Having a dilemma about what weapon to pick for my Shillien Oracle character when I reach Lv40 and change to Shillien Elder. I was looking at the skill list and the only real nuke offered seems to be the Wind Strike. I am wondering if I should go with Samurai Longsword or Ecliptic Sword when the time comes.
if you do nuke, look at the "disrupt undead" and similar skills. these are your nukes past level 20.
Shillien elders are NOT damage dealers. they are buffers. as such, you will do nothing but buff people from around level 35 and upwards. up to level 35 it is POSSIBLE to solo, but it is very unadvisable. as a mystic you have weak physical damage, and your "nukes" will fail a lot because they stopped being learnable from level 16.
if you do decide to continue as a buffer, get a weapon with "mana up", "acumen", or "conversion". in B grade look for the Staff of evil spirits which has "bless the body" of a sufficient level to facilitate you being in a lot more groups.
between lvl40 to 52 i would recommend a samurai long sword, after that you should always have a weapon with acumen SA for faster healing (and buffing, but that's secondary) a mp up and conversion weapon is nice, but definitely not necessary.
I personally like to hit mobs even though I'm not a DD (I'm a prophet main) so I have a cheap acumen weapon (mysterious sword with acumen, it's the lowest c grade 1hand sword. Go buy a lowest c grade weapon, e.g. crystal staff and swap it at balcksmith mammon) and a good damage dealing weapon.
For the DD weapon choices, it depends on how you xp. If you like to do small groups against not too high level mobs, get a dagger type weapon, preferably with focus SA; if you like to be in large groups that hunt high level mobs, get a sword, duals or blunt, but most likely in large groups you'll have to pay attention to healing and not have time to hit monsters.
The basic guidelines for a DD weapon for a support mage is:
- the weapon masteries you get give a fixed patk increase, so faster hitting weapons will give you a better overall offensive ability gain.
- you are a mage, your accuracy is low, so you should balance between accuracy and damage ability according to the kind of monsters you are expecting to hit.
from my own experiance, since you gonna have to major ways of lvling -> duoing with nuker, and large partys where you do as semi healer/buffer/recharger.
For the first one i suggest you get low c weapon with mp up(low bsps use and +30%)
for the second i suggest as abowe plus acumen weapon(when your mp is low and you need to heal fast)
yea SEs have a hard time getting groups at higher lvls... only groups I have seen looking for for SE's are soloing nukers.. I guess that would be pretty good leveling.
Problem is at high levels nobody really looks for anything, as they have spent the first 70 levels meeting people and weeding out those they don't want to bet their exp on.
yes, even tho SEs are a poor healer for a pole-group. healing over time isent very usefull there :/
almost every polegroup my clan/ally makes has a WC and PP buffer (WC uses a pole to help DD) and EE or bish heals.
but I guess a SE could replace the WC. would be more heals, but less DD.
Weapon as a SE depends a lot on what kind of situations you intend to get yourself into.
If you have a lot of friends who party every night in large groups, at 40 you might want mana up / conversion to be able to be able to buff all 9 people. Unless they have higher-level buffers already, in which case something with acumen and cheap sps use would be better.
If you duo with a nuker, I'd recommend acumen, although manaup/coversion aren't bad. (manaup/conversion only affects how often you have to sit down, but not the total sit down time: 5 mins fighting / 5 mins sitting vs 6 mins fighting / 6 mins sitting, in an hour both will sit 30 mins and fight 30 mins ;)
If you have a few melee friends you want to exp with, I'd suggest getting a melee weapon and spamming soulshots with them. Against very high monsters sls/focus could be good, or +4 dual swords with focus. Against yellow or lower monsters a dagger with focus is probably better. Daggers have lower accuracy, but higher crit rate, so they'd take better advantage of your Death Whisper buff and with a low attack speed, they'd take advantage of the nature of your weapon mastery skill.