Tree of Savior Forum

Falc 3 Skill and Attribute priority and BM or Merg?

Class and Rank Archer
#1

Hello all. I am a returning player who just hit Falc 3. I plan on resetting the skills to max out Pre emp, Aiming first. What’s the next skills I should go for? Max Sonic? 13 Pheasant (From Eagle Eyes guide). I’ll probably have 5 to circling and get this to 10 last. 1 to Roast for 20% damage buff. Should I get Call? Heard it’s unnecessary once you get the attribute that doesn’t make it fly away.

I have around 3k attribute points. What should be my priority? Should I spend 4m to buy 4k more attributes?

Between Merg and BM, I’m not sure what I should go for. I like to do PVE, mobbing and bossing. I see a lot of topic on merg and little on BM but Eagle Eyes guide shows BM is very popular.

Thanks for reading and answering.

#2

For Falc skills :

Pheasant atleast 13, you can max it (more damage at the cost of more SP, especially with attributes). Aiming is a must-have, same for Pre-Emptive Strike

Since you’re using Pre-Emptive Strike, you should max Sonic Strike (more damage), after that, get Roost (huge damage boost for Falc skills in general, if you’re a Kneeling Shot user it gets even better if you do Roost > Pheasant > Kneeling Shot, it’ll also boost every Sonic Strike that’s triggered through Pre-Emptive Strike).

For Call, iirc it’s needed because otherwise you cannot learn the attribute to make the falcon stay near you. It’s also useful in case the falcon AI bugs (wich rarely happens once you get the attribute). If the AI bugs, just use Call and everything will be fine again.

Circling is also a must-have, even at lower ranks.
Personnaly, i have it at lvl 8 because i maxed Pheasant, and it’s usually good enough.
However, it all depends if you want more damage with Pheasant, or if you want to be a bit more supportive with Circling.

Now, for Mergen and BM…

BM is popular, yes, and with Silver Bullet it’s pretty good for a lot of high-level content (and, well, most of the new content) because there’s a lot of Dark property mobs. BM is also pretty good for AA builds.

Mergen, i don’t have one, but from what i’ve read it’s also pretty good, could be better than BM for large group of mobs. Also since Mergen uses Bows, it means you can just focus on 1 weapon instead of 2 (BM has to focus on 2 : Gun for BM skills, and Crossbow for Falc skills & damage). Mergen is definitly less expensive.

As for attributes, there are a lot of important ones to get on all 3 classes, i doubt 3K is enough just for the effect ones.

#3

thank you.
I’ll go merg since I’m not a rich.

#4

at rank 10, falc 3 has an attribute which add +3% to falc’s minimum crit chance, maxed at lv 10 (+30%) for 13750 atb point.

preemptive strike first strike attribute is around 6500 atb point to max too.

iirc, pheasant has fixed 15 target. My circling is at lv1 because i rarely used it

mergen need 3 lv 10 centaur card and all +AOE attack ratio item to unleash its true potential. All mergen skill have high SP cost, you want to hit as many as possible within 1 cast of skill.

#5

If you want a light show then go for Mergen. Take a couple of points off of Pheasant and get Circling to level 10 then max out its Expand attribute. Essentially this will give you +3 AAR for Circling’s duration (at level 10 that’s 20 seconds). Pair this together with 3 maxed Centaurs (6 AAR) and Mergen’s triple arrow (with the Triple attribute) and you’ll find yourself clearing a room full of mobs easily.

Also, AAR benefits Mergen’s Homing Arrow in that it increases the number of arrows that you fire with the skill (by default it only fires five).

1 Like
#6

Why do you want 2 extra seconds of Circling for 2 skill points? When you just need Circling level 1 with the Expand attribute for +14 seconds maxed on Circling buff and +3 AAR during the duration of Circling. At level 1 Circling the buff duration is 11 + 14 from the Expand attribute (maxed) is 25 seconds which is more than enough to cast your ALL of your Mergen skills. You will need to invest in about 100,000 attribute points just to max Sonic Strike or Pheasant to level 100. Investing in Circling attribute: Expand, for +14 seconds to increase the buff duration is nothing compared to maxing a those skills. The +3 AAR Circling expand buff is still active even after Circling duration is over. Most Mergen builds do not even have Hovering skilled in their builds because it is not used very often at all in PvE. You’d end up with 8 circling (18 Seconds) because you will not have another skill to invest in other than hovering/hanging shot which is not advisable unless you’re going to use it to just hunt bosses. Also Homing Arrow will always fire 5 arrows and depending on your AAR those 5 arrows will hit all or some of the mobs 5 times in Homing Arrow’s square hit box. Your answer does not make sense to me at all. Also, Multi-shot has hidden AAR as well try using it while Circling + Aiming is up and w/o to see a difference when hitting multiple mobs.

