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Cynic wrote on 2010-11-22 01:58
Will work on it then. :P
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Navy wrote on 2010-11-22 02:04
I managed to get water cannon from rE to rA today, still working on it though. I needa get service for a crystal bag though because these crystals take up inv space believe it or not. ;_;
What rank should I get it before I start working on something else and what should I work on next? xD
edit : r8 atm from mob lag. o:
edit x2 : r7 but now the boars that were giving me GREAT training exp are no longer doing so, so they're consider "a powerful enemy" so what would be "a very power enemy" for me o:
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Shanghai wrote on 2010-11-22 03:13
@Hanna: Go to Their Method, WM the zombies to a house's wall, then proceed to 1 charge and shoot WC them at will. Make sure you're at a rank F WM's distance from them to achieve a knock-back, since all WC requires you to do is knock-back and attack enemies. It'll switch to knockback and defeat enemies later on, but just set a party up with Finishes available to everyone, then WM them to death and WC them.
Oh great, I just noticed you were an Elf. If you're still level 230, the zombies in Their Method Basic should be around Awful or Boss, I guess. Bring a weapon with you, Elf WMs aren't exactly the best damage dealers with low CM...
Rank 5 is a good stopping point for WC, since it gets a 1.5 second charge time then. You can push onward to rank 1 if you'd like, or start ranking other skills like Barrier Spikes to supplement WC and protect yourself in the process. Chain Cylinder is very useful for WC and Flamer, so rank that whenever it can be ranked, really.
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Fracture wrote on 2010-11-22 03:59
Quote from Cynic;223594:
Barrier Spikes - a questionable skill, I suppose. (Though I think it's beyond epic) But it comes in very handy later on. At r1, it is WELL worth the extra AP drain in Boss fights. You'll never have to worry about taking damage again from the majority of skills. If you ask me? Rank rank rank rank rank.
Priority to rank: 6/10.
General AP cost: 5/10.
Minimum recommended rank: r9.
Overall recommended rank: r5-ish.
Method of obtaining: Complete or participate in the 'Alchemist Seal' quest of G9.
Rank 9 is useless for anything but a pure golem-summoner. Rank 5 is an absolute minimum if you use magic, range, or offensive alchemy at all.
Flame Burst - A decent Alchemy skill when ranked properly. Personally I don't bother using it much.
Priority to rank: 1/10.
General AP cost: 5/10.
Minimum recommended rank: Up to you.
Overall recommended rank: Up to you.
Method of obtaining: Get rank D+ Water Cannon and Wind Blast, then talk to Eabha using the 'Skills' keyword and complete the quest.
Should have much higher priority. Very useful offensive and party-based attack. Always stunlocks for 3-5 seconds, rank dependant, and can deal crippling damage. Also, crit rate totally ignored protection. I'd advise minimum rank of 5 for the 4-hit.
Sand Burst - A bit similar to Frozen Blast, except it only blinds the target. It will only blind the enemy if it is within the 'CP limit', therefore the higher the enemy, the higher the rank needs to be. In terms of AP, Sand Burst is a better choice than Frozen Blast.
Priority to rank: 2/10.
General AP cost: 8/10.
Minimum recommended rank: Up to you. (r9?)
Overall recommended rank: Up to you.
Method of obtaining: Talk to Lucas in Emain macha about 'Skills' with rank Novice+ Alchemy Mastery and complete the quest.
If it's going to be ranked at all, it should probably be rank 1. Even at that, you need r1 AM and Earth Mastery for it to be effective in many things a higher-level alchemist would be doing.
Shock - One of my favorite Alchemy skills. It is very AP costly, but frankly I do think it's damage and effect even that out a bit. A very good skill to rank once you have spare AP to throw around.
Priority to rank: 6/10.
General AP cost: 1/10.
Minimum recommended rank: r9.
Overall recommended rank: r5.
