Fiona general guide.

So in this guide I'll try to mention all the little and important info you'd need to play Fiona properly. And hopefully you'll learn something!

Updates

10/22/2010
-The Reaper strategy added
-Red Tyrant strategy added

10/20/2010
Small update
-Added some info under "Other Tips"
-Modified / added some info under a few skills.

10/13/2010
- Added skill information up to level 38 (Level cap in OB).
Need to change Slashing High name in the image. And Flame of Life skill name.

09/26/2010
-Fixed Long Sword Mastery table (Required rank was wrong, C was D). Thanks Shaboozie.

09/25/2010
- Fixed Strength Mastery table (AP info was wrong) - Thanks to katalystx for the report.
- Added White Tyrant Video

09/24/2010
- Added missing skills, and a new table showing level and rank requirements.


I'm going to be calling the combos by "Sword #1", "Sword #2", etc. So people that do not know the specific names of each smash attack can still follow. I'll still be calling Amaranth Kick by it's name, because the awesomeness of this smash combo should be known across the land.
Sword #1 would be Left Click > Right Click
Sword #3 Left Click > Left Click > Left Click > Right Click, etc.

I'll be mentioning "sprint smash" often, that is the smash attack that is done while sprinting. (shift+direction key+right click)

Also NOTE this guide is mostly based on SWORD, as it is what I specialize in, I don't know enough about hammer skills to give good recommendations, but everything I recommend below besides sword-specific skills are also useful for Hammers, unless specified.
And remember that this guide is based on opinion as most guides are. It is what I believe to be the best choices for your Fiona, and what I found to be helpful or not.

002

Table showing level and skill requirement:


Skill tables showing AP requirement, and recommendations.



Lv1

012Guard

Ranking guard is a good idea to reduce durability damage on the shield when guarding. Rank D is a must to get Heavy Stander and C for Counter Attack. Recommended: Rank A and 9 later.
-Rank 9 gives another bonus to Perfect Guard, which gives you two "free attacks" after PGing. i.e: After PGing you can perform Ivy Sweep after one single normal attack, or Amaranth Kick after two.
(Rank D needed to learn Heavy Stander; Rank C needed to learn Counter Attack)

022Shield Mastery (SM)

The extra durability on shields will be great when you get Counter Attack. And the reduction in weight will come in handy like always. Recommended minimum: Rank A, and rank 9 as soon as you can.
(Rank 9 needed to learn Large Shield Mastery)

Lv4

152Meditation

Don't rank this, plain and simple. The amount of AP that it requires makes it tremendously inefficient.

Lv6

062Ivy Sweep (Sword #3)

Good range, and does good damage. Recommended ranking it to 9 at some point, but not a priority since it's only useful against trash mobs.
-Rank 9 adds a third strike to the combo.

Lv8

032Heavy Stander (HS)
Though usually a better idea to dodge rather than use Heavy Stander, this skill will save your skin several times. Recommended minimum: Rank A.
How to get it: Finish the "Decisive Battle", and talk to Marrec with Rank D (or higher) Guard.

Lv10

092Heavy armor mastery

Lowers weight, and increases durability. Good skill. Recommended rank A, and rank D needed to learn Plate Armor Mastery.

Light armor mastery

Rank E for Savage Set.

Cloth armor Mastery

Not needed for Fiona.

Standing Endurance

Can save your life, but not necessary until higher levels.

082Long sword mastery

Some weapons require higher ranking in this skill. Rank D needed to learn Long Hammer Mastery.

Lv12

142Campfire

This skill is awesome. The armor regeneration is just plain awesome and there's no other way to describe it, it will allow you to do many many more counter-attacks and heavy standers. Recommended rank: A.

Lv14

Strength Mastery

Ranking it to A adds 326 ATT, It's a nice bonus at first, but less noticeable at higher levels. But recommended to rank smash mastery first.

Intelligence Mastery

Fiona doesn't need this.

Lv18

112Combat Mastery

Adds damage to normal attacks, not so hot, but rank D needed to learn Smash Mastery.

Defense Mastery

Requires way too much AP, and it isn't that great. Not recommended.

052Amaranth Kick (Sword #4)

Amaranth kick is good, especially at lower levels, you'll be using this mostly, but Blossom Blow (see below) is much better. The use of Amaranth becomes limited at higher levels.


102Critical Hit

Criticals are awesome. Rank it to E at least, only costs 30 AP and gives +%10 of damage and chance to get a crit. After that it costs more and doesn't improve as much. But at higher levels you'll want to get it to rank 6 eventually.

