Tree of Savior Forum

How to plan your build

Note: English is not my native language, so I’m sorry for any grammar errors.

Since I’ve seen so many people asking for opinions about their builds and most of them haven’t played the CBT, I’ll make this little guide of how you can plan a good build based on what you want to play and still be effective.

Note 2: The goal of this topic is to guide newbies and who didn’t played the CBTs on make their builds knowing what they’re doing, not just do a build and ask opinions without knowing what they have done.

Step 1 - Choose your game style

Wait… Can’t I choose the base class already?

No, your type of gameplay will decide your base class, so you don’t get disappointed after have spent so many hours leveling and you don’t enjoy playing with your character, making you delete it :frowning:

How do I choose a style?

First, how do you imagine playing the game and how do you want to play? It doesn’t matter if it sounds crazy as a “support swordsman”, “defensive archer” or even “tank wizards”. There are classes for all tastes.

So pick one number and a letter and complete the blank spaces below:

I want a (number) (letter)

1- Offensive
2- Defensive
3- Support
4- Utility

A- Archer
B- Cleric
C- Swordsman
D- Wizard

This will give you an overview of how you want to play, and reduces the chance of doing a build that you won’t enjoy playing.

Step 2 - Polish your game style

Ok, I picked up my style, what now?

Now answer these questions:

1- Will you focus on PvE or PvP?
2- Will you focus on single target or AoE?

There are classes that do better on PvE than PvP and vice-versa, example:

Ranger is a great AoE PvE archer, but on PvP don’t do much…
Quarrel Shooter isn’t that good on PvE, but outclasses almost every archer class on PvP

Hoplite is better at single target burst, but Barbarian do better with groups of mobs

There are builds better for PvE and builds better for PvP, and there are balanced builds that perform great on both.

Step 3 - Choose your classes

Now I know how I want to play, what to do now?

Now it’s time to pick your class, each class tree have 14 different classes, 9 having 3 cicles, 2 classes having 2 cicles, 2 classes having one cicle only and 1 hidden class that have 1 cicle (except for archers, they don’t have hidden class… yet)

You may have noticed that are 4 colors with the class emblems:
Red
Green
Blue
Yellow

Red classes are more offensive and attack oriented, they normally are the DPSs

Green classes are more focused on support, they have the highest diversity. Each green class offers a unique type of support.

Blue classes have more defensive skills, while also being offensive, they are the balance between the “Defensive” and “Offensive” game style, but they are more defensive oriented.

Yellow classes have a unique style of gameplay, they don’t follow a specific role, you must see the class to know what are their style and if they fits your style.

So many classes, what do I do? Pick many classes or specialize in few ones?

This is a good question, having diversity on your build allows you to have lots of skills, but you won’t excel in any of them.

I recommend choosing 1 or 2 “core” classes on your build and focus them to C2 or C3, example:

I want to do a off-tanker that do great on PvP and PvE, so what are the best classes to do this?

Peltasta - Hoplite combination will make me a great off tank, and great on PvE, but what I do to have utility on PvP? Pick Cataphract for mobility and CC on PvP

So my core classes are Hoplite and Cataphract.

Example 2:

I want to do an AoE PvE archer while having some utility.
So my core class will be Ranger for AoE, for utility I can pick Hunter or Scout.

Step 4 - Research

But how will I know the classes styles?

Now do some research, try to know the feels of the classes, see a few gameplays of the classes of your choice, look for attributes, skills and sinergy with other classes.

After you finish your build, revise it. See if your class choices and the path are the ones you want. If it’s all OK, share it and now ask for the opinion who have played before, so you can have feedback and improve your build!

Wait… All of this just to still ask opinion of others??

There is a difference between doing builds without knowing anything and remodel it based on opinion of others only and make a build knowing what you’re building and remodel it using opinion of others based on what you really want.

Step 5 - Rebuild your build

The more you rework your build, the better it will be for you.
You will have more knowledge and more likely it will be perfect for your gameplay.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the topic and that I have helped those who were a bit lost on building.

10 Likes

No one expects correct grammar, it’s international :slight_smile:.

btw nice guide.

Great guide. I redid my Swordsman build maybe 6 times before finally being completely satisfied. There are so many details to take into account, that making a solid build can take hours of time (if you include research time). I love it though.

My tanky infantry spearman build

My tanky mounted spearman build

No Cata C3?
Maxing Rim Blow instead of putting at least 1 point into Guardian for evasion?
Not maxing Spear Throw for spam?
Putting more points in Spear Lunge?

Sorry, but your second build is somewhat questionable for me.

Hoplite C3 is a lot more valuable to my damage than Cata C3. I pick Cata for the mount, in fact I considered leaving it at C1 but right now there is nothing better for me to get than Cata C2 at rank 7.

Because of Finestra, my evasion will be horrible but my block will be high, therefore I am relying on my constitution for tanking and the dodge won’t be worth using sp for on top of the fact that Guardian reduces my damage output. Taking 1 point in guardian is certainly viable, but I really don’t like it on a Hoplite.

