Lunia Eir Skills Analysis and Build Guide

Lunia Eir Skills Analysis and Build Guide by miseri

Introduction: This guide is meant to give sufficient information for anyone to put together a workable Eir skill build for their playstyle and understand how to use it reasonably competently.

The first section covers all of the skills, with descriptions and ratings.
The second section contains advice on how to put together an effective build, with samples.
The final section contains a couple smaller things I’ve written about Concentrate and Moon Barrier.

As always, comments/suggestions/corrections will be appreciated; however, opinions will most likely not make it into the guide itself.

lunian.genin.jp skill calculator
– defaults to Japanese, available in English and German through a link at the bottom of the calculator
– works in IE and FF, up-to-date with the latest patch

Skill List Format

Skill Name (Rating: x/10)
Description of the skill, what you can use it for
Suggested: how many points to put in (final comment)

Section 1: Skill List

Heal

Heal (Rating: 9/10)
A self-only heal that takes 3 seconds to cast. Useful for keeping yourself topped off without putting your main heals on cooldown, or bringing yourself above 0 HP to enable your MP regeneration. Dash cancelable in any direction, making it useful for combos or general skill canceling (i.e. Holy Spirit Heal cancel dash Tears of Goddess).
Suggested: 1 (canceling purpose only)

Light of Healing (Rating: 10/10)
A short-ranged area heal consisting of three waves. Dash cancelable in any direction after the first wave. Its short cooldown plus high power should make this a staple for any build. Learn how to use this where your party is going so they can run through it.
Suggested: 11 (main heal for all builds)

Bead of Healing (Rating: 7/10)
Fires a bead that heals in a tiny radius on contact with a teammate. At ranks 2 and up, it fires two beads. This is the second main healing skill, able to provide healing to places too dangerous to risk running into. You can save people with this by casting it over them, then running on top of them to activate the heal. Battle healers might not find so much use for this, since they are more often in the middle of the fighting; plus, it’s difficult to heal yourself with it.
Suggested: 0, 10

Sunlight of Healing (Rating: 8/10)
Casts a fairly wide-ranged area heal all around you. It’s useful for saving people who have 0 HP or for keeping a scattered, quick-moving party in decent shape. However, it doesn’t heal for very much and it has a longer cooldown than Light and Beads, so this is better used as a backup in tough situations or for fast healing in speed runs. Dash cancelable in any direction; a perfect cancel cuts a full second off the end animation.
Suggested: 1 (for fake res and canceling), 11 (for use as a primary heal)

Prayer of Healing (Rating: 5/10)
A long-term area heal consisting of 9 waves over a large range. This skill takes more planning to use effectively than other heals, since you must find a spot where you can be moderately close to where your party is fighting without being in too much danger of getting hit. Can be used as a last resort to save people, especially with its good range. Skill cancelable at any time.
Suggested: 0, 1 (cannot increase in power after level 45, so it won’t keep up at high levels; just use as fake res if you get it)

Antidote (Rating: 1/10)
Cures all poisons in an area around you. Episode 4 poisons can deal as much as 3600 damage over a period of 4 minutes, at their worst. However, poisons of any real potency are only found in Episode 4 so far, and they can be healed through if your heals are powerful enough and your party isn’t suicidal.
Suggested: 0

Emergency Heal (Rating: 7/10)
Very quick area heal with high range, but costs HP and heals for very little. Its purpose is to save people with 0 HP, but you have to be careful to make sure you have enough HP to save them too. Can run into some problems with area attacks that can reduce everyone’s HP to 0. Still, worth learning because it’s the best choice for saving people who are far away. Skill cancelable; a perfect cancel cuts two seconds off the end animation.
Suggested: 0 (solo/PvP only), 1 (PvM)

Resurrection (Rating: 7/10)
Allows you to bring one person back to life. The reagent for this skill (Jewel of Life) doesn’t appear at all until Episode 2 Legend and disappears when you leave the stage. Most stages, if they do have them, contain only one or two. Not strictly necessary since people aren’t supposed to die in the first place and it’s a staple of most stage builds, but it’s nice to have in case someone messes up once too often and it’s pretty embarrassing to have to tell your party that you can’t res them because you never learned it. Leveling it up increases the HP/MP they return with.
Suggested: 1-3 (level up if you plan to use in the middle of fights)

