Florensia Excavator Guide

Florensia Excavator Guide by AdySmith

Hello :3 My name is Souley and I’ve been playing the Excavator class for over a year now. I’ve explored a couple of useful stat and skill builds, and I’d like to think I know a lot about the class and can hopefully help people in choosing their build and different techniques.

Remember that I am in no way saying this is the best way to build your character, it is only what I have found to be the best builds and techniques for my character, so maybe it will be for you too *o*

The guide is still in work, so please let me know if there’s anything you want to see added, or anything you think could be improved in the guide.

Note: The guide is a bit more up to date now. If you notice something that isn’t right let me know Thanks!

Menu

1. Builds
2. Equipment
3. Area of Effect gameplay (AoE)
4. Player vs Player gameplay (PvP) [needs updating]
5. Tower gameplay [not finished]
6. Bosses [not finished]

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1. Builds

Stats Overview

In my experience, Excavators only need either Dexterity or Constitution. The balance between dex and con will decide which build you’re after. Putting it in a simple way:

• Con = good in PvP, average at AoE
  The more con you have, the more HP you will have and the longer you will be able to survive in PvP. With a con build, you can still AoE, but not as well as dex because mobs will always be hitting you, and the hits will add up.
• Dex = risky in PvP, very good at AoE
  The more dex you have, the more normal hits and player skills you will avoid, so with high dex mobs will rarely be able to touch you. The reason why this build is risky in PvP is because you have low HP but high avoidance rate, which means you’ll dodge most attacks, but if a few of them hit you’ll be dead very quickly.

As full dex (both land and sea points in dex) is better for AoE than full con (or a mix of dex and con), I recommend going full dex from level 1 to about 80. At level 80 it is a good idea to change your build to mostly con. The reason why it is a good idea to do this at level 80+ is because the highest mobs available to grind on so far are level 74, so you will always be grinding on mobs 6-9 levels below you. This makes it easier to AoE, even with a con based build.

Skills Overview

Down Strike
Down Strike is a nice skill for every Exca, whatever your build, but most useful for dex classes (as you’ll have much higher melee hit rate, which is needed for this skill to work as it uses a 1h sword). You only need 1 skill point to get the stun effect. Putting more points into it raises the damage, but it isn’t worth it for the amount of skill points needed to max it

Spiral Breaker
Spiral Breaker is a useful skill that slows down movement and attack speed by 40% for 12 seconds at max (level 7/10). I recommend only getting this skill for specific boss killing / pvp builds as you’ll be using 1h sword and won’t have much melee hitting if you’re not dex. Spiral Breaker slows down the animation speed of attacking with normal attacks and skills, but it doesn’t affect the casting times. One thing to point out is that if you use Spiral Breaker (40% speed reduction) and then Aimed Shot (60% speed reduction), you can stop any mob from moving as they’ll have 100% speed reduction.

Quick Shot
Quick Shot isn’t worth putting more than 1 point in, only to continue using skills below it. It has too low damage for the amount of skill points needed to max.

Aimed Shot
Put 1 point into Aimed Shot to get the movement decrease effect. The speed at which the player moves and the duration of the effect doesn’t change when upgrading this skill, so you shouldn’t waste more points to get some extra damage.

Rifle Mastery
Rifle Mastery increases the maximum damage dealt by your rifle. As with all builds in this guide, the rifle is the main attacking weapon so you should max Rifle Mastery to gain more attacking power if you have the points spare.

Poison Bullet
Poison Bullet is a useful skill if you have spare skill points to use up, but I find it not so good as it seems to miss often.

Burst Shot
Burst Shot is a great skill to knock your oppenent down and do some good damage too. I recommend getting this skill to level 4 if you have spare points as then the stun duration is maxed at 5 seconds, and if not just keep it at level 1.

Shooting Nova
Shooting Nova is another must-have skill. It hits powerfully twice, and like many Explorer skills it can be performed instantly. Max it *-*

Dual Gun Mastery
Dual Gun Mastery increases the speed at which you fire your dual guns. As you’ll be using your rifle for all normal attacks, this skill is pointless, so only put 1 point in to make the skills below available.

Gunkata
Gunkata can be very useful depending on your build. At max it deals 1087 damage with an extra 2028 bleeding damage over 15 seconds. This is great for PvP and bosses, but not needed if you’re going for a full AoE build.

