Flame of Annihilation

an Inquisitor guide by Cruro

I try my best to keep the guide updated and keep in touch with other Inquisitor mains, but I still recommend to double check with the community before making any big commitments: See #acolyte in muhro-discord

Prologue

Inquisitor is the 4th job class that follows the tree of: Acolyte -> Monk/Champion -> Sura -> Inquisitor

As such it retains some of the useful utility skills that Priests enjoy, like Teleport/Warp/Pneuma and buffs like Agi Up/Blessing, while gaining new powerful offensive options.

Their acolyte-heritage should not be confused with a support class though, Inquisitor is first and foremost a dps class with some utility options on top.

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 is possible to cover either builds weaknesses for the most part Third Flame Bomb build has very high sustain due to scaling with health (useful in endgame)	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 most momentum until you rebuff (Third Flame Bomb-related buff is not dispellable though)

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 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 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

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.

Hint: Make sure to set /camera to disable camera smoothing (you will want your character to always be dead-center of the screen) for much simpler snapping.

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

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.

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 Rising Dragon again if it's off cooldown as it has no cast time that can be interrupted.

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.

Teleport: Essential for field/dungeon farming. Allows you to teleport to a random spot (put Lv1 on your hotkeybar to avoid the popup-window).

Increase Agility: The increased movementspeed is irrelevant to us, but the additional Agi helps our attack speed, which is absolutely welcome.

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.

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.

Gentle Touch-Revitalize: Increases Max HP by 10% and also boosts Def/HP-recovery. Second-best option for HP-scaling skills like Tiger Cannon and Third Flame Bomb. Cannot be used together with Gentle Touch-Change (which is still a slightly better offensive option).

Gentle Touch-Change: Increases Atk% and flat Atk. Useful for all attack-skills that do not scale with HP. Cannot be used together with Gentle Touch-Revitalize.

Powerful Faith: Adds +15 P.Atk. Especially noticable during early- and mid-game where there are not many sources of P.Atk from gears yet. Cannot be used together with Firm Faith (which after recent hp% buff fixes is not worth using anymore for either build).

First Faith Power: Self-buff that removes sphere consumption of Fallen Empire. Mainly only used as a stepping-stone for Judge.

Judge: AP-consuming self-buff that additionally removes sphere consumption of Flash Combo. Mainly only used as a stepping-stone for Third Exorcism Flame.

Third Exorcism Flame: AP-consuming self-buff that additionally removes sphere consumption of Tiger Cannon. Mainly only used to enable usage of Third Flame Bomb-combo.

Attack Skills

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.

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 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.

Massive Flame Blaster: Only worth getting when going pure ranged build, meaning not (fully) skilling into Third Flame Bomb and when also using the new Time Dimensions Rune Crown + Dimensions Judgement Claw combo to actively boost this skill.

That combo boosts Massive Flame Blaster enough to be noticably stronger than Explosion Blaster. However, due to its remaining 3s cooldown it can still only be weaved inbetween Explosion Blaster casts. This skill is not worth getting when using e.g. Dim Glacier weapon which boosts Explosion Blaster exclusively (Massive Flame Blaster will be weaker than Explosion Blaster, while also costing AP and having cooldown).

First Brand: Initial starter for Third Flame Bomb combo. Applies "Brand"-status on all monsters around the target in a 7x7 Aoe (needed for the next combo-step).

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 7x7 Aoe. Requires Third Exorcism Flame to be active.

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 7x7 Aoe. Requires 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 Investigate, Finger Offensive and most notoriously Asura Strike, but it also carried on into Sura-era with skills like Tiger Cannon and 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 Call Spirits, or more likely its successor Dangerous Soul Collect (Zen) which will refill the maximum amount of spheres instantly.

Another important skill to mention here is the bread and butter Body Relocation which normally also consumes spheres, unless you're in "Explosion Spirits"-state (usually by using Rising Dragon, or if it's currently in cooldown, alternatively 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 Rising Dragon which will bump the limit to 15 Spheres.

