Tree of Savior Forum

Sapper vs Wugushi for Musketeer - after balance theorycrafting

Class and Rank Archer
#1

Greetings saviors,
I am an Archer 3 > QS 3 > Musk3 with ~50 STR and rest DEX, I deal great single target AA, especially against bosses, but I’m sick of not having good AOE skills. I looked through the forum, but I couldn’t find a comparison between Sapper 3 and Wugushi 3 after all the balance patches and R10 update. I"m mainly looking for a comparison between Sap and Wugu, but you can contribute with other fillers and theorycraftings for Musketeers.
http://www.tosbase.com/tools/skill-simulator/build/rlwjpiz3pk/
vs
http://www.tosbase.com/tools/skill-simulator/build/uoz16o3xki/

I played as a full STR musk, but most skills were blocked by monsters in Lanko Lake dung and I don’t have the $$ for high DEX equipments, so at least 100 DEX would be needed, which IMO gives a slight advantage to Sapper, but from what I can tell, if I don’t have high crit rate, Poison Pot has better damage than Broom Trap - and that’s without doubling the damage with Cresendo Bane or adding Wugong, Jican GU and Miasma to the mix.

Also, I find it awkward to place Claymore on the ground and fire it, I can’t cancel Stake Stockades animation by jumping after a patch and Rogue’s Capture takes too long to cooldown (3 minutes for recharge is ridiculous, in some parties, I sometimes finish a dung in less than 5 minutes). Also, is only level 5 Sneak Hit (40% crit from behind) worth it over 25 more crit rate from level 15 Swift Step - and also, I can’t get to max out Oblique Shot, which works great as a filler for Musk, is the sacrifice for Rogue worth it? Would Scout’s Cloaking with 50% damage be better instead?

As for Wugushi, is it better to get Ranger for Steady Aim or just keep Archer 3 for Swift Step (for slightly higher crit for musk skills) and Oblique Shot? I see most builds get Ranger with Wugushi. Which clases would give the best AOE for Musketeer? And has anyone went from QS to an aoe class? What did you choose and what was your experience after ditching Running Shot? For me, with more than 300 DEX with RS 5 + KS 10 I am literally a machine gun (even more so when I get Quicken), combined with max charged Sniper’s Serenity and Grooving Muzzle 15, I am pretty much #1 at bossing if no player in the party has Transcended weapons or if there’s no Shinobi in the party - so I’m not sure if skills would be better than my fast AA.

I’m not using any card, so would Velnia Monkey cards with Wugushi be better than Glass Mole with Sapper?

Update 2019-10-24, long after rebuild and quite a while after Tiger Hunter release.

I became a Musketeer - Falconer - Tiger Hunter. The falc skills really supplement the insane damage of Musk skills, while giving a good AOE and Tig is a great AOE filler. It uses quite a lot of SP though, I’ve seen popular builds using Pied Piper instead of falc. Appraiser, Wugushi, Sapper and even Quarrel Shooter (still) might also work.

I don’t really recommend Wugu, as DoT is not exactly what a hard hitting Musketeer is meant to do (IMO), but I can’t argue against poison aoe… Sap is ok-ish, as you usually place and forget traps, but I think there are too many skills, so you are better off only maxing a few important ones and forget most (and if you plan a Cannon build, definitely take Sapper for Cannoneer - Matross). I probably don’t have to mention that you should only get the non-crossbow skills if you go with QS.

#2

Speaking as a former Sapper3 Musket (with A2 and Rogue1) turned Wugu3 Musket (+ Ranger1), there’s definitely a lot of difference. You lose some capability against aerial targets (Detonate Traps with +250% damage against flying does pretty sick damage) in exchange for positively HUGE improvement in ground-based AOE DPS. Gu Pot + Jincan Gu + Wide Miasma + Crescendo Bane does really good damage against mobs in Challenge Mode it’s unreal.

As a Sapper3 before I pretty much ever only used Stake Stockades + Detonate Traps and Broom Trap, other skills simply take too long to set up (Punji Stake, Claymore) or are awkward to use and tend to get wasted in most situations (Collar Bomb, Spike Shooter). In contrast, all the offensive Wugushi skills are pretty straightforward to use and effective.

As for Rogue1 vs Archer3, if you can get 3x lv10 Werewolf cards then I’d say Rogue1 is better since 25 crit rate isn’t much compared to absolute 40%/12% increase increase in crit chance.

For Ranger1, you don’t get Ranger1 for Steady Aim, oh no. You get Ranger1 for Critical Shot. This bad boy can raise your critical damage dealt by a huge 50%, and all you need is a junk bow since archers have autoswap. Obviously get Steady Aim though, it’s free 5% more damage.

