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The following guide will be most effective when the character is level 90 and level 90 is the cap or if the character is level 100 and level 100 is the cap. This guide is focused around pvp (Player versus Player). This guide is for the normal players - the ones without full sosun+7 sets (you get the idea hopefully). I do not claim that this is the best pvp build/guide available, but it sure is a good (and fun) one. It is an in-depth guide, so enjoy

If you want a nice and similar guide with pictures and all, visit Rainigul's guide at viewtopic.php?t=69675

Introduction: A nuker is one who specializes in dealing high amounts of damage. Nukes are commonly known as the cold, lightning, and fire spells that anyone can learn at level 30. A commonly known mini-nuke is Lion Shout from the lightning force skill set. Nukes have their damage based completely on Mag Attack, rather than Phy Attack. Nukes do not have criticals.

That being said, lets move on



Stats: As a nuker you should place all stat points into int to maximize your damage.
Hybridizing is a fairly common practice among sword users. To be a hybrid, simply place some of your stats into str rather than int. Str will increase your hp, phy defense, and phy attack. I would never make a hybrid int sword character. This gets more obvious as the cap rises. Since you only have a mastery cap of 300, you'll have to omit fire (the most logical choice) if you want to keep bicheon mastery. Losing that phys attack buff and passive will make hybridizing less worthwhile than before. I disliked the idea of hybridizing even before the new skills were added to the 80 cap because of the loss of damage.

Equipment: You will always want to use a sword and shield when fighting other players. A spear might be more effective in fighting monsters depending on whether or not you can kill monsters before they hit you (saves potions). A sword and a shield will always yield less damage than a spear, but at the same time it will provide more defense (both Phy and Mag). In addition, a shield will provide you with a chance to completely block any attack. The higher the block ratio on the shield, the higher the chances are to block. Therefore, you should try to find a shield with the highest block ratio possible. The sword should have as high a critical ratio as possible - obvious. The sword should also have high damage - also obvious. So what if you can't find both on a sword, which one do you pick? I personally prefer a high critical ratio over high damage. A critical on an average stab attack will get you approximately 25% more damage. Burst damage is often unexpected and therefore is very effective against everyone. If you had a sword with high damage but a low critical ratio, you would have to pray that you get lucky with the criticals because someone with enough HP could just just a pot before you next attack. Of course its always better to have both high damage AND a high critical on a sword As for protection, you will want to wear armor when playing against a strength heavy build, and garments when you're against an int heavy build. In a job war or guild war, always wear garments unless the other group is almost completely full of strength characters. For training, I would use garments to save potion costs. Protector is an option for those that don't want to or cannot afford both sets.
Some things to keep in mind are: a SoX shield has a higher block ratio than normal shields, a SoX sword has a higher critical ratio than normal swords, higher attack ratio and magic reinforce on a sword will help a LOT, and you will want full and perfect blues on all your items. Keep in mind the reinforce formulas when changing reinforce values on your items. Physical reinforce will not help that much since you have placed all your stats into int. However, magical reinforce will help greatly because you have placed all your stats into int. The str and HP blues will be your top priority on items because you need more HP as a full int nuker.

Skills: You can choose to walk one of 2 paths at level 90 at the 90 cap. You can either add 30 mastery levels into pacheon for the attack rating or into fire for the immunity. At the 100 cap, you will not use either pacheon or fire. Either way, you will want to max bicheon, cold, and lightning.
I personally prefer the immunity. Yes you will need almost perfect blues for status effects on accessories to achieve this at level90. This part will be edited if immunity cannot exist with 30 fire at level 90. If you choose pacheon you should get a cleric to buff you with their status effect buff. If you win a match with that buff players will whine that you have a cleric buff on you though. Heuksal is not a viable option in my opinion because 30 levels into it is hardly noticeable.

Detailed skill explanations:
Bicheon
Shield Technique Series: Books 3 and 5 of this series will save your life if you use it at the right times. It gives a tremendous boost to your P def for 15 seconds. You have to wait 45 seconds after using it in order to use the skill again.

Smashing Series: Books 4 and 5 of this series can inflict bleed on an opponent with decent success rate. Many if not all players are not immune to bleed. Bleed is a status effect that will deal minor damage over time to an opponent, as well as increase their incoming damage. Grab this for the bleed effect.

Chain Sword Attack Series: Books 6 and 7 of this series can inflict status effects on an opponent with a low success rate. The status effects from book 6 are impotent, division, and bleed. The status effects from book 7 are fear, stun, and dull. Players may be immune to impotent, division, and dull via cleric buff. I am not sure about fear. The chains take fairly long to execute with fairly low success rates to inflict status effects. Use your own judgment to decide whether or not to get this series.

Hidden Blade Series: This series gives you a chance to knockdown your opponent. This means your opponent cannot attack, and you can heal. Often referred to as the knockdown skill. A life saver and a great offensive skill. It is essential to all sword/blade users. Most effective when books 3 and 4 are used back to back.

Killing Heaven Blade Series: This series allows you to attack your opponents after they are knocked down. Often referred to as the stabbing skill. It does a very reasonable amount of damage, and it is essential to all sword/blade users.

