Pheasant doesn’t deal any heavy damage. The skill is basically just a tool to get your Falcon out of Circling. 1186% at max level is just pure garbage damage unless you got a full STR full transcended build running with 50% attribute. It’s also just twice the damage of level 1, which is not really decent for 15 points put into a skill.
The problem is that you have 3 skills you can max with your points: Hanging Shot, Hovering and Pheasant. Most builds would prefer to max Pheasant.
Unless you go Falconer 3, every point spent on Pheasant instead of Hovering is a waste of points. Hovering deals exactly the same damage as Pheasant at the same level, but Hovering has way more hits during its duration than the silly Pheasant has[only 1 hit for Pheasant].
This makes Hovering potentially more useful, especially if you’re up against a smaller group of enemies (even if it’s quite random which enemies are attacked by the Falcon).
Only if you’re Falconer 3 you can skip Hovering for the sake of Pheasant (and because you don’t need to buy the attribute then to stop your Falcon from alternating between Sonic Strike and Hovering) or Hanging Shot.
I still believe Hovering is quite good,actually, and I’ll probably keep it and Sonic Strike at max level even when my Falconer hits Circle 3. After all, I’ll only lose some damage from Pheasant in the process (not even 50%)…