INTRODUCTION

This is a general use build focusing on using Bladestorm in conjunction with Silence from [Banshee] subsumed with the [Savage Silence] augment. Because Bladestorm counts as finisher damage, the augment [Savage Silence] multiplies Bladestorm's true damage by a very high amount. Silence also acts as a form of crowd control by stunning things for 2s (which can be refreshed repeatedly) and prevents enemies from using special abilities e.g. Violence's silence ability and all acolyte abilities, ground slams and fire waves that knockdown, Ancient hooks, Lich/sister abilities and importantly Eximus/Thrax abilities.

The augment [Seeking Shuriken] is an OPTIONAL addition that allows 100% armor stripping on bulky targets such as Thrax units, Demolysts, Sisters and certain heavy enemies that bladestorm are not effective on (due to damage reduction or adaptive resistance), or maybe when you feel like shooting something with a non-slash raw damage weapon. If you don't want to use [Seeking Shuriken] ever, you can subsume silence into 1 and use 3 to join in on Bladestorm, which locks you into an animation.

UPDATE 2024
Melee Crescendo triggers with Bladestorm kills allowing even a rank 0 arcane to quickly build to permanent x12 combo. Combine this with strong heavy attack weapons or heavy attack gimmicks such as [Glaive Prime], [Syam], [Hate] Incarnon, [Corufell], [Quassus], Magistar Slam, Furax Wraith slam, Ruvox Slam. See below in ARSENAL section for builds.

ALTERNATE BUILDS

General Use Non-helminth: https://overframe.gg/build/268417/ash-prime/ash-shuriken-basic-non-helminth/
Weapon Platform (Eclipse/Roar/Xata's): https://overframe.gg/build/243714/ash-prime/shadow-of-death-disruption-ash-roar-eclipse-with-armor-strip/
Marked for Death Fatal Teleport Nuke: https://overframe.gg/build/250058/ash-prime/mark-of-the-assassin-marked-for-death-fatal-teleport-ash/
Hybrid Roar-based Bladestorm: https://overframe.gg/build/279313/ash-prime/ash-hybrid-disruption-roar/

PLAYSTYLE

Cast 2 to go invisible initially or whenever Trickery is NOT active
Cast 3 (or 1 if you subsume over 1) for Silence and keep active at all times.
Prime enemies with viral status to maximise bladestorm damage (can be manually or via Panzer)
Tap 4, move your cursor around to select enemies (they will glow), then tap 4 again to initiate bladestorm which will send clones to stab them.
Help kills with melee or guns, e.g. x12 Melee Crescendo Glaive Prime
OPTIONAL: Cast 1 to strip armor if [Seeking Shuriken] is equipped, on heavy units e.g. demolyst, thrax, acolyte, nox, and use a weapon to kill them quicker than bladestorm can.

Updated video of Bladestorm in Levelcap:

Older video demonstrating playstlye:

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
Duration helps Silence last longer between casts as well as for Smokescreen between activations of Arcane Trickery, but as long as Arcane Trickery is active you get basically permanent invisibility without needing to cast smokescreen.

Efficiency
Positive efficiency is preferred so Blade storm will cost 12 energy per mark or only 6 energy while invisible (either with arcane trickery or smokescreen). This means with [Primed Flow] you could theorectically have around 100 marks active. Sources of energy [Regen] include [Equilibrium] (with Panzer+[Synth Deconstruct] and Eximus kills), [Grimoire] with [Xata Invocation], Zenurik, Energy Pads, Emergence Dissipate, [Dethcube] with [Energy Generator].

Range
At neutral range, silence has a range of 20m and bladestorm has a range of 50m which I feel are more than enough for most maps.

Strength
With Madurai at 283% power strength, bladestorm has a base damage of 5660. When multiplied by [Steel Charge], Arcane [Fury], [Innodem] Swooping Lunge and [Savage Silence], this becomes 5660 x (1+300%x283%) x (1+1.8+0.6+1.5) = 263,196 true damage (meaning it ignore's armor) per hit. Since each enemy is marked 3 times per cast, we deal 789,587 total dmg to each enemy per cast. At maximum 12x combo and with 10 viral status, this becomes x 3.75 x 4.25 = 12,584,042 total damage. Since this is true damage and bypasses armor, this is more than enough to one-shot pretty much every steel path enemy up to an absurdly high level. For reference, a steel path level 9999 corrupted heavy gunner has about 10 million health, meaning a single cast is enough to kill it. If you don't have all conditionals active, then a second cast is probably required.

Furthermore, any enemy that somehow doesn't get one-shot will take bleed damage of around 1 to 2 million damage over 9s. Note that savage silence does NOT affect bleed procs.