Shield Protection Series (Passive): This series increases your blocking ratio by a nice percentage! Get it at all costs - no buts!

Pacheon
Hawk Training Series: The first and third books increase your attack rating. The second and fourth books increase your damage output ever so slightly. As a nuker you will want burst damage so attack rating is more effective. The choice is up to you however.

Break Heaven Arrow Series: This series is a buff that increases your attack range. It is optional.

Mind Concentration Series (Passive): This passive increases your attack rating. If you are investing into pacheon, you should grab this passive.


Cold
Frost Guard Series: This series increases your P def by a huge amount when maxed. You will definitely want this for survival purposes

Cold Armor Series (Passive): This passive increases your P def by a huge amount when maxed. You will definitely want this in addition to the Frost Guard Series for survival purposes

Snow Shield Series: This series is what makes your survival rate go up drastically. A portion of damage received goes into mp rather than hp. However, that portion of damage will by multiplied by close to a factor of 2. If your buff says 50% of damage is absorbed, then your hp will take 50% of the damage while mp will take ~100% of the damage. The buff lasts 2 minutes, and it takes 3 minutes to recast. This means you will be vulnerable for 1 minute. I would suggest getting level 1 of book 4 of this skill and leaving it there. You will have a 50% buff. Any higher than that will be a waste because your mp will always be twice your hp (more or less) as a pure int. It would be useless to have more than half your hp remaining but no mp. Mp can save your life often as well (more about this later on).

Snow Storm Series: This series is your cold nuke. It is weak compared to lightning and fire nukes. I would max books 2 and 4 for effective grinding because your only other nuke is lightning. Books 2 and 4 are both AoE (Area of Effect). If you're for aesthetics max books 1 and 3 as well because they are required for book 5. Book 5 is simply amazing. There is a screenshot of it on this forum. It is also available in the pk2 files.

Frost Nova Series: This series has a very good chance of freezing your opponent. Freezing your opponent not only buys you time, but interrupts their attacks and buffs. You should get at least 1 point each into the first two books. Use it only when the opponent is not immune


Lightning(Yellow was too hard to see >.<)
Thunder Force Series: This series is your imbue. You will be using it constantly. Max this along with your nuke as first priority.

Piercing Force Series: This series will increase your magic damage by a certain %. Absolutely essential to any character, especially nukers.

Wind Walk Series: This series allows you to run faster and to instantly dash to a spot. If you don't want to be bored out of your mind while playing, grab this skill

Lion Shout Series: This series is the mini-nuke I was speaking of earlier. It casts very quickly, and it does decent damage. Many players will use this to finish off a monster with low life after a nuke to conserve MP. Some players will also use this (all 3 books perhaps) on a player if the player has a low amount of life left.

Concentration Series: This series increases your parry ratio by 28 when maxed. You may not notice a huge difference in the damage taken, but this skill will reduce the damage you take a lot, especially when a glaiver or pacheon user hits a critical on you. Grab at least book 3 if you're low on sp.

Thunderbolt Force Series: This series is your Lightning nuke. Whats a nuker without his nukes? Get it

Heaven's Force Series (Passive): This series increases your parry ratio. More parry ratio...what can I say?


Fire
Fire Shield Series: This series will reduce the amount of time that status errors remain on you if you do not use pills. Combined with some resistance to each status error on your accessories, you can get full immunity to freezing, shock, and burn. This will make a huge impact on your fights.


PvP tactics: When you're in a 1v1 fight, use your smashing series to inflict bleed. Your status effect chains should be used now if you want to use them. Now use all of your highest level knockdown books however many times it takes to knockdown your opponent. Of course you should use the higher level books first. Once they are knocked down, stab them with the final 2 books of the stabbing skill. Repeat the bleed/knockdown/stab process until they either die or you get knocked back. If you get knocked back, immediately fire off your strongest nuke (most likely final book in lightning nuke series), and attempt to knockdown+stab again. When you're in a large scale war, stay away from the front lines and shoot nuke after nuke into the large crowd. If you start getting attacked, either fight it out or phantom walk away and call for help. Stab anyone who gets knocked down if they are close enough. Use snow shield, shield technique, frost nova and lion shout as necessary. Against rogues and wizards, use the stealth and invisibility pots. If a rogue is stealthed, keep your distance from it because it has great damage potential on the first attack out of stealth. You will want to knockdown the wizards as quickly as possible. The knockdown tactic is also your best technique against warriors when their defense buffs are running. The idea is to stall for time against warriors. Warlocks, bards, and clerics can be taken care of with the bleed/knockdown combination. If an opponent is not immune, use your frost nova
The reasoning behind using knockdown over and over again is that the opponent will rarely get a chance to attack you, you will get precious time to use pots and green/black pills, and you will most likely win if you score many criticals on your stabs. This is more or less the same reason why most bladers never use their combo chain attacks in pvp. Chains are several hits strung together. You would need all hits to critical for it to be at maximum effectiveness. If you are pvping against a str blader using a combo chain, fire your strongest nuke at him and proceed to knocking him down. Hopefully your nuke won't get blocked. If it does, try try again. If your HP ever goes too low, you can always use Shield Technique Series to save yourself.