One very useful trick to maintain your SP is by occasionally using 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 Dangerous Soul Collect (Zen) or 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: 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 Empathize Card (300270) combo, can be lower otherwise.

Luk: 30 - 120

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

Traits

Pow: 110
Con: 72
Crt: 110

Beware that if you plan to use any Nebula Armor with Star Cluster of Concentration Lv.3 (310682) , it should be Con: 105 and Crt: 67 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 (50% when using dimension combo), however in order to be able to snap to the next target, at least 50% or higher is recommended for farming.

Gears

Endgame

Slot	Items	Cards	Notes
Headgear (Top)	+12 [A] Time Dimensions Rune Crown(Inquisitor) [1] (400538) Acute Jewel Lv5 (312753) Time Dimension Jewel (Agility) Lv3 (312700) / Time Dimension Jewel (Luck) Lv3 (312712) +12 Temporal Circlet (Sura) [1] (19481) Acute Lv5 (29085) Temporal Jewel (LUK) Lv 3 (29689)	Limacina Card (300363) Icewind Egg Card (300456) Sealed Kiel Card (4480) [MVP] Kiel Card (4403)	Ideally the respective Jewel-enchant should be gotten first, to then go for the determined special enchant (for either headgear). Going for ACDR cards may be preferable when dropping Dim Glacier (and it's 15% ACDR enchant)
Headgear (Mid)	Gambler's Seal [1] (410233) ACDR, Range%, or Crit% enchants	Isaac Wigner Card (27396) Sealed Kiel Card (4480) [MVP] Kiel Card (4403)	Any other mid headgear with ACDR-enchant can also be useful here
Headgear (Low)	Ace of Diamonds in Mouth (Ranged Physical) (420220) Range% enchant Blood Sucker (18754)	-	Blood sucker helps a lot with sustain, and would be the prefered choice for farming when a minor damage-loss is usually acceptable
Armor	+11/12 [A] Engraved Ice Storm Rune Suit [1] (450283) Ice Storm Rune Lv10 (312354) Storm Rune Lv5 (312344) Ice Rune Lv5 (312339) +11/12 [A] Nebula Suit of Concentration [1] (450171) Star Cluster of Concentration Lv.3 (310682) Nebula of Expert Archer Lv.3 (310732) Any stat	Observation Card (4392) Heart Hunter AT Card (300381)	Engraved Ice Storm Rune Suit is currently the best-in-slot option However, at this point in time I'd recommend going Nebula of Concentration instead when starting from scratch, as it will likely be best-in-slot when Hall of Life is released (soon™). Still needs testing vs Nebula of Creative
Weapon	+12 [A] Dimensions Judgment Claw [2] (560061) Varmundt's Crystal (Poison) Lv3 (312800) +12 [A] Dim Glacier Knuckle [1] (560037) Glacier Flower Spell (Explosion Blaster) (311306) Glacier Flower Spell (Explosion Blaster) (311306) Glacier Flower Spell (Physical Grade) Lv5 (311453)	White Knight Card (4608) (+ Polluted Wander Man Card (27361) for Dimension weapon)	Fully enchanted +12 A Dim Glacier is about 1.4% (depending on gears) stronger than +12 A Dimensions weapon, while also having useful secondary stats like ACDR and aspd. However, this changes when Dimensions Crown comes into play with it's unique effect of reducing Explosion Blaster cooldown, and additional damage modifiers.
Shield	+12 [A] Mad Bunny-LT [1] (460020) After Cast Delay Lv.3 (310853)	Khalitzburg Knight Card (4609)	-
Garment	+12 [A] Pirate Captain's Coat [1] (480174)	Empathize Card (300270) Crux Findel Card (300426)	Empathize Card is mandatory when using Observation Card in Armor
Shoes	+12 [A] Ice Rune Boots [1] (470175)	Entangled Intermediate Rgan Card (300380)	Rgan can only be used with +12 gear
Accessories	Soul Magic Ring [1] (490305) / Soul Rune Ring [1] (490302) Tenacity of Varmundt Lv5 (311953) , any Gray Wolf Ring [1] (490107)	Void Mimic Card (300278) (Left) Snow Rabbit Iceslug Card (300468) (Right)	Gray Wolf Ring with +30 Cri can help a lot when leaning towards TFB stat-build which lacks natural cri.