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#3

Excellent insight. Well, I pretty much have no AOE, so other than bossing, any aoe at all would be great. I’m still afraid I might lose my effectiveness on bossing if I lose QS3, so how are Musk skills? I feel that I don’t have the same effectiveness using skills though. When I was a skill casting Musk I couldn’t keep up with SP consumption (with 40 points in SPR) and skills feel so slow compared to AA (especially with SS and GM buffs). But I digress… Now using basic musk skills to kill mobs (lvl 15 Covering Fire, lvl 2 Penetration shot and lvl 1 Volley Fire) seems just as slow to aoe as killing mobs 1 by 1 (I think I’m doing something wrong, I got +9 Primus Raffye Musket).

So I should test Ar2>Ranger1>Wugu3>Rogue1>Musk ? What skills do you recommend? I love Covering Fire, but I guess I can’t get more than lvl 1 for it since I will have all the Wugu aoe. I see that Penetration Shot lvl 15 is a big favorite in the most popular builds, should I get that and Snipe? Can you do a build on tosbase (or do you have a build you can show me?). I appreciate your response.

Also, do I go full STR or 100 DEX and rest STR? Do you recommend adding 40 SPR for more SP? Thanks !

#4

I actually didn’t go for auto attack musket as I feel it’s hindered too much by IMC’s potato server, so I went for skill-based musketeer instead.

Your best skill in terms of damage is Penetration Shot. Definitely max it as your first priority. With the Rapid Fire and Wild Shot attributes learned this skill does absolutely monstrous damage, though the shots do need some positioning to land properly. Maxing Covering Fire is a good choice, as IMO this is Musketeer’s second best skill. Snipe’s damage seems high, but it definitely pales in comparison to Covering Fire or Penetration Shot’s full potential. That said, taking 1 Snipe and Headshot is good point for value as these skills have decent skillfactor even at level 1.

My build

As for stats, I’ve never had too much problems hitting stuff even with my full STR build when i was Sapper3, but I preferred adding 150DEX for some smoothness in autoattacking and using Oblique Shot. As for SP, I mostly just spam 2 different types of pots, they’re not that expensive. However if you want to be able to survive harder content then I highly recommend getting some CON whether it be from your allocated stats or from equipment bonuses.

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#5

Thanks again. I guess I’ll go 150 DEX, how much CON should I add? 50 and get the rest from equipment? Or should I put all the rest in STR? (I did find myself killed with my mergen in HG 370 pretty fast from 2 Spiral Arrow shots and a few other mobs around)

#6

In my experience, there’s really no one true stat distribution that is optimal for all stages of the game.

You need STR at first for the physical attack bonus it brings; when you have above average equipment with some transcendence levels, STR becomes less and less important in the whole picture, and you’ll need CON at this stage if you don’t want to be a glass cannon that dies in a couple of hits.

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#7

I don’t play musket, so take it with a grain of salt.
You could go A - QS3 - Wugu 3 - Musk 3 sacrificing some stuff from archer and rogue in order to get more AoE,
As for attribs, I have 50 str for accuracy , 50 con, 90 spr , 200 dex on my mergem - It ease the pain of SP usage and once you get Solmik or other high level gear it all add a lot of dex and str anyway.

#8

I appreciate your response, but how well does your poison work with just 50 STR (+ / - the STR from gears)? I think 90 SPR is kind of overkill, but I do have to try that out somehow, it sounds tempting. But 150 DEX, 90 SPR, 50-100 CON, I’ll basically have no STR, so I’m worries about the poison damage (I need it to be as high as possible without investing into high-end gear, I don’t have the money for that, as I’m kind of a casual).

Idk, compared to my A2>Hunt2>Wugu3>Mergen, my A1>Rang3>Flet3>Merg (both 100 DEX rest STR) feels like a night and day difference. I used the pet to get flying mobs and bosses on the ground to get affected by more ground poison, but I don’t even need to anymore with this build. What I’m sad though is that I don’t have Feint to double my Barrage damage, I would be really OP if I did (my Hackapell does, but hacka skills aren’t that great and my weaps suck).

#9

IIRC only Zhendu scales with STR and it isn’t that important in your build because it doesn’t stack with Enchant Fire and it’s really only used to fullest potential in autoattack builds.

Other poisons scale off skillfactor like usual, so with a good weapon the damage will still be significant even in a non-STR based build.

#10

For anybody else who is interested. I haven’t reset my char yet, I am still Ar3>QS3>Musk3 but I went at Rank10 with Wugushi. Seems to be working ok, even the low level 5 Throw Gu Pot seems to be doing a good job.

If you don’t want to be a machine gun musketeer, you can instead go with Ar2>Ranger1>Wugu3>Musk3> Rogue / Scout1 / Pied Piper. From my tests with Sapper 3 and with Wugu 1, I can definitely recommend Wugu more.