Arcana Advice

[misty cobalt]

Hello! I've recently returned to the game and used the Flying High event rewards to start leveling arcanas. My first was Dark Diviner, because I've mostly been using magic and I heard it's a good choice, but after leveling it to 50 I'm not sure if I understand it yet. The downtime between Thunderblight expiring and the end of its cooldown doesn't feel good, Shadow Flare and Polar Vortex feel too slow to charge and their AOEs seem too small, and it looks like the arcana doesn't do much for regular magic until link 9 where an extra 2 levels of intermediate/fusion bolt chain casting are added.

I'm about to unlock my second arcana, Alchemical Sharpshooter, and I think I'd like to main it instead of Dark Diviner, after trying it in the arcana trial. Is it fine as a human or should only elves consider it? I also still have the crest selection boxes from the Flying High event for leveling Dark Diviner to 50, should I save them to raise Alchemical Sharpshooter to link 10?

[atomic oasis]

Humans have no problem at all with using sharpshooter so no worries there.

DD is a bit of a slower arcana. To make the most of it you will need to get a good vivace buff to up your casting speeds.

[zinc kestrel]

Polar Vortex will get a bigger aoe by link 10 and thunderblight will also last longer. This doesn't mean I recommend settling on DD. DD has a skill rotation that is considered by many to be annoying, like:
Turn on seething mana, then thunderblight, which then locks you out of using anything but staff/wand/chainblade cause if you switch to anything else thunderblight ends, then use shadow flare, then spam int magic, try to manage dorcha plus mana, and then repeat. People say that's not fun and at least in my experience with DD before the recent patch, I agree. That said the recent patch made it a lot easier to manage your dorcha as a DD, so it should be significantly less annoying, but I imagine it's still annoying.
Combine that with how other arcanas let you switch to other weapons without cancelling an important active skill of your arcana (I was even able to switch to scythe without cancelling Penance as an SG), and not to mention imo AS and EK both look cooler and more like you're actually using magic than DD does.
And not to mention, the recent patch removed the main reason people were choosing DD. They didn't really ruin DD I think, but they did remove the main reason to use it over other arcanas, which was just stupid and a massive problem because now everyone is forced to use extra equip slots instead of only most people.

From what I heard elves have less need for very expensive erg levels, as an AS, because they have less magnum shot cooldown even with no erg. People say this is a big deal and makes elf AS a lot less expensive and a lot more attractive.

DD will be probably a lot less expensive for you than AS (especially after the recent DD changes made tons of people lose interest in DD so DD gear got a lot cheaper I think).

I don't really know what to suggest for you. SG is convenient and satisfying and does nice damage though, if you wanna give it a shot. Link 10 adds self-healing too, when Martyr is up.

@misty cobalt

I didn't actually try DD after the recent patch, only before it, so I don't actually know how annoying the DD skill rotation is anymore.

Also recent AS buffs likely made AS a lot more attractive to people so all the more reason gearing it will likely be relatively expensive.

AS also has to constantly spend gold on alchemy crystals to use as ammo, which is an annoying gold sink, but it's not that bad.

Ignis Plume (AS skill) is still cool-looking and quite satisfying to use and does good damage and now has a cooldown of only 6 seconds iirc. In my book that's a big plus.

DD also gets the benefit of having tons of mana regen in the form of:
-spirit staff exclusive ultimate
-Inspiration skill
-Render Mana skill
and I think there was more. So DD gets a somewhat infinite amount of mana to use with the Mana Shield skill, which is nice and convenient if you care about that.

[atomic oasis]

The removal of thunderblight's dorcha cost while it's running made the rotation much less annoying for sure. I can leave seething on now without worrying that all my dorcha will be drained away.
The magic balance patch did make DD slightly less worthwhile than before but balance between the classes was needed.
My only wish is that it wasn't nerfed as hard as it was due to how fast other arcanas can output damage. Magic needs to charge first so i feel a slightly higher damage multiplier would have been justified.

[gritty copper]

(You'll definitely want a spirit)

[misty cobalt]

Admittedly I'm mostly interested in Alchemical Sharpshooter for aesthetic reasons 😅 I'm a big fan of magic guns in fantasy settings, and I recently bought an appearance scroll to turn my Blaanid crossbow into a shotgun, and AS looks and feels like it would bring me even closer to the fantasy of having a magic gun that shoots explosions. And also DD hasn't felt very satisfying, and when it does it usually comes with a long cooldown because Polar Vortex takes 60 seconds before it can be used again. I have DD at link 2 right now because I used the smoldering threads from the Letters to a Milletian box before realizing I'd get enough crests for link 10 from Flying High. Maybe I might like DD more at link 10, but I wouldn't want to use the crest boxes in case I end up still not enjoying it much.

I've heard that in the next phase of the summer festival events we'll be getting free erg 50 Perseus weapons of our choice, and that archery benefits most from erg 50. At the moment I don't have very much investment in magic, at least not in terms of anything untradeable, just an almost-blank celtic druid staff that formerly had a level 67 spirit that I reset and moved to the Blaanid sword so I could rent a staff with a level 100 spirit.

