Quote from CaiAysen;1192785:
- Rain Casting r1: Mine is r9 right now, I don't have second thoughts about getting it, after being bombarded with opinions by alchemists my level I'm starting to worry a little.
Rain cast is handy, but not exactly necessary in general combat. Usage is limited. Always great to have for production or lengthy battles but that's pretty much it.
- Act 6:Crisis r1, Control Puppet rB, Colossus Puppet R???: This seems to be the most suggested alternative, although I really despise using puppets.
Unless you plan to main puppets for damage later on, taking up your secondary slot just for one skill doesn't seem that cost effective to me. Besides, most of the people you'll be party playing with have puppetry nowadays. If I were you I'd leave it to other players.
- Shock r1 Elemental Wave r1: Another suggestion from alchemists of my level, although I'm not too fond of the lag it produces for me and the general annoyances I come across while using Shock. What makes it so amazing that trumps r1 rain casting?
R1 rain casting takes an awful lot of time to cast, 10 effing seconds. Besides, rain casting does not remove aggro. Once they aggro you, the only boost it gives, for combat at least, would be water cannon damage. Not that great unless water cannon is all you use anyway. In other words if you cast it in the middle of combat, you are very much likely to get hit and interrupted.
Shock on the other hand can deal with massive continuous spawns easily. Although yes it gives you quite a bit of lag, it is pretty much the only continuous AOE skill in mabi. Shock can even stun enemies with Mana deflector level 2-, such as the more famous ones, Dullahan, Basalisk, Master Lich.
Elemental wave only provides as a momentary boost for your alchemy skills. Until you have all the skills that elemental wave affects at a rather high rank already, it would be more cost effective to rank other things.
How about considering frozen blast? You only need elemental wave rank N+ to enjoy full benefits. It may not be as capable of handling massive spawns like shock, but those occasions are few and more likely are you to engage in combat with tanky enemies who could use a freeze