The main benefit of snipe first is if you don't mind a steady, slower paced 120-140 life of daily pap/BF/chao+eph. Otherwise, SE first is most prudent for strafe and party favorability. If you go snipe first, your zak runs 135-140/41/42 may not even notice/care the not quite maxed SE, but always better to tell than reveal right before or during to avoid any party conflict and social issues. And again not to harp on strafe's KB being retooled to KB per arrow, would buff the class massively, (esp if marksmanship dropped it to three lines), but also make BF solos extraordinarily simple for MM, but its been requested for years and why would we challenge nostalgia amirite
Thanks for all the suggestions and tips pro MMs~~ After several deaths in the first hour.. I found a good way of duo attacking with my bucc that keeps BF pinned 95% of the time, no deaths. Pin with bucc first and MM can stand a bit further away to give some leeway to abort mission (e.g. go in a portal) if BF becomes unpinned or does the teleport glitch. Repin with bucc and return. Because I squeeze in game play in short spurts and have to be able to drop and go anytime, I do more solo play. So opted for adding to SE +2 (keep at odd levels) and Snipe +1 each level since #yolo a weird hybrid but I think it makes sense for duo BF?..or I'm just being silly that's okay too lol
Reporting back re: pinning BF on a MM. I realized using my old Maple Pyrope Crow + booster was actually better dps for BF cuz it misses less and BF doesn't get unpinned even with Snipe or occasionally hitting a jr. wraith/missing a hit. I didn't have SI readily available maybe someone can test with Nescheres or a Dragon Shiner Cross + SI no booster. Making a bind with Snipe -> Strafe as suggested in Post's guide definitely helps keep the hits continuous! I ended up doing the 2:1 for SE and Snipe skill points and it worked out great cuz I had maxed SE by level 135 anyways and lower level snipe works fine for BF cuz you use it less frequently to avoid unpinning. Hope this helps the no-funding/self-training players as level 120 to 145 was a breeze by doing BFs! Edited to say - I'm really enjoying playing this class so far! Thanks for the guide, Post!
It'll work! It will only hit 4 mobs at level 1, but that's serviceable. Power Knockback can also be used to help group. You'll want the one point anyways for VL if you plan on running that
Strafe used to be identical between BM and MM, dealing 100% x4. At some point (I don't remember at this point sorry lol), they changed MM's Strafe to do 125% x4, since it's our main attacking skill, and to help close the gap between BM and MM DPS.
Sharing a bunch of random little mm tips and tricks I've learned over the years: Piercing Arrow vs Snipe/Strafe: I didn't do the math, but my general impression is that PA and strafe are pretty close on 3 targets so use whichever, but on 4+ targets PA becomes much better. On 6 targets you can probably white any other class with PA What about Arrow Eruption: Arrow Eruption has niche uses but you should almost always prefer PA whenever you can. Some examples of where arrow eruption is actually nice: Hitting targets below you - like the pesky wyverns in ht "Crowd Surfing" - in VL if you have no HSH and need to play it safe, you can stand on the gargs to tank hits for iframes and just arrow eruption. In CWK if you have to help out with the bottom 3 bosses, you can use this strat to stand on the bosses to avoid the stuns (but your dmg will not be great) Core blaze: You should use your 3rd job bird (the eagle - be sure to bring summoning rocks for it) during this boss so that they stun the mobs so they can't get behind you (the more stats you put into it the higher the stun rate). If you hit one but didn't finish it off you can also quickly throw out an emergency puppet in front of you so you can manipulate them to fly in front rather than under/behind you where it's danger How to Shao: You actually have two options in Shao. You can split clones or you can just kill them (if you're decently strong/use apple if not): a) Kill clones: If you see someone R> melee shao, you can join it! Don't let them gaslight you into thinking you can't When clones come out, switch to PA instead. You'll be hitting 4 targets so your overall DPS will be pretty good (damage on boss itself will slow down just a bit until clones die, then it will pick back up when you switch back to strafe/snipe). Keep frostprey out the entire time to freeze and keep clones in corner. b) Split clones: When clones come out, get behind them all and PKB. You'll push everything out. When you have space, switch to Dragon Breath. DB pushes only the clones and not the boss. Use that to split them, then PKB the boss back into corner. Use frostprey to keep clones frozen behind you. With the annoying new aggro changes they can break out of it sometimes, you may have to refreeze them manually with blizzard/use puppet/PKB them back as needed. Luring unpushable mobs: You can't push any mobs in places like LHC, but you can very slowly lure them. Hit them all first, then puppet somewhere. They'll slowly walk towards it (as long as no one else is attacking them) and all group up where you can continue to PA them. Helpful in LHC golems/scroll party if no one else is there to help you on your platform. DON'T USE PUPPET IN VL: it's almost 100% guaranteed to DC you. It's been like this since boss was released and I wish it would get fixed already T_T Archers can jump attack: If you press jump and an attack at the exact same time (I think similar to telecasting), you can do a jumping attack. Very useful for moving forward while attacking. I use this with dragon breath in RG to push mobs on the go Other random stuff: PA can be charged/cancelled on ropes. You can jump/crouch while charging PA (useful for ducking bird/jumping lasers in VL) Blizzard is great for rapidly killing really weak mobs for farming quest/event etcs or something, because of how the splash damage spreads MM is great at EPQ: you can help push stuff in the second stage, and you can basically solo the protect the NPC stage by spamming blizzard + having frostprey out MM is also great at DOJO: you can 1hit half the bosses with snipe, and it costs only 11mp per snipe. You can solo the entire thing with clever use of puppet to avoid taking 1/1s or debuffs You can Snipe using a bow (need to equip bow arrows), and it still does 199k. I don't know why you'd want to but it's a fun party trick :3 edit: BONUS guides (artistic renditions): vergamot: Spoiler nibergen: Spoiler zak: Spoiler krex: Spoiler cwk: Spoiler
Also adding to guide! The snipe with bow party trick is one of my favorite useless facts about this game lol.
I was trying to go back and find out where I learned that, because I think I saw it on forums somewhere. It may have been from you actually! Also, I was asked to make more guides so I edited my post above to add a few more. I hope they are helpful
I'm glad you like them, I had alot of fun making them Feel free to make your own too, I would love to see them!