9Dragons Nuker Guide

9Dragons Nuker Guide by tempestversa

You’re either a fairly veteran player who has played long enough to see those nukers off to the side shooting things and thought you’d try it on for size, or you are a new player wishing for something away from the mainstream melee. It has been my experience that the road to becoming a good nuker has never been easy, but here are some tips to keep you going, and hopefully, keep you going strong as one of the strongest (and yet weakest in many ways) classes in this game. Bear in mind, that until you gain a wide range of nukes with different animations, nuking can become rather tedious. Hang in there champ, we’re rootin’ for ya ^^

The Roles
First off, let’s look at the different roles in the clans.
Black Tortoises of Wu Tang: Blue lightning balls; not bad in design, however their nukes make funny noises (ooga chaga much?) and a few of them appear as though the player is attempting to fly. Casting time on their buffs isn’t overly long, it takes just about a second or two, allowing you to keep your shield activated as long as is possible. Clan relic adds life, so thats useful at least. =] If you play with the sound off and can get over the silly hats, they aren’t bad. ^^
Here is their clan relic’s specific stats. As you can see, the extra dodge and the essence can come in handy as well.

Armoured Bandits of The Brotherhood: Flaming rocks mkay? To some people their meditation may be a put off. I sowwy. Casting time for their buffs is just about four seconds, if I counted right. This can be something of a setback for grinding and player versus player alike. However, their basic bandits protection, while a bum and a half to level, can be very useful as it adds defense. Clan relic also adds defense and strength I believe.

Storm Demons of Heavenly Demon: Honestly, who never wanted to shoot fire balls when they were a kid? The charging sound is awesome. =] Casting time on buffs is around one or two seconds, which is a very good advantage as previously stated. Clan relic adds dexterity and vital energy.
Here is their clan relic’s specific stats.

Exorcist Monks of Shaolin: Well if you don’t mind being a baldie… xD But seriously, their nukes look awesome. If anyone has ever fought or seen the fan guy boss in Jinan/Datong, and seen him shooting shiny things at them, this is what their nukes look like. They also have an added Buddhist-like chanting to them, but it isn’t as bad as ooga chaga. xP Casting time is kept around one to two seconds. I believe their basic protection adds attack rating? Which is fairly useless for you as a nuker. =] However I have had a few people tell me its all around rating which if it is then I suppose it’s not so worthless. I can’t remember honestly xD

Dragon Beggars of the League: Their nukes are green and leafy and they make cute noises! >.< Yes I am fairly partial to the fact that Beggars are adorable. Okay. If you can get over the stinky clothes, they aren’t horrible. Instead of the fanciness of other clans, they appear to be more down to earth. The casting time on their buffs due to the dance-dance-dance-thrust animation is fairly slow, around 4 seconds. Their basic protection adds life, 200 maxed. Could come in handy. Their clan relic also focuses on con and life, so that may be something to keep in mind.
Both Constitution and Life. Also adds a nice chunk of defense for lower levels.

Mistresses of Spirit of Sacred Flower: POINTY SHOES! Okay so they aren’t so bad. Very girly; their nukes are shiny, purple, and full of sparklies and butterflies. The charged nukes also make a jingly noise. And they shoot talismans. Casting time on their buffs can be somewhat of a setback, I don’t think they’re a whole four seconds but close. Their protection increases your avoid attack rating (basically your dodge) which can come in handy later, and their clan relic adds VE and dexterity? I think. God I don’t remember much of the clan relics lol

The Stats
Okay, so now you’ve picked a clan and got your role and are all set. Now. Where to place them points, because you’ll certainly need to reset your chi points (for the love of God, please do not leave them as they are, you’ll be asking to be murdered o.o).