Edit: Spelling
Edit: Corrected misinformation after testing skills and attribute point allocation.

#7

HI my build is Archer 2, QS3, Falc3, and bm2. but having those attrib to max would cost alot. XD

For falc attrib Hawke eye 10, flying companion 30, tenacity 5.
call 1,
roost 1,
Circling 8, attribute Expand 5, decreased Nullification 5
Pheasant 15, attrib, rapid attack 1, enhance 51
Sonic Strike 10, attrib confusion 5, enhance 51
aiming 5,
pre-emptive 5

#8

Does Expand extend the duration of Circling? From what i know and understand of the attribute (based on its description) it only gives you +3 AAR for the duration of Circling. Getting circling to level 10 (20 seconds) and maxing out the attribute will give you +3 AAR the whole time the skill is active (20 seconds). Alternatively, you could just have both circling and expand at level 1 and wait 20 or so seconds for the CD (not advisable though).

Agree with hovering which is why i didn’t mention it, not even once, on my post. As for multi-shot, yeah I have tried that out but the skill is rather clunky when you’re playing on a controller which is why I normally only use it on bosses.

re: mergen’s homing arrow, always thought that it fired more arrows because i was hitting more mobs with the skills (this was after i got 2 centaurs and circling expand). will test it out once the update is over. the more you know i guess?

Edit: fixed grammar and added video (this was from 2017 though) link of homing arrow hitting more than 5 mobs with AAR gear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhScfUGFHdk

#9

Greetings from another world!

If you don’t mind, I’d also like to ask a few things about Falcon since I just recently resetted by SR into one. For my build, I used the Hawk Eyes guide although I put more points into Hovering.

First, why pick Sonic Strike over Hovering? Looking at the numbers, Sonic Strike is weak-ish? About 1.8k% counting all six hits while hovering has both the Attack Speed attribute and about 2k% on bosses. Am I missing something? I’d imagine that my Falcon’s Hovering would be stronger with the Attack Speed buff but so many things are happening at once, I rarely have time to observe my Falc in the heat of battle. I still can’t tell my hawk’s attacks from one another though, so there’s that, too. (it doesn’t help either that it generally just divebombs regardless of the attack).

Second, when using Pre-empt would it be best to turn off one of the two skills? If so, which is the best to turn off? Would it be better to use the other one as a separate skill? And last, does using either of the two skills outside of Pre-empt “override” the Pre-empt state or do I need to turn off the Pre-empt buff manually?

Thank you.

#10

Hovering only hits 1 mob, Sonic Strike can hit multiples, this alone already makes Sonic Strike way more useful. Confusion effect makes Sonic Strike even better also.

Also iirc you can’t choose wich target the falcon will hit with Hovering, wich is another bad thing about it.

It was always better to get the attribute that disables Hovering. However i don’t think getting these attributes is really necessary now (unless you have both skills but you really shouldn’t).

I don’t know about Hovering, but for Sonic Strike, it will just force the falcon to do another Sonic Strike, Pre-empt’s effect won’t be cancelled, and if the falcon was supposed to do Sonic Strike because of it, it’ll just do it right after you’ve used Sonic Strike manually.

#11

@creepstatic

Hey guys.

So I wanted to actually make a thread about Falconer skill distribution regarding this. Because I have a weird distribution: I have my Circling maxed, leftover points are on Pheasant atm.

+3 AAR with maxed attributes is good, gives 18 sec of effect right? However people may be missing the true potential of this skill.

+3 AAR is always welcome. But right now it seems I prefer having Circling’s duration as long as possible because of it reducing enemies’ defense ratio to 1. With maxed Circling skill and attribute, the aoe defence of mobs and +3 aar is 25 seconds long. So i simply know that as long as I have Circling up, every mob is 1 defense ratio.

I also believe Pheasant have great damage at lv15, but I feel I can squeeze enough from my other skills?

+3 aar is only 1 more medium mob and 1 small mob if I am not mistaken? But as long as Circling duration is up, or as long as possible, even if my aar is only 10, that means I can hit 10 mobs longer, which is in my opinion more dps isn’t it?

Regarding Homing Arrow, I often disregarded this. On another post I even commended Spread Shot being amazing af because I hit damage cap with it in miki mobs… However lately, since hitting rank 10, Homing Arrow seem to be doing significantly better most especially when stacked with Circling+Aiming… Lower damage modifier but if it hits more enemies for me it sounds more dps, yea? On top of that, Spread Shot was improved but I can’t seem to feel the Ricochet effect significantly?