Some common questions:
Q: Why not use Chain Sword Attack Series?
A: Read the italicized text under PvP tactics.

Q: Why not use Cold imbue?
A: Most characters are immune to cold status errors, and more importantly, lightning imbue does significantly more damage.

Q: Why not use Frost Wall Series?
A: Bow wielders will be able to run out of your range and still hit you. Others will run away until the wall disappears. In addition, knockdown takes less time to cast and does damage. Indeed it only has a 50% success rate on the corresponding level but the pot time that you get after it succeeds is invaluable.

Enjoy the updates!

+X^X

This deserves a sticky!

not bad

Good guide.

Added to guides list.

thanks

What about snow storm book 2??? It has great AoE, I use it when grinding like this: light book2, fire book3, ice book 2. This completely wipes out a number of mobs (that are close to each other) very quickly. Btw. I use spear, and therefore nuke harder than a S&S. But the rest of the guide is great!

Yes but I doubt that most pure int nukers can survive 2-3monsters at the same time with a spear, especially when you need 3 hits to kill them. Anyway. theres always lion shout.

VERY good guide I didnt noticed any mistakes

I got a question, since when INT crits, the critical damage is not as high as a critical from str. you want to use the stab crit to overwhelm the enemy, shouldn't you go hybrid to really up the critical damage?

- This is not an int hybrid guide
- You do not need criticals to win, although they are very helpful
- Pure int is more fun to train with im my opinion
- Hybrid int characters and pure int characters do more or less the same damage when they hit a critical anyway. Its true more strength will hit a higher critical, but you will be giving up a lot of damage that would have been done without criticals if you were pure int instead. Theres always an exchange between Phy damage and Mag damage, and I definately prefer Mag. If you want to be focused around criticals, I suggest you find a pure str blader guide

very nice and good guide , i needed that maybe it would be better if u add some pictures, resize and bold headers, but meh thanks really helpful.

Keep up a good work!

I might add pictures and edit some text when I get the time

user, I'm not sure if i answered your question or not....but... >.<

k, another question, when you imbue your wpn, the dmg is transformed into magical attacks rite?

if i am right, then why you need the flame body series to increase phy. dmg?

if i am wrong, nevermind

When you imbue your weapon, your attacks will deal both physical and magical damage if you use normal attacks or weapon skills.

nevermind;)
Coz the imbue dmg adds to the phy dmg of the weapon, multiplied wiht phy and mag ballance.
So, if you have 56% phy ballance and 114% mag ballance, then the sum of dmg is:
0.56*phy+1.14*mag dmg.
IF you make a crit, then the dmg follows: 2*0.56*phy+1.14*mag dmg.
So, your crits will be not as useful as you were a full str blader.

I think.

nice guide. a lot of useful info. this is the build i'm using(cold) for my nuker. didn't know about the PVP techniques you described. thanks in advance . At my lvl I have done very little PVP but am looking forward to it . thanks.

love the guide

so how will the stats be? will they be 90fire, 90light, 52bicheon and 68 ice?

plz tell me, i must know

P.S. thnx for posting this build

At 80 cap

Heuksal build
80 Bicheon
60 Heuksal
80 Lightning (69 here if you want to save SP)
80 Fire

Cold build
80 Bicheon
68 Cold
69 Lightning
80 Fire

At 90 cap

Heuksal build
90 Bicheon
60 Heuksal
60 Lightning
90 Fire

Cold build
90 Bicheon
60 Cold
60 Lightning
90 Fire


Keep in mind this guide is focused around PvP

dont u think it might be better as


60 bicheon
60 cold
90 fire
90 light

??????
just wondering if that would be good also i just dont get why there should be so much in bicheon

Excellent guide - thanks

Y.

In pvp you are not going to use your weak lightning spells. Every additional point into a mastery increases damage for an attack from that mastery by 1%.

aight but what about the ice

i see u left it at 60, in that case we cant get the +55 defence since we need 68 what should we do in this case?

Nice guide man

You get 4%more movement speed, 2% more M damage, and 3 more parry ratio if you add those 8 points into lightning instead (not to mention a third lion shout book)...whereas those 8 points in cold will only get you another 13 P def. You tell me which is better.

Thank you for all the positive replies by the way Much appreciated.

aight so im guessing i should leave the points in lighting right? lol


And once again thnx a bunch for the guide bro takes lots of thinking to make one

the build looks gd...but 1,2,3,4..... that looks lk ALOT of skills to mi and means that i will nid 2 SP farm ALOT?
and before lvl 30 basically i will have no nuke except lionshout rite?

well...no pain no gain i guess...

I'm a pure int nuker s/s with lightening skill at 40, sword skill at 41, spear at 20, fire at 30, and I'm lvl 43. I Rox

Since the skills are being upgraded and hopefully put into game at next cap, leveling lightning might be the better for the extra magic damage % increase. But yeah, as it is now, keeping lightning at 60-ish seems like a good choice.