New Lv4 Priest Skills

With today's maintenance, they sneakily added new Lv4 Priest skills. I am surprised myself as this doesn't show up in the update news. According to the new skills showcase that Aso did along with Lv5 main weapon skills, it seems that Nemesis can crit easily--or I could be wrong. INT>STR / STR>INT, staff+shield build?



Edit (12/29/2021):

I tried Nemesis along with some other new priest skills, and they're pretty good so far. Based on the experiments I conducted with INT>STR crit finale build, we have several things to consider.

Edit #2 (12/31/2021):
Credits to @Glen for giving us this information: Nemesis doesn't benefit from Short Range Damage%, Long Range Damage%, or Long Range passive skill.

Spoiler: Nemesis' rough damage calculation and mechanics

The first hit is based on ATK (and STR if you equip a shield), and it is unaffected by range bonus and deals physical proration once (goes through physical calculation). The follow-up hits are based on MATK, and it is unaffected by range bonus (goes through magical calculation, thus affected by magic critical rate).

Nemesis' subsequent hits can proc Holy Light due to Holy Bible, but there's a cooldown of 10 seconds normally between each activation of Holy Light. The damage over time is also unaffected by motion speed.

For gaining stacks, you must either hit the linked target with basic attacks or skills, or get hit by the linked target. Most if not all multi-hit skills are considered 1 hit, so using them will only get you 1 stack of Nemesis. Additional Melee/Magic makes you gain 1 extra stack if it procs.

The link range is ~15 meters. If you are further away from the target than that, the link will be broken and you won't gain stacks anymore. However, the remaining stacks persist, and you can still activate Nemesis within a range of 8 m.

In addition, Nemesis' magical hits will be cancelled if you reuse Nemesis before it finishes.

Do correct me if there's anything wrong with all of the info.

Spoiler: Sub weapons and their usage for Nemesis and Holy Light/Holy Bible

With shield:

• STR affects the first hit of Nemesis
• Activation rate for Holy Light is doubled
• Doubled duration for Nemesis' first cast
• More survivability due to having access to most Knight Skills

With MD:

• Wider Nemesis range
• The interval between each Holy Light proc is halved (10 sec -> 5 sec)
• Works well with Resonance and certain Magic Blade skills

Note: I tested the activation rate of Holy Light for both shield and MD on Alto. With Shield, it always proc'd Holy Light only once in 14-18 hits before Alto died. MD always proc'd it twice before Alto died. Both of these tests were done 10 times for each. My guess is that the activation rate is already high enough for Holy Light/Holy Bible, or it might be one of those rare moments when RNGesus smiled upon me.

Spoiler: Nemesis' damage

The moment we've all been waiting for...

With shield:



With MD:



(Yeah, the first hit isn't that much since my ATK is low. My equipment isn't too great either. Also, Alto died before Nemesis fully procs all of its attacks.)

As you can see, there's a noticeable difference in damage of the first hit with and without a shield. I think that the first hit damage would be even greater if I went STR>INT instead of INT>STR. Though, the subsequent hits' damage would also be lower if I went for that.

Each Nemesis' stack deals 1 instance of magic damage. So, let's say I reuse Nemesis on 20/20, I deal 150k damage * 20 = ~3m damage, not counting the first hit, critical hits, and Holy Light procs!

A full-powered, high ATK with DTE of Nemesis' first hit can go up to 900k~1m damage even with 250 STR, though the subsequent hits' damage will be minuscule with low MATK. Here's a showcase.

Spoiler: My setup

Please note that I'm not a mage main in any sense of the word, nor am I filthy rich. I'm a physical dps user at heart, and a poor one at that. Below are the skills, stats, and equipment during my Nemesis testing (read: bullying Alto). Friendly reminder that this is just for reference; you don't have to follow through every step of the way.

Mandatory skills:

• Holy Light lv10
• Holy Bible lv10
• Nemesis lv10
• Exorcism lv5~10

Recommended skills:

• Secret Chase Attack lv10 (if you have Additional Melee/Magic gear equipped)
• Resonance lv10 (for MD only)
• Magic: Finale lv10
• Brave Aura lv10
• Familia lv10
• Prayer lv10
• Spell Burst lv10
• Crit Up lv10
• Godspeed Wield lv10
• Mirage Evasion lv10
• Perfect Defense lv1
• Reflex lv1 (stargem) / Ad-lib lv1

Combos:

• Impact > Nemesis (smite) > Finale (smite)
• Exorcism > Finale (smite) > Holy Fist (swift)
• Reflex > Prayer (save) > Finale (smite)

Crit Finale + Nemesis Build (no DTE)
-Stat: 250 STR, the rest goes to INT. (Lv230)
-Equipment:

• 6th Anniv Staff VI, 372+S NS [MATK10%INT6%CD10%CD21CR21] {This is my ninja farmer staff, which I refined from +E to +S just to test this build}
• Seadevil Shield +S or vanilla Prism Ring {yep, you read that right}
• Adv. Garb 2s (Iron Empress + Dr. Leo) [MATK9%INT10%CD21CR23, ATK-11%PP-6%]
• Sakura Drawstring Bag 1s (Yashiro Mom II)
• Machina Ring (Volgagon + Ageladanios) {yes, I'm broke so I use my dps' special gear}

Some additional info:

1. My crit rate is 127, with a total of 31 magic critical rate.
2. Aggro isn't a problem with -aggro food, even with Seadevil Shield (+50% Aggro).
3. My food buffs during the testing were: AMPR lv8, CR lv9, -aggro lv8, and MP lv9. No damage-increasing food consumed.
4. I'd prolly get more Magic Pierce% and/or flat crit rate xtals if I could afford to buy them (and those piercers/primes...)
5. I like to get 20 stacks of Nemesis by using basic attacks before reactivating it. As the Damage Over Time works its magic, I cast Finale.