Lv20

042Counter Attack (CA)

Amazing skill, enormous stun chance, but does serious damage on your shield; but ranking it reduces this damage. Recommended minimum: Rank A and eventually rank 6.
This skill is one of the most important skills for Fiona.
How to get it: Finish "Dethrone the White Tyrant", talk to Marrec and then talk to him again after achieving 120pts in "Brynn's Research".

Lv22

Agility Mastery

Not really needed, 81 Defense at Rank A. The stamina regen is the only decent thing about this. Maxing it is not a bad idea but don't rush on it.

Will Mastery

At rank A it adds 163 will which translates to 2.4% critical chance. Same as agility maxing it is not a bad idea, but don't rush it.
Rank D recommended for Flame of Life

Life Flare

Gives you a chance to survive a blow that would otherwise kill you, leaving you with 1 HP.
Your choice: Rank E, 9 or 6.
If you plan on ranking this high, I recommend giving it lowest priority. It may allow you to survive, but so does your other shield skills (and with much more efficiency).

122Smash Mastery

Adds damage to smash skills, hot skill. And you'll want it at rank 6 eventually.
The damage added is really noticeable. Fiona smashes make massive damage in a single blow which makes this and excellent skill.

Lv26

132Combat Respiration

Faster stamina recharge? YES PLEASE. Get it to rank A. The regen is quite noticeable.

Stone Skin

Increases your defense when armor is broken. Not worth it, better to just repair your armor.

Lv30

Plate Armor Mastery

Rank C needed for Spider Lord set (Level 38 set)
Rank B needed for 샤이닝 (shining?) (level 50 set) and Laghodessa set. (Level 42 set)

Secondary weapon mastery

Costs too much AP. The flash bang is decent though, so rank it to E if you want an extra secondary weapon to choose.

Blossom

Awesome skill, adds a second attack to Sword #2 combo, and a third one at rank 9.
At Rank A blossom and Rank F amaranth, this does more damage than amaranth in a single double-blossom, not to mention that in the time you do an amaranth you can do two double-blossoms. And at r9 the extra blossom adds even more damage.
To obtain this skill finish chapter 3 (Blood Prince) then talk to Aodhan, then Kristie, she asks for 50 pts in White Tyrant. (If you already have 50 pts you don't have to do the battle again)

Life Force

Increases HP, rank 9 is not a bad idea. But low lower priority.

Lv34

Weight Mastery

Rank it as needed. Adds a good amount of maximum weight, and pretty much a must to wear plate armor + large shield properly.

Lv36

SP: Shield Bash
Consumes: 1 SP Bar

Extremely useful skill, Shield Charge is better, but until you have that, this is great skill for extra stunning. A total 21% of stun chance.

Lv38

Stamina Mastery

Increases maximum stamina.
F: + 1 Stamina
E: + 4 Stamina
D: + 5 Stamina
C & B: + 3 Stamina per rank.
A: +2 Stamina

It's a good trade for rank D. But after that it gets inefficient (But you'll end up ranking it anyway, just not really a good idea to get it to A quickly)

SP:Slashing High
Consumes: 3 SP Bar

Buff that does the following:
-Makes you attack faster.
-Prevents stamina from draining when attacking
-Prevents flinching (which means combos can't be interrupted)

. Lats 10 seconds at rank F with an increase of 2% in speed. 15 seconds rank A, 12% increase.
Not very useful. But for hammers is actually decent.

SP: Shield Repair
Consumes: 2 SP Bar

Repairs shield to 100%, awesome skill.
Skill has only one rank (F).
Tip: Can be canceled as soon almost as it's used (by rolling), and repair will still be 100%.


003

[013]Guard
Perfect guard (PG): A perfect guard is done by pressing your guard key right before the enemy's attack is about to connect. This will make guard consume NO stamina at all, and allow you to retaliate faster.
You'll notice a blueish spark when doing a perfect guard, instead of the regular white spark.


Doing perfect guards will allow you to chain combos for a long time against enemies like most emuloch type of bosses. Being extremely effective against them, by just standing there, without having to waste time dodging, while doing a Sword #2 or #1. Depending on the boss' speed.
(watch the melee emulochs video for an example)

[023]Heavy Stander
It's usually better to dodge, at least until you have high rank HS and SM. Because your shield durability will be better used with CA. Of course, learn to know when a dodge is not possible and a HS has to be done.

Recovery Time (GCHS - Guard cancel heavy stander): By doing a heavy stander after a combo you'll be able to move out of the way faster.


Watch the Gnoll or Kobold chiefs videos below to see this trick in a battle.

[033]And here's something really useful that can be done with this; sprint smash is quite a powerful attack, it has a good stun chance for such a fast attack. And can be done really fast thanks to heavy stander. Watch the following video:

This is helpful against those annoying archers, and other regular mobs, since it throws them to the ground. And can have it's uses against bosses.


