Tree of Savior Forum

Don't build characters solely on buffs and auto attack

Class and Rank
#1

I noticed recently that a lot of builds posted here, especially the swordsman builds are auto-attack builds that rely a lot on buffs to boost auto attacks. I think this isn’t very good, as there are limits to how many buffs you can apply on a character without the Krivis’ max buff increase skill (7 buffs I think?)

For solo play you might be fine, but with the release of 4 instanced dungeons and many more to come in the future, party play is going to be a big thing, especially towards “end-game”. Swordsman X2 > Berserker X2 > Corsair X2 is a classic example, these two classes already have 10 buffs altogether:

  • Gung Ho
  • Concentrate
  • Restrain
  • Pain Barrier
  • Aggressor
  • Savagery
  • Warcry
  • Frenzy
  • Double Weapon Assault
  • Steal

Let’s say you pick 7 of the useful buffs (Frenzy, Aggressor, Savagery, etc.) and you go into a party with a cleric (who does not have Krivis) and he starts buffing you. Immediately you lose some of the important buffs like Frenzy, Aggressor, etc. and you start hitting like a wet noodle again. During battle it’s hard for your support clerics to be careful not to override your buffs, they’re not going to have the time nor effort to manage your buffs because they have other people to buff as well. You have to manage your own buffs yourself.

Meanwhile, attributes aren’t affected by this. Granted a lot of attributes are linked to buffs/skills, but you get some like 2H sword mastery which doesn’t require you to cast any buffs. Attack skills that have attributes enhancing them also will not be affected by this, the skills stay powerful due to the attributes.

This is why I think there should be a balance between taking damage skills and buffs, not purely just relying on buffs and auto-attack when considering your build.

3 Likes
#2

That’s when you start buying Daino scrolls from a pardoner / auction house!

It’s still perfectly viable.

What people should be worried about more is the types of weapons they can wield if auto attacking only, as mobs have may resistances.

3 Likes
#3

This won’t be much of a problem for Corsairs since you can go sword+dagger and mace+dagger with weapon swap. That’s 3 types right there.

1 Like
#4

So the best for corsair is to get all the buffs and rely on AA?
Even dual-wielding, corsairs can use highander and barbarian skills right?
highlander path looks interesting for corsair

how many buffs you can activate at same time?

#5

6 Last time i checked. Thats without the krivis buff.

#6

Devs did a good job there, they made the game a little more complex with such a simple restriction. Parties will need to be more coordinated with their buffs instead of just mindlessly spamming them.

2 Likes
#7

I still want to try a buff centric support (wizard) and i already planned to buy Daina scrolls.

Also i like auto attacks, having to cancel them to increase your attack speed kinda reminds me of when i was farming sleepers in RO with occult impactation.
I wish wizards had more way to increase their potency outside of enchant fire though, especially when they can’t crit.

#8

I wouldn’t build a character based on the need for Daino scrolls to maintain buffs. If you just happen to run out of scrolls, you’ll need to run back to town. Also if Daino scrolls just happen to be sold out on the auction house, well that’s gonna be pretty bad too.

Not to mention, classes are still at rank 6 right now, imagine when you get to rank 10 how many buffs will be available in your build. 10+ buffs? Even WITH Daino scrolls you still need to manage your buffs well, especially in a party. The less dependent on buffs the better the build

#9

I don’t know why but, this part made laugh hard!

@topic Devs are doing an excellent job setting some restrictions that makes players actually think about what they’re doing. You made a good point but AA builds are very strong and all comes down to the players’s choice: they want to get attacking skills and rely on someone else to buff them or get buffs and be godlike by themselves? Sure you can always say that they could get a little of both but it won’t be as good as going full attacking skills or full buffs.

I feel like AA builds would be more suitable for solo players tho.

#10

As long as you know how to communicate and coordinate with your team, this won’t really be a problem. Plus more buffs don’t really hurt since you can just cycle through them instead of activating them all at once. I doubt all buffs last as long as the CD so if you just cycle through them, you’ll have a buff at all times.

#11

The point of auto attack builds is that you DO need to activate most of them together for it to work.
A lot of these buffs actually last a long time so by the time the buffs disappear, the cooldown is almost up already.
And in a party of 5, you WILL receive buffs from other classes, sometimes unintentionally and if you’ve stacked up your buffs fully and a few key ones get erased by accident, straight after you’ve buffed yourself, you need to wait for the full cooldown before you can apply them again.
I know most games are like “the more buffs the better”, except this game is different. You need to use your brain instead of mindlessly buffing yourself/others.

#12

Not really. I’ll use my build for example. I have 7 total buffs.

