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Flame of Annihilation
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<span style="font-size: 1rem; text-shadow: none;">an Inquisitor guide by Cruro</span></div>
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Revision as of 23:26, 19 March 2024

Flame of Annihilation
an Inquisitor guide by Cruro

Warning Disclaimer
This guide is still a work in progress and is very much incomplete. I plan to add more infos over the upcoming days and weeks.

Always double-check any info you find here with others from the community. Especially #acolyte in muhro-discord

Prologue

ToDo:

  • more basic description/explanations
Strengths Weaknesses
  • Fastest movement in the game with Snap
  • Active and engaging gameplay that can feel satisfying to use
  • Very fast and decently strong farmer with self-targeted AOE (Explosion Blaster)
  • Very strong, AP-dependant, melee, big damage number nuke (Third Flame Bomb)
  • Hybrid build can cover weaknesses of respective other build
  • Third Flame Bomb build has very high sustain in endgame maps due to scaling with health
  • Very expensive to gear if you want to utilize both builds
  • Far from a one-button class -> can be tiring in long farming sessions
  • Third Flame Bomb gets countered by reflect, NPC_AGIUP, or simply dying (loss of AP)
  • Third Flame Bomb can be mechanically tricky to use consistently
  • Getting dispelled stops any momentum - regardless of your build - until you rebuff


Beginner Chapter: Basic Techniques

Stats and Traits

  • Str: As a knuckle (or mace) wearer, this increases status-atk by a high amount. It also helps with carrying more loot. Recommended: 90 - 120 (120 when using 300271.png Happy Card (300271) -combo).
  • Agi: Increases aspd and flee. Aspd is important to fluently chain skills. Recommended: Whatever is needed to hit 190+ aspd with consumables (might only be possible with later gears that also give aspd)
  • Vit: Increases your maximum health and resistance to certain status effects. Recommended: 90 - 120.
  • Int: Reduces variable cast time (half as efficient as dex) and increases maximum SP as well as SP recovery. Recommended: 60 - 90.
  • Dex: Reduces variable cast time and increases hit. Recommended: 90 - 120 (120 when using 300270.png Empathize Card (300270) -combo).
  • Luk: Increases crit-rate (Cri), slightly increases status-atk and gives resistance to curse. Recommended: 30 - 120 (depending on Cri-needs)

For traits, only the following matter for offense:

  • Pow: Every 3 Pow increases P.Atk by one. P.Atk is a new final damage modifier (similar to range%, melee% and crit-damage%) that has been introduced with 4th jobs. Recommended: 100
  • Con: Additionally, every 5 Con also increase P.Atk and give some secondary stats like hit, flee. Recommended: Either 35, 45, 90 or 100 (depends on build/gears, see specific chapters).
  • Crt: Increases C.Rate, a new final modifier similar to P.Atk but for critical damage only (not to be confused with your critical hit chance, aka. "Cri"). Recommended: Either 35, 45, 90 or 100 (depends on build/gears, see specific chapters).


Relevant Skills

Buffs and utility skills:

  • 264.png Body Relocation (Snap): This is the reason to play this class. It grants you the fastest movement in the game, but it also aids as an additional tool to fight position bugs - the cell you snap to is definitely where you character is standing.

Movement speed stops mattering entirely if you can simply chose where to exist in space. Once you unlock Snap, you will never walk again.

  • 2338.png Rising Dragon: Bumps your sphere-limit to 15 and spawns all of them immediately, grants additional HP/SP, and puts you into "Explosion Spirits"-state which removes sphere-consumption from Snap.

The first skill you are going to press before doing anything and mandatory to keep up.

  • 401.png Dangerous Soul Collect (Zen): Instantly calls the maximum amount of spheres. If you're missing spheres, this is the basic tool to gain them back, pretty straight-forward.

Cast can be cancelled, so it requires either -1s FCT to remove cast time entirely, or you can snap away from a mob to not get interrupted so easily and snap back. Alternatively you can also just cast 2338.png Rising Dragon again if it's off cooldown as it has no cast time that can be interrupted.