Method of obtaining: Complete the g11 quest 'Shock'. (for Novice rank only) Once Novice rank is required, talk to Heledd with the 'Skills' keyword and obtain all 10 pages. Just like obtaining Advanced magic spells.
For a starting alchemist looking at this, they should consider shock only very late-game. On its own, not very effective, and very difficult to acquire. Other, more basic projectiles should be a consideration long before shock.
Chain Cylinder - Yet another awesome skill. It allows a 10~30% activation rate for additional charges for basic Alchemy skills. (Flame Burst / Water Cannon / Sand Burst) It allows up to 4 additional charges.
Priority to rank: 5/10.
General AP cost: 7/10.
Minimum recommended rank: r7.
Overall recommended rank: r3.
Method of obtaining: Randomly acquired when using offensive Alchemy skills.
Mastery should be recommended on Chain, as activation drastically increases DPS and master title brings activation rate up from 30% to 40%.
Rain Casting - Increases the success rate of Production skills, adds bonus damage to Water cannon and can cause Lightning r1. Very helpful for Crystal making, but also very costly.
Priority to rank: 1/10.
General AP cost: 2/10.
Minimum recommended rank: Up to you.
Overall recommended rank: Not past r5. Up to you.
Method of obtaining: Learned during the 'Rainmaker and Irinid" quest in g10.
I would never advise any skill to not be ranked a given rank. Rain Casting can be used to increase Water Cannon damage significantly and aid in training such skills as Alch Mastery.
Mana Crystallization - Allows you to create advanced magic crystals. Requires charges from said advanced spells.
Priority to rank: 2/10.
General AP cost: 6/10.
Minimum recommended rank: rB.
Overall recommended rank: Up to you.
Method of obtaining: Complete the g9 quest "Fallon's Request".
Long run, you'd want to go for r1. Just for the use of r1 5 charge IS crystals.
Generic comments on the skill section, based on personal alchemical experience. Take it or leave it, just my two cents.
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Ailyene wrote on 2010-11-22 10:31
Personally I think Alchemy Mastery should be the top if not the second to top priority. It IS a little difficult to rank (although I think windmill is more difficult than that and everyone gets that to 1 first anyway if they're doing it right), it adds tons of stats to all the other alchemy skills.
Also, rank 1 rain casting is terrific not only for crystal making, but also for anyone who uses synthesis to duplicate crystals or any life skills. But the AP....T_T
Anyways, I have a question about water cannon. I'm considering ranking it with chain cylinder, but I'm not too sure about the damage compared to range. Let's pretend range will never miss (heh). Currently I do ~400-600 mags on hardmode SM monsters with 1.7k-2k crits. There are a lot of dex skills I haven't ranked yet, so I could have a huge increase in damage later on as well. I was wondering if rank 1 water cannon and a high-ranked chain cylinder could output more damage at a faster rate than magnum? (my aiming speed is human) I saw someone with very excellent water cannon damage, but when I looked at chain cylinder information, I noticed the % of it activating at +4 or +3 charges is quite low, so I'm not sure anymore.
Also, how much damage does tower cylinder increase water cannon by?
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Cynic wrote on 2010-11-22 14:25
@Hanna; Rank 5 water cannon is indeed ideal. It's a bit hard to prioritize at first since there are tons of Alchemy skills, but limited AP unless you rebirth on a weekly basis. (Even with level 30 + level 15 exploration, it's only 45 AP per 3 weeks or so.)
@Fracture; Thank you for the feedback! I'll add those comments in as-well as some more advice.
@Ailyene; I've actually yet to have used a Tower Cylinder. I'm going to test it out today as I myself have been curious, but never took the time to test.
Depending on your critical hit rank, you'd probably do a lot less crits with Water Cannon. Or at-least a considerate amount less.
The damage output depends on a few things, but a r1 water cannon does a minimum of 120 per charge, and assuming you use at-least 3 charges per shot, that's a minimum of 360 dmg by itself. (Again, depends on if you have any bonuses that increase alchemy damage, rain casting, that sort of thing)
With Chain Cylinder it makes it easier to output more damage at a quicker rate. A highly ranked Chain Cylinder almost gives a 50% chance of activation, with an additional 1 or 2 charges practically guaranteed.