Moving Shot
Moving Shot is a very useful skill. Not only does it stun the opponent for 3 seconds, you also jump back. It can be a real life-saver, or a way to continuously annoy people chasing you. >:] You also only need to put 1 point into it to get the stun effect.

Gas Bomb
Obviously for any AoE build you need to max this. For PvP it can be quite useful, but the damage and DoT (damage over time) is quite poor, so if you chose a PvP build it’s really up to you if you want to use this skill or not :3

Explosion
Again, this needs to be maxed for any AoE build. Explosion deals more damage than Gas Bomb, but doesn’t have a DoT. It is up to you if you want it for a PvP build but I wouldn’t really recommend it.

Crimson Dust
Crimson Dust is very useful. By casting it on your opponent, any damage they deal for 15 seconds will be reflected back onto them. This means if you cast Crimson on someone who is about to AoE more than 6 or 7 mobs or players, they’ll most likely die instantly or have very low HP because the damage dealt to each mob/player will be reflected back to them.

One thing to note about Crimson Dust is that it’s possible to remove the effect by using an Antidote which can be annoying if your opposition knows about this. One way to overcome this is just to cast crimson a few seconds before they AoE. For example, if a saint begins casting Mist of Darkness, wait 1 or 2 seconds then cast crimson on them. They won’t have time to cancel the skill or use an antidote so they’ll just die instantly

Also crimson is very useful against bosses with an AoE skill or gives very high damage. For example, Wise Oh Biran likes to spam his AoE stun skill, so if you cast crimson, get as many people close to him and hopefully he’ll spam his skill and deal 5000+ damage to himself each time. Or with bosses like Serbetus who give huge amounts of damage to all in range can kill himself in 1 hit with crimson.

Mine Trap
Mine Trap is the final Excavator AoE skill. It is handy to max if you use an AoE build for extra damage, but utterly useless for a PvP build, because who’s gonna walk straight into a mine? *¬* One thing to note is that Mine Trap’s hit rate is 100%, as long as the mobs are in range. This means it is great for higher level floors in tower.

Concentration
Concentration increases your hit rating and range. If you have a full dex build, I recommend only getting this skill to level 2 for the extra +3m range which is useful in gathering mobs (attacking from further away). However, this skill is vital to max if you chose a con based build because you won’t have enough hit rate to hit consistently normally.

Hit Chain
Hit Chain is a buff skill which can be cast on any player target. At max it increases your melee and range hit by 91, but costs 10 skill points which to me isn’t worth it. If you’re lacking hit rating, you should increase the skill Concentration as you’ll get over double the amount of hit for roughly the same amount of skill points.

Raise Agility
Raise Agility is another must-have skill for an AoE build as it increases your avoidance rate by 81 at max. It can also be useful for PvP to avoid hits and skill, but if you don’t have the spare points, don’t worry too much about it.

Wings of Wind
This skill increases your movement speed by 40% at max. Every Explorer / Excavator / Sniper should max this. No exceptions ;P

Calm
A lot of people think this a completely useless skill but it can be very useful at times. If you use it on a mob, all agro you have will be reduced to 0, so it is perfect for when you accidently over-damage a boss. If you use calm, the boss will start attacking the player who has done second most damage and act like you haven’t attacked it at all.

Wind Walk
As with Wings of Wind, this increases your movement speed by 50% at max, and unlike Wings of Wind this skill gives the buff to all nearby party members too. Every Excavator needs to max this, doesn’t matter about what build you have.

Balance Up
Balance Up is a skill usable by every second class. It increases your resistance to critical hits and stun skills. If you’re going for a PvP build (or if you kill bosses a lot), this is a must-have skill.

AoE – all points on Dexterity

This is the best build for grinding. As you are full dex, you will have very high avoid and hit rate, which means you don’t need to worry about the skill Concentration (only maybe the first 2 points for the extra range it gives). A lot of people think that just because you have all points on dex you will be invincible and never be touched by mobs. They’re wrong *-*

The key to dex build is to completely max your avoidance rate as much as possible. That means increasing only dex, wearing accessories that give avoid bonuses, putting avoidance rate fusions on your weapons and armour, and also wearing CS items that increase avoid.

Skills: http://xaleo.org/flopla/#1:12111b1111a0 … :0:0:0:0:0
Priority:

PvP – all points on Constitution

This is the best build for PvP in my experience. You have a lot of HP which means you can survive longer and make full use of Crimson Dust. The only downside is that you don’t have much hit-rate, so this build can be tricky for players who don’t have +8 or higher gloves.

