[Guide]Your own personalized build to suit your playstyle

Hello, if you are new to the game and have literally no clue what's going on, please refer to this guide:

https://toramonline.com/index.php?threads/ultimate-beginner-guide.37004/

With that out of the way...
Welcome to how to make your own personalized build. In this guide, you need to be acutely aware of combos and how they work, skill point efficiency and skill purpose and how they relate to your own build.

Let's start with the easiest to the toughest.

1) Skill purpose

Skills in this game have the habit of being niche use. A good example of this is the sword skill tree. All sword skills except for meteor breaker and buster blade are basically useless for being damaging skills.
This means that putting 10 skill points into spiral air for the purpose of doing damage is basically useless due to its function (no crit damage, only white damage). But, putting 10 skill points into it for the purpose of crit damage buff is far more to the skill's purpose than doing damage.
When picking skills for doing damage, you need to decide what type of attack you are comfortable with as your main finisher:
- If you like charging up attacks whilst blasting away at a single target, [Cross Fire] from the shot skill tree works.
- If you like just unleashing your attack without bothering to charge up your attack or anything like that, [Meteor Breaker] from blade skill tree will do fine.
- If you like unleashing a wide area AOE which needs a stationary target for extreme damage and has a fixed yet lengthy cast time, [Magic: Finale] from the Magic Skill Tree is for you.
- If you want to blast enemies from afar, [Chariot] from the martial skill tree

These are just some example skills which have the purpose of dealing damage rather than functioning as utility. For utility skills, those would be more important for those who would take tanking and supporting roles.

For now, usually level 4 skills are those which are designed with damage being their intended focus, excluding the Crusher skill tree in which [Goliath Strike] is designed for that currently.

2) Skill Point Efficiency
This is simple. You have skills in the game that can let's say halve your attack, example: [Rage Sword], [Swift Attack] and [Magic Impact]. Rage sword only needs 6 skill points yet has physical proration and needs agro? magic impact needs 22 skill points, can be used from any rage and has magic proration. Swift attack needs 10 skill points, is neutral proration, close range and costs 3MP.
Popular opinion is to take Magic Impact due to its versatility but YOU need to know which skill or skills (there isn't a rule saying you can't take all) will work into your combo well enough based on the skill points needed for you to take your damaging skills, for absolute newbies, you should make your build assuming the # of skill points you have at max level = current level cap. Ignore all emblem rewards at the start and 5 level bonuses.

Use this from coryn to make your build: http://coryn.club/skill_simulator.php

3) Combos
First, a brief explanation on the tags
- Mind: Stops the combo if the target is affected by the ailment the skill inflicts.
- Tenacity: Allows HP to be used if MP is not enough for skill cast. Amount of HP used reduces the power of the skill.
- Consecutive: Reduces the MP cost and power of the skill by combo count/position by 1*combo count and 10% * combo count respectively.
*- The first skill in a combo, the starter skill is counted as 0. It works in the same manner as an Array in programming with respect to the count starting from 0. Of course, you cannot tag a count zero skill in a combo.
- Save: The MP cost for that skill is reserved for other skills in the combo and the damage of that skill and subsequent skills are reduced by 80%(0), 60%(1), 40%(2), 20%(3). If the MP is not used by the end of the combo, the remaining MP is added to the last skill in the combo.
- Smite: Increase tagged skill power by 50% at the cost of reducing the next skill power by 50%.
- Swift: Increase motion speed of tagged skill by 50%.

Making combos is simple whilst at the same time it isn't. You need to find a way to use tags efficiently for providing utility as well as minimizing MP cost to yourself so you don't have to spend all day normal attacking.

Two example combos are these:
1) Impact > Meteor Breaker (Smite) > Throwing Knife lv10(Swift)
- Excellent proration, no normal attack needed
- High MP cost, needs 5 MP for execution.
- can start the combo from anywhere to abuse Meteor Breaker's I-frames.
*- I have no used smited finale as the ender because that is simply abusing a faulty combo system but it is viable.
- 100% Magic Attack from Magic Impact, 150% Physical Damage from Meteor Breaker and 50% Damage from lv10 throwing knife.

2) Astute > Swift Attack (save) > Meteor Breaker (Smite) > Throwing Knife Lv10 (Swift)
- 1 MP cost
- 100% physical damage from astute, 20% physical damage from Swift attack, 90% physical damage from Meteor Breaker and 10% physical damage from throwing knife.

From the two combos, (2) is far more efficient MP cost wise, however, (2) also means you have to start combo execution in close range and the i-frames safety of meteor breaker is now less controllable as opposed to (1). Your playstyle here would determine which combo is more useful for you.

When making a combo, consider the following at all times:
1) Will I use it?: There are times you can make combos that won't see the light of day. This is a waste of skill points and time.
2) What kind of combo is it?: Utility, Attacker, Defensive?
3) Will proration be boosted, maintained or reduced?: Try to refrain from making combos that go physical > physical > physical, it completely destroys proration for physical damage. Magic users kinda get away from this because their attacks are far less compared to physical damage dealers.

Finally, your stat points.
For newbies, placing 30 PTS into VIT isn't bad, you can use the free reset book to get rid of it later or wait for free reset event. But DO NOT put points into all 5 stats for 'versatility'. That's nonsense and whilst many players in game do not care if you do crap damage so as long as you do not bother their proration, you're gonna have a bad time on your own or even in cases where you need to fill a specific role.
Class free doesn't mean to become a jack of all trades, you will master none. For Blade for example, focussing on STR is best.

For an explanation into how stats work for various weapons, please refer to here:
https://toramonline.com/index.php?threads/character-stats-impact.45626/