JoeTang
2011-06-15, 04:09 PM
With Chaos came many new changes to the Aran class. First and foremost, no skills require quests to learn. With that being said, I will overview the important changes.
Mob Damage Distribution:
A rather puzzling dilemma that has been bothering many people, the formula isn't very known, but it has seemingly changed in Chaos. Previously, it was approximated by
f(x) = 1/7 * (2 + 5/x)
correct me if I'm wrong; however, after Chaos, the modifier for two-mob damage has increased from what this outputs to ~66% to 70%. Along with this, a new skill added in 3rd job reduces the amount of damage lost when attacking multiple monsters. For whatever reason, many idiots believed this skill to reduce your overall damage to increase some ignore defense. Don't believe them.
Damage distribution now follows this approximation
Maxed Cleaving Blow - No Cleaving Blow
1: 100%
2: 85% - 70%
3: 77% - 56%
4: 75% - 50%
5: 73% - 44%
6: 71% - 42%
7: 69% - 38%
8: 67% - 36%
Cleaving Blow reduces the amount lost by x%. If you lose 30% normally (2 monsters), with level 1 cleaving Blow you would lose 26.4%, and with maxed Cleaving Blow you would lose 15%
I thoroughly tested the results with Rolling Spin to have a large amount of sample space, but it is extremely difficult to find an area with 7+ monsters to hit with any kind of attack without building Combo. Thus, I extrapolated 7 and 8.
Final Charge & Final Toss:
In Chaos, a new skill was added to 4th job called Sudden Strike. Having a single point in this skill allows you to use Final Charge and Final Toss at any moment; however, this would be problematic if you were to try to attack while moving, so the key combinations for Final Charge and Final Toss were changed (Final Blow presumably remains the same).
Final Charge now uses Back -> Forward -> Attack, forward being the direction you want to charge in.
Final Toss now uses Down -> Up -> Attack.
They use this regardless of whether or not you have learned Sudden Strike. The skill descriptions still state their old activation combinations. This is wrong, and I do not believe Nexon will fix it when the Chaos go live.
With Sudden Strike, you can indefinitely spam Final Toss. With maxed Sudden Strike, Final Toss does 455% per hit. Final Toss takes 420ms on standard. Therefore, on a monster that cannot be Tossed, standalone DPS would be 1083%/s. In Comparison, maxed Overswing does 1061%/s . Final Toss and Final Charge are not affected by damage distribution. Presumably, the best DPS would then to be to use Overswing + Final Blow on single targets which is better (though I think the margin is very small), and Final Toss on multiple Targets.
Rolling Spin:
Much was changed about Rolling Spin. It now does 4 hits, does not have bugged out hit rate, does not push monsters back, and stuns. At level 1, it hits 4 monsters, and does 57%x4 and 95%x4 at max. With a base speed of 840ms, it does 452%/s, liable to damage distribution. Comparatively, Full Swing does 648%/s (686%/s with maxed Final Toss). Assuming you can juggle a monster indefinitely from Final Toss with Full Swing (you can't), you would do 895%/s. Assuming you can juggle a monster indefinitely with Rolling Spin (which you can), you would do 928%/s. The %/s is very marginal in using Rolling Spin. Its utility is mainly to stun monsters, juggle in 4th job, and recharge combo quickly as it hits 4 times. That being said, the only reason to max it would be to gain the 6th monster hit and possibly increase the stun rate as it is not particularly strong DPS compared to other 4th job options, and even during 3rd job; however, the alternative skills to invest in are Smart Knockback, which is useless, Final Charge, which may or may not be useful to hit more than 8 monsters, and Polearm Booster.
Snow Charge:
Snow Charge gives a passive 35% damage modifier. The charge does not need to be active to gain the damage boost. It is always active. Activating Snow Charge only allows the slowing effect and the ice attribute on attacks.
Combo Finishers:
The buttons at the side of the screen that tell you how to perform Combo Finishers are incorrect. They are correctly listed in your skill book.
Smart Knockback:
This skill is fundamentally useless. No monster has enough knockback that a standard Aran cannot knock it back, in my opinion. The only case where this could possibly be an issue is your Normal Attack on 8 monsters.
With that being said, I believe the following to be the best build
1st: 16 Booster max everything else
2nd: 12 Final Charge, 9 Body Pressure, max everything else
3rd: 0 Smart Knockback, max everything else, put spare points (11) into Final Charge, Body Pressure, and Booster.
