Staff / Dagger PvP Build Guide

Ranged Playstyle

Melee Build

The meta in Arena and Small Scale PvP is currently high Melee Evasion. Because of it, you won't be able to hit geared players with your Melee skills. Thus, you want to use a playstyle that incorporates mostly Staff skills as Magic Evasion is harder to have as much of unless opponents use a Dagger for Shadow Walker.

Active Skills

Damage Skills

• You want to soften targets with Ice Spear Bombardment, Chain Lightning, and Judgment Lightning. You remove the AoE specializations because players won't be as clumped.
• You don't use the Focused Fire Bombs Specialization for Serial Fire Bombs because skilled players will see you casting it and block it.
  • Followup with Inferno Wave and Fireball Barrage for incredible single target damage and Mana Burn.
  • Consider using Focused Fire Bombs if you feel your opponents aren't of high caliber.
• Phantom Smokescreen is an amazing defensive tool in Arena to survive against Ranged and Magic players.
• Use Knife Throwing to decrease enemy healing in Arena PvP.

Alternative

• Replace Knife Throwing with Frost Smokescreen.

The goal of this Staff / Dagger PvPvE build is to kill mobs in Dominion Events efficiently while also being able to PvP. Most skills are the same as Small Scale PvP, with a few differences.

Active Skills

Damage Skills

• You use Cleaving Moonlight, Serial Fire Bombs, Inferno Wave, and Chain Lightning to farm mobs.
• Save Ice Spear Bombardment and Judgment Lightning for PvP. You can choose to use them on PvE at your own discretion.
• Use Shadow Strike followed up with Cleaving Moonlight for PvP or chain into Frost Smokescreen to escape.
• Icebound Tomb is used to keep yourself alive.

Passive Skills

• No changes from previous setups.

Alternatives

• If you don't plan on engaging in Melee range with Shadow Strike, you can replace it with Redemptive Barrier. Hopefully, it will let you survive long enough to escape to your team.

Pre Buff

Fire Combo

Other Skills

• Use Knife Throwing to reduce Healing on a target.
• Phantom Smokescreen is your get out of jail free card. If you're being focused down by Ranged and Magic users, cast it to gain a brief window of time to recover and analyze your situation.
• Icebound Tomb and Ice Spear Bombardment are your bind skills which you can follow up with Chain Lightning or Judgment Lightning.

Farming Abilities

Defensive Options

You PvP with this set for the first weeks of launch. At this point in time, not many players will be especially geared.

Your Goals

• Farm accessible gear by doing Open World Dungeons.
• Trait those accessible gear.
• Extract traits from gear for Lucent.
• Turn important Purple Gear acquired from Co-Op Dungeons into Lithographs and sell them at the Auction House.

Build Differences

• In Large Scale PvP, the odds of you getting hit by Melee are considerably less than the odds of you getting hit by Ranged attacks. Thus this build considerably reduces the rate at which you get hit by those attacks.
  • With Victorious Energy and Shadow Walker active, you will reach at least ~2500 Ranged Evasion and ~2000+ Magic Evasion.
• The Triple Evasion build is a Jack of all Trades build.
  • With Victorious Energy, you reach 2100+ Melee Evasion. This allows you to evade 50% of all Melee attacks against someone with 1100 Melee Hit.
  • Your Ranged Evasion and Magic Evasion with Shadow Walker and Victorious Energy reach 1800+.

Dungeon Priority

Triple Evasion

The Triple Evasion build does not rely on Co-Op Dungeons to get your gear. All but one piece of gear can be acquired through Open World Dungeons.

• Tyrant's Isle
  • Ebon Roar Sabatons

Large Scale Evasion

This build relies on many more Co-Op Dungeon gear than the Triple Evasion build.

• Sapphire Dimensional Band
  • Since you need nothing specific, you can go for the ring ASAP.
  • Precious Epic Accessory Selection Chest
    • Requires Recipe: Dimensional Essence: Salvation to craft.
  • You must do each Co-Op Dungeon at least 3 times to acquire enough tokens to craft it.
• Cave of Destruction
  • Soul Mirror Carapace
  • Glade Stalker Boots
• Temple of Slaughter
  • Nature's End Gloves

Open World Dungeon Priority

1. (Optional Replacement) Daggers of Undead Severing
   • This item is easier to Trait because you can farm the crafting materials to craft it.
   • Craft this item using Death Soul Shard. You craft it at the Weapon Crafter Arless, who roams the path between Nesting Grounds and Vienta Village.
   • Farm Syleus's Abyss 1F-2F for Death Soul Shard.
   • This weapon will be your stat stick as you can easily fully Trait it with minimal cost.
2. (Optional Replacement) Golem Destruction Staff
   • This weapon is purchased from the Guild Coin Merchant. Buy Rare Special Weapon Selection Chest to acquire the weapon.
   • It's much less expensive to trait the guild weapon.
3. Ant's Nest
   • Elusive Hexweaver Hat from Worker Ant
   • Elusive Hexweaver Pants from Acid Ant
4. Temple of Sylaveth
   • Elite Retainer's Belt from Shade Wizard
5. Shadowed Crypt
   • Hermit's Shroud from Dark Enforcer
     • Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Shadow
     • Cloak that Protected a Hero
   • Duskblood Trousers from Dark Wizard
6. Sanctum of Desire
   • Alacritous Invoker Gloves from Avolos Hydromancer
   • Staff of the Umbramancer from Avolos Geomancer
     • Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Desire
7. Saurodoma Island
   • (Optional Replacement) Malevolent Staff

