exomega255's Solo Axe Merc Guide

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Leirosa
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exomega255's Solo Axe Merc Guide

Post by Leirosa »

Original Author: exomega255
Retrieved from Aeria by Angitia.
exomega255 wrote:Note: below is a letter I sent to ittou, this is just thoughts about Merc as I leveled solo from 30-40; The letter is unedited, so there maybe references that you have no idea of; If you post and ask I will clarify. Note that since this is a personal letter to ittou on a friendly term, the numbers are not checked throughly, so if the approx stats is "off" from what you know, sorry, too lazy to correct~.

--Letter begins after personal greetings--

Merc: Give me punishment, and I will take it with more in return!

On Saturday, I moved to my merc class. Lvl 30 LQ was a pain, remember to bring lots of friends and/or high level pets. not recommended to solo it.

Realizing that the plat hammer is a 2 handed weapon aka no shield later, I restated my merc into 1:2 str dura instead of the original planned 2:1 str dura to make up for the lost of shield later on. The dex remained at 24 as I know that precision strike will handle it.

Just to note: I don't know why everyone is complaining about the plat spears. IMO, its UBER. The plat spears and hammer make mercs into 2 types of character: an iron wall tank or a BM like attacker. The spear gives the abliity to shield eqiup. aka, you can have circle formation AND better blocker on. Can you say, ultimate physical defense? yes. The hammer gives a ton of attack power at the lost of a shield, so it makes the merc take a way more aggressive mode. I think the plats for mercs are very unique with quite a lot going for it if you ask me.

I just want to tell you my lvl 30 stats with precision strike and better blocker on: using LA + shield, I have approx 320 attack and 180-200 def, iirc.

Alas as you know I started grinding, and lvl 30-31 is always back in neptune, nice and comfy before I reach 31 so I can use my ruby. Here is what I found: that the hunter sub is not really too compatible with merc. The BM sub will work much better. This is because the hunter sub is more of a passive/defensive type versus the bm's agressive type. You are already defensive enough and need to kill faster; Never the less, the first level was a breeze.

Then, comes an awesome experience. Merc was REALLY REALLY fun, just like BM. It is the ONLY class, where at level 31, I was able to tank bandits lvl 39 for my ruby, and come out on top. BM can do it a bit later, but still with a little hit and run, Merchant does it with a dura:str build after like lvl 37, when the stat penalty is gone, other classes all hit and run, but merc is, stay and hit; They almost did min. damage to me when I have better blocker on at lvl 31, and that was when I had stat penalty against them.

I made very good use of taunt (not mock, mock sucks), but more on that later, its a nice solo skill to tank for ruby. I can taunt and then do all the buffing I need while he hits me and ruby kills him. Here, is how awesome it is; End stats at level 40, I have about 430-450 attack with precision strike on, and 260-270 defense with better blocker. If iron curtain was on, I have approx 380 defense. With better blocker, I can tank Fugi lvl 42. I don't know if you see the attack power of Fugi, its quite hard hitting, if you had partied there; I was able to solo them and force min. damage from them.

VERY enjoyable, VERY fun. highly recommended. People say they don't do enough damage? I don't think so.... as a physical class, the only class that kills faster is BM thus far with skill. But nothing as cool as a merc, no hit and run, just run in and hit.

Onto skill analysis:

Sky split chop: A solid, common use skill. Good accuracy, fast execution, draws aggro. The name's funny; I don't know how you "chop" when half of the Merc axe's weapons are hammer. Its more like a slam? Damage is about 2500-2600 at lvl 38 to bandits (I moved on to fugi later which have wayyy more def so it did 2k to it) all round solid skill and recommended to max.

Owl Slash: Simply amazing... you may not notice, but at level 6 of many skills, the animation change, and owl changes into a really cool icy blue slash. Very nice effect, HIGH damage. It can do about 3.8K at lvl 38 to bandits, and at lvl 40, I did about 3.5k to fugi's. average accuracy, its not nearly as low as merchant skills. It had a little trouble 30% miss or so at bandits due to thief class mob, but at fugi or spiders, (commoner and MA) it hits around 85% of the time. Very powerful, lower mp usage compared to sky chop, highly recommended skill.

Precision Strike: one of the two most impt buff for Merc. This skill saves you dex! the CD will always be 30 seconds longer than duration but both inc by 10 seconds each level, and the effect increase as well. Aside from the 30 seconds wait, you will always be at 120% attack power. Its not worth putting points into agi just for this skill though. It increases accuracy by a good amount as well, the buff animation looks good, takes a little while on cast time, but all positive no negative buff, its AWESOME. HIGHLY recommended as well. Rather, its ESSIENTIAL.

Better Blocker: The other impt buff for merc. 20% def flat out overall, at level 10 it gives an insane amount of block rate (halves damage), and starting at lvl 9, its not a Speed DEBUFF, but a speed BUFF!, you move FASTER AND your defense increases!, at level 10 the CD = duration, so it can be CONSTANT CASTED! Never leave home without it.

Taunt: much more useful in solo than tier 2 mock. Its got FAR RANGE. In earlier levels when I cant keep the aggro from ruby (and the merc doesn't have enough mana to buff all the pet buffs, so I only use power and ditty, not enough to let ruby tank without reflect damage) Taunt is great. In later levels, when I cannot take on many fugi's, I taunt them to come into my area instead of stepping into a huge area of aggro one by one to kill. I also have a theory on how it works, but if you want to know you can ask me later ^^.

Crosschop: OKAY usefulness, pretty powerful, at lvl 40, I can do 2k AoE to Fugi and the skill is at lvl 4. its good for getting the aggros all to yourself incase you have one attacking you and one attacking your ruby. it's a good damage skill for aoe, but you won't use it much cept to save others. Recommended if you have spare points.

All bets are off: your most powerful single target skill on a merc tree, eventually. Owl and Sky will overpower it until they max out and this skill slowly catch up. It takes a little cast time, but it doesn't require MP, and only HP, which you do have a lot of. I never have a problem regening back, even though at lvl 3 it takes 200 hp to cast. Its a nice skill really. I haven't seen the max potential yet. Recommended.

All or nothing: crap. lvl 10 = debuffs 100% defense for 60% more attack power, and its not 100% of base, its 100% of everything you got, so no matter if you have iron curtain, better blocker, the result is still the same: 100% no def. short duration buff, long CD, totally useless imo. Don't ever get it.

Iron Curtain: I have spare points, and I like to look like a uber tank at times. Its great for getting you out of trouble, its 180 second cd and 30 seconds of invincibility. I mean at lvl 40 having 380 defense? Not useful during normal times but can save you sometimes. Recommended if spare points.

Mock: useless. You are soloing single target, you aint a dancer, you are not in an AoE, and you certainly don't wanna wear out armor that quickly.

I got eqiup shield, but I didn't get eqiup HA; I can't justify,I won't ever have to use it.

Overall the merc was really fun to play with. I feel like a tank, I feel like no matter what the mob do, it can't kill me. maybe the attack power is "subpar" to BM, but it certainly isn't weak as many have come to say. I kill plenty fast. And now I am a freelancer.

--Letter End--
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