Dragon Nest CN Smasher T4 Build

Dragon Nest CN Smasher T4 Build by Dyhakys

First I have to say, don’t follow this build blindly. It fits my playstyle, which means it doesn’t have to fit yours. And this build is neither full DPS nor full PvP oriented. (Will be updated every time when I change my build or when I just want to change it xD)

Skill description: (Note: Every skill advances now at lvl6.)

Sorceress:

Flame Worm (lvl1): As always it is already learned when we start and for use Force User there is no need to level it up since we don’t stack fire anyway. This skill still has some uses in PvP for the debuff which can be used in combination with Force Mirror or Poison Missile to make warriors brush off uselss since they will remove fire and poison debuff instead of time stop.

Wheeling Staff (lvl1): Like flame worm and glacial spike we also have this skill when we start. Dmg is improved in T4, but I still don’t see a point in using it, so I don’t even have it in my skill bar.

Glacial Spike (maxed): Cd is 7 seconds (0,5 secs more than in T3), casting time is as short as ever and the range is still the same. Freeze cap is removed in T4 PvE. Freeze cap for PvP is 18%. Freeze chance on normal enemies is 100% – 75%³ = 57,8125% while the freeze chance on a boss is 100% – 75%^6 = 82,20214844%. There is only one disadvantage with this skill maxed. The MP consumption is very high, as for every high lvl’d skill too, especially under TA. 1,3k MP every time you use the skill. If you don’t have high MP, which can be the case at lvl60 (mostly when you use an old manticore staff), it is overkill for your MP^^.

Poison Missile (lvl1): While it has dmg reduction after 10 hits it is still stronger compared to T3 poison missile. Due to a recent “buff” in which poison missile hits faster each missile now has 19 hits and there is a stronger air hit again. It is a “buff”, because the coefficients ends up lower than before. Two missiles are enough for me to combo in PvP, so I don’t need to lvl it.

Force Explosion (Lvl0): Damage isn’t that low for an lvl1 sorceress skill. Good to nuke. Isn’t a prerequisite for force user’s dark tree anymore. Don’t need it anymore, so lvl0 is fine for me.

Shockwave (lvl1): Good to push enemies away. Isn’t a prerequisite for force user’s laser tree anymore.

Charged Missile (lvl0): Free flinch in PvP, but its SA break can only break really low SA and the skill itself has as much SA as everyone has normally, but even left clicks will cancel the skill. I’m used to hold my left click after a flinch and CM would be in my way and due to the distance lag it is quite difficult to hit targets anyway, so I choose to leave it at lvl0. Important: Don’t get confused by the DPS you can see in its own chart and in the ranking chart. First I just said that the cooldown it 2,5 sec (it has no cd to begin with), first 1,5 sec are needed to charge up and the animation 1 sec, probably is different, but I didn’t have this skills so I can’t test it. Is this skill really as strong as other skills in the top 5? No. Other skills will deal dmg over time and you can use other skills while the previous one is still doing its job, while you have to use CM each time again without damage inbetween.

Air Strike (lvl1): Learned it for PvP only, but I notice that I barely use it in T4. Since it only cost 1 SP and has some other uses I’ll still learn this skill.

Blink/Escape/Aerial Evasion/Rising Blast (all maxed): Should be clear why I max those skills.

Health bolster (maxed): Kind of obvious too why I maxed it.

Mental Fortitude (lvl1): No need to lvl it, but lvl1 is still prerequisite for Attuned Mind. The skill won’t affect the MP cost of skills.

Attuned Mind (maxed): MP consumption is very high for T4 skill so you should max it especially as a smasher since arcane increases our MP consumption.

Mana Flow (lvl1): Still no SP to learn, but it last now for 120 secs and the cooldown is 60 secs only, so permanent 20% MP consumption reduction.

Force User:

Gravity Ball (lvl1): More SA break in T4, but also one more second cooldown. Dmg is about the same as in T3, if you lvl it higher. As a smasher I have better options to spend my SP. Still able to get the bug for a coefficient of 1,7, which makes it actually stronger than Gravity Ball EX, but you won’t be able to get the bug all the time so don’t even think about it xD

Triple Orb (lvl11): Even better in T4 now with more damage and one second less cooldown. 2nd best DPS skill for smasher and the best DPS skill for majesty. Left at lvl11 since I use a tech necklace for Force Mirror and Triple Orb also uses a tech necklace so everything above lvl11 is quite useless since we don’t get the jump from lvl16. Will explain it later why it has two DPS positions for smasher. If you want to max it, use a tech necklace for lvl16.

Summon Black Hole (lvl0): In T4 with more dmg and less cooldown, but still with the same old slow animation. Dmg is still too low and suction effect first applies after the