Future gears (currently not obtainable)

Slot	Item	Notes
Garment	Hall of Life Circulation of Life: Winter [1] (480352) Physical Seed Lv10 (312488) Physical Leaf Lv5 (312503) Physical Flower Lv5 (312513) Physical Fruit Lv20 (312538) Life of Winter Lv20 (312638)	Circulation of Life: Winter Info by Sigma No idea yet how these enchants work, how they level, which slots etc.
Accessories	Hall of Life Signet of Circulation: Winter [1] (490486) Token of Life (312981) Signet of Creative Lv5 (313006) / Signet of Concentration Lv5 (312991) Life of Winter (Creative) (313023) / Life of Winter (Concentration) (313022)	Signet of Circulation: Winter Info by Sigma Again, unsure how the enchanting system will work. These enchants will most likely make Nebula best for armor-slot again.

Midgame

Slot	Items	Cards	Notes
Headgear (Top)	Old Blazing Soul [1] (18979) Acute Lv5 (29085) , any stats	Abysmal King Dramoh Card (300150)	Bio5 headgear with acute is a decent filler until Temporal Circlet
Headgear (Mid)	Sealed Chain [1] (410094) New Wave Sunglasses (18813)	Isaac Wigner Card (27396)	Any other mid headgear with ACDR-enchant can also be useful here
Headgear (Low)	Blood Sucker (18754) Bondage Necklace (420076)	-	Blood sucker helps a lot with sustain, and would be the prefered choice for farming when a minor damage-loss is usually acceptable
Armor	+11 Gray Wolf Suit [1] (450177) Wolf Orb (Angle Shot) (310533) Wolf Orb (Shooter) Lv.3 (310508) Wolf Orb (Shooter) Lv.2 (310505)	Observation Card (4392)	-
Weapon	+9 Glacier Knuckle (560032) Glacier Flower Spell (Physical - Element) (311352) Glacier Flower Spell (Physical - Size) (311350) Glacier Flower Spell (Physical - Race) (311348) Glacier Flower Spell (ATK) (311342)	-	-
Shield	+11 Illusion Silver Guard [1] (460018) Rune of Strength Lv2 (4995) Rune of Strength Lv2 (4995)	Khalitzburg Knight Card (4609)	Illusion Silver Guard is close to the best-in-slot option in raw damage
Garment	+9 Pirate Captain's Coat [1] (480174)	Empathize Card (300270)	-
Shoes	+11 Illusion Sprint Shoes [1] (470066) Rune of Strength Lv2 (4995) Rune of Strength Lv2 (4995)	Abysmal Merman Card (300144)	Abysmal Merman Card (300144) requires to also use Abysmal King Dramoh Card (300150) in headgear
Accessories	Automatic Booster R [1] (490024) / Automatic Booster L [1] (490025) Automatic Modification Orb (All Force) (310120) Automatic Modification Orb (Expert Archer) (310095) Automatic Modification Orb (Fatal) (310094) Gray Wolf Ring [1] (490107)	Void Mimic Card (300278)	Automatic Boosters are pretty close to Varmundt Accessories at a fraction of the price if you can find the modules At least 1xGW Ring with +30 Cri can help a lot when leaning towards TFB stat-build which lacks natural cri.