With that, you could us 3~5 shots of water cannon, giving you a minimum base damage of 600, not counting any outside factors. A r5+ water cannon is pretty decent on it's own as-well with a minimum of 81 per shot. I one-hit quite a few things with r4 water cannon on Int, with usually only 2~3 charges in Defeat the Former Commander.
Edit: Will add a section for Chain Cylinder later on as-well as some dmg calculations. Also updating the information given the feedback I've received thus far.
Thanks so much for the help to improve the guide. <3
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Fracture wrote on 2010-11-22 16:39
Quote from Ailyene;224345:
Personally I think Alchemy Mastery should be the top if not the second to top priority. It IS a little difficult to rank (although I think windmill is more difficult than that and everyone gets that to 1 first anyway if they're doing it right), it adds tons of stats to all the other alchemy skills.
Also, rank 1 rain casting is terrific not only for crystal making, but also for anyone who uses synthesis to duplicate crystals or any life skills. But the AP....T_T
Anyways, I have a question about water cannon. I'm considering ranking it with chain cylinder, but I'm not too sure about the damage compared to range. Let's pretend range will never miss (heh). Currently I do ~400-600 mags on hardmode SM monsters with 1.7k-2k crits. There are a lot of dex skills I haven't ranked yet, so I could have a huge increase in damage later on as well. I was wondering if rank 1 water cannon and a high-ranked chain cylinder could output more damage at a faster rate than magnum? (my aiming speed is human) I saw someone with very excellent water cannon damage, but when I looked at chain cylinder information, I noticed the % of it activating at +4 or +3 charges is quite low, so I'm not sure anymore.
Also, how much damage does tower cylinder increase water cannon by?
For most of my time in Mabi I was an archer, and was dealing roughly the same. My Alchemy caught up in under 200 levels to Range that I'd been working on for roughly 900, and there are a lot of things I can do to raise the plateau of my Alchemy DPS. While range will overpower Alchemy overall, especially including trans, I think Alchemy works a bit better in terms of sheer versatility, along with comparable DPS.
As for Tower Cylinder, I'm told it's rank-based somehow, but with r1 Water Cannon and r9 Alchemy Mastery, it roughly doubles my damage. Don't forget, too, that Tower Cylinder, unlike elemental cylinders, gives a massive boost to ALL your alchemy. Wind blast rockets your enemy giving you a huge gap in which to load skills, Frozen Blast will easily last longer than the 15-second cooldown, and all attacks have greatly amplified range, damage, radius and effect.
However, for a Tower Cylinder, you MUST do G12. It's a pointless waste of stamina and time to use it while it gives you the "I should talk to the inventor" message. It barely increases damage/effect at all, but still takes the doubled stamina.
@Cynic: Another note about Alchemy Mastery-- Contrary to what the wiki may make it out to sound like, AM does not just affect damage output. You may want to take note that r1 will, for instance, increase Frozen Blast's freeze time by 45%, the cap on Sand Blast's CP range by 45%, barrier HP by 45%, etc. It's much more useful than most people believe.
While cylinders are a more personal-preference kinda thing, I've found that full -stam seems to be the best route for Towers, while full +damage works well for fire cylinders. Towers already have such a massive boost to damage that extra will be somewhat pointless, and probably unnoticeable. Fire, meanwhile, would be mainly used for Flame Burst. It has a fairly low stam cost, and ignores protection for calculating critical, but has damage that could do with some supplementation.
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Cynic wrote on 2010-11-22 16:52
Heh, indeedy. I just wish it didn't take so long to rank at times. r1 is going to be a pain indeed. -scratches head-
Duly noted, though. Will be adding that shortly.
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Fracture wrote on 2010-11-22 17:13
It is a pain Dx
Finally made it to r9 with the help of snowballs though, and after this rank I can effectively disregard crystal-making totally. Thank Lymilark...
