grant us Focus, which allows us to charge any of our skills faster for the next 5 seconds. This makes it an excellent option to combo into a charged light or heavy with a varied combo for maximal damage with the Mo Blade.
Check out the [Where Winds Meet Interactive Map] to easily find all quest locations and hidden items.
Talents
For the talents, the first one for the Thundercry Blade makes it so that whenever you use a charged attack with the Mo Blade, you will never do the minimal range of the attack, the Abrasion.
Additionally, it will give a boost to the Critical Damage by 10% and allow the Max Physical Attack to scale with your Max HP.
The other scaling talents will allow your Max HP to scale with your Body stat and also the Critical Rate of your attacks when using the charged skill up to a maximum of 5% scaling with your Max HP.
This enables you to scale both your Crit Rate and Crit Damage by simply focusing on increasing your Max HP.
Regarding the attribute, the Thundercry Blade belongs to the Stonesplit family and the Stonesplit Penetration will scale along with the Min Stonesplit Attack, increasing your overall damage when using the Mo Blade.
Phalanxbane Blade
The second martial art we are using for this build, the Phalanxbane Blade, is another one using the Mo Blade and focusing more on delivering huge amounts of damage.
This martial art has access to the Blade Momentum special resource that generates over time, which can be used to amplify one of the skills.
Similar to other weapons, the light attack offers a four-attack combo swinging the blade in a circular motion around you, hitting multiple targets with each strike.
The heavy attack for the Phalanxbane Blade has three-strike combos for the regular attack but it also has a charged attack.
While powerful, the heavy attacks are slow and can leave you wide open if the opponent is not easily interruptible by your heavy swings.
The charged heavy attack for the Phalanxbane Blade is called Burning Heart, and this attack has two stages of charging.
With the first stage, you swing the blade downward and slam the ground dealing moderate damage. When you charge it longer to the second stage, the attack will consume 2 bars of Blade Momentum, leap forward, and slam the ground hard, dealing high damage in a wider area.
Skills
Regarding the skills of the Phalanxbane Blade, the first skill is Soul Burning, which is a running attack.
You will hold the Mo Blade with both hands and charge forward; during this time, the direction of the charge can be controlled. Pressing the skill button will cast Total Annihilation, which is a spinning attack dealing damage in an area.
If you charge for at least 3 seconds, you will gain increased movement speed and Tenacity, and Total Annihilation will be upgraded into the Extreme version, dealing more damage while also granting a shield equal to 15% of Max HP.
The second skill of the Phalanxbane Blade is the Legion Summoner.
This skill will grant you the Iron Guard buff which upgrades various attacks of the martial art. In addition to increasing the HP damage by 8% while the buff is active, both stages of the charged attack, Burning Heart, will be accompanied by an Anxi soldier with a Mo Blade launching a downward strike dealing damage.
Also, when using Soul Burning, two Anxi Soldiers will charge towards with you and will cast Total Annihilation with you, increasing damage and area coverage while the buff is active.
Talents
For the talents, the first one for the Phalanxbane Blade increases the maximum amount of Blade Momentum by 1 bar, making it easier to manage the unique resource during combat.
Regarding the scaling talents, the Phalanxbane Blade martial art will scale your Critical Rate along with your Agility stat.
Also, while the Iron Guard buff is active, your physical penetration and Stonesplit penetration will scale together with your Min Physical Attack stat.
Regarding the attribute, the Phalanxbane Blade belongs to the Stonesplit family and the Stonesplit Penetration will scale along with the Min Stonesplit Attack, increasing your overall damage when using the Mo Blade.
For more details on weapon stats and movesets, visit the [Where Winds Meet Wiki].
How to Obtain the Martial Arts
The first martial art, the Thundercry Blade, can be obtained through a variety of ways, and the most simple and straightforward method is to exchange it from Qing She.
If you have missed this point, there are two additional methods you can use to obtain the technique. The earlier method is by joining the Heaven Well sect; the quest will begin when you reach the Harvestfall Village in Qinghe. Finishing the quest will grant you entry into the sect while teaching you the technique.
The second way comes much later in the game when you can go to the second area, the Kaifeng Region.
There, you can steal the skill by sneaking into the Heaven Well Martial Camp located in the southern area. After sneaking past the sect members, you can learn the technique through skill theft from a master of the sect.
The second martial art, Phalanxbane Blade, can be obtained via the in-game mail from Shi Yimo after finishing his encounters (after the v1.5 update) or by joining the Raging Tides Sect.
Check out the [Where Winds Meet Interactive Map] to easily find all quest locations and hidden items.
Mystic Skills
In addition to Martial Arts, we are also able to use Mystic Skills, which are additional skills that can be used with any weapons or techniques.
The first mystic skill we will be using with this build has use in exploration and for interaction with NPCs. In combat, it has a chance to immobilize enemies in place, leaving them wide open for your attacks. Even when it doesn’t immobilize, the skill deals physical damage and is great to weave into the end of your weapon combos.
