Overview
This will be a DPS PvE Ronin guide with Shuriken as subclass. This build will not make you overpowered. However, this build serves as a good foundation of what you should have and what you will need later on in the game. What will be discussed in this guide are: Gear Stats Enchantments Masteries Skill Rotation Gaia Emblems Mounts Eidolons *Note: This will not be an elemental DPS build.
Basics
What You Will Need:
- Lordswrath’s Armor top and bottom set (Be sure to make the body of your armor dark element, this can deal more damage to dark element mobs, which is the majority in most dungeons.)
- Destroyer Cored Orange Ghodroon Storm Tachi; Ideal % is 125-130% (for char lvl.80-89)
- Nocturnal Cored Orange Ghodroon Storm Shuriken; Ideal % is 125-130% (for char lvl.80-89)
- Destroyer Cored Orange Nalani’s Storm Tachi; Ideal % is 125-130% (for char lvl.90 or above.)
- Nocturnal Cored Orange Nalani’s Storm Shuriken; Ideal % is 125-130% (for char lvl.90 or above.)
- Secret stones have to be in each piece of your gear (head, body, feet, hands, and waist). These must have at least DMG 2% in each stone. Reroll these stones from the Tachi class merchant at the PvP area in Navea. (x: 893 y:651)
- Gear and Costume Enchantment Cards (details discussed later in the guide)
- Lava Stones in your Tachi and Shuriken with at least DMG 2%.
- Orange/Gold Lvl. 80 or Lv.70 Dual Drive Weapon Enchantment Cards. (without CDMG—will explain why later.)
- Perfect War Accessory Set
- Theory Time Travel Code
- Guzigla’s Bloodied Tooth (below char lv.95)
- Delfonia’s Exquisite Earrings (Char lv.95 or above)
Why Orange Gear and Not Gold?
- Orange gear is the most useful in dungeons because of the detail damage it contains. Unlike gold gear, which lacks detail damage, orange gear can counter damage reduction found in dungeons. Which means in any given dungeon, monsters will take x% less damage than the flat damage you inflict.
- Ideally, it is best to have at least 90% boss dmg. This can be found in your “Detailed List” of your gear attributes.
- DoT (Damage over Time) ignores monster reduction completely.
- Many dungeons have additional 84% player reduction.
Stats
What is PEN?
PEN is short for “Penetration.” Simply put, PEN counters the PEN shields found in dungeons on bosses, negating a certain amount of the actual damage you deal. Having PEN x% on your enchantment cards are very useful to lower the % of the PEN shields, so that you can deal more of the actual damage you have. Basically, this is another form of detail dmg.
Offensive Points:
In your gear attributes, under the offensive category, all points should be placed into DMG.
Access points should be placed into SPD for extra Zeal Chance. (Hovering your cursor over your SPD% should state the extra % of Zeal you have)
Defensive Points:
All points must be inserted into HP.
Excess points can either be placed into DEF or EVA. (your DEF should be capped from your “Best Defense Mastery” under “Special Skills”).
Why NOT To Apply CDMG:
- I do not add nodes into “Tachi Studies 1/2/3” because it offers CDMG. But with the gear we have (Lordswrath/Perfect War/Nalani’s), your CDMG should already be capped. Capped CDMG is 300%.
- Although, viewing your CDMG from your “Derived” Category will not portray the full CDMG you have. Therefore, you can view your complete CDMG% in your “Detailed List” under the “Offensive” Tab.
- When determining how much CDMG you have, you combine your “Primary Weapon Crit Damage” with your “Crit Damage bonus against Bosses.” In this case, 206%+150%= 356% CDMG. I have reached capped CDMG, there is no need to apply any more CDMG.
Envoy’s Path
Why Put Nodes into Black Swallow Mastery:
- Putting your Envoy’s nodes into Black Swallow Mastery grants 10% additional damage, whereas, the Iaido mastery only grants reduction of the cooldown by 6%.
- I do not put nodes into Dragon’s Fury Mastery either. This is because these nodes only grants an additional CRIT Rate of 4%. Like I said before, overcapping CRIT is not useful, and capping CRIT is fairly easy if you have all the gears stated under Basics.