  • 2340.png Power Absorb: Consumes all your spheres and grants back 1% SP for each sphere that has been consumed. With Rising Dragon active, this is a handy tool to regain 15% SP immediately.
  • 26.png Teleport: Essential for field/dungeon farming. Allows you to teleport to a random spot (put Lv1 on your hotkeybar to avoid the popup-window).
  • 29.png Increase Agility: The increased movementspeed is irrelevant to us, but the additional Agi helps our attack speed, which is absolutely welcome.
  • 34.png Blessing: A nice +10 boost to Str/Int/Dex. However, it also clears Curse-status from yourself and others, and Stone-Curse-status from others.
  • 2345.png Gentle Touch-Cure: Removes various negative status effects, with the more important ones being: Freeze, Stone Curse and Hallucination (upside-down screen). This skill can even be casted while Frozen/Stone-cursed yourself, which is extremely rare and valuable.


  • 2348.png Gentle Touch-Revitalize: Increases Max HP by 10% and also boosts Def/HP-recovery. Useful for HP-scaling skills like 2330.png Tiger Cannon and 5252.png Third Flame Bomb. Cannot be used together with 2347.png Gentle Touch-Change.
  • 2347.png Gentle Touch-Change: Increases Atk% and flat Atk. Useful for all attack-skills that do not scale with HP. Cannot be used together with 2348.png Gentle Touch-Revitalize.


  • 5239.png Firm Faith: Increases MaxHp%. Useful for HP-scaling skills like 2330.png Tiger Cannon and 5252.png Third Flame Bomb. Cannot be used together with 5238.png Powerful Faith.
  • 5238.png Powerful Faith: Adds +15 P.Atk. Very strong during buff during early- and mid-game where there are not many sources of P.Atk from gears yet. Still decent in end-game. Cannot be used together with 5239.png Firm Faith.


  • 5246.png First Faith Power: Self-buff that removes sphere consumption of Fallen Empire. Mainly only used as a stepping-stone for 5247.png Judge.
  • 5247.png Judge: AP-consuming self-buff that additionally removes sphere consumption of Flash Combo. Mainly only used as a stepping-stone for 5254.png Third Exorcism Flame.
  • 5254.png Third Exorcism Flame: AP-consuming self-buff that additionally removes sphere consumption of Tiger Cannon. Mainly only used to enable usage of 5252.png Third Flame Bomb-combo.


Attack Skills:

  • 5241.png Oleum Sanctum: Not a strong skill on its own, but it applies a heavy debuff on the targets that will make them receive +50% more damage from all range attacks (including your own).

Very useful in party scenarios with range-attackers or yourself on Explosion Blaster build.

  • 5244.png Explosion Blaster: Strong, self-targeted 9x9 Aoe attack that scales with range% and crit-modifiers. Base damage formula becomes even bigger against targets that are afflicted with the 5241.png Oleum Sanctum debuff.

This lets you effectively double-dip on Oleum: You deal +50% more damage due to the applied debuff, and you also get the increased damage formula. This usually results in twice the damage for Explosion Blaster.

For more in-depth information, check Intermediate Chapter: Explosion Blaster.


  • 5245.png First Brand: Initial starter for Third Flame Bomb combo. Applies "Brand"-status on all monsters around the target in a 9x9 Aoe (needed for the next combo-step).
  • 5248.png Second Flame: Second step in Third Flame Bomb combo. Can only be casted on targets afflicted with the "Brand"-status. Applies the upgraded "Judgement Brand"-status on all monsters around the target in a 9x9 Aoe. Requires 5254.png Third Exorcism Flame to be active.
  • 5252.png Third Flame Bomb: Finisher of the Third Flame Bomb combo. Can only be casted on targets afflicted with the "Judgement Brand"-status. Deals very high damage on all monsters around the target in a 9x9 Aoe. Requires 5254.png Third Exorcism Flame to be active.

This skill scales with max HP, melee and attack modifiers. It deals three hits if 15 spheres are active (but does not consume any). Beware that it deals 0 hits with 5 or less spheres (e.g. when Rising Dragon runs out).

For more in-depth information, check The Final Chapter: Third Flame Bomb.