The second mystic skill we will be using has a relatively long cooldown of 20 seconds with a 60 Vitality cost. The skill will give you a Qi shield while providing healing bonuses and damage reduction.
The third mystic skill we will be using for this build will strike down with a staff weapon, stagger your target, and then perform multiple successive strikes dealing a large amount of physical damage.
While it has a relatively expensive Vitality cost of 35, a low cooldown of 3 seconds means that you can spam this skill against exhausted bosses or regular enemies as long as you have vitality.
Soaring Spin
The fourth skill we will be using will thrust you forward towards your target and then follow up with a second strike.
This skill has a relatively longer cooldown of 12 seconds but is one of the faster striking mystic skills that you can easily weave into your combos for additional damage, especially while your endurance is recovering.
How to Obtain the Mystic Skill
The first mystic skill, Meridian Touch, can be obtained early in the game by interacting with Yan Qiren.
He can be found in a quarry near the Stonewash Strand teleporter, surrounded by dozens of statues. The skill can be obtained by interacting with him for the first time.
The Golden Body mystic skill can be learned from a stolen tome that you can grab from one of the monks in the Imperial Temple in Kaifeng city using the Celestial Grab mystic skill.
The third mystic skill, Wolflike Frenzy, can be obtained after defeating the Dao Lord boss in the Unbound Cavern campaign.
The tome for the skill is in a chest located after the boss; if you missed it by some chance, you can easily climb up to the route from the Ghost Light Market to get to the chest.
The fourth mystic skill, Soaring Spin, is arguably the most hidden mystic skill in the game at the time of writing as it is found in the Arsenal beneath the Martial Temple.
The skill can be found hidden in a small box which can only be grabbed through Celestial Seize while you are standing atop the God of Killing statue in the inner part of the martial temple.
Inner Ways
In addition to the Martial Arts and Mystic Skills, we will also be able to increase the power of our build through the passives from the Inner Ways.
The first inner way will enhance the damage output of the Phalanxbane Blade by increasing the chargeable stages of Burning Heart from 2 to 3, unleashing a charged leap attack that deals high damage.
This inner way also enhances the Iron Guard buff, and the accompanying Anxi Soldier will also perform a leap attack.
Upon upgrading, the inner way will increase the amount of damage dealt by Anxi Soldiers through the Mountain Splitter buff, which guarantees assisting Anxi Soldier’s damage to be criticals with 10% increased Critical damage.
The buff lasts for 5 seconds, has a 15-second cooldown, and is obtained when a Mo Blade Anxi Soldier hits an enemy.
The second inner way we will be equipping with this build is the Art of Resistance.
This inner way increases the duration of our shields by 4 seconds, bringing it up to a total of 12 seconds which is the same as the cooldown of our Predator’s Shield skill, making it possible to keep our shield up as long as it’s not broken by the enemy.
With upgrades, the inner way will also provide additional damage while under the effects of the shield at Tier 3, helping with the charging attack of the Phalanxbane Blade while also increasing the duration of the shield even further as the tiers go up.
The third inner way we will be using with this build is Throat-Piercing Art. This inner way will give a buff whenever you perform a counterattack after a deflection using the Snowparting Blade for 8 seconds.
This buff, “Throat-pierced”, will allow you to ignore 2 points of Physical Resistance and increase critical damage by 2%. The buff can stack up to 3 times and it helps with your overall damage output.
Through breaking through the inner way, the duration of the buff can be prolonged and at Tier 3, the inner way will increase your damage potential even further by increasing the Physical Resistance penetration to 3 and Critical Damage to 3% respectively.
For the fourth and final slot of the inner way, we will be using the Trapped Beast inner way. This grants us a shield with 30% of our max HP whenever we take a hit while we’re below 30% health.
While the effect has a long cooldown of 5 minutes, it is extremely useful in preventing you from being knocked out from consecutive attacks during a boss fight, giving you a chance to receive heals or take potions to recover.
Upon breaking through, the inner way can reduce the cooldown between each trigger of the shield while upgrading the amount up to 40% of Max HP.
At the highest Tier 6, if the shield gets destroyed before running out, the cooldown will be reduced by 2 minutes, allowing for the shield to come back even faster.
How to Obtain the Inner Ways
The tome for Steadfast Devotion can be obtained via the in-game mail for the v1.5 update without needing to go through additional steps.
To obtain the Art of Resistance inner way, you will need to finish the follow-up encounter quest line of joining the Heaven’s Well Sect, “Scammer Victims.” Even if you’ve already joined another sect, you will not be locked out of the encounter questline and it is still obtainable. You will receive the tome as a reward at the end of the encounter.
The third inner way, Throat-Piercing Art, can be obtained from the Sparrow Sutra Hall.
After clearing out the outpost, you will need to find and read the scrolls with the names of the inner ways in the library of the Sparrow Sutra Hall to obtain the tomes and unlock them.