- Because of the extra DMG stats offered with the Black Swallow Mastery nodes in the Envoy’s Path (and extra dmg from Weapon Mastery, which will be discussed later), Tachi’s Element is STORM.
Masteries
Masteries (all masteries must be at least Orange type):
- General Skills: “Soaring Flash Rond” (this lowers target DEF by -12%, which enables you to deal more damage. This is also known as DEF shred).
- Attack Spec: “Zeal” (10% chance of dealing 90% more DMG)
- Advanced Skills: “Crippling Wind Mastery” (target DMG taken +2%: stacks up to 6 times) is very expensive. If you have enough gold to buy orange “Crippling Wind Mastery”, then buy it. If not, using the “Shadow Wind Mastery” (target DEF -12%) will deem just as useful for the additional DEF shred.
- Defense Spec: “Extreme Speed Mastery” offers additional +15% MSPD. Having a lot of MSPD is very useful, especially in higher level dungeons. Parties will do BTB (boss to boss) runs, not to mention, dungeons like “Shattered Netherworld” and “Chronowood Cavern” inflicts lots of debuffs as well.
- Tactical Spec: “Break Defense Mastery” 25% chance to decrease target’s DEF by 20%. This is another grant of additional DEF shred that is very useful. More DEF lowered, more DMG you can deal.
- Special Skills: “The Best Defense Mastery” This is needed for any class you play. Capping DEF is mandatory to play PvE classes. The only way you can obtain orange “Best Defense Mastery” is by collecting 60 Vulture Vale Medals by doing Vulture Vale Dailies and exchanging them for the mastery in the Encyclopedia. If you can cap DEF without the “Best Defense Mastery,” then you can use the orange “Deep Blue” mastery that offers DMG +3% and Malice -8%. (Malice is aggro. Aggro is your ability to lure the boss, and have it target you. The more malice you have, the more chance you have in aggro-ing the boss).
Weapon Mastery:
- Use the left path of your weapon Mastery. Left Path = PvE. Right Path = PvP.
- Points into your left path should be put into DMG, CRIT, SPD, Increased All Elemental Resistance, MSPD, and HP.
- The most important stats in your weapon mastery that you should cap are:
- DMG, SPD, MSPD, Increased All Elemental Resistance, and CRIT.
- Leftover points should be placed into HP.
- Despite how awful the right path is for PvE, it is recommended to level both paths of your weapon mastery to receive as many points as possible to put into your stats. (You would have to switch to that specific path and run though dungeons while on that path to level it, killing mobs, and receiving “Mastery EXP.”)
Enchantments
Gear Enchantment Cards
- Gear ECards must be implemented in each piece of your gear: Head, Armor, Feet, Gloves, and Belt.
- The ideal stats for Gear Enchantment Cards are DMG3%/DMG, DMG3%/Crit, or DMG3%/SPD (this can be subjective)
- It must be Lv. 80 Green/Orange Intermediate/Advanced Enchantment Cards
- Lv.80 Gear Enchantment Cards will be more beneficial since it offers PEN.
Costume Enchantment Cards
- Fundamentally, your gold costume enchantments must all have DMG 3%, except for your gold headgear enchantment card, which has to have HP 3%. (this is because there is no gold headgear enchantment cards that grants DMG 3%).
- But to apply a gold costume enchantment card, you would need to implement a basic blue costume enchantment card, onto the gold enchantment, onto your costume. You can get basic blue costume enchantment cards through the Encyclopedia with Dragon Points. Some cards will vary amongst each class, but mostly, it is the same for almost all classes. For Ronin, the basic blue enchantment cards needed for gold are:
> Headgear: Blue Card: Damage Against Boss Monsters +10% with Premium Headgear
Enchantment Card HP +3%
> Face: Blue Card: Soul Blade Mastery Skill Level +5 with Premium Facemask
Enchantment Card DMG +3%
> Costume: Blue Card: Crit DMG +25% against Boss Monsters with Premium Costume
Enchantment Card DMG +3%
> Ornament: Blue Card: Move SPD +5% with Premium Ornament Costume
Enchantment Card DMG +3%
> Costume Weapon: Blue Card: Dark Spear Raid skill level +5 with Premium Costume
Weapon Enchantment Card DMG +3%
Skills
Skill Rotation:
- Skill rotation for Tachi is fairly simple. There is not much strategic movements. The main skills that you would need to use very often, is Black Swallow and Soaring Flash: Rond. I spam those skills, especially my Black Swallow, not only because it deals more damage, but also because both “Flying Black Swallow” and “Soaring Flash: Rond” have very low cooldowns. “Soaring Flash: Rond” is used to decrease target’s DEF by an additional 12%.