Sphere Management

While other classes may have consumables like arrows or gemstones, Monk class uses a sphere-system that needs to be managed like a resource in order to be able to use certain skills or at least to use them at their full strength.

This used to be a limiting factor during Monk-era with skills like 266.png Investigate, 267.png Finger Offensive and most notoriously 271.png Asura Strike, but it also carried on into Sura-era with skills like 2330.png Tiger Cannon and 2343.png Gate of Hell.

Those skills could only be used as long as you still have the needed amount of spheres (varies by skill). With insufficient spheres, they can be re-called using either 261.png Call Spirits, or more likely its successor 401.png Dangerous Soul Collect (Zen) which will refill the maximum amount of spheres instantly.

Another important skill to mention here is the bread and butter 264.png Body Relocation which normally also consumes spheres, unless you're in "Explosion Spirits"-state (usually by using 2338.png Rising Dragon, or if it's currently in cooldown, alternatively 270.png Explosion Spirits).

For that reason alone, the "Explosion Spirit"-state should be kept up at all times.

The original maximum spheres used to be 5 spheres, at least until you're Sura and have access to Lv10 2338.png Rising Dragon which will bump the limit to 15 Spheres.

One very useful trick to maintain your SP is by occasionally using 2340.png Power Absorb to consume all 15 spheres, and in return grant an immediate 15% SP back.


With these things out of the way, sphere-management has been simplified a lot as Inquisitor. Neither of the main damage skill consume spheres at all, however Third Flame Bomb will scale its damage based on the amount of spheres currently active. So it's highly recommended to use 401.png Dangerous Soul Collect (Zen) or 2338.png Rising Dragon whenever spheres might have been consumed (as Inquisitor that's usually just by Gentle-Touch buffs or Power Absorb).

On top of that, the Inquisitor-specific AP-consuming buffs even remove sphere consumption on most Sura skills (that we tend to not use anymore at this point though).


Intermediate Chapter: 5244.png Explosion Blaster

EB farming showcase using droprate gears (reduced damage/aftercastdelay)

Explosion Blaster is a 9x9 AOE based on ranged dmg and crit.

It is highly recommended to build for Aftercastdelay-reduction (ACDR), even far beyond the point needed to reduce the 1s ACD to match its 0.7s CD.

While the former would only require 30% ACDR, getting 50% and higher will allow you to snap away to the next target noticably faster.


Stats

  • Str: 120
  • Agi: 60 - 90
  • Vit: 90+
  • Int: 60 - 90
  • Dex: 120

Needed when using 300270.png Empathize Card (300270) combo, can be lower otherwise.

  • Luk: 30 - 120

Heavily depends on your Cri-needs (see Secondary Stats below)


Traits

  • Pow: 100
  • Con: 35
  • Crt: 100

Beware that if you plan to use any Nebula Armor with 310682.png Star Cluster of Concentration Lv.3 (310682) , it should be Con: 90 and Crt: 45 instead


Secondary Stats

  • Cri: 140+

The actual amount of Cri needed depends on the target monster. In an ideal scenario 100 Cri would equal to 100% critical hit chance. However, enemy Luk will lower your chances of critting, that's why overshooting 100 Cri is often necessary. Concrete values can be checked by using @mi <monster-name-or-id> ingame and check for the crit-shield value. With the recommended Cri-value of 140, any target with a crit-shield of 40 and lower will always be critted. Certain endgame places may require even higher values, but that's relatively rare.

  • Aftercastdelay reduction: 30 - 86%

30% is the bare minimum to use EB on cooldown, however in order to be able to snap to the next target, at least 50% or higher is recommended for farming)