The last inner way used for this build, the Trapped Beast, can be obtained once you’ve reached the Kaifeng area. The tome is obtained as a reward for an encounter quest in the Ghostlight Market, which can be reached through a number of ways.
You can trigger the “March of the Dead” tale by listening to Mr. Ghost in the Market or getting kidnapped in an encounter in the Qinghe area.
Listening to Mr. Ghost is the more consistent way of getting this tome as he will be in the same area, while the encounter can be hard to find due to its random nature.
Gear
Regarding the Gear, there are two different gear sets you can put together: one for weapons and accessories while the other is for armor pieces.
With the weapon gear set, the Veil of the Willow set is amazing for this build as it will increase our Precision rate, which scales with the Gear Tier, at 2 pieces and at the full 4 pieces, it will give a 12% increase in damage for 10 seconds.
How this works is that if you perform a heavy attack, the light attacks following this will receive the buff and the same is true for vice versa; since we will be relying on both the light attacks and charged heavy attacks for the Thunder Cry Blade, the damage buff will be consistently triggered.
Regarding the stats, we will be looking to increase the Stonesplit attack stat to increase the damage using the Mo Blade with both martial arts. Ideally, we will want a combination of Stonesplit and Body stats to buff both martial arts, helping with both damage and survivability.
For the armor gear set, the Moonflare set provides great defense for this build. At 2 pieces, the set will give us extra max HP, which scales with the gear tier, allowing us to take more hits while also helping with damage scaling.
At the full 4 pieces, it gives a 30% chance to create a shield with 10% of Max HP. If there is a pre-existing shield, the set will restore 2% HP whenever a new shield is created when counter-attacking from a defense. This effect gives more survivability and allows you to retaliate after blocking consistently with the Exquisite Scenery inner way.
Regarding the stats, we will be looking for as many Max HP stat bonuses as possible to help with our Critical Rate and Critical Damage scaling with both of your martial arts while having Physical Attack bonuses helping with the damage.
Additionally, Where Winds Meet has an arsenal system where you put your old gear to gain additional bonuses to your attacks once you’ve reached World Tier 6.
For this build, we will switch our bonus to the Stonesplit route to give a boost to our Min and Max physical attack stats, helping with both of our martial arts.
Looking for more setups? Find a full list of builds on the [Where Winds Meet Wiki].
Final Tips
This is a build that prioritizes tanking damage during raid boss encounters, providing various means to help with your survivability through shields and damage reductions.
The combo rotation for this build during a boss will start with the Thunder Cry Blade granting a shield through the Predator’s Shield skill; once the shield expires, you can use the skill for another shield.
During this time, switching to the Phalanxbane Blade and activating Legion Summoner before launching your assault using Burning Heart or Soul Burning will help you deal high amounts of damage.
Prioritizing the use of the enhanced Total Annihilation will allow you to obtain another shield in addition to the Predator’s Shield. You will want to make sure the Iron Guard buff is active for the majority of your attacks to deal maximum damage.
While it can be tempting to charge up Soul Burning by running for 3 seconds before using Total Annihilation, if you’re close to your target, just using the skill again immediately after charging can help with your overall damage output, especially during boss fights.
The build is geared mainly for taking damage and has no means of self-sustain through the martial arts. During boss encounters, you will need to rely on your teammates’ healing to sustain, and the situation will vary depending on the amount of healers in your team.
While you don't necessarily need to worry much about landing deflects and blocks if the team has two or more main healers, if that is not the case, you will want to focus more on deflecting incoming strikes instead of attacking.
The Golden Body Mystic Skill will provide a shield and more efficient received healing during emergency situations where your health goes down drastically after taking a big hit.
Visit the [Where Winds Meet Wiki] and our [Interactive Map] for everything you need to master the game.
Outside of team boss fights, the build can reliably fight groups of enemies while staying alive. Even though the damage output will not be the highest, you can easily take out groups of enemies using the Extreme Total Annihilation of the Soul Burning skill.
Using medicine to heal whenever you need is a sufficient source of sustain for single-player campaigns and Lost Chapters.
The build can perform surprisingly well in PvP as well thanks to the multiple sources of Fortitude and shields, making it hard for others to break through your defenses while providing you with ample opportunity to stagger your enemy consecutively through charged attacks, Sunrush Gale, and multiple Anxi Soldier attacks.
Generally, I highly encourage you to explore and collect oddities and trade them in whenever you get the chance, as the upgrades they provide will help us quickly become stronger while giving us additional Endurance and Vitality resources which are crucial for this build.
Also, collect herbs, ores, and hunt wildlife as you explore, as you will need these materials to enhance your gear slots; collecting as you go will help prevent situations where you do not have enough materials to upgrade.
So, this wraps up my Thunder Phalanx build guide for Where Winds Meet. I hope you find it helpful on your journey in the perilous world of the Chinese Wuxia world.
If you want to know more details about quests, encounters, and martial arts, don’t forget to check out the WIKI, and if you have any suggestions or tips you want to add, feel free to leave them in the comment below and may the winds favor your journey, wanderer.