Fencer's builds clarification : Str vs Wis

[LoIcatKumi]

Hi everyone,

As I've heard GMs are on their way to make some tricks for all the Fencer main sake, here is a short guide to clarify stats effects on our dear potatoes (yeah, Fencers have a good reputation as fighting potatoes... or maybe not?).

The problem with Fencer is that is an open class, as Sofstar builded them as some kind of magical fighter (like the red knights of Final Fantasy)... So in fact, nobody knows exactly how to build them, and most players stop to the 'magical' word and go full wis without any further though.

This mini guide will only stuck to full wis and full str builds as others seem inconsistent to me, reducing your output damages (and you are already a potato, so you really don't need that).

Full Wis Build
Pros :
- Damage are higher on single targets and aoe skills
- MP bar is bigger and the MP regen is higher

Cons :
- You are a fried potato if you go OOM (aka, no MP left), and you can go easily
- Lower intermedial output damage when your skills are on cooldown (hopefully, Wis gives ATK so you are not totally useless...)
- Solo levelling on low levels are a real pain

Full Str Build
Pros :
- Higher intermedial damage output when your skills are on cooldown
- Fewer OOM suffering (no OOM at all at high level)
- Solo levelling is not a problem at all, and you can even use the "control" part of skill against though monsters
- You can laugh at dancer kind monsters

Cons :
- Your skill damages are lower (but the gap is not that huge, i saw around 500 dmg points difference on a single target attack with my stuff, at level 69 between full wis and full str)
- You are less fitted for AoEs in team (it's a consequence for your lower skill damages)


In conclusion :
Full Wis and Full Str build are almost equivalent.

However, based on my personnal experience with the game, what I can recommend is :
- If you planned to play as team and you can enslave a party muse, go full Wis and play as an AoEr.
- If you only want to rely only on yourself (or have problems to find teams), you should seriously consider a full Str and single target build.

For the potato part :
- for now I still didn't find a way to clear the problem of the non elemental monsters making you totally useless (but less on str build...)
- forget the idea to reach the same damage output as blademasters (or wizards...)
- the "Targeted attacks" skill branch, said "for pvp only" (on common knowledge), will still make your ennemies roll on the floor from laugh... because the cast delay of "Stunning Strike", "Crippling Clout", "Slap on the Wrist" and "Pressure Point Strike" is just 10th time too long for making them useable in pvp. (and for Razzle Dazzle, after several years of use i still wonder if it really works...)


You are free to give your opinion on this thread (even if it's that Ganeel sucks and make you roll on floor from laugh being the only single targetter on the whole server...)

[Superstarstrike]

The full Wis build is definitely a good starter build (you can't go wrong with this), but a full Pow build is ultimately the better build in the long run. Here's why:

Since there is no such thing as magic attack amplification (yet) , this means at a certain magic attack value against certain monsters, you will not be doing any more damage from the base damage of the elemental skills. Example: At 431 magic attack (we are rounding down here), your base damage would be considered "capped" against Iron Hedgehogs. This is not an easy value to obtain at first, but if you are one of those crazy people who pimp out their fencer gear to full potential (or be like me and use both auras + blood boil) this is essential knowledge. Since the rest of Fencer relies on physical damage, a full Pow build would allow you to reach higher damage values.

This is very unlikely to happen, but if you happen to have someone with Tinges of Spring, it is laughably easy to have every magic attacker (including Fencer) cap their aoes at their low levels. This makes full Pow Fencer even stronger.


In short: Full Wis = beginner build. Full Pow = full potential build, and like you said, it would be a better build for single target especially since the base damage falls off very hard late game.

[Zeroxyl]

Can someone explain to me or link me to why magic damage falls off so badly?

[Superstarstrike]

Can someone explain to me or link me to why magic damage falls off so badly?

I believe the main culprit at this point is lack of amplification. It's basically a multiplier that takes the difference of your offensive stat and the enemy's defensive stat and multiplies it by a certain amount, depending on how much amplification the skill has.

Let's say Maniac Attack has an amp of 1600% (I don't remember the exact amount but I do know it's very high), and you have 2500 physical attack while your opponent has 100. 2500 - 100 = 2400, and then it multiplies 2400 by 16. That's how much extra damage it will deal.