Regular Gears

Slot Items Cards Notes
Headgear (Top) +12 19481.png Temporal Circlet (Sura) [1] (19481)
29085.png Acute Lv5 (29085)
29689.png Temporal Jewel (LUK) Lv 3 (29689)
300363.png Limacina Card (300363) It's important to get the luk jewel lv3 correctly first as it cannot be rerolled or receive an determined enchant
Headgear (Mid) Any other mid headgear with ACDR-enchant can also be useful here
Headgear (Low) - Blood sucker helps a lot with sustain, and would be the prefered choice for farming when a minor damage-loss is usually acceptable
Armor -
Weapon +12 [A] 560037.png Dim Glacier Knuckle [1] (560037)
311306.png Glacier Flower Spell (Explosion Blaster) (311306)
311306.png Glacier Flower Spell (Explosion Blaster) (311306)
311453.png Glacier Flower Spell (Physical Grade) Lv5 (311453)
4608.png White Knight Card (4608) -
Shield 4609.png Khalitzburg Knight Card (4609) -
Garment +12 [A] 480174.png Pirate Captain's Coat [1] (480174) Empathize Card is mandatory when using Observation Card in Armor
Shoes +12 [A] 470175.png Ice Rune Boots [1] (470175) 300380.png Entangled Intermediate Rgan Card (300380) -
Accessories 300278.png Void Mimic Card (300278) At least 1xGW Ring with +30 Cri can help a lot when using hybrid TFB/EB build which lacks natural cri.

Shadow Gears and Costume Stones

Slot Item Notes
Headgear (Top) 1000222.png Assassin Cross Stone II (Top) (1000222) -
Headgear (Mid) 25060.png Critical Stone (25060) -
Headgear (Low) 1000976.png Guillotine Cross Stone (Low) (1000976) -
Armor +10 24679.png Maximum Mammoth Shadow Armor (24679) -
Weapon +10 24386.png Infinity Shadow Weapon (24386) -
Shield +9/10 24746.png Separate Reload Shadow Shield (24746) -
Garment 1000221.png Guillotine Cross Stone II (Garment) (1000221) and 1000855.png Critical Stone (Dual) (1000855) -
Shoes +10 24680.png Maximum Mammoth Shadow Shoes (24680) -
Accessories +9/10 24661.png Full Penetration Shadow Earring (24661) and +9/10 24662.png Full Penetration Shadow Pendant (24662) -

Buffs and Consumables

  • 2347.png Gentle Touch-Change (Sura): Minor attack (flat and percentage) boost
  • 5238.png Powerful Faith (Inquisitor): Nice +15 P.Atk for free

The Final Chapter: 5252.png Third Flame Bomb

Third Flame Bomb vs COGH Level 10 Amdarais

Third Flame Bomb is a three-step combo that ends in a 9x9 AOE finisher based on melee dmg and your total health.

To be able to use the combo, it's necessary to activate the following three buffs in order: 5246.png First Faith Power -> 5247.png Judge -> 5254.png Third Exorcism Flame

While the first buff does not cost AP, upgrading to the final buff will consume a total of 100 AP (if the skills are maxed, if they are not, more AP is consumed). When done correctly, a bright golden circle appears behind the character.

The easiest tool to recover AP (when there is no healer NPC nearby) is casting Explosion Blaster. Since it's a self-targeted skill it can be used at anytime without requiring a target monster. However, this is usually only necessary when dying inside an instance. Using the Third Flame Bomb combo repeatedly will quickly recover any AP lost by activating the buffs to begin with.


Brand Mechanic

The combo itself uses a "brand"-mechanic. This is a kind of mark that is applied to all targets that are hit by a combo skill. The general flow is:

  • 5245.png First Brand will apply "Brand"-status on all monsters in a 9x9 area around the target
  • 5248.png Second Flame can only be used against targets with "Brand"-status. When hitting the target, all monsters in a 9x9 area receive the "Judgement Brand"-status (regardless if they had any brand of them previously)
  • 5252.png Third Flame Bomb can only be used against targets with "Judgement Brand"-status. When hitting the target, all monsters in a 9x9 area will receive drastic damage.


Stats

  • Str: 120
  • Agi: 60 - 90

Getting to 190+ aspd is highly recommended for a smoother combo

  • Vit: 120+
  • Int: 60 - 90
  • Dex: 90
  • Luk: 30


Traits

  • Pow: 100
  • Con: 100
  • Crt/any: 35

After maxing Pow/Con, the remaining points can be put into any defensive trait. However, I would recommend putting it into Crt if planning to use Explosion Blaster with the same stat-build.