Skill allocation is more pve based. And it matters to me as my attributes are can be maxed except for 1 skill which I am debating which one to least prioritize hence this reply…

I am open to constructive and healthy debate/discussion on this from others as well.

#12

It’s for when you take your Falcon out in parties. If you’re solo’ing sure, 1 makes sense. It’s better to have it higher if you take it out to CM with other people regularly.

#13

Falconer’s Circling: Expand Attribute is a +3 AAR buff that is 11 seconds at level 1 and at level 15 the duration is 25 seconds.

If you want to maximize circling duration get 11 points allocated in it and having aiming at 2 (30 sec duration and 30 cd). Circling is real useful with a long duration in CM ,but you have it allocated for additional x amount seconds vs a boss, ie velcoffer, those points feel useless af. I have circling at 7 and it feels fine I can push out all of my AoE attacks; Feint + Barrage, Triple Arrow, Homing Arrow, Jump Shot, Arrow Sprinkle, Multi-shot, and High Anchoring, within the 17 sec duration. Then use your fixed hit skills pheasant, bounce shot. Some cases you’ll want to pheasant first to focus the mobs in one spot then cast circling + triple arrow/homing arrow. Feels useless af when I solo CM if I put more points into circling. Yeah, max it if you’re only 5 man party cm for life. More importantly enjoy what you play.

From my experience, people say Homing Arrow sucks compared to Spread shot and some do not take either skill. I know that spread shot hits hard [single target cone at 973% (level 1) with 3 over heat] but homing does more over all damage [382 % (level 1) x 5 = 1910% with 2 over heat] because each arrow in Homing Arrow have their own AoE Ratio (5 Arrows @ 0 AAR ea). In Homing Arrow’s square hit box (hence the name homing arrow and it is not like ranger’s barrage), if your AAR is larger that the total amount of ADR in the hit box. You’ll hit all of the monsters 5x. If AAR is less than the total of ADR in the hit box you’ll hit the mobs according to your AAR until you AAR hits 0. After your AAR hits 0 your Homing Arrow will not hit any other mob. Homing Arrow is more effective on Falconers. Spread shot is better for Flet-Mergen. (AAR = AoE Attack Ratio) (ADR = AoE Defense Ratio; Small = 1, Medium =2, Large = 3). Spread Shot was hard to hit mobs before it was changed. If you were too close you will not hit any mobs and you’d have to position yourself to hit the mobs correctly otherwise it’d miss even if you stood point blank to the mob (Cone Hitbox was a couple of squares in front of your character?). When they changed Spread Shot they fixed that problem. Spread Shot does not pierce through mobs. Spread Shot’s Attribute Ricochet is bad. It never hits the same target twice and always finds a new target. IMC please change it to PoE’s Tornado Shot. :smiley:

Edit: Added Spread Shot info.

1 Like
#14

After some testing, i conclude that preemp+hovering is a trap.
You better cast hovering manually.

Hovering’s flaw is that it need to do circling animation before start attacking, combine that with preemp which recast hovering every 5 second and reset the circling animation, it broke the skill, make the hawk unresponsive most of the time.

#15

Have you tried using call to reset your hawk when it bugs out after you use hovering with pre-emp. strike?

#16

As Falconer3Mergen2, where should I dump my remaining skill points into? Spread Shot or Arrow Sprinkle? http://tos-th.com/skill-simulator.html#3hh.114a516585

#17

Arrow Sprinkle, use aiming and circling with about 10 aoe attack ratio. It will hit up to 10 mobs in arrow sprinkle’s hit box with 10 aar with circling up (it’s a circle hit box but hidden just like multishots hitbox). Useful vs bosses and multiple mobs. Spread shot is underwhelming endgame, imo.

#18

no, i havent, because i already use hawk hunt attribute. It usually doesnt attack at all when i switch from preemp+sonic to preemp+hovering (have both attribute too)

i tested for bossing just now, manual cast max speed 19 second lv 7 hovering has better DPS than preemp+lv 10 sonic, if all hits.

#19

It will still bug out even with attribute and you need to get call for the attribute. Might as well use it manually when it bugs out.

#20

hmm, youve got a point there…
Btw, there’s some times when i managed to pull out preemp+hovering, i realize when the boss move outside hovering radius, the hawk will follow it and reset the hovering animation too, which is bad.
Within 19 second of hovering, the hawk will hit around 7-8 times