- I follow those skills with the “Shadow Wind” skill of my subclass.
- Stun when needed, using the Brilliant Dragon Flash. You can mostly use your stuns on mobs, but avoid using stuns on bosses unless told to do so.
- When you are low on health, use “Dragon’s Fury” for lifesteal. This skill will restore all of your health almost all the time.
- Right before battling a boss, remember to use Soul Blade before charging into the boss room.
- Spam the skill given from your Weapon Mastery, the “Shocking Dragon Flash.” This gives you a buff that only lasts 5 seconds, but it has a very quick cool down. Be sure to spam this skill throughout your dungeon runs to continue keeping the buffs.
- The buff that the “Shocking Dragon Flash” grants are:
>Additional DMG +16% to “Flying Black Swallow”
>General Tachi Skills DMG +15% for 6 seconds, plus 10 extra souls.
>DMG Increase +14% to “Iaido” with chance of casting 5 more times. - As you can see, you can benefit a lot from the buffs of your weapon mastery. So be sure to use it very often.
Jump Casting:
Jump casting is a skill used for almost any class. It involves jumping and allowing your Auto Attacks (AA) to deal more damage on the fall of your jump.
Backstriking:
Backstriking is another skill used for almost all classes. This skill involves casting skills onto your target from behind, dealing more damage. This also helps avoid bosses’ Areas of Effect (AoE), which is the bosses’ range of their own skills and attacks.
*Note: When using your skill rotations, jumpcast and backstrike at the same time.
Mount and Gaia Emblem
- The stats of your mount should be “Lv. 3: Storm Skill DMG +30%”
- If you have a lot of money, go ahead and buy lv.3 Almighty Mount, which grants all stats an additional +20%. Personally, I think having a Lv.3 Storm Skill DMG +30% mount works just fine.
- An ideal gaia emblem would be an Offensive Gaia Emblem IV with the first stat as “Additional Storm Skill DMG at least +8%” and the second stat as either Move SPD, ATK SPD, or flat DMG.
- Gaia Emblems IV requires 1.5 million Eidolon Points or above. (You can receive more eidolon points by feeding your eidolon elemental crests and EXP crystals to level.)
Eidolon
- The eidolon that I personally use it Kotonoha. You can use Tsubaki too if you like. These two eidolons I recommend when playing any class because it has a nocturnal eidolon buff for players which gives you lifesteal. “Party Members Absorb 10% of damage dealt to recover their own HP.” This buff lasts for 10 seconds. For Kotonoha, the buff is called “Demonic Enchantment.” For Tsubaki, her buff is called “Special Medicine.”
- Ideal Eidolon Star Buffs:
>1 Star: Storm Skill DMG +15%
>2 Star: DMG to Dark Targets 25%
>3 Star: Storm Skill DMG +30%
*Note: 1 and 2 Star buffs can be switched. Buffs do not have to correspond to the exact star level.
Conclusion
Again, this build will not make you overpowered. Although, this build starts as a good fundamental basic of what you should have and will need later on in the game.
Leveling up in other areas such as Guardian Knights, Housing, Eidolon Prayers, etc. will also grant extra stats. But because working on these is very time consuming, it is recommended to focus on other areas after completing your gear first.
To buff up, use Peerless Strength, Agility, Fury, Fortitude, Stamina, and Swiftness tonics. Duration is 30 minutes.
Using Superior Tachi Harming Potions (duration 20min) will be helpful as well. It grants:
>PEN +3%
>Tachi DMG +15%
Remember to consume food and use pets for additional stats.
This sums up the guide on building a Ronin Character. If you have any questions, drop me a DM at Kat#1619 on Discord.
*Note: When you hit awakening, gears and stats will change.
Thanks for viewing~