Moon

Moonlight Piece (Rating: 9/10)
Fires three to four pink crescent moons that track their targets. Each shot can hit twice on very large enemies, or enemies that can be pushed back. Possible to get 9-10 hits in perfect conditions. Does very high damage with a low cooldown. However, it takes a lot of SP to max and it loses a lot of power when used against a dispersed group, plus it doesn’t knock down. This is an excellent skill for use against bosses or for solo play in general.
Suggested: 0 (only for stage builds that would rather max a different attack), 11 (all PvP, any stage build with more than one attack)

Full Moon Bullet (Rating: 3/10)
Fires a large disc to blast enemies out of the way. Although its fast movement may trick you, this is actually a pretty slow-casting attack, so it’s hard to use in combos, and its damage isn’t amazing either. Can be difficult to predict where it’ll go if there are multiple targets available. Has increased range at ranks 2+ which makes it behave differently in some combos.
Suggested: 0, 1 (mainly used as a knockdown skill)

Moon Barrier (Rating: 9/10)
Creates a person-sized barrier in front of you that can block various projectiles. In PvM, players cannot move through the barrier, while mobs can. In PvP, the caster’s team can move freely through the barrier, but the opponents cannot. Mobs that have no target will always choose a Moon Barrier over a player, if the player does not threaten the mob (no attacking it, etc). Can take damage or even be destroyed at the moment of creation. This skill’s usefulness will greatly depend on your ability to apply it to various situations. Skill cancelable if you really need to get moving quickly. See article at bottom of post for further details on Moon Barrier usage.
Suggested: 1, 3 (useful, but not quite as straightforward as other skills)

Moonlight Chain (Rating: 1/10)
Fires 8 short-range shots that track opponents. It’s a slow-casting skill that takes a while to finish. Damage isn’t anything special for how long it takes to use. There’s not much practical reason to learn this skill. Can be canceled by dashing backwards at any time.
Suggested: 0, 1 (used in wall combo, mostly in PvP, not necessary for successful wall combo)

Moon Bind (Rating: 7/10)
Fires 2 waves of 5 shots each. Enemies struck by the shots will be frozen in place, unable to act. Can freeze targets in midair. You can use this to hold dangerous or annoying enemies in place while other people kill them. You can cancel this skill by dashing at any time.
Suggested: 0, 4 (if you use it, you want things to stay frozen as long as possible)

Moon Fog (Rating: 8/10)
Creates a large blue cloud in front of you, damaging and slowing enemies caught within it. Casts moderately slowly, but it has a pretty good range so you can usually do it safely. Although it has a 60 second cooldown, it does around 450 damage at rank 1, so it’s a good way for support healers to help kill things without costing too much SP or risking interrupting combos.
Suggested: 1 (decent damage), 5 (max slow), 9 (high damage)

Judgement of God (Rating: 9/10)
Fly into the air and call a star shower down around you, damaging enemies and healing allies. Once you are at the peak of your flight, you are invulnerable to all damage. The only reason this isn’t rated 10/10 is because there’s a fairly lengthy vulnerable period at the beginning and end of this skill. However, it’s incredibly powerful.
Suggested: 1, 4 (moderate power boost at 4, but decrease in efficiency)

Sacred

Holy Shout (Rating: 6/10)
Pushes enemies back in a wide range in front of you. The effective range isn’t that far, but it’s farther than dash AS, and it’s wide enough that you can push things that are directly beside you (or above you, for that matter) to get enemies out of corners. Dash cancelable near-instantly by dashing directly backwards, forwards, or sideways, so it’s useful as a canceling skill. Also usable in combos either as part of a wall combo or to get space to use Tears of Goddess.
Suggested: 0, 1 (useful, but not critical unless you need another cancel skill)

Dodge (Rating: 8/10)
Dashes forward, leaving a bomb behind you. If used while facing an enemy that can be knocked down, they will get hit by the bomb and you will dash past them. Because this skill casts nearly instantly, you can sometimes use it while in the middle of being hit to knock away enemies and escape. If used in a combo, the bomb will usually form directly under the target, hitting them when they fall. Higher ranks will launch the target higher.
Suggested: 0, 1 (for escaping/healcancel combo), 4+ (for use as combo starter without healcancel)

