Staff / Crossbow PvE Build Guide
Last Updated:October 14, 2024|Change Log
Welcome to the Staff / Crossbow PvE Build Guide! The build centers around Mother Nature's Protest to capitalize on the projectile-heavy nature of both weapons.
This build works by making sure all your projectile skills like Quick Fire and Fireball Barrage come off Cooldown as quickly as possible. Selfless Diffusion and High Focus aims to do just that, but you need to party with Deadly Marker Longbow users for even more Cooldown reduction and more damage.
As you are trying to spam your skills, high Mana Regen is a must. Make sure to use Inner Peace cancel tech and Mana Exchange as much as possible so that your Mana doesn't become an issue.
Skill build advice was given by Scytheologies. You can check out his Twitch and his YouTube.
End Game Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
If you're interested in the Leveling Guide, check out our Staff/Crossbow Leveling Build Guide!
- High AoE Damage
- High Single Target Damage
- Mana Hungry
- Cooldown Speed Reliant
Skill Builds
Fire Bomb Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
Ice Spear Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
Active Skills
Damage Skills
- Quick Fire, Fireball Barrage, and Chain Thunder are your main projectile skills.
- Judgment Lightning is one of your high damage skills.
- Mortal Mark synergizes with multi-hit skills.
Utility Skills
- High Focus and Selfless Diffusion are incredibly important as they are your Cooldown reduction skills.
- Nimble Leap procs Nature's Power and resets Quick Fire.
- Whenever Mana Exchange is off Cooldown, use it immediately to maximize your Mana gain.
- Use Inner Peace, then cancel the cast with Rupturing Parry to acquire the Mana Efficiency buff.
- Mother Nature's Protest not only adds additional damage to every projectile but also applies Burn debuff on the target.
Passive Skills
- Manaball Eruption synergizes well with all your projectile skills.
- All other passives you pick offer free stat boosts.
Alternatives
- Remove Gale from Quick Fire and add Damage ▲. Do this if your team has a lot of Deadly Marker users to reduce the Cooldowns of your skills.
PvE Mobbing Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
Active Skills
Damage Skills
- Focused Fire Bombs and Chain Lightning and Judgment Lightning are your AoE clearing skills. Group mobs first before using them.
- Annihilation Barrage Shot is your best wide AoE clearing ability.
- Use Quick Fire with Selfless Diffusion to reduce the Cooldowns of your other skills.
Utility Skills
- Mother Nature's Protest uses the Frost attribute as it procs more frequently for Selfless Diffusion and lets your lightning skills AoE.
Passive Skills
- Detection is there for extra survivability as you get hit often by mobs.
Skill Prioritization
- Use Quality Marind Ore to craft Quality Passive Skill Growth Book and Quality Active Skill Growth Book
- Use Rare Marind Ore to craft Rare Passive Skill Growth Book and Rare Active Skill Growth Book.
- Prioritize getting all these skills to blue first before getting them to purple. These are universal skills you always use.
- Upgrade the rest of your skills as you play the game.
Active Skills
Passive Skills
PvE Gameplay and Skill Rotation
Fire Bomb Starting Rotation
- Mother Nature's Protest (If not already activated)
- High Focus
- Focused Fire Bombs
- Inner Peace (Cancel with block)
- Rupturing Parry (Block cancel)
- Selfless Diffusion
- Mortal Mark
- Quick Fire
- Judgment Lightning at the end of previous cast
- Fireball Barrage
- Nimble Leap (Cancels previous animation)
- Chain Thunder
- Quick Fire
- Nimble Leap
- Quick Fire
Ice Spear Starting Rotation
- Mother Nature's Protest (If not already activated)
- High Focus
- Inner Peace (Cancel with block)
- Rupturing Parry (Block cancel)
- Selfless Diffusion
- Mortal Mark
- Quick Fire
- Judgment Lightning at the end of previous cast
- Ice Spear Bombardment
- Nimble Leap (Cancels previous animation)
- Chain Thunder
- Quick Fire
- Fireball Barrage
- Nimble Leap to cancel previous animation
- Quick Fire
- Ensure Mother Nature's Protest is always activated.