If you chose this build, you should stick to CS items that increase your HP by a percentage. This way you can get sometimes an extra 1000HP from equipping something like the Bunny Boy. It is still a good idea to get avoid unsealed guns and accessories, even if you are full PvP, just because extra avoid never hurts. :3

Skills: http://xaleo.org/flopla/#1:1b11114b1119 … :0:0:0:0:0
Priority:

Boss killer – all points on Constitution

This build is perfect for a supporting role in killing bosses and also soloing most of them yourself. It is similar to the PvP build as you’ll be full con with not much hit rate, so need to max Concentration and try to get nice gloves.

Please see the “Bosses” section of the guide for more about killing bosses.

Skills: http://xaleo.org/flopla/#1:1b1111481110 … :0:0:0:0:0
Priority:

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2. Equipment

Armour

As with most classes, equipment with HP or MP unseal bonuses are good, so keep unsealing equipment until you get nice bonuses. Your boots are the only type of armour that can get an avoidance bonus, which is vital for an AoE exca. Once you get to level 45+, you should aim to always get avoid bonuses on your boots (as well as the default avoid bonus on second class armour boots). The more avoidance you have, the less hits you’ll take and the better you’ll be able to AoE. Here is a list of all Excavator armour:

Appenine Set – land: 45, sea: 10 (dropped by Gloshire bosses)

• dropped by Skeleton King
• dropped by Lord Ghoul
• dropped by Steel Guard
• dropped by Steel Guard

Phnomphen Set – land: 53, sea: 15 (dropped by Hidden Port bosses)

• dropped by Smart Derby & 100,000 Volt Crewbarian
• dropped by Blue Gangster Research Leader
• dropped by 100,000 Volt Crewbarian
• dropped by Dock Manager Horns

Kavkaz Set – land: 61, sea: 20 (dropped by Avery bosses)

• dropped by Maegner
• dropped by Lady Kinavery
• dropped by Nelia
• dropped by Little Baron

Riyadh Set – land: 69, sea: 25 (dropped by Rainbow Highland bosses)

• dropped by Derorantula
• dropped by Wise Oh Biran
• dropped by Aquarrior
• dropped by Derorantula

Nameless Set – land: 77, sea: 33 possibly (dropped by Droes bosses?)

• dropped by ???
• dropped by ???
• dropped by ???
• dropped by ???

Weapons

These Excavator builds rely on switching weapons a lot. You’ll need:

• One-handed Sword
• Rifle
• Dual Guns

You should play around and figure out the easiest way to smoothly switch between weapons for the different skills.

I use F1, F2 and F3 buttons to change weapons. F1 is One-handed sword, F2 is Rifle and F3 is Dual Guns. One easy way of thinking about switching weapons to use skills is not to switch weapons and then perform the skill, instead press the weapon switch button and the skill shortcut button together. For example:

• To perform Moving Shot (which is in slot 2 of my skill shortcut bar), I would press F3 and 2 together as my Dual Guns are in my Weapon Slot 3.
• To perform Shooting Nova (which is in slot 6 of my skill shortcut bar), I would press F2 and 6 together as my Rifle is in Weapon Slot 2.

Once you get used to your Skill Bar and weapon switching, 1vs1 killing becomes very fun.

Dual Guns and Rifle can also get avoidance bonuses, but you only really need it for the dual guns as they’re the weapons you’ll have equipped when AoEing. As your rifle is your main 1vs1 weapon, you should aim to get a high upgraded rifle to compensate for lack of Strength.

Also note that your One-handed Sword doesn’t matter at all. You can use the level 5 one up until you’re level 99 as you only need to use it for the stun, so damage hardly matters. However, I’d still recommend getting one closest to your level, and try to get it +4 too.