Light of Purification (Rating: 7/10)
Removes all curses in a small area around you. This includes being frozen, petrified, slowed, or burned, but not poisoned. There aren’t many places where it is useful, but it is often very valuable when high-level curses are present. You can cancel out of the animation by dashing in any direction, making it a useful cancel skill.
Suggested: 1 (good tool to have, should fit into any build)

Price of Sacrifice (Rating: 8/10)
Sacrifices some HP to gain MP. It forces you to stand still for a couple seconds and takes away some HP, so you’re particularly vulnerable when you use it. However, as long as you’re careful about it, this is your ticket to everlasting MP–you can use this often, then just heal yourself back up. You must have this, or you won’t be able to make full use of your skills.
Suggested: 3-8 (lower ranks are more for PvP, should be maxed for stage)

Tears of Goddess (Rating: 8/10)
Drops tears in a line in front of you from above, knocking enemies down. Three tears fall far away, with two more spaced between you and the main shot; each tear hits twice, so you can get up to 10 hits on large enemies. Also, it has a fairly long cooldown. It can be canceled instantly by dashing backwards, so it’s fairly safe to use.
Suggested: 0, 1, 10, 11

Holy Spirit (Rating: 10/10)
Fires a large, medium-speed ball of light forward, damaging and carrying enemies. The perfect all-purpose attack skill, it can be used to deal damage, defend yourself, prevent your party from being swarmed, and gather enemies to be killed all at once, plus it has a short cooldown and relatively low MP cost. Its only downside is relatively low damage compared to other attacks.
Suggested: 1, 9, 10

Sacred Wave (Rating: 8/10)
Creates a wave of energy, hitting all enemies around you three times and knocking them down. Pretty good area damage for the cost of only 1 SP, and it can be used in combos to do high damage. A good skill for battle healers to do area damage, or support healers to help their party move quickly.
Suggested: 1 (this is probably the worst skill to get the 65+ damage boost for)

Bless

Blessed Defense (Rating: -1/10)
Increases defense for you and nearby party members. Defense is so unhelpful, especially compared to pretty much every other buff available, that this is pretty much just a waste of a buff slot, your SP, and the reagents. Skip.
Suggested: 0

Blessed Bravery (Rating: 7/10)
Increases maximum melee damage for you and nearby party members. While it’s a pretty substantial increase, not all classes make heavy use of melee attacks and not all enemies leave themselves very open to melee attacks, so it’s somewhat situational. Still, a powerful and generally fairly useful bless. Uses a Fire Plant, plus a Huckleberry for level 5+ and Black Pearl for level 7.
Suggested: 0, 4, 6, 7 (depends on how much reagents you’re willing to invest in this)

Life Extension (Rating: 5/10)
Increases maximum HP for you and nearby party members. Makes all of you harder to kill, but people tend to be more aggressive and careless with this buff, plus some attacks will kill you whether or not you have it; so it can be a sort of double-edged sword. You can use this to fake res. Uses Mountain Ginseng and Black Pearl at all levels.
Suggested: 0, 1, 2 (1 if using for fake res)

Sleep (Rating: 5/10)
Puts all nearby enemies to sleep for a few seconds. The duration is so short that it generally won’t be useful in stages, but long enough for you to land a free shot with almost any attack you want in PvP. Worthless in PvM, godlike in PvP.
Suggested: 0 (PvM) 3, 4 (PvP)

Light Shield (Rating: 8/10)
Grants invulnerability to you and nearby party members; however, using most attacks/skills will cancel this bless. Attacks and skills already in progress when Light Shield is activated will not cancel the bless. Healers may use Pentagon Light attacks, Knights can use non-physical Sword skills, Wizards can use their spells, and Thieves can use their bomb skills without canceling the shield. This skill is a last-resort defensive skill to save people when you won’t be able to heal everyone or push enemies away, especially when you are also unavoidably going to be hit. Uses Mandrake, Red Spider Rope, and Black Pearl at all levels.
Suggested: 0-4 (depends on the uses you find for it)