- Cancel your Inner Peace cast with Rupturing Parry for the Mana Efficiency buff.
- After the entire rotation, your Selfless Diffusion has probably worn off, and your Judgment Lightning, Chain Thunder, and Focused Fire Bombs are off cooldown. As a result, you can cast them immediately during downtime.
- For AoE PvE Mobbing like Abyss Dungeons, etc, it's all largely the same apart from just switching into the AoE Lightning specs, grouping it all, and just lightning spamming + Firebomb charge with the amount of cooldown you get hitting multiple targets.
Mana Sustain Combo
- Inner Peace
- Rupturing Parry
- Using Rupturing Parry cancels Inner Peace, but you still get the Mana Efficiency buff.
- Always use it when you know you have to cast multiple skills.
Tips
- Mother Nature's Protest applies Burn with every hit, which triggers Flame Condensation. The Burn damage is based on the skill level of Focused Fire Bombs.
- You use Focused Fire Bombs and Judgment Lightning whenever they're up.
- Quick Fire comes off cooldown quickly, so make sure to spam it as much as possible.
- Spam Mana Exchange as much as possible for more mana.
- Try and time Mortal Mark with your projectile skills if you see them coming off Cooldown momentarily.
Stat Priorities
Use the following stat priorities when playing a Staff / Crossbow build in PvE:
- Primary Stat
- Dexterity
- Secondary Stats
- Wisdom and Perception
You have 49 Stat Points you can freely allocate to any of the 4 primary Stats. Once you put 20 points into an individual Stat, it takes 2 points to increase the Stat by 1. Do not put more than 20 points into a Stat unless you are trying to reach a certain breakpoint.
You get bonuses for every 10 Stat Points you invest from 30 to 60. You invest your points based on acquiring these bonuses.
Dexterity not only adds maximum Weapon Damage but also increases your Crit Chance, Evasion, and Attack Speed. Increasing Dexterity is your best method of increasing your damage output.
Mid Game
For PvE, you care mainly about maximum damage output so put points into Dexterity. Reaching 30 Strength is worthwhile if you think you need the extra Health to survive. 40 Perception is important for the extra 5% Buff Duration.
End Game
You're aiming for as much Dexterity as possible. When your skills come off cooldown, you want to be able to cast them as quickly as possible so you can cast the next skill.
Gear Progression
If you're interested in PvP Gear Progression, check out our Staff/Dagger PvP Build Guide here!
Gear
Game
Shadow Harvester
Solo Self Found
Story Gear Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
All these blue armor pieces are from the Story Codex Rewards. If you have completely different gear, don't worry. You're not going to stay in this gear set for too long. You replace many blue armor pieces once you start doing Co-Op Dungeons. So don't trait any of your pieces until you look at the Early-Mid section of this gear progression.
DO NOT UPGRADE Heroic Armor of the Resistance. Leave it at 0.
You should do contracts immediately to acquire Contract Coins so you can buy Quality Lithograph: Weapons, Quality Lithograph: Armor, and Quality Lithograph: Accessories to craft Green Gear to complete Lithograph Book entries for Blue Gear.
- Make sure you have enough materials to craft by taking some contracts that reward you Rare Base Material Selection Chest and Rare Polished Crystal.
- If you happen to Crit craft an item (20%), sell the item on the Auction House for Lucent.
Gear Sources
- Elite Resistance Staff
- Staves from Archwizard
- Elite Resistance Crossbow
- Bows that Pierce the Target
- Lethal Fortune Ring
- Rustic Mother Nature Rings
- Elite Sharpshooter's Cloak
- Cloaks that Wield Victory
- Dark Assassin in Temple of Sylaveth
Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
Your Mid Game build is the point from where you can farm Co-Op Dungeons and the early low level Open World Dungeons for gear.