Strength: Raise this to ten. Most will tell you to leave it alone until Revolving Chakra (10 is required for relic usage), but I like to be prepared far ahead of time. I level fairly fast, so it’s a JIC moment (just in case). Sometimes I also tend to forget to raise it if I haven’t already, and this causes a nice setback if I was counting on the relic the moment I hit RC1.
Essence: At your level (you should still be OC1 at this point or close), you’ll need around 20 Essence. NO MORE THAN THAT. TRUST me. The minimum requirement for OC bracers is 14, and this is at Opening Chi 4, so no real big worry. My advice to you however, is to get your Essence up to at least 30 at this point. That way, you can go heavy on the Wisdom until you absolutely must raise anything else. With 30 Essence, you should have around 1k vital energy, allowing for shield casts and nuke tossing for at least a few minutes.
Wisdom: Every single point that is not already on another stat, place them here. This controls the main chunk of your firepower; however, do remember not to rely solely on your Wisdom stat. This will be elaborated upon in a moment.
Constitution: I prefer to keep this as low as possible. A separate bit on this will be elaborated on in a moment, however for now we’re simply leaving it at 10. I know you’re thinking “omg this chick’s trying to get me killed! o.o” shush my dear padawan and read on.
Dexterity: You want this at ten as well for relic usage.
Mastery: Naturally, you want this all on bracers even though I am not sure bracer mastery even does anything. Just in case, you never know. Better safe than sorry yes? ;]

— Point Placement
This is fairly simple. All on Wisdom, bringing your Essence up every so often to meet bracer requirements. My guess would be probably something like 3 Wis 1 Ess everytime you level would be good. Everytime you hit chi breathing and have six points, go three wisdom three essence. Once your Wisdom hits around 200, lighten up on it and start adding to dexterity if you intend to PvP with your nuker. (It is however highly likely if you’re a black clan player on Asura that you’ve already been gang ****d by the local PKers in Datong x.x) This should happen somewhere around FD/SM. After I get 200 Wisdom, I always start going 2 dex, 1 ess 1 wis, but if you intend to stay away from PvP or are on a non-PK server where you only have to PvP during war, go ahead and max Wisdom out totally before messing with anything else. =] Depending on how you place your points, you could also get at 200 wis around RL levels. =]

Remember: However you decide to place your points, max out wisdom at least before GB levels. At later levels, once your wisdom is maxed, if you wish you can use pocket items to get your wisdom even higher. I have had several friends do this and it works rather well, especially in this nuker vs nuker war I will be mentioning later.

Defense Over Dodge
While it may seem like a silly thing to do, there is an advantage to adding points to your strength stat. Why? The defense. Yes, dexterity is easier to raise due to it not being your penalty, and while the fact that players with lower dexterity than you will rarely hit you in PvP, there is the disadvantage of when they DO hit you, they hit HARD. PvE isn’t a good example of the upper hand in having high dex, other than the lack of major externals. The damage adds up, and if you have your life around or below 1k, it can be a huge disadvantage at later levels, and it does get tricky eventually avoiding getting hit. On the other hand, dodge can be a huge asset for PvP. However I wouldn’t recommend actually placing points on strength.

Instead, I recommend maxing out your strength elixirs. Wisdom elixirs are great, and so are those con elixirs, but the strength ones save you a couple points everytime they add +1, and the defense adds up over time. You’ll easily see the differences between defense and dodge, and how much of an easier grind you can have just by raising that strength. When you add to strength and how much is completely up to you; I usually wait quite a while before bringing this up, others like to balance their stats before choosing their clan role so that everything remains the same, others don’t even touch strength. As I have said in the previous section, it is completely up to you. Whatever works and works well. =]

Another thing I feel I must mention; for those pushing for speed, compared to defense, speed is nothing. Sure it’s a nice fall back if you’ve got no defense stuff, but GET SOME DEFENSE STUFF especially if you’re intending to PvP! Most definitely against melee classes since I doubt you’ll fight too many nukers aside from during war. Also try and find some stuff that raises your attack rating. The CK rating of course.

Defense trinkets, strength relics and accessories, and defense clothing and epithets are also a good way to raise your defense. If you really want to focus on your defense and go all out on it, I recommend choosing to play an Armoured Bandit, due to the Basic Bandit Protection and the clan relic, and choosing the defense clothing articles as mentioned above. Here are some examples of a few items that raise defense or strength.