  1. Gungho, only because I have no where else to put skill points
  2. Aggressor, which is crit rate up
  3. Savagery, which gives extra attack
  4. Warcry, which lowers defense of enemies
  5. Flange, attack increase the more you attack
  6. Sub Weapon Cancel
  7. Steal

The only buffs I have as a swordie that don’t overlap or have similar effects as other classes are Warcry, Flange, Sub Weapon Cancel and Steal. Gunho is similar to Blessing, Divine Stigma, Swell Left/Right Arm, Vendetta and Enchant Fire. Aggressor is similar to Monstrance and Zalciai. Savagery is similar to Sacrament (Might even be better since you get 2 additional hits. 1 for your main attack and 1 for your subweapon whereas Savagery will only work for your subweapon). That’s already almost half of my skill buffs with MULTIPLE SIMILAR buffs.

The only IMPORTANT for swordie buffs I can see that I don’t have anything similar to is Quicken, Safety Zone, Divine Might (which wears off as soon as you use a skill), Restoration (If it puts a buff on you and not just the Pally), Resist Element (Situational) and Physical Link.

This is where COORDINATION and COMMUNICATION as I stated before comes into play. It’s not really that hard. And most buffs you get are just the same to what you already have anyway.

So would you rather have to wait for the CD to be done or just have buffs up AT ALL TIMES? I think the answer is pretty obvious on that one.

Exactly why having more buffs is a good thing. So you don’t burn everything on one go.

This is my EXACT argument though.

#13

I still don’t see the problem though? As long as you can coordinate with your teammate to choose which way benefit your party the most, then isn’t it fine using any build you want? The good thing about RO and this one is you can build however you want and have fun without worrying about min/maxing as other MMOs.

1 Like
#14

AA swordman builds, in paticular Barbarians since you put emphasis on their buffs, are currently the most efficient solo leveling builds or at least close to it.

The concern is that, for instance, a priest may buff you and your frenzy or aggressor may be removed due to buff limit. A plausible concern but I don’t see it being as big of a deal as you make it. Most likely there’s a good chance of a swordie buff being replaced by another dps buff such as Enchant Fire or priest AGI buff monstrance. Auto attacks in this case are still supported and if they are out of range for a buff for w/e reason, well they will have their buffs on.

At higher levels some buffs won’t be used because of the flat unscaled rates. Unless you invest time and money into Concentrate attributes, that flat +19 points damage will get old fast. That and other rank 1 buffs will likely be out the rotation.

Lastly, don’t alienate the auto attack builds that include skills. Most builds tend to include Highlander for for the critical dmg % bonus aND Carter stroke for a strong multo hit skill and wagon wheel for a spammable aoe when they need mobs off them. A few other barb and doppel skills get 1 point in them just so they will have them like stomping foot. I know you mentioned having a balance but it seems a lot of builds seems to already have some of that. And from videos I’ve seen, AA builds seem to do good in partys will mowing things down.

#15

Just because another buff from another class is similar to a Swordie buff doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have both together. For example, if I were a full STR build and wanted to increase my crit through buffs, I can stack both Zalciai and Aggressor. But you won’t be able to do that with your build because you’ve already taken up 7 buffs.

Also, what if you are fighting a boss that constantly knocks you down? You might need to apply Pain Barrier as much as possible so you can actually remain standing to deal the damage. Well, one of your 7 key buffs will have to go to make way for Pain Barrier. What if you were fighting undead and you need Sacrament to boost your damage? That’s another buff space you need to clear out. Because of different buff expiry times, it’s really hard to keep the exact buff that you want. Sometimes that Pain Barrier or Sacrament might wipe out Steal, which isn’t a big deal, but sometimes it might wipe out your Subweapon Cancel or Aggressor, in which case your damage will drop like a brick.

When there’s many buffs that you’re trying to apply, and you’re trying to dodge AOE attacks from bosses, you just can’t coordinate it well enough. And that cleric needs to heal, buff and control his mana and cooldowns and also to focus on 3 other teammates as well, the last thing he’s going to care about is his buff possibly overriding something an important buff of yours, like Aggressor or Flange. Most likely in actual battle he’s going to chuck those buffs on you and move on.

Meanwhile, if my build only rely on 4 buffs, I don’t care if the cleric chucks another 2-3 buffs on me, it can only be better for me, not worse. See the difference? Plus, as I said before, only classes up to rank 6 has been released. Wait until rank 10, you will definitely have more than those 7 that you want, and you’re going to have to start giving up on some of these buffs.

#16

Would you honestly rather have both buffs at the same time than having never ending buffs of similar power? HONESTLY?

I don’t even… No one in their right mind goes full STR as a DPS. You will be out DPSed by EVERY OTHER DPS build in the entirety of ToS. Not to mention die a ■■■■ ton with no HP. Why would you want to RELY on buffs for your lower crit chance when my build already gives you a moderate amount of crit and the buffs just give you HIGHER CRIT WITH NO DOWN TIME? And so you know, skills crit too. So your full STR skills won’t be all that impressive either.