My favorite talent in general is dual guns and I do know they're getting an arcana soon in KR, but I've heard Variable Gunner will be themed after modern military tech and that doesn't appeal to me quite as much as AS with the shotgun appearance scroll

[fast robin]

Flare aoe is very small the line punch trough is the only thing that seems to register fine , flare aoe is lil funky vortex gets way bigger with rank ups and ice spear reforge on gloves works on its range as well, you will only start playing with normal magic like spam chain casting once you reach link 9 and have the staff ego exclusive thunderblight at r1 has a 30 seconds uptime you can use 2 flares during its duration

Btw the next event is gonna give us a free perseus but no confirmation on the erg thing as of now , i have seen people talk about it but mixed information, free set 7 and enchants but no erg i think

[zinc kestrel]

You seem to have things figured out more or less then. I was gonna tell you about the upcoming gun arcana but you already know.

I don't know if the upcoming free perseus will have erg 50 or not, I would be very surprised if it did.

I have EK/DD/AS/HS/SG all at link 10 and I can tell you by now that if you don't like an arcana at link 0, chances are you won't like it at link 10. Links 1-10 are a noticeable boost and they could make the difference for you but I don't think they will be enough of a game changer to make you like an arcana you don't like.

Though it sounds like Thunderblight duration is now a lot more convenient than I thought, I forgot about that (or didn't read it idk). DD skill rotation might be no longer that annoying idk.

Also even at link 10 when Polar Vortex is bigger and lasts longer it's still annoying cause the cooldown is a whole minute for no reason, at least unless this update changed that but I heavily doubt it did. This issue alone is another major part of why I don't wanna use DD myself.

It sounds like AS is what you want then. Enjoy the recent buffs it got.

[misty cobalt]

Okay, I'll switch to AS then. Thank you very much for helping me decide! 😄

[zinc kestrel]

Even if the free perseus gets erg 50 I have some doubt they will let you transfer its erg to any other weapon, like a demo or ruin bow which is better than a perseus or even nightbringer bow. I'm not saying you will have it easy as an AS, AS just sounds like it's what you want anyway.

Like everything else I suppose, AS also relies on bard, so people say you should have a bard gear set in extra equip slots to improve your Battlefield Overture which makes AS stronger. I would skip this however as I'm not gonna keep buying vip service to keep my extra equip slot(s) active and I also know that at least until new rise comes the dungeon voucher method of getting extra equip slot duration is going to be very, very annoying, at least to me. So to me it's not worth it. I know this means I will stay weak in this game, just cause I don't wanna deal with extra equip slots, but w/e.

All that said though yw and at least you get a HOPEFULLY aesthetically pleasing arcana that got big buffs.

I suggest to level AS to 50 and try it for a good bit and make sure it's what you want before using the free link 10 on it.

[zinc kestrel]

In theory you can just put an enhanced gloomy sunday in your alternate weapon slot in order to avoid extra equip slots somewhat, but it sounds like this gives you less music buff effect stat which means weaker battlefield overture buffs, and this also means you probably won't be using stuff like astrology talent methods of gathering up monsters into a clump which would have been very convenient.

@misty cobalt

But I mean this bard reliance is something everything seems to suffer from anyway, except alchemy (but they will likely force it to be bard reliant too when they make the upcoming alchemy arcana) and I don't really know how much HS heals are reliant on vivace but I think they are likely reliant on it and even if they weren't people don't seem to treat HS as a healer arcana anyway they seem to treat it as a buffer arcana and often expect them to use bard buffs, I guess.

DD was our escape from this garbage and that's what they took away in the latest update, for no reason.

I wouldn't have such a problem with it if the norm was for parties to stick together and distribute roles among the party members when doing content

But at least to me that doesn't seem to be how mabinogi is. Often people split up, and even when not they don't seem to try to keep you buffed they just try to keep themselves buffed, and it's very much a solonogi mentality it seems. At least that's been my experience, idk how true it is. But I don't think I can rely on other party members maintaining a bard buff on me.

[misty cobalt]

Yeahhh it was nice being able to make do without needing to reapply a buff every 30 seconds, now in general mage doesn't feel super satisfying to play at least at my current level where I can very much feel my hailstorm spam no longer 1-shotting everything in SWE after the patch 💦

[zinc kestrel]

I think master or grandmaster Bard makes the buffs last a minute. Idk if the recent update made bard buffs last any longer than that, I kinda didn't pay a lot of attention to these parts of the update cause for me it's all probably just a downer.

If you have a Tuan pet you can extend the buff more if the Tuan is summoned when the buff expires.

All this said, it's still not ok to me because I still don't wanna deal with extra equip slots anyway.

[fast robin]

The gameplay loop is the same as mage the only thing is you have to switch to the bard set every 2/3 minutes use tuan for improve buff duration makes it way better imo

But is not necessary, links and staff plus titles and step should give you enough MA to steamroll all the content in game anyways aside from techs and above any thing below vivace is just overkill it dosent really make a difference to hitting 20k ou 80k on a fireball if the mobs have like 7/8k

but anyways i agree with snowball in the link things if you dont like base arcana chances are you are not going to like it link 10 they don’t change that much

[keen oxide]

Physical classes also need to use bard buffs

[zinc kestrel]

So I know I said all that but tldr it currently looks like the best arcanas are:
-For humans and giants, Elemental Knight.
-For elves, Alchemic Sharpshooter.
Why? Cause they just got buffed a lot last month and SG probably does quite significantly less damage and people probably don't want more than 1 SG in their party anyway, etc.
DD and EV are not useless though. I just expect EK and AS will be not only higher dps than DD currently but also have more convenient gameplay than both. And EV is for bosses, it does shine at bosses though supposedly.