Always use Transcendent Magic Ring or Queen Bellandir's Domination Wand if you get them.

This build centers around Reaper's Interring Pants and focuses on hitting that 60 Perception breakpoint for 120 extra Hit Chance and 50 Strength breakpoint for the 100 extra Heavy Attack Chance.

• Use Toublek's Thunderous Soul if you want more Crit at range.
• The Dagger's weapon mastery, Master of Evasion, gives you an additional 105 Evasion while you have a dagger as your main hand weapon.
• If you find that you don't need as much Hit Chance, go down to 50 Perception and go for more Dexterity for more damage.

With 50% Buff Duration, your Victorious Energy lasts 18 seconds. Combine that with Shadow Walker, and your Ranged and Magic Evasion reaches over 2000. This lets you evade over 50% of Ranged and Magic skills versus someone with 1000 Hit Chance.

Co-Op Dungeon Sources

• Beast King's Gilded Bracers from Cave of Destruction
• Phantom Wolf Tunic from Tyrant's Isle
• Shadow Harvester Grips from Temple of Slaughter (Extremely Low RNG)
  • Use Precious Epic Equipment Selection Chest: Salvation.

Field Boss Drops

• Talus's Resonance Staff from Talus
• Reaper's Interring Pants from Junobote
• Tycan's Bloodlust Belt from Aridus

Open World Dungeon Sources

• Special Resistance Hawk Hood
  • Black Boar in Purelight Hill
  • Crown Blessed by Moonlight
  • Precious Blessing Pouch
  • Craft Recipe: Precious Lithograph: Heroic Hood of the Resistance.
• Shadowed Crypt (Precious Epic Equipment Selection Chest: Abyss)
  • Sabatons of the Field General from Dark Wizard
• Syleus's Abyss 5F-6F (Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Abyss)
  • Unshakeable Gold Ring from Demonhoof Tracker
  • Abyss Conqueror's Necklace

Always use Transcendent Magic Ring or Queen Bellandir's Domination Wand if you get them.

In Arena, Melee and Ranged Evasion are the meta. In theory, if that is the case, you won't need much Magic Hit. It depends, though, on what type of players you are facing. If facing more Dagger users, you will need more Hit Chance for Shadow Walker. You can compensate for this with Victorious Energy.

• The Dagger's weapon mastery, Master of Evasion, gives you an additional 105 Evasion while you have a dagger as your active weapon.

You have several Evasion buffs: Victorious Energy, Shadow Walker, and Master of Evasion.

• You reach 2300 Melee Evasion with Victorious Energy, allowing you to evade 50% of Melee Attacks versus someone with 1300 Melee Hit Chance.
• You reach 2200 Ranged Evasion with Victorious Energy and Shadow Walker, allowing you to evade 50% of Ranged Attacks versus someone with 1200 Ranged Hit Chance.

Co-Op Dungeon Sources

• Hell Guide's Visor from Death's Abyss
• Black Lion Dash from Tyrant's Isle
• Ancient Saurodoma Bracers from Tyrant's Isle
• Black Lion Black Gaiters from Temple of Slaughter

Field Boss Drops

• Talus's Resonance Staff from Talus
• General's Frenzy Gloves from Aridus
• Slaughterer's Collar
  • Marienne's Recommended Necklace Collection
  • Kowazan
  • Precious Blessing Pouch

Open World Sources

• Special Resistance Tactical Armor
  • Armor of Unfaltering Protection
  • Gallu Archer in Shattered Temple
  • Precious Blessing Pouch
  • Craft Recipe: Precious Lithograph: Heroic Armor of the Resistance.
• Syleus's Abyss 5F-6F
  • Darkslayer Daggers from Demonhoof Tracker
  • Precious Epic Equipment Chest: Abyss

In the AGS game files are the following chests, one for each T2 Dungeon.

• Kertaki's Armor Selection Chest
• Shakarux's Armor Selection Chest
• Turka's Armor Selection Chest
• Gaitan's Armor Selection Chest
• Kaligras's Armor Selection Chest

This resembles what the Korean version has. If these chests come in the November update, then many gear pieces that only drop from Archbosses and Field Bosses will be available, making gear accessible for all players.

This build assumes the above to be true, but this is NOT CONFIRMED.