Your Goals
- Farm accessible gear by doing Open World Dungeons.
- Extract traits from gear for Lucent.
- Turn important Purple Gear acquired from Co-Op Dungeons into Lithographs and sell them on the Auction House.
Stats
- Put as many points into Dexterity and Wisdom as possible.
Traits
- Traits are extremely important to this build. Mana Regen, Buff Duration, and Attack Speed are all necessary Traits to make sure you do as much damage as possible.
- Acquire Trait Unlockstone through Recipe: Common Trait Unlockstone Bundle.
Dungeon Farming Priority
- Mana Regen is extremely important. Acquiring the blue gear is more important than Purple.
- Whatever blue armor pieces you wear don't matter for PvE, as they are placeholders until your End Game gear. Use whatever blue pieces you want.
- If you're curious, check it out in the End Game tab.
- Eternal Ring of Dimension
- Comes from Precious Epic Accessory Selection Chest.
- Requires Dimensional Essence: Salvation.
- You need 10 Tokens from each Co-Op Dungeon to craft.
- Comes from Precious Epic Accessory Selection Chest.
- Temple of Slaughter
- Rex Chimaerus's Rake Bow
- Grace of Mother Nature Linen Pants
- Shadow Harvester Grips
- Make it a lithograph to sell or save it for the future.
- Cave of Destruction
- Archpriest's Devotion
- Beast King's Gilded Bracers
- Tyrant's Isle
- Toublek's Thunderous Soul
- Cursed Wasteland
- Swirling Essence Shoes
Open World Dungeon Sources
- Ant's Nest
- Elusive Hexweaver Hat from Worker Ant
- Elusive Hexweaver Pants from Acid Ant
- Syleus's Abyss 3F-4F
- Great Spirit's Grace Visor from Wandering Soul Arbiter and Wandering Soul Knight
- Sanctum of Desire
- Alacritous Invoker Gloves from Avolos Hydromancer
- Abyss Conqueror's Necklace
- Craft Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Abyss.
Reaper's Pants Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
Reaper's Mask Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
Always use Transcendent Magic Ring, Queen Bellandir's Domination Wand, or Queen Bellandir's Annihilation Crossbow if you get them.
Both the Reaper's Interring Pants build and the Reaper's Black Mask build have similar stats.
- The Reaper's Interring Pants build has higher Heavy Attack Chance and can replace the chest piece with Special Resistance Magic Garb for more Mana Regen.
Common Sources
- Skulls Spectral Belt
- Adentus
- Clasp of the Conqueror
- Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Abyss
Pants Sources
- Reaper's Interring Pants
- Junobote
- Ghost Wolf Alter Ego Mask
- Reptilian Butcher and Reptilian Soldier in Saurodoma Island
- Precious Epic Equipment Selection Chest: Abyss
Mask Sources
- Reaper's Black Mask
- Adentus
- Ghost Wolf Alter Ego Pants
- Adentus
SSF End Game Staff / Crossbow PvE Build
- This setup allows you to acquire all the pieces yourself through grinding. You do not need to use the Auction House.
Guardians
Guardians are special transformations that add offensive or defensive buffs or attacks to your character for 30 seconds. These are the recommended Guardians for this class.
- Shade Revenant Stheno is THE DPS Guardian in PvE. No other explanation is required.
- Lady Knight Kamarshea is a useful Guardian while you learn new dungeons. It helps in dangerous situations as an emergency button to survive mechanics that deal a significant amount of damage. Not many other situations arise where this is necessary.
Summary
- Staff and Crossbow synergize well due to the projectile nature of their skills as Mother Nature's Protest proc on every cast of those skills.
- Your End Game build focuses on stacking Mana Regena, Cooldown Speed, and Bonus Damage.
- Run as much Dexterity as possible to make sure your skills are cast as quickly as possible.
Credits
Written by Yaen
Reviewed by Tenkiei and Bloo