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Ailyene wrote on 2010-11-22 17:47
Quote from Fracture;224450:
For most of my time in Mabi I was an archer, and was dealing roughly the same. My Alchemy caught up in under 200 levels to Range that I'd been working on for roughly 900, and there are a lot of things I can do to raise the plateau of my Alchemy DPS. While range will overpower Alchemy overall, especially including trans, I think Alchemy works a bit better in terms of sheer versatility, along with comparable DPS.
As for Tower Cylinder, I'm told it's rank-based somehow, but with r1 Water Cannon and r9 Alchemy Mastery, it roughly doubles my damage. Don't forget, too, that Tower Cylinder, unlike elemental cylinders, gives a massive boost to ALL your alchemy. Wind blast rockets your enemy giving you a huge gap in which to load skills, Frozen Blast will easily last longer than the 15-second cooldown, and all attacks have greatly amplified range, damage, radius and effect.
However, for a Tower Cylinder, you MUST do G12. It's a pointless waste of stamina and time to use it while it gives you the "I should talk to the inventor" message. It barely increases damage/effect at all, but still takes the doubled stamina.
Wow, it DOUBLES your damage? I have rank 3 Alchemy mastery...so does that mean more than double...? If I can usually get in 300-500 damage with CC water cannon and if the tower cylinder doubles it, it would be pretty worth it I think since mag takes so long to aim and then it misses. =_=
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Username wrote on 2010-11-22 21:16
You forgot Heat Buster.
Its probally the best skill in an Alchemist's arsenal. As i have R1 on a Human, its quite formidable.
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Kavach wrote on 2010-11-22 21:18
one big problem with golems is that they have normal stun time, in solo play, if you can't ohko or 2 shot mobs while in deadly or ~10% health your golems will end up dying. greatest advantage of player mill is pet swiping.
Anyways, as previously noted flame burst with cc will give you the best bang for your buck - eventually that will be your dominant skill over wc.
I notice you left out g12 enchants such as white horse etc. and RA enchants. If you're daring and completely focused on combat I would think you would currently be better off with a RA soggy white horse suit for wc, that is if you can afford it. You'd be severely limited to what skills will give you the most dps however.
I've done the math and between mid-hi tier player with the best enchants and relatively good stats in the wil/luk dept. you will barely scrap 100 crit without needing to overly sacrifice damage enchants. WC is definetely not supreme in high level dungeons with 30+ prot.
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Cynic wrote on 2010-11-22 21:35
@Kavach; Pet swiping can be difficult at first without 3+ good pets to help them. Golems will die eventually, but, I do find that they work pretty well and are, of course, NX-friendly. A decent pet costs around 5~10k, which not everyone can afford right off the bat. But I do know what you mean.
As for the enchants, I only added ones that are primarily Alchemist-based. (i.e. stamina, HP, increases Alchemy skills dmg, etc) If people want to add other enchants that give them certain attributes, they're more than welcome. Just pointing out a few helpful ones. xP
@Username; Ahh, I didn't even see that! -Hasn't passed g9- Will add that shortly.
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Zid wrote on 2010-11-22 22:04
This is said before, but your guide pretty much works for all races, not just Elves.
Stiff Round Shield from "Shadow Cast City" Intermediate is a good beginner shield for Water Cannon users. Also, r1 Water Cannon + Master Chain Cylinder is definitely comparable to mid-high lvl Ranged, especially with proper enchants and upgrades. Let's not forget what r1 Alchemy Mastery and r1 Water Alchemy Mastery can afford. Ranged can outdmg it, but Water Cannon with a shield is far more reliable (unless we're talking Crash Shot here, but that's another story).
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Username wrote on 2010-11-22 22:28
I never see anyone with Stiff Round Shields, and i want one to increase my heat buster, so it can crit more often. However i never see them on sale or anything, i should run SCC Hard more. Is it rare rare or just uncommon? :V