Heavy Stander height:
Sometimes you can take advantage of Heavy Stander to DODGE. Since it reduces your height, the first example of this is against jagged tooth, if you HS close to him, he won't hit you (90% of the time). Then there's Reaper with his range attack, and then a few more when it isn't as practical.


004014
Learn to dodge while comboing, and starting a combo beforehand by predicting where the boss will be.
First, make sure you have "Attack in the direction of the camera" disabled under the advanced control options.

This will allow you to change the direction of your attacks in mid-combo. Which is useful everywhere.



Sprint-Smash is good to do break-offs, try to do it against Kobold Chief for example, you'll be able to break-off his shield arm pretty easily with sprint-smash.
It can also be used to break swinging log traps.




005Only a few bosses will be showed here, what you learn from your lower levels should help you figure out the rest of the bosses on your own. How to dodge, when, what attack to do, will come from the experience gained from these.

015Small gnoll bosses:

Keep perfect guarding and retaliate quickly with Sword #2. And just move away for a bit to recharge stamina if needed.

025Revenge battle (Gnoll brothers):
[Video to come]

Easy fight, you can loose aggro of one of the brothers, allowing you to fight one alone. The trick is simple, and it's easier done with the melee brother, let him follow you up the stairs, and when he charges at you (and he's going to end up at the top of the stairs) quickly run down the stairs, and he'll stay there.

Once you have the archer for yourself, do the following:

Stay close to him and
If he uses his bow:
Regular bow attack (he holds his bow diagonally): Do a Sword #1 and HS right next to him.
Smash bow attack (he holds his bow horizontally): Do a sword #2 and HS right next to him.

if he kicks: dodge/PG and sword #2.
If he charges, sprint to your side for a second and start comboing to do amaranth kick, and use the heavy stander trick.

Once you are done with him, get the melee brother off the stairs. He's even easier.
He can only charge at you, in which case do amaranth kick like with the archer. Or do a mace attack, just PG and Sword #2.

035Gnoll chieftain:

Gnoll chieftain has 3 attacks:

Whirlwind: His most destructive attack, and with huge range. It's a smash attack so it cannot be blocked with Guard. As soon as you see he'll be doing whirlwind do one of these things:

If the gnoll is going to whirlwind towards you, move backwards a bit and start comboing while moving this direction, with a bit of practice you can dodge the attack close enough so after doing 4 normal combos the amaranth kick will hit him.

If the direction of whirlwind is other way, then just do a sprint smash.

Hammer swing: This attack can be dodged while comboing, allowing you to do Sword #2 with ease, and even sword #3 (Evy Sweep) if done properly. Cannot be blocked with Guard.

Kick: He tends to kick when you are really close, just do a perfect guard against this, and follow with Sword #1.


045Small melee emulochs:

They have two attacks- One that does a single swing, and another that does two.
They can both be perfect guarded. And followed by a Sword #2.

The single swing can be perfect guarded easily. as for the double swing, if you PG the first swing and just keep pressing your guard key the second swing will not be perfect guarded, you just have to time it right. After PGing the first swing release the Guard key for about 1 second and Guard again.

055Sling shot brothers:
[video to come]

The first one is really easy, you just have stay close to him let him sneeze on you a bunch of times on you while you PG. Eventually he'll bump against a wall, and if you stay close to him he'll just keep sneezing a lot. So just keep PGing and follow with Sword #1.

When you face the yellow and red ones together, it gets a bit trickier, but still fairly easy, but expect to use at least one potion. The trick is to keep the yellow one in front of his brother. This will not only server as a shield to you, but his attacks will stun his brother.
You could also take Mini Bombs which will stun both of them when thrown properly.

065Brynn's Research (Robust Echeloch)

This ebuloch is really easy, you'll be doing Sword #2 all the time, he can:
Drink a potion and it could be:

HP Potion (Red sparks): He heals a tad.

Acid Potion (Green sparks): He throws up in front of him.

Throw Potion (Orange Sparks): He throws the potion at whoever he's aggroing, hitting anyone in the way.

So what you have to do is move to his back everytime he drinks a potion, wait and see what kind of potion it is,
if green sparks or red: Sword #2
if orange sparks: PG and Sword #2

He can also do an attack with his weapon, just PG and Sword #2.

075Kobold chief

He has 3 attacks, 2 of these have variations.

Smash punches: He lifts his arms in the air and smashes on the ground, he can either stop there, or chain another smash.
This double smash is what you want him to do, since it will allow you to do Amaranth Kick on him often, so stay a bit close to him, directly in front, when he lifts is arms, move a few steps away, and start comboing away from him, depending on how close you are, you might need to change direction on the 4th normal attack already, otherwise just change direction with Amaranth Kick. Be careful, if you don't measure the distance properly you'll get hit when switching direction.