Accessories

Having good accessories is very important in your character building. A lot of people equip accessories without caring what stats they raise. If you seem to run out of MP a lot, try equipping earrings that increase MP and MP recovery rate. Also, try to get all your accessories with bonus seals. Seal bonuses such as Long Range Hitting are very useful for builds that don’t use a lot of dex because if you don’t have high hit rate, a lot of your attacks will miss. Here are some useful accessories for Excavators:

Silver Vixen’s Necklace (avoid +13) *
Blue Albino Ring (avoid +12, moving speed +3%)
Derby’s Ring (avoid +28) *

* = only available by completing boss quests

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3. Area of Effect gameplay (AoE)

Florensia has a great AoE skill-set for every class. Excavator AoE is somewhat different to other classes as you gather mobs fast but kill them more slowly as your AoE skills aren’t as powerful as other classes. Here’s a list of overall pros and cons of Excavator AoE:

Pros

• Bonus avoid from second class boots, dual guns and rifle
• Mine Trap has 100% hit-rate for every mob in range
• Gather mobs fast
• Outrun mobs but still keep them following so they usually don’t even get the chance to hit you

Cons

• Low damage AoE skills so it can take 2 (sometimes 3) skill recharges to kill all mobs
• The mine in Mine Trap sometimes doesn’t get deployed (annoying bug ._.)
• You can only really AoE properly after level 40 when you get your second AoE skill Explosion, so before 40 you must level 1vs1
• Explorers get less avoidance per dex point compared to Nobles and Saints

The idea behind AoE is to gather as many mobs as you can then quickly kill them all at once with your skills. You can get them to follow you by running close to them or shooting at them. A lot of players usually always shoot each mob to make them follow, but as you can easily run past each mob, shooting is a waste of time and also a waste of bullets.

Depending on how much avoidance you have, you can gather anywhere from 10-50 mobs at once. My advice would be to grind on mobs no less than 2 levels below and 5 levels higher than you. Find an area to AoE with a lot of melee mobs (if there are ranged mobs, do your best to avoid them as they become so annoying when you start gathering lots of mobs) around your level, hopefully quite close together (making for easy gathering).

1. When you start collecting mobs, you want to run ahead so they can’t attack you, but not too far to make sure they won’t run away. A good strategy is to click a few paces in front of you then take a half-second break and repeat.
2. Once you have a nice amount of mobs following you, first use Explosion to hit as many as possible (while they’re still running towards you), and straight after use Gas Bomb.
3. (If you don’t have Mine Trap, skip this step) Run ahead of the pack of mobs quite far (but not too far *o*) and start placing the mine down. Hopefully by the time the mobs have caught up to you, the mine has almost been deployed, then you can keep running and enjoy watching them blow up :3
4. Keep moving around so the mobs don’t hit you while you wait for your skills to recharge, and repeat steps 2 and 3 until they’re all dead. ^.^ if you have only 3 or 4 mobs left alive, you could just finish them off with your rifle. It’s up to you

AoE grinding spots

Don’t be afraid to stay on a group of mobs longer than I have recommended, or if you want to jump ahead to higher mobs it is up to you. After all, this is just a guide. Also I recommend to keep as many Lava, Avery, Hidden Port, Rainbow and Droes as possible until level 84+, where you can’t get exp from mobs anymore (only in tower, where roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes work gets you the same exp as 1 quest).

Level 1 ~ 40 = just keep doing quests and grinding 1vs1
Level 40 ~ 44 = Lava Frog, Lava Varken, Horned Spider (Lava Plateau)
Level 44 ~ 49 = Flame Crewbarian, Volcano Imp (Lava Plateau)
Level 49 ~ 52 = Shrineguard, Ghost Maid, Female Zerg (Avery Mansion)
Level 52 ~ 55 = Male Zerg, Exiled Maid (Avery Mansion)
Level 55 ~ 59 = Male Vampire, Male Vampire Lord, Chess Soldier (Avery Mansion)
Level 59 ~ 63 = Vogelspin, Speculant (Rainbow Highland)
Level 63 ~ 66 = Retis (Droes Under Valley)
Level 66 ~ 70 = Minnestis (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 70 ~ 77 = Niegero (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 77 ~ 78 = Molto Niegero (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 78 ~ 79 = Kinoko Golem (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 79 ~ 82 = Niegero (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 82 ~ 83 = Molto Niegero (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 83 ~ 84 = Kinoko Golem (Droes Cave of Abyss)
Level 84+ = Tower / quests

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4. Player vs Player gameplay (PvP)

Needs updating!

Excavators can be very tricky to beat in PvP because of their stun combo and Crimson Dust skill. However, due to the recent Balance Up skill update/fix, if you stun a player with maxed Balance Up there is only 60% change you will stun. This is even worse for the Mercenary class as you only have 50% chance to stun if they have maxed Balance Up.

Note: This guide assumes both you and your opponent have maxed Balance Up. If they don’t, spam all your stuns while doing high damage and DoT skills.