Ability

Mana Recovery (Rating: 10/10)
Increases the rate at which you naturally regenerate MP. Getting MP for being alive with more than 0 HP is good, especially with the relatively long period of time you generally spend with less than full MP in a stage. The more you have of this, the more skills you can afford to cast without having to rely on Price of Sacrifice, and that’s a good thing.
Suggested: 8 (exceptions covered in build guide)

Concentrate (Rating: 5/10)
Gives a small chance for any skill to cost no MP at all. Can be useful if you still run into MP issues with high level Mana Recovery and Price of Sacrifice. See bottom section for further analysis comparing this to other MP-related skills.
Suggested: 0, 1 (only if you really need mana at high level)

Mana Increase (Rating: 7/10)
Increases your maximum MP. Obviously, more MP is good, but as long as your MP pool can survive spamming heals in between uses of Price of Sacrifice, you’re probably safe.
Suggested: 1-8 (nice to have a few points, but not priority for PvM)

Deadly Magic Blow (Rating: 3/10)
Gives you a chance to crit with attack spells. It’s free damage, yes, but most battle healers have difficulty finding enough points for all the skills they want without learning unnecessary things like this.
Suggested: 0, 1 (optional pre-65, but a good idea for any hybrid/offensive build post-65)

Increase Health (Rating: 7/10)
Increases your maximum HP. Obviously, if you have no more HP, any other stats on your character are pretty useless, so this is good. Only things preventing it from being 10/10 is that 50 HP for each point past the first isn’t a stunning value, and HP isn’t really as important for stages as it is for PvP.
Suggested: 1-4 (as needed for a comfortable amount of HP)


Section 2: Skill Builds

First off: You don’t need to be locked into a cookie cutter build. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There are some guidelines to creating effective builds, though. Below, I’ll describe the process I use when creating builds. At the end, there will be a couple different sample builds that you can use as-is or modify to suit your playstyle.

For casual players: if you aren’t going to use a skill (properly), DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOU HAVE TO GET IT. There’s many different ways to handle most situations. If you’re not super hardcore about gaming, you can play with just about any build you like and still get stuff done. For you, the #1 rule: a skill point you never use is a wasted skill point.

Creating a build: summary

1. Reserve points for must-have skills
2. Divide points between offensive and defensive skills
3. Fill in self-support skills for HP/MP management

Creating a build: details

One warning before we start: you can have a great-looking build planned out for a new character, but if you don’t have the playstyle to match it, you’re probably not going to like the build. If you’re new to a class, I highly recommend you leave lots of room for change in your build. Don’t commit to maxing skills before you know you like them, and don’t be afraid to change plans on how many points to have in passive skills.

1. Reserve points for must-have skills

This is pretty much what it sounds like. Certain things make it into the vast majority of Eir builds just because they’re so useful. These include the following:

– Light of Healing MAX, for healing yourself and nearby party members.
– Mana Recovery MAX, for … getting MP back.

Then there’s the “one-point wonders.” These skills might not seem amazing, but they’re pretty useful even if you just invest one point in them–and that’s a small price to pay for having a full selection of skills. These would be:

– Heal 1 and Sunlight of Healing 1, for skill canceling.
– Sacred Wave 1, as an AoE or quick-casting knockdown that you don’t have to aim.
– Judgement of God 1, because it can do ridiculous damage and healing. And you’re invulnerable while flying. And it looks pretty impressive, too.
– Increase Health 1, because 100 HP for just 1 SP is a pretty good deal.

2. Divide points between offensive and defensive skills

Generally, the major variation in Eir builds is how to split between defensive and offensive capabilities. On one end, you could choose to be a healer that’s best at keeping her party alive in the toughest situations–or you could be something more resembling with a wizard, hurling spells while retaining maybe one healing spell to keep yourself in the fight. Maybe something in between. It’s up to you.

One thing to keep in mind is that most of Eir’s offensive skills can double as defensive. All of the attacks in the Sacred tab, as well as Full Moon Bullet and Moon Bind in the Moon tab either knock down, push back, or freeze enemies. Enemies that are flying through the air, sliding across the floor, or frozen in place are usually too busy to try to attack you. Preventing enemies from hurting your party members (or yourself) is almost always just as good or better than healing the damage afterwards.

It just takes one point in a skill to give you another way to knock enemies around, so even if you’re not planning to max an attack out for damage, consider investing one point in it anyway.

A similar concept applies to heals. Even if you’re not planning to max out a heal, it just takes one point to give you another skill that can “fake res” party members. If you’re not familiar with the concept, “fake res” is healing someone who’s on the ground with 0 HP; i.e. someone about to die. As long as you heal them before they turn into a ghost, they can get up and keep fighting. Sunlight of Healing, Prayer of Healing, and Emergency Heal are all good choices to have at rank 1 for this purpose.

3. Fill in self-support skills for HP/MP management

Finally, it’s time to distribute whatever is left of your SP. These points are used to fill in Price of Sacrifice as well as your 5 Passive skills.

First off: if you’re dead, the rest of your build really doesn’t matter. Increase Health 1 to gain 100 HP is a great way to give yourself a bit more room for error, and you’re free to throw in more points if you feel you don’t have enough HP.

If you’re alive, but have no HP, you’re still not really in a good situation. Some mix of Price of Sacrifice, Mana Recovery, MP Increase, and Concentrate should be taken.

Maxed or high-level Mana Recovery is standard for most builds. A steady supply of MP without having to do anything is simple and effective. There are two build/playstyle combos that can go without maxing this: an offensive-oriented pure PvM that can sustain itself with Price of Sacrifice, and aggressive PvP builds that either win or die too quickly to spend much time waiting for MP regeneration. However, no matter what you should have at least the first point, since 2 MP/sec is an extremely valuable point no matter what you’re doing.

Price of Sacrifice can contribute the most to your MP supply, but you have to take time to cast it. Also, it drains your HP, which often means you need to spend some of that MP to heal yourself back up, and it leaves you vulnerable and unable to act for those precious seconds until you can heal. Effective in both PvP and PvM.

MP Increase is useful in PvP. In that environment, where using all your lives in a close fight is expected and battles are fairly short (so Mana Recovery won’t get a chance to do as much), a larger MP pool is an effective way to give yourself the MP you need. For stages, it’s more of a convenience thing. A larger MP pool means more freedom to wait for a safe time to use Price of Sacrifice.

Concentrate is most effective in situations where you’re already spending a lot of MP over a long period of time. Because of this, it’s really not worth taking until you’re fairly high level. If you hit level 50+ and you find yourself burning through all your MP in stages despite having high levels of Mana Recovery and Price of Sacrifice, then this might be the answer.

And just so it gets a mention… Deadly Magic Blow is similar to Concentrate, except that it only applies to damaging skills. If your build is offensive-oriented and you find yourself wanting more damage once you’re in the level 50+ range, throw a point in here.

Sample build
Healing/defensive build: JP Calculator Link
Battle/offensive build: JP Calculator Link
Basic PvP build: JP Calculator Link

Section 3: Other Information

Moon Barrier mechanics and usage

Many people blindly advocate Moon Barrier as a must-max skill for all healer builds, but from what I’ve seen, very few really understand it and its myriad of uses (including myself, now that I really consider it). This is dedicated to correcting that, along with presenting new theories/usages of Moon Barrier.

To any reading this who are new to the skill: Moon Barrier creates a person-sized shield in front of you that can stop most projectiles that end/explode on impact. It can be canceled with skills, but not by dashing. Note that it does not completely neutralize attacks–explosive projectiles, such as a Reaver’s blast, can still injure people who are standing next to the Moon Barrier when it goes off.

Moon Barrier behaves, in most regards, as an extra invulnerable party member which stands still, doing nothing, for the duration of the skill. There are a few exceptions:

* Moon Barriers can take damage at the exact instant they are created. A rank 3 Moon Barrier something between 1000 and 2000 HP (can’t remember exactly) and can be destroyed if they take enough damage at that moment. Incidentally, they can be healed, although there’s rarely any point.
* Players cannot move through Moon Barriers in stages; you can, however, move through your own barriers in PvP.
* As a consequence, a Moon Barrier placed over a player in stages allows that player to move through other things (such as the ice at Kanhel’s Ruins). It also allows players to walk through monsters. Also, while a player is inside the Moon Barrier, other players can also walk in; as long as at least one player is inside the Barrier, you can have as many people pass through as you want.

Applications

* Lure monsters of any kind (i.e. 2-2, 2-6 boss battle)
* Distract monsters (i.e. cobolt raid hand)
* Distract all homing attacks (Reaver/Lava of Flame blasts, Dainn’s Fire Orb)
* Create safe zone to heal/snipe from against enemies who blanket the screen with dumb ranged attacks (i.e. arrows, tree spirit boss leaf attacks)
* Grant players the ability to pass through objects (i.e. ice barrier at Kanhel)
* Allow players to escape from being trapped by mobs (i.e. mini Golems at Cobolt raid)
* Set off traps (i.e. cobolt bombs)
* Prevent players from being knocked back (i.e. Temple Guard punches… possibly Kanhel’s breath? needs testing)
* Create a barrier to play zoning games with in PvP

Other random notes about Moon Barrier that need to be worked in:
– Sai can harm and destroy Moon Barriers with his melee attack at any time. (Cursed Ghost Village)
– Giant Jungle Turtle King’s breath attack, at least in Legend, is capable of passing directly through Moon Barrier. (4-2, 4-10)
– casting Moon Barrier in PvP while a Tia is hiding will put them back on the minimap
__________________

Concentrate is probably better than you think.

Well, from what I’ve seen in-game and here on the forums, Concentrate has a reputation as a fairly worthless skill. But how far is it really from the “must-have” of Mana Recovery?

For anyone who doesn’t know, Concentrate gives a percentage chance for any spell you cast to have its MP cost reduced by 100%.

I was all set to do a huge analysis on this, when I realized it can be reduced to a very simple problem if all you care about is your average return. Basically, for a 3% Concentrate (rank 1) to be equal to 1 MP/second of Mana Recovery (all ranks other than 1), you need to be spending x MP per minute where 0.03x=60. Solving this gets you x=2000. So, how easy is to to spend 2000 MP/minute?

Well…

If you cast the following:
– Light of Healing 9, 3 times (1161 MP)
– Sunlight of Healing 9, 3 times (672 MP)
– Bead of Healing 8, 4 times (832 MP)
– Emergency Heal 1, 1 time (131 MP)
you will spend 2796 MP.
Concentrate 1 will return, on average, 83.88 MP during that minute.

If you cast the following:
– Light of Healing 10, 4 times (1732 MP)
– Sunlight of Healing 10, 3 times (750 MP)
– Bead of Healing 9, 6 times (1416 MP)
– Prayer of Healing 1, 1 time (184 MP)
– Emergency Heal 1, 1 time (131 MP)
you will spend 4213 MP.
Concentrate 1 will return, on average, 126.39 MP during that minute.

Throw in a few Holy Spirits/Full Moon Bullets, maybe a Sacred Wave and/or Moon Fog, and it’s clear that any high level Eir will have no trouble at all spending well over 2000 MP per minute.

As for mana availability…
Price of Sacrifice 6, 3 times = 2112 MP, OR
Price of Sacrifice 7, 3 times = 2490 MP, OR
Price of Sacrifice 8, 3 times = 4215 MP
9.5 mana/second from having Mana Recovery 8 = 570 MP
Highest Level Mana Potion, 1 time = 464 MP
Highest Level Rejuvenation Potion, 1 time = 279 MP

PoS 6, Mana Recovery 8, and a Mana Potion = 3146 MP
PoS 7, Mana Recovery 8, and both Potions = 3803 MP
PoS 8, Mana Recovery 8, and both Potions = 5528 MP
Yeah, easy.

For Eirs who aren’t using a full support build…

If you cast the following
– Light of Healing 7, 2 times (590 MP)
– Moonlight Piece 9, 5 times (895 MP)
– Tears of Goddess 8, 2 times (346 MP)
– Holy Spirit 7, 5 time (520 MP)
– Sacred Wave 1, 1 time (182 MP)
– Moon Fog 1, 1 time (223 MP)
You will spend 2756 MP.

So after all that, is Concentrate worth a point? Well, I don’t think it in any way replaces Mana Recovery. However, for any level 50+ healers who are ever in need of MP, definitely consider one point. Be aware, however, that other skills, especially of the one-point wonder variety, are often more attractive, and that this math only holds up if you’re using a pretty good amount of your MP.

And the points past Concentrate 1? They add 2% to the chance, so they’re not quite as good… but still usable if you need more MP.

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