Crouch and cover: When he does this he can either get up quickly, or stay for a bit longer, if he stays for a bit longer, he'll slam his fist on the ground and then do two attacks, first to his right and then to his left. You can do amaranth kick in this case by placing yourself on the left side where he'll end his combo. But be careful! you need to do the Heavy Stander trick to move away faster.
He sometimes stays longer with doesn't attack, he'll look around him in this case.

Normal punch: Easily dodged, follow with a sprint smash.

076White Tyrant


White tyrant is actually pretty easy once you understand his attack pattern. He'll start with 4 different kind of attacks-

Left Paw attack: The bear hits the ground with his right paw before doing this attack, and immediately charges towards you. It does this when you are somewhat close and in front of him. You'll have to try and fail a few times until you get the right distance needed to do a good dodge and quickly do a Sword #2 (blossom), so you need to sprint just a bit backwards and start comboing for blossom.

Right Paw attack: Before doing this he puts his body down on the ground preparing for a jump. You don't have much time to combo after dodging this, but you should be able to use sprint smash twice with GCHS.

Double paw attack: Does this when you are far away from him (he usually jumps back to do this). You can amaranth kick when he does this, by predicting where he will end up after finishing the attack.

Side attack: Does this when you are behind or beside him. It's a fast attack, so you have to get away from him after dodging and attacking the previously explained attacks.

After over 50% of his HP is gone he will start doing another attack quite often, this is where it gets even easier, you'll be doing amaranth kicks often.
He'll stand on his back legs and roar sprint quickly behind him and amaranth kick him. Simple as that.

Third Boat and onward Note
By now every Fiona will have Counter Attack, so almost every strategy onwards will suggest to counter attack every single normal attack, barely dodging unless totally necessary.
So depending on your Counter Attack and Shield Mastery rank, you may or may not need a Campfire buff (always better to have it anyway).


The Reaper Dead end street
[No video yet]

He only has one smash attack, and will only do it when you are somewhat far from him.
Should be stunned after two Counters.

Uppercut: You can tell he's going to do this when he pulls his left arm downwards, after that he attacks, easily PGed > Counter.

He has two combos one fast, one slow, you can double counter the slow one.

Fast One: Attacks with left arm first, after that he quickly does a downward attack with the right one. PG the first attack release for half a second and pull up guard again, and counter after the second attack, unless you are positive the first counter will stun him, otherwise you'll be hit.

Slow One: Does a slash with right arm, then thrusts with it. Takes a bit longer between the two attacks, since he "charges" the thrust, so you can double counter here. PG the slash, quickly counter, and quickly pull up guard again > counter.

Smash Attack: Does it only when you are somewhat far from him. You can dodge it with height reduction of HS (see above under Skill Tips if you haven't). Or time a forward roll to dodge and get closer at the same time, to prevent him from spamming the smash attack.


Red Tyrant


Like all my strategy guides, they show how to solo, but by taking these strategies into account, they'll of course come in handy when partying too. If you want to solo it too, you'll need some patience, Fiona has the most disadvantage against Bosses of this type, where everything is a smash attack, her disadvantage becomes lesser when you get Large Shields, but still not as good when compared to the other characters.

Fast Combo: Hardest combo to dodge, watch the vid to get the idea, but here's the explanation -
You can tell he's going to do this when he slams his right paw to the ground, after that he tries to slap you with the left paw, run backwards and then left, as soon as his arm is safe from hitting you (high in the air) start running towards his right hind leg, and quickly roll the your left to dodge the body slam, quickly Sword #1 and immediately do HEAVY STANDER, keep HS for a second, he will either jump, roar, sweep attack, or start turning to face you, in the last case he'll try to combo again.

If he jumps, roar or sweeps your heavy stander will block it. You should run a bit backwards there, always try to keep yourself ready to run towards the left, since that's where you'll be dodging both fast combo and the
Forward jump: Same attack as white tyrant, where he jumps and tries to hit you with the right paw, dodge to your left, and do a single blossom, heavy stander immediately again.

Roar: Stands in two legs, you can amaranth kick here if you calculate correctly the distance, amaranth kick range is bigger than his roar range. Again, heavy stander right away after the kick.
This is also a safe moment to drink an HP potion while standing, but you'll have to be quick about it, start drinking as soon as you notice he's going to roar.

Jump: He jumps upwards and slams the floor, you shouldn't have problems with this, since the range is small, you'll either be heavy standing because of the above, or running leftwards waiting for a combo, in which case this running will be enough to dodge.

Long range combo: Same as White Tyrant combo, where he attacks with left paw then right, while moving forward, he does this when you are at a specific distance from him, you can amaranth kick with the correct calculation of distance, and like always, heavy stander right away.