Safety Barrier solves this. So does DEX which your FULL STR does not have. Plus I don’t have Pain Barrier on my build.

Did you not read my reply? Here:

Communication. Then let him chuck all his buffs on me first. I’ll use my buffs after his wears off. Problem solved.

You honestly believe you’re going to use your low level buffs like Gungho, which I already said I put points into only because I have nothing else to put it into, with it’s INCREDIBLE(sarcasm) +50 damage, +100 damage(WOW) with max attributes, at Rank 10?

If you want to gimp your own character, go ahead. Not really my problem.

1 Like
#17

Do I have to break each point down 1 by 1 as well? Sigh.

Would you honestly rather have both buffs at the same time than having never ending buffs of similar power? HONESTLY?

Why not? if both buffs augment my build. There’s more ways to play the game than 1. Party play actually becomes a big thing at end game and you’re going to have access to Cleric buffs a lot of times as well.

I don’t even… No one in their right mind goes full STR as a DPS. You will be out DPSed by EVERY OTHER DPS build in the entirety of ToS. Not to mention die a ■■■■ ton with no HP. Why would you want to RELY on buffs for your lower crit chance when my build already gives you a moderate amount of crit and the buffs just give you HIGHER CRIT WITH NO DOWN TIME? And so you know, skills crit too. So your full STR skills won’t be all that impressive either.

I’ve seen full STR builds in streams and they survive fine solo. And yeah, sure, I’ll be out DPSed with a full STR build. REALLY? STR actually increases damage in case you didn’t know /sarcasm. I can supplement my crit with other methods.

Safety Barrier solves this. So does DEX which your FULL STR does not have. Plus I don’t have Pain Barrier on my build.

Then you better pray you get your Safety Barrier up all the time. Pain Barrier is another way to overcome this. Again, more than 1 way to play a game.

Savagery is similar to Sacrament (Might even be better since you get 2 additional hits. 1 for your main attack and 1 for your subweapon whereas Savagery will only work for your subweapon)

Sacrament gives HOLY damage, which works well against undead. 2 blows of the right element > 2 blows of non-element.

Communication. Then let him chuck all his buffs on me first. I’ll use my buffs after his wears off. Problem solved.

Maybe for the beginning of the battle. 2 minutes in, some buffs have expired earlier than others, try and coordinate that again.

You honestly believe you’re going to use your low level buffs like Gungho, which I already said I put points into only because I have nothing else to put it into, with it’s INCREDIBLE(sarcasm) +50 damage, +100 damage(WOW) with max attributes, at Rank 10?

No one is expecting you to do that. You’re missing the point - supplementing auto attack damage with damage skills. Things like max level Cartar Stroke, max level Stabbing, etc. - which you won’t have much of if you go for your heavy buff + AA build.

If you want to gimp your own character, go ahead. Not really my problem.

Having extra skills at my disposal is not exactly gimping my character, don’t know where you got that from.

#18

Think of Daino scrolls as potions. Players return to town for potions/bonfires etc, Daino scrolls is no exception. Daino scrolls can go upto 14 extra buffs (Daino takes 1 slot). Daino lasts 3 minutes. 100 scrolls = 300 minutes = 5 hours. You wont be using them all the time as your not always in battle (travel time, etc). So its perfectly viable.

You personally may not build a character this way, but it does not make a character any less viable. If later there are classes with better buffs, then you manage your buffs around having a max of 21, and learn skills then. But it does not make a character bad for picking up only buffs, or mostly buffs now.

Also by rank 10, I would HOPE that you’ve by now picked up some people that you play with regularly for late game content. By then your party or guild or group of friends should understand your buff management, or at the very least you simply have to mention it. Carrying 7+ buffs by rank 6, with a total of 21 is not hard, 4 more ranks can only add so much more in terms of buffs.

1 Like
#19

One of my concerns is that bosses later on may start cancelling buffs with their skills - I’ve seen other games with this feature implemented. If that hits then it’ll render some builds useless…with a set of max level skills you might still be able to rotate their use and maintain a decent level of dps

#20

On a real note, I have a full buff AA swordsman that’s been working completely fine. 2:1 STR/DEX. No problems so far.

As far as the buffs being outscaled at say like level 300+ or whatever I’ll get to that point when I know what’s available to me at that point.

We don’t know how far the skills or ranks go because we haven’t experienced the endgame yet. We’ll figure it out when we get there. When we do, there’s always reset scrolls. :3

Edit: Didn’t mean to /reply @FatePGN. I meant to just post a regular reply. From the bottom of my heart… my bad.