Secondary Stats

  • Aftercastdelay reduction: 40%+

The recent rebalance added 0.7s aftercastdelay to Third Flame Bomb, the last step of the combo. I found 40%+ to be a decent enough value to perform the combo just fast enough. Fortunately, this can already be achieved with offensive endgame gears without intentionally sacrificing damage for it: 15% (Dim Enchant) + 15% (Grade A Glade Rune Manteau) + 10% (Depth Armor) Separate Reload Shadow Shield can also be used to compensate missing gears to some extend.


Regular Gears

Slot Items Cards Notes
Headgear (Top) +11/12 [A] 400110.png Crown of Beelzebub [1] (400110) 300174.png Melted Poring Card (300174) -
Headgear (Mid) 410233.png Gambler's Seal [1] (410233)
Melee% or HP% enchants
300174.png Melted Poring Card (300174) Alternatively any mid-headgear with hp% enchants
Headgear (Low) - Blood Sucker is especially strong on TFB build - extremely high sustain
Armor Use Two Eyes Dollocaris Card only if armor is +12, otherwise Shelter Card unless you have these MVP cards
Weapon +12 [A] 560037.png Dim Glacier Knuckle [1] (560037)
311305.png Glacier Flower Spell (Extermination) (311305)
311305.png Glacier Flower Spell (Extermination) (311305)
311453.png Glacier Flower Spell (Physical Grade) Lv5 (311453)
With my current setup I found Wanderer Card to be about 0.5% stronger, but Punch Bug also works against small monsters
Shield +11 460017.png Illusion Guard [1] (460017)
29010.png Rune of Vitality Lv2 (29010)
29010.png Rune of Vitality Lv2 (29010)
300235.png Mushy Ant Egg Card (300235) -
Garment +11 [A]480231.png Glade Rune Manteau [1] (480231) Happy Card is required when using Shelter Card in Armor
Shoes +11 [C]470073.png Boots of Unknown Life [1] (470073) The boots proc often (especially when mobbing) and roughly double the damage of TFB
Accessories 300076.png Broken Beta Guards Card (300076) -

Shadow Gears and Costume Stones

Slot Item Notes
Headgear (Top) 1000377.png Melee Stone (Top) (1000377) -
Headgear (Mid) 1000378.png Melee Stone (1000378) -
Headgear (Low) 1000379.png Melee Stone (Low) (1000379) -
Armor +10 24679.png Maximum Mammoth Shadow Armor (24679) -
Weapon +10 24386.png Infinity Shadow Weapon (24386) -
Shield Durable Shadow Shield is stronger, but Reload helps with the recently added 0.7s ACD in TFB
Garment 1001053.png Melee Physical Attack Stone (Garment) (1001053) and 1000524.png Melee Stone (Dual) (1000524) -
Shoes +10 24680.png Maximum Mammoth Shadow Shoes (24680) -
Accessories +9/10 24661.png Full Penetration Shadow Earring (24661) and +9/10 24662.png Full Penetration Shadow Pendant (24662) -

Note: I believe Infinity Shadow Weapon is necessary since we use Knuckles (100/100/75 size-mods), but was told that the partial RES-pierce of fully enchanted Master Shadow Set does outperform blue shadow gears in most endgame-places.

However, since I don't have a concrete number-comparison I'm partial to blue shadow gears for its flexibility to swap pieces as needed.

Buffs and Consumables

  • 2348.png Gentle Touch-Revitalize (Sura): Another +10% maxhp.
  • 5239.png Firm Faith or 5238.png Powerful Faith (Inquisitor): Firm Faith will win in the end when you have high hp% amounts from gear, but Powerful Faith is usually better during early/mid game.
  • 5246.png First Faith Power -> 5247.png Judge -> 5254.png Third Exorcism Flame (Inquisitor): Required in order to be able to perform the Third Flame Bomb combo at all.

Thanks

Special thanks to these players which helped me along the road with build discussions, theory-crafting and hints:

  • Binho
  • IntrepidEnigma
  • Rgasm
  • Toru
  • Zapallo

And another huge thanks to the GM team and their dedication!