4th: 1 Sudden Attack, 1 Overswing, 1 High Mastery, and the rest depends on how you want to train
If there is anything I missed, or anything that requires clarification, let me know.
Mob Damage Distribution:
A rather puzzling dilemma that has been bothering many people, the formula isn't very known, but it has seemingly changed in Chaos. Previously, it was approximated by
f(x) = 1/7 * (2 + 5/x)
correct me if I'm wrong; however, after Chaos, the modifier for two-mob damage has increased from what this outputs to ~66% to 70%. Along with this, a new skill added in 3rd job reduces the amount of damage lost when attacking multiple monsters. For whatever reason, many idiots believed this skill to reduce your overall damage to increase some ignore defense. Don't believe them.
Damage distribution now follows this approximation
Maxed Cleaving Blow - No Cleaving Blow
1: 100%
2: 85% - 70%
3: 77% - 56%
4: 75% - 50%
5: 73% - 44%
6: 71% - 42%
7: 69% - 38%
8: 67% - 36%
Cleaving Blow reduces the amount lost by x%. If you lose 30% normally (2 monsters), with level 1 cleaving Blow you would lose 26.4%, and with maxed Cleaving Blow you would lose 15%
I thoroughly tested the results with Rolling Spin to have a large amount of sample space, but it is extremely difficult to find an area with 7+ monsters to hit with any kind of attack without building Combo. Thus, I extrapolated 7 and 8.
Final Charge & Final Toss:
In Chaos, a new skill was added to 4th job called Sudden Strike. Having a single point in this skill allows you to use Final Charge and Final Toss at any moment; however, this would be problematic if you were to try to attack while moving, so the key combinations for Final Charge and Final Toss were changed (Final Blow presumably remains the same).
Final Charge now uses Back -> Forward -> Attack, forward being the direction you want to charge in.
Final Toss now uses Down -> Up -> Attack.
They use this regardless of whether or not you have learned Sudden Strike. The skill descriptions still state their old activation combinations. This is wrong, and I do not believe Nexon will fix it when the Chaos go live.
With Sudden Strike, you can indefinitely spam Final Toss. With maxed Sudden Strike, Final Toss does 455% per hit. Final Toss takes 420ms on standard. Therefore, on a monster that cannot be Tossed, standalone DPS would be 1083%/s. In Comparison, maxed Overswing does 1061%/s . Final Toss and Final Charge are not affected by damage distribution. Presumably, the best DPS would then to be to use Overswing + Final Blow on single targets which is better (though I think the margin is very small), and Final Toss on multiple Targets.
Rolling Spin:
Much was changed about Rolling Spin. It now does 4 hits, does not have bugged out hit rate, does not push monsters back, and stuns. At level 1, it hits 4 monsters, and does 57%x4 and 95%x4 at max. With a base speed of 840ms, it does 452%/s, liable to damage distribution. Comparatively, Full Swing does 648%/s (686%/s with maxed Final Toss). Assuming you can juggle a monster indefinitely from Final Toss with Full Swing (you can't), you would do 895%/s. Assuming you can juggle a monster indefinitely with Rolling Spin (which you can), you would do 928%/s. The %/s is very marginal in using Rolling Spin. Its utility is mainly to stun monsters, juggle in 4th job, and recharge combo quickly as it hits 4 times. That being said, the only reason to max it would be to gain the 6th monster hit and possibly increase the stun rate as it is not particularly strong DPS compared to other 4th job options, and even during 3rd job; however, the alternative skills to invest in are Smart Knockback, which is useless, Final Charge, which may or may not be useful to hit more than 8 monsters, and Polearm Booster.
Snow Charge:
Snow Charge gives a passive 35% damage modifier. The charge does not need to be active to gain the damage boost. It is always active. Activating Snow Charge only allows the slowing effect and the ice attribute on attacks.
Combo Finishers:
The buttons at the side of the screen that tell you how to perform Combo Finishers are incorrect. They are correctly listed in your skill book.
Smart Knockback:
This skill is fundamentally useless. No monster has enough knockback that a standard Aran cannot knock it back, in my opinion. The only case where this could possibly be an issue is your Normal Attack on 8 monsters.
With that being said, I believe the following to be the best build
1st: 16 Booster max everything else
2nd: 12 Final Charge, 9 Body Pressure, max everything else
3rd: 0 Smart Knockback, max everything else, put spare points (11) into Final Charge, Body Pressure, and Booster.
4th: 1 Sudden Attack, 1 Overswing, 1 High Mastery, and the rest depends on how you want to train
If there is anything I missed, or anything that requires clarification, let me know.