Flexible Options

[Brief Respite] is optional over Steel Charge, helps with more shield gating to help with break through damage. Use your shuriken for on demand shield regen.
[Rolling Guard] is completely optional for most content considering you will spend nearly 100% of your time invisible, however it is still very good to get rid of sudden random cold, toxin, electric or slash procs from AOE or the environment. This becomes more important in high level endurance, although can be replaced entirely by just using Vazarin Protectice Sling.
Seeking Shuriken is optional to bring to boss fights, sister fights, cascade and disruption mode for the armor strip.
Primed Sure footed is optional. Can use handspring, vigilante pursuit, power drift, particularly if you run Unairu Poise.

Arcanes

Arcane Trickery has amazing synergy. While it has a low chance of 15% and only activates on kill (and not bleed DoT), at the rate at which this build one-shots enemies, you'll find that Trickery is consistently activating every 10-20 kills, or roughly every 5-10 seconds. This provides pretty much permanent invisibility which can NOT be dispelled by nullifiers or acolytes, unlike smoke screen. If for some reason you don't have trickery active, use smokescreen as a buffer.
Arcane [Fury] and Blade Charger both significantly increase bladestorm damage. Use Fury on a melee focused ash loadout and Arcane Blade Charger if you plan on using your primary weapon more.
Molt Augmented boosts strength which increases bladestorm damage further.
Molt Efficiency gives more duration
Arcane Energize is great for energy [Regen] since silence costs nearly 100 energy and spamming bladestorm can wear out energy quite fast. Emergence Dissipate may be able to replace this depending on what happens with it.
Secondary Dexterity is great for combo duration to help maintain max combo on both bladestorm and melee
Melee Crescendo on your melee is amazing since it triggers on bladestorm kills, even a rank 0 arcane works for [Ash]. You will gain permanent x12 combo, which you can use for both Bladestorm and for permanent x12 heavy attacks on your melee.

Focus
Naramon is ideal for maintaining bladestorm combo counter
Zenurik would be the go to more energy economy and slow blast (for disruption)
Unairu gives free knockdown resistance and full shield/armor strip.
Vazarin is best for endurance runs where you might need more i-frames (e.g. energy drain conduit and enemy toxin weapons disruption).

Archon Shards
2-3 Crimson shards either duration or strength, up to preference. I prefer to run duration for my other smokescreen builds.
The rest into Energy max Azure Shards

WEAPONS

Bladestorm Statstick
For the melee weapon, you can use any weapon you like with at least +50% attack speed mods, but the current best statstick is Innodem since Swooping Lunge applies a free +150% total melee damage that applies to bladestorm. Innodem build: https://overframe.gg/build/382516/innodem/ash-bladestorm-statstick-updated-2023/

The only other weapon that makes a difference to Bladestorm is [Venka Prime]. [Venka Prime] has a passive that increases maximum combo count. Make sure to equip either [Primed Fury] or a combination of normal [Fury] + [Quickening] on your melee to hit at least +50% attack speed cap for bladestorm animation, and something to increase combo duration such as combo duration mods or dexterity arcanes. Example Venka 'stat stick' build here: https://overframe.gg/build/243730/

Slash Based Melees
My favourite combo is using a melee zaw such as [Sepfahn] or [Glaive Prime] and doing x12 heavy attacks. This is because you can use bladestorm (particularly with [Rising Storm]) to either help build back combo lost from heavy attacks or trigger Melee Crescendo (doesnt even need to be high rank). Make sure to add [Primed Fury] to hit the 50% attack speed cap for bladestorm animation, and [Reflex Coil] if you want to be able to spam x12 heavy since it reduces the overall recharge time.

Glaive Prime x12 heavy explosion spam: https://overframe.gg/build/616095/
Syam x12 heavy waves spam: https://overframe.gg/build/728725/
Corufell x12 heavy spam wave (uses same build as syam): https://overframe.gg/build/728725/
Qaussus x12 heavy feathers spam: https://overframe.gg/build/494400/

Sepfahn x12 heavy build for disruption: https://overframe.gg/build/294520/sepfahn/sepfahn-red-crit-x12-heavy-attack-one-shot-steel-path/
Praedos x12 heavy (Use Melee Crescendo and add reflex coil): https://overframe.gg/build/315105/
Innodem x12 heavy: https://overframe.gg/build/328180/innodem/the-finishing-touch-finisher-based-hybrid-combo-x12-heavy/

Primer
You will want a way to maximise viral procs in AOE, either using a primer weapon or a Panzer companion:
Panzer: https://overframe.gg/build/220091/panzer-vulpaphyla/panzer-vulpaphyla/
Cedo Primer: https://overframe.gg/build/320186/
Kuva nukor Primer: https://overframe.gg/build/235421/kuva-nukor/kuva-nukor-primer/
Epitaph Primer: https://overframe.gg/build/235422/epitaph/epitaph-primer/