The only magical skills that do have amplification work off of your physical attack (hi Fencer & Witch Doctor). As a magic user, you will rarely focus on physical attack. There is no such thing as amp off of magic attack.

Even if there was, there is very little means of a magic attack steroid. The biggest flat amount is Fire of Sultry Summer, which doesn't even have a % increase, making it debatable if Yin Frog or Fire of Sultry Summer is better end-game. The highest magic attack I've been able to reach was about 2200 (with as many buffs as possible), but high leveled physical classes treat 2200 as an average number. Magic amplification would need to be relatively high; 300% (I'm looking at you, Agony Bug & Bloodthirsty Bug) won't cut it. It is very hard to reach 2200 magic attack.

Magic skills also used to have no element manipulation at all. A few weeks ago, that was made possible, buffing every magical skill with base elements (including Fencer!). As long as the skill's element matches with your current element attack, it gets boosted. Non-elemental spells are unaffected. Obviously, this means element manipulation for magic is limited. Give an earth weapon to a physical job? Everything they have is now earth!

It's not until you finally unlock Sorcerer for Godlike Demeanor that your damage improves by a fair amount. Godlike Demeanor is 20% extra magic damage; 10% on other jobs. This would be 27% total on Sorcerer, 24% on Wizard, 17% on everything else (yes I am counting lvl 7 Finding Enlightenment, which requires lvl 72, which means rebirthing).

In short: No magic amplification + lack of options + limited element manipulation + needing Sorcerer before damage is acceptable = poor scaling

Magic amp would need to be added to the skills of Wizard & Shaman (maybe the magic skills of Dancer too?). Since this thread is about Fencer, base damage is a serious problem, plus their amp is poor.

[LoIcatKumi]

Here is a small update about this short guide, as i was able to do some retry on high level monsters (first tries were made on lowbies).

Even with the last game updates, i can confirm both build are still equivalent, because of the damage amplification.
Damage are capped, even on high level monsters.

Let's say, with a full pow build and a good weapon, you can at most get 2x the damage you are making on a single hit with single target skills (skill damage are the same with full wis, but your single hit damage are lowered).
Going on the 2nd skill set won't help, as they are nerfed if you use All-out Assault for single hit (what doesn't happen on the 1st skill set).

Maxing AoE also sucks even with a full wis build because of cap, and the fact you can't boost your teammates damage as everyone got some elemental enchant on him/her.

Only way to improve seems to be to max aspd on pow build.

Or being crazy and alternate shamy and fencer's skills now shaman skills make the monster the element of the skill.

[LoIcatKumi]

Last update about that small guide after some tries with the fencer x shaman / shaman x fencer builds.

I can now tell for sure that :

1) The change made to shaman 1st set of skills that made skills available to inbue element on monsters gives a huge increase of power to both classes (fencer and shaman).

2) Using rolling between fencer and shaman skills is quite tedious as you have to change weapon before each cast (the best is to put weapons on shortcut as it changes faster than by clicking on them), but not undoable (a friend of mine told me that she even use it in pvp).

3) The MP consuption is really high, i think even a slave muse won't be enough (magical daikons required)

4) Using rolling is better on shaman than fencer. With the same weapons, target (lion statue lvl 60- commoner), level and skills, I got :
On fencer (full wis) : around 9k on shamy skills and around 20-25k damage on fencer's skills = ~145-170k damages on a full roll
On shaman (full wis) : around 30k on shamy skills and around 15k on fencer's skills = ~225k damages on a full roll

So now shaman > fencer, on wis build and pow build is outdated...
(previously, we already knew than hunter and blademaster > fencer on pow build...)

Except than you can't use the wis build on raids as bosses are laughing at you... (rolling doesn't work on bosses).

To conclude this clarification topic :
On end game, wis fencer is quite fitted for fast levelling and farming (even if shaman is superior with the same build).
But for raids, you have to go on pow build if you want to stay as Fencer.

In late conclusion (and if no further changes are made), I can now sadly say that Fencer will never be fit for end game, as there's no place on which it can be better than another (and it's my fav class, as it is really fun to play!). So you now have to keep your Fencer's skills for :
- fast level with aoe on rebirth, even on other classes (support required)
- empower a magical class (shaman, sorcerer maybe?), to make it over limits.