Spoiler: Conclusion and recommendation

The first hit of Nemesis scales with ATK (and STR with shield), while the follow-up hits are based on MATK. Equip a shield for more survivability and first hit damage, or for more crit rate with certain shields. Go with MD for wider range if you think the boss moves a lot, or you want to use Resonance. If you want to spam Nemesis for high damage in first hit, Revenir or similar build works well with it. If you want to maximize the damage of follow-up hits, INT>STR/CRT finale is a good choice.

Maximizing both first hit and subsequent hits of Nemesis is doable, maybe with player-statted armor that has -p.pierce and -m.pierce instead of -ATK and -pp. Though, I don't think I would recommend doing this, because it's hard to resell hybrid equipment like that. But still, take my advice with a grain of salt.

As for the sub-equipment, I'm mainly sticking with Seadevil Shield, due to the fact that it gives additional melee +50%. Combined with Secret Chase Attack and Godspeed Wield, I can quickly get 20 stacks of Nemesis by simply using basic attacks (around 5 seconds to go from 0 to 20). Having high AMPR is a huge boost, too. But if the boss can't stay in place, I switch to MD for Resonance instead.

Having said all of that, Nemesis has two glaring weaknesses: it is a placed skill, and the speed it takes to proc all 20 stacks of Nemesis is relatively slow. Thus, range bonus won't matter for Nemesis, and it's very tricky to use on fast-moving bosses unless you exclusively use it just for the first hit.

I acknowledge that this review and my build may have several faults, so I kindly ask all of you to correct me for my mistakes and send me constructive criticisms.

Spoiler: Bonus

This is what I meant by combo-ing with Finale. While Nemesis' 20 stack is proc-ing, you can cast Finale. (This is with suboptimal equipment btw hEHE //slap)

 

I love the combination holy bible and holy light has. It's litterally a tank dps mage build.

Exorcism is pretty neat tho it's close range.

Staff thrust is a nice opener tho it's mid range (8m)

Nemesis seems to be an instant AoE for staff, haven't tested on other weapons.

Really winner for me tho is the holy bible skill. That buff is just awesome.

 

Since nemesis is a physical proration skill.

 

Fyi: Enchant spell can trigger auto holy light.

Magic warriors take notice!

 

Question, so I need Holy Light Lv10 so the damage is reflected in Holy Bible Lv10?

 

Seems to be.
At this point, best to wait for those hyper youtubers who go in-depth on this stuff.

 

May have been mistaken on the encyant spell activation

 

So you like to recover 1k hp when u can have bloodsucker?

 

Enchant spell says only on magic skills

 

I dont get why exorcism is not available for all classes.Is magic and should be able.
Holybible could be a passive instead.

 

Agree that holy bible should ve a passive. It's a self buff that doesn't have any active benefit other than some dark resistance buff.

Exorcism is slow. Yes it's magic but tbh, it's not good other than the mp cost halving. The ailments it can do for that close a range aren't worth it.

Nah, you can do some chip damage too tho I agree, blood sucker is best for rapid recovery, bible light is good for well it seems non-cast magic?

Got it to trigger on impact, javalin, finale and ether flare.

On a side note, Nemesis works nice in combo with finale if it prorates physical. Tested on sliw boss rock dragon and the nemesis damage chipped apart HP rapidly, then again my stats are piss poor.

Need to wait for those proration checkers.

Staff thrust can miss and so too can nemesis. They both appear to need crit rate.

 

Has anyone tested nemesis with 1h and shield? Specifically the first hit, since I think that's the only part affected by the shield bonus.(I ran two characters to be sure: one full INT, the other full STR.)

(EDIT)Edit: Nevermind, I found this. So damage is less than Revenir, but I'm not sure about binding strike...

 

Finally, priest skills that knuckle mains can use (don't know if they're good though)

It's holy magic which is probably different from "arcane magic".

 

same with the new knight skills.
expect an update notice in a few days.

 

Actually no. Iirc aso did included the addition of new knight skills in their news notice back then. I think it was this one.

And yeah... they just updated the notice this morning. Check the maintenance detail, you'll see an "edit" section.

 

I should have posted it here, instead of the other thread. That's my secondary brawler on alto. ^_^

 

It would be nice if brawlers (no md) could have more access to holy magic. It's not as though they're that strong anyway

 

You think the lv5 skills will change that?

 

Well brawlers should have

I think they wont have access to holy magic more likely martial power "magic"