Shadow Gears and Costume Stones

Slot	Item	Notes
Headgear (Top)	Sura Stone (Top) (1000968)	-
Headgear (Mid)	Sura Stone (1000969)	-
Headgear (Low)	Sura Stone (Low) (1000970)	-
Armor	+10 Maximum Mammoth Shadow Armor (24679)	-
Weapon	+10 Infinity Shadow Weapon (24386)	-
Shield	+9/10 Separate Reload Shadow Shield (24746)	-
Garment	Inquisitor Stone (Garment) (1001738) and Critical Stone (Dual) (1000855)	Will of Faith Lv10 is necessary for maximum benefit
Shoes	+10 Maximum Mammoth Shadow Shoes (24680)	-
Accessories	+9/10 Full Penetration Shadow Earring (24661) and +9/10 Full Penetration Shadow Pendant (24662)	-

Buffs and Consumables

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

Awakening Potion (656) / Infinite Awakening Potion (12885) : Faster aspd = faster movement
Red Herb Activator (100232) : More damage if necessary
Abrasive (14536) : Only necessary when really struggling with getting enough Cri

The Final Chapter: Third Flame Bomb

Third Flame Bomb vs COGH Level 10 Amdarais

Third Flame Bomb is a three-step combo that ends in a 7x7 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: First Faith Power -> Judge -> 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:

First Brand will apply "Brand"-status on all monsters in a 7x7 area around the target
Second Flame can only be used against targets with "Brand"-status. When hitting the target, all monsters in a 7x7 area receive the "Judgement Brand"-status (regardless if they had any brand on them previously). This will remove the "Brand"-status.
Third Flame Bomb can only be used against targets with "Judgement Brand"-status. When hitting the target, all monsters in a 7x7 area will receive drastic damage. This will remove the "Judgement Brand"-status.

With the brand-mechanics in mind, the following two limitations may appear:

On especially mobby maps, it can happen that the sprite of a monster with no brand or incorrect brand covers the correctly "branded" monsters, which can make it tricky or impossible to properly continue the combo. This can be fixed by simply restarting the combo from step 1, to ensure that all brands are applied in the right order.
Multiple TFB Inquisitors against one target can steal each others brand, which interrupts the combo of the others. This is an unfortunate one :(

Third Flame Bomb with Dimensions gear

With the introduction of Dimensions gear ( Time Dimensions Rune Crown(Inquisitor) [1] (400538) + Dimensions Judgment Knuckle [2] (560060) ) from Depth 2 dungeons, there are now two alternative ways of casting Third Flame Bomb, each with their own advantages/disadvantages:

One-Button TFB: This is the more obvious use of the new Depth gear combo, as it allows you to autocast the full combo by just using the initial skill (First Brand). Since First Brand doesn't need any AP buff, and autocasted skills ignore the buff requirements, this allows the usage of TFB at any time - effectively negating the need of AP buffs or AP in general. The downsides are, that auto-casted skills also don't gain any AP, and more importantly, First Brand CD increases by 1.5s to a total of 1.8s. This results in a dps loss as the additional damage from the newer gears cannot mitigate the heavily reduced rate at which the skill can be used. That being said, one-button TFB still has its uses when you anyway oneshot a monster and the fights are spaced out a little (e.g. Geffen Nightmare Arena).
Gear-Swap combo: The recommended way of incorporating the new Dimensions gear, is by switching gears mid-combo. The autocasts work like a chain, meaning First Brand will cast Second Flame, and when Second Flame is casted, it will cast Third Flame Bomb. This means that using First Brand will result in all three skills being autocasted, but it's also possible to use Second Flame and only autocast Third Flame Bomb. This is the key to success, as it allows to use First Brand without the gear combo in place (= no increased cooldown on First Brand), then swap back to the gear combo and use Second Flame for an autocasted Third Flame bomb. That approach has multiple advantages: TFB is now possible every 0.7s, it can be easier to use consistently (with a good smart-keys setup), benefitting from the higher damage of newer gears without downside.

See related image for an example smart-keys setup. The hotkey-slots marked in red need to have smart-keys active in order to automatically have a click on the target when the key is pressed. When setup correctly, it's possible to simply press both keys above, followed by both keys below, to perform the full combo while also swapping gears back and forth. Having Third Flame Bomb on the bar is not necessary anymore as it'll be autocasted after Second Flame. The example shows swapping of weapons, but usually it's better to swap headgears instead to not lose any potential endows. Swapping the weapons allows for multiple Dimension Headgears to be in the inventory at the same time (e.g. if swapping between Explosion Blaster build and Third Flame Bomb build). This whole idea has been adopted from players on kRO.