Buffs: Yep, have a hybrid or a healer buff you. =] Easiest way.
Blood Gold Trinket: This adds 200 defense. Great source.
Wan Dayes Thunder Bracers: These are his Golden Blossom level bracers. These raise your defense by 157, as well as your VE by 250, and your CK attack rating by 150. Lots of goodies.
Bad Karma Strength Relics: On top of the crit rate increases (100/1000 for each one if I remember right), the RC relic adds 54 defense, FD relic adds 72? and EC relic adds 90.
Lightning Fist: This epithet adds a hunk of HP/VE as well as 50 defense. Not bad really. I believe you can get this from a quest in Hangzhou/Nanchang at upper SM levels. Oh, also adds a nice bit of movement speed.
Siren/Jade Face Clothing: The shirt adds 10 defense and a nice bit of speed. Not sure about the pants. =]

— Constitution
Yes, I realize that constitution directly effects how much life you have. However, toddle over to any FD nuker, and they most likely won’t have much more than about 600-1000 life themselves either. This can be substituted with the second clan epithets (+100 HP), as well as con relics and accessories on top of HP clothes. It really depends on you and what you’re more comfortable with, but do bear in mind nukers are not melee classes. However, remember that the safest way to go is going ammunition on the defense boosters because the more defense you have, the lower the damage done to you. It really won’t matter how much life you have if something hits you for 1k damage if it could have been sliced by your defense to around 500. =] It may not seem at first that the defense is making much of a difference, but be sure, you’ll notice the subtle changes in time.

The Weapon
Now, we’ve got your stats set and we’re ready to go. Now we need a weapon. What kind of weapon do you use? Little glowy things at the bottom of the last page of every blacksmith shop. Right you guessed it; bracers. These are the simplest weapons to use and yet the most fragile. Prepare to spend a bit repairing them at lower levels. And if you value your bank account, never use a set of bracers that is not on your level, trust me, the durability goes *insert crash n burn sound here*. And I’m not only talking level-level, it also counts for the wisdom and essence requirements.

WAN DAYE IS YOUR FRIEND! Yes he is. Screw Mo Tailan. Just ignore her completely until later levels. ^^ Like um, EC is good yes. =] Save that Blood Essence for those Wan Daye bracers. Added damage and speed and all kinds of yummy stats. Oh yes. So worth it.
(for those who are totally new, Tailan would be the weapon breaker I mean, refinement lady. ^^) Here are some of the Wan Daye bracers from Amresh. Stolen by the GM-Storm shame on him xD Tricking us little people xDD kidding kidding… anyway… as you can see, WD bracers are like, almost a must for you =]

Another note before I go any further; DO NOT EVER NUKE AS A NUKER WITHOUT YOUR BRACERS ON AS ACTIVE WEAPON!!!!1one D: You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble later on. No, you are not Quite of the Beginning of the End hero league on Asura, you are not a saber nuker! If I ever find you on a PK map without your bracers I will KILL YOU.
Now, moving along… ;]

The Gear
Here is where the expenses really start adding up. You will need a full set of speed clothes. You can get them piece by piece as you level, but my advice is to just make your speed clothing set as fast as possible and get it out of the way, to save yourself the hassle of being too slow at lower levels, it can get and will get very stressful on you about the time you hit Blood Monks. Now, you can simply make your own by buying the same clothing item over and over until it double slots, slapping some speed ornaments on em and goin on with your life, or you can go ahead and buy them already made from someone else. My advice would be making your own; while the speed talismans may be a bit difficult for you to get a hold of (as you need to go to Nanchang or Hangzhou to get them, and… well you’re a freaking nuker), it will most likely cost you FAR less than what others like to charge.

This would be what you want your clothes plastered in.

Note: I have seen them before but it is very rare that a clan clothing article will slot, even more rare that it double slots. Save yourself the money and just… don’t even try. There are clan decos to cover those nastily mixed and matched vagabond clothes for you =]

Another note: Due to the new slots, if you are able to, grab yourself a deco from the item mall. That extra 20% speed is GLORIOUS my nuker’s a hybrid right now (not RL12 yet) with a full set of speed clothes and my lord she zips around like a speed hacker. xD If you intend to focus more on defense clothing, a deco would probably be a good thing for you for the extra speed to make up for the 20% you’ll be missing from the shirt and pants. Yes I realize they’re like five bucks a pop, but really. It’s so worth it. If you can afford it, the item mall is also a good source of elixirs and ethereal mushrooms if you have the cash to shell out but none of the gold. What is it like um, 10 USD? Or so for a full set of strength elixirs up til level 4? Its worth it if you can get them to max and there’s no issue about not being able to afford those Wan Daye bracers up there. This also allows you to be able to save your in game gold for normal elixirs for Wan Daye collections and stuff. But its up to you. =]