For spear throw, you have to pick up the spear after throwing it, so it’s not that spammable. It’s not worth investing more than 1 point in it unless you plan to only do PVE (which I don’t) because no one in PVP will just let you pick up your spear over and over again.

I put more points in Spear Lunge because from a somewhat in-depth guide on hoplite, I heard that putting more points in it is viable since stabbing skill does a ton of damage even when not maxed, and spear lunge does a lot of damage as well and has overheat (and is a lot more reliable in PVP, and both my builds are meant for both PVE and PVP).

  1. Do all this then you realize DPS is better than any other strategy
  2. Then you find out all your choices are useless since http://www.tosbase.com/database/skills/11403/ outscale every skill you have dealing 7x more damage.
  3. ok…
  4. Cry

You can’t DPS when you’re frozen or stopped :slight_smile:

Can’t freeze me if you’re dead tho.

This post was good feedback but was ignored…

Spear throw should be maxed since it’s spammable
lunge should be 1
guardian 1
impale should be 1
consider dragoon

1 Like

Otherwise, a pretty decent guide, things like the class colors are sometimes deceptive though so you have to make sure of things like a damage class for some reason having one utility skill that may outweigh a full utility class. Early damage skills definitely are more often thrown away and never used again compared to utility skills (though there are outliers) so it’s good to keep that in mind.

You did an amazing job man, for real.

You have to pick up the spear to use it again.

Lunge doesn’t work if I’m on a mount, so it would be a waste of a point.

Guardian should be 1 if you intend to use a high dex build and thus focus on your evasion, but I don’t.

Impale does a ton of damage, there is no reason for me to leave it at level 1 when there are no better skills to spend the points on.

I initially had Dragoon as the 7th rank, but then I realised that eventually they will release rank 8, 9 and 10 classes, so by taking my 3rd Hoplite circle at rank 7, I keep my future class options open (I could still go Dragoon at rank 8, 9 and 10), while maximizing the potential of my Hoplite build.

I don’t think you know how Spear Throw works. It is spammable… if you throw it directly under you feet. You do this - Swash, gather monsters, spam ST. Really simple. Also, the main thing, it has 0CD. Zero.

Cata C3 has all the best skills available to it. Trot with full 100% Uptime. Doom Spike, Earthwave, which scale greatly. And, the most important… Rush.

You don’t need to max Lunge, it’s a waste. 1 point is enough, because all you need from this skill is Pierce vulnerability. That’s it.

I personally think that taking Cata with Pelta is a bad decision also. You will primaly use 2H Spears with Cata, since they deal more damage. You can use it for Swash and Weapon Swap, though. Also yes, consider Dragoon. Very powerful spear class and ALL skills work while mounted.
Consider this:

Sword - High - High - Cata - Cata - Cata - Dragoon.
Or this:

Sword - Pelta - Hop - Hop - Hop - Doppel - Dragoon.

1 Like

Shinobi pve playstyle

Weird. Every information I have read up to now has said that Dragoon skills either cannot be used mounted, or half of his skills cannot be used mounted. I guess they updated that?

Also, evidently, if you are using 1h spear with shield, you expect to deal less damage than 2h spear with the tradeoff of being tankier and being able to Taunt monsters.

After thinking about it though, I think you are right that Cata C3 is more valuable than Hoplite C3, because Hoplite’s Finestra already has 100% uptime at Hop C2 and Rush really does look amazing.

The can be used while mounted, don’t worry. It’s evem more strange, because everywhere I looked, people said the exact opposite.

Of course, but that’s not Catas are for, really. As well as Dragoons. If you go Cata all the way, you should take Dragoon, because it compliments Cata greatly.

Unfortunately, you won’t have a room for Hop this way. I have the same problem with my Doppel build, you HAVE to choose because of this one spare circle. And don’t think about Hop C1 only, it’s really not worth it.

But what if you took Cata for their mobility, rather than for their damage? Although I guess mobility is more important for a damage dealer than for a tank, so I can see where you are coming from. Also yes, Hop C1 is not worth it in any build, you need at least C2 for it to be worth it.

In any case, I will probably be running the first build that I linked (that doesn’t have Cata) on my first character, because I don’t like mounts that much.

Cata is a class that really shines on later circles. Sure, you can take mobility, but… that’s all. All the cool skills on C2 and 3. And remember, mobility is mobility, but Trot with 100% Uptime can only be achieved on C3.

The first build has Rodelero… the worst Sword class right now, objectively. However, if you only take it for magic tanking in a party, that might work somehow.

Well, Rodelero has it’s uses. Keep in mind that in all of my builds, I try to take into account both PVE and PVP, and from what I’ve heard Rodelero is pretty good in PVP because of Slither and because he has decent single target burst and lots of CC.

I don’t mind not having all the OP classes, as long as my skills and classes work well together.

Burst takes too much preparation of your time. CC has it’s uses, I agree. Still, I would wait for buff, because right now this class honestly sucks.

But yeah, synergy is important. I hope, I was helpful.