A note on special clothing; if you feel safer with more HP, go for the Wind and Lightning/National Beauty silk set, pants and shirt. However, the alternative is focusing on speed and defense, in which case you’ll want Jade Face’s/Siren’s clothing.
Wind and Lightning/National Beauty add together a whole 350 HP if I remember right, and 5% speed.
Jade Face’s/Siren’s add together roughly 13 defense and 13%? speed? I believe. I’ve only had the shirt but I know they’re good for the defense. =]

If you can get a hold of some Chi Kung damage wristbands, go for it! I’ve seen CK damage wristbands from 100 – 300. My dumbass saw some 300 CK damage wristbands for like 200k and didn’t buy em. -.- I regret it sorely now. xD Don’t be stupid like I am xDD

Now for pocket items. I recommend anything defense oriented or HP oriented until you can use relics; these are the Black Iron Trinkets, Blood Gold Trinkets, and little rings called Frozen Sea Tiger Eye Rings. The rings add 100 HP and 30 VE. If you feel you really need it, stock up on some Pei’s Jade Wheels (these add 3 to your Essence). There are Beads from Shen Mo and his guardians that add to your dexterity, wisdom and strength. I would recommend the one that adds two strength, which would be the Blue Dragon bead (str+2 Wis +1).

For relics, you will want to focus on relics that cover Constitution, Strength, Dexterity, perhaps Essence. My advice is to go for Bad Karma, so get out there and karma trade kiddies! The reason for this is the stats they add to are not so horribly spread out and in useless combos. =] The bad karma relics do more for you and take up less space in your pockets, and bad karma is a bit easier to maintain that good karma. At RC3, my demon nuker had three tiger eye rings, a strength relic, con relic and a dexterity relic.

Note: IF YOU CAN! Get Wild Tower/Mansion clothes or otherwise four pocket clothing as quick as you can! Those extra pockets add up and its better for you if you have more room for trinkets and accessories and relics. Trust me. Yes very expensive and difficult to get but very much worth it in the end! There are some clans whose clothing items from WT/Mansion are cheaper, these being just about any clan aside from Heavenly Demon and Wu Tang. Shaolin stuff is fairly cheap, as is Sacred Flower stuff. I’ve seen their lightfoot alone for like 10k. =]

Skills
Alright, so there’s tons of skills; which ones are worth leveling? First off, completely ignore your early bleed skill. Don’t even bother getting it at all, tell your Senior *insert chi kung artist name for your clan here* he can keep that bleed skill where he’s got it. At this level, all you’ll need is your shield, slow spell nuke, wisdom buff, and your defense buff. Once you start using your nuke, it will feel like the damage is terrible. Remember though; the more your nukes level, the more damage they do. The slow spell itself adds a whopping 100~300 damage everytime it levels a cheng. You will most likely use your shield enough (or at least I hope you do ) that it will hit plenty of level requirement caps early on. However, every couple levels or so, hit that nearest town and bufferfly away. All of your buffs are extremely important for your role.

You get a heavier bleed skill around Five Dragons 1, so look forward to THAT. ;] 1k damage or so just with bleed at cheng 10. This nuke is a quickly-max-me nuke, also useful for PvP with other nukers. You also get a different shield later on that takes a chunk out of your vital energy every time you get hit. But by then, unless you’re boss hunting, you should have gotten the hang of the hit and run style enough to be able to avoid being hit too much. We do not do up close and personal so please for your sake don’t let me catch you charging a nuke at an Iron Flower that is right in your face. Mk?

Also, look forward to your stun spell you get around RC levels. I think its RC4. [Confirmed to be RC1 my bad xD] It doesn’t last long for shyt in PvP, but it does last long enough to give you an opening to run off and stay out of reach of your opponent if you’ve got speed gear. More on this in the PvP section..

One more thing; get and max your advanced steps and med as soon as you can. Extra speed bonus from the steps I believe as well as the defense boost and the damage, just yeah. Forget the fancy animations of the role meditations. If it helps you, go for it, and there’s nothing better than advanced med and steps. So much shinier than what those other guys have xD

The Epithets
I am not too familiar with the whole world of epithets in Nine Dragons; you may wish to check the epithet guide. However, you will want to stick to your Secret Solver epithet (it adds 10% movement speed), and your last clan epithet (Two-Knot, Demon Disciple, Shaolin Disciple, Wu-Tang Adept, Flower Lady, Brotherhood White Hood), because of the hunk of defense, the HP, and the crit rate. I think the CoF Killer epithet also adds a nice chunk of crit. =]

Aside from HP/Speed/Defense, you’ll want to cling to your crit rate epithets, as your crits will be huge. At RC8 or so, I was doing about eight to nine thousand damage on critical hits in beserk/rage mode on red mobs. Its nice, trust me ^^

The Dungeons
Choice of Fate you could probably survive with the right team at RC levels. Valley of Hell, I’d say RL. Mansion and Wild Tower, leave that until FC/EC. You don’t really need anything from there until then. =]

Remember you will always pull the boss’ attention away from the tank and random periods of time; nukers do that with any boss and just about any mob (take for instance how the tarantulas react to nukers). This is why we at boss hunting. If we could just get ourselves a tank and shoot from a distance until its dead, it’d be easy as pie.

So, be prepared to get yourself hurt in the dungeons, especially the ones with more than one boss (I think Mansion/Wild Tower has more than one, unless I’m just a loony xD).

Killer epithets are easy for you, as long as you have the right back up because of your high damage and the fact you’ll rarely ever miss. And if you happen to go with a huge chunk of people that melee, ignore their “get a dex press” chat. Get a wis or ess, naturally. xD Silly melee’ers.

The Grinding
Your grinding will be very slow. Unless you do more damage than CTK, which I doubt, you’ll have to run around for a bit before your target dies. And on many occasions, said target may disappear on you and respawn. Setback really :/ Nuking is a world away from being a warrior class; instead of getting up close and personal, you’re forced to stay back, guard yourself from damage, and run around. Hit and run is our style. Though your damage will be very high, so don’t be surprised. Actually, be glad because if you didn’t do that much damage there’s no way you’d survive and it’d make grinding terribly hellatious.

If you are on the black clan side, until you reach RC3 or 4, train on the Twin Brutes located nearby the Tangshang Ferry. The Ferry itself provides protection from them as long as you stay inside, as mobs cannot enter the ferry. This will also get your nukes leveled and fairly quickly. Up until you hit around late Raising Light/early Five Dragons, expect to be KSed. It happens to all of us at that level. Don’t let it get to you, its just some added anger you don’t need since nuking is hard enough.

Please please remember; if you think warriors without a healer or hybrid beside them are terrible with boss hunting… you don’t even know. We &#!@ with boss hunting, I can tell you that not just from my higher-level nuker friends telling me but from pure personal experience. If you absolutely must go boss hunting (the BE is nice ^^), then team up with a coupla healers/hybrids and CLING to them throughout the whole thing. This basically just means try not to run around too much in case you die. However, there is the added bonus with having high Wisdom — it takes longer for that little meter to run out when you start dying before you fall over in a coma. ^^ Yay for being smart!

Okay, on the white side, I have yet to find a nuker spot. You should be alright as long as you stick to things that are white to yellow for you until about OC10. After that, you could probably kite things that are lower RC level but be REALLY REALLY CAREFUL! And don’t get mad at me if you get yourself killed I didn’t tell you to go kill red things ;] Beware of tarantulas!!! No matter which side you’re on!!! They HATE nukers, they’ll swarm you like crazy and one of those scary things are bound to break that shield of yours.
[No really they’re creepy! They make freaky deaky clicky noises! LIKE PREDATOR!!! D:]

If you’re the daring type like me, once you hit around RC1~4 go ahead and hit Nanchang/Hangzhou for some good ol’ Deva King slaying. Slow, stupid, big and blue. Like those dancing blue fairies called Giants in Shi Zhang/Zhengzhou only way slower. Once again, if you go for this, BE REALLY CAREFUL these are level 90~95 mobs!

Deva King Locations

Nanchang
Be aware that really close to the Deva Kings are Iron Coin? Squad Leaders. These are fast buggers and love to wander so there will be some occasions you snag its attention. Throw your shield up, and lead it up the hill until it disappears and respawns. =]

Hangzhou

The Deva Kings are marked in bright pink. =] Now for the green arrow if anyone noticed, is another safe spot. The Yellow Dragon Villa has a spot within it where the mobs can’t go. I’d show you but yeh. I’m not there. =] If you’ve gotten the hang of it, you should be able to find it fairly easily.

You should now be able to figure out on your own where to grind. Or at least that’s the plan =]. So I’ll end this part with a “don’t get too close. Kujo bites.”

PvP
You will most likely be rather rough around the edges at PvP during the lower levels. RC is not a good time to go on a PK frenzy. However, with some determination, you should be able to get on well enough. If you’re familiar with the PvP system, you’ll be able to figure it out fairly quick.

Most PvP nuking veterans will tell you to max out your wisdom as fast as you can. What, am I gonna be having a nuke war with another nuker? HAHA. And no huge worries about getting para’d to death by a hybrid. Even if they go wisdom build, you’ll still have more CK numbers than they will due to wisdom being their penalty stat. And if they put everything on wis? Whack em with an apprentice short staff. Same with other nukers. It really comes down to the wire on whose got better gear in a nuker battle however; if they’ve got more defense than you expect and you’re doing far less damage than you want to be… But yes, expect a long drawn out war if you fight with another nuker. It’s a matter of whose bank account is fatter. =]

Healers may be a bit easier, due to the con penalty. I can usually one hit healers clean. In terms of warriors, they’ve got low as wisdom, if any at all, so getting your para to stick won’t be hard. I rarely come across a speedy warrior, so you’ve got the upper hand in being faster. Be careful with those nuke casting times. The higher the casting time, the more time you’re open, that can easily get you in trouble (oh yes… yes indeed x.x) Your .5 is GOD and your main PvP nuke due to the fairly high damage and the short casting time. You get this nuke at Raising Light 10, for 3100 contribution. MAX THIS ASAP!

The .5 Nuke — (at cheng 10); 44 VE to cast, .5 second casting time, no cooldown =]
Demons: Demons Palm of Illusion
Tangs: Tortoise Art of Elements
Flowers: Freezing Art of Black Jade
Bandits: Emperor’s Art of Yama
Beggars: Draconic Art of Roaming Dragon
Shaolin: Buddha’s Palm of Maitreya

I considered adding dexterity to my nuker after my wisdom was in a nice comfort zone. It turned out fairly well. I went extremely heavy on it until chi breathing (three wis one ess and poppin that one once in a while to balance out my 4 dex every level), and it has served me well. In PvP, my damage is still at a nice area, and hardly anyone can hit me. By the time I got around to deleting that character I had something like 160 wisdom and around 80 dex or so. =]

However, I will say that you should definitely play around with the PvP system to better understand how it works and how it would be best for you to play it. I take it one way, but you may be far more comfortable with a different method, and that’s fine because its not necessarily wrong. If it works for you, then good!

A few parting tips:
Go with warrior or something else until RL12 at 100%. Before you do your Five Dragons chi breathing, go home and change to a nuker. This way, you get the props of being a nuker and skip the lowbie grinding and your Essence will be right on target. =]
I personally started adding to Dexterity before I hit 200 wisdom, simply because I intended to PvP way before being able to grind on the PK maps. It saved me a ton in terms of external wound medication (yeh sometimes we get hit anyway x.x random bosses poppin up outta nowheresville) but my damage was pretty low until I got my nukes maxed.
Oh yes; MAX THOSE NUKES! =] A ton of your damage is packed into those nukes. Just watch your Chi Kung Damage on your character window from before you activate a nuke to after you do. You’ll see.
Once again; BRACERS ARE IMPORTANT. They exist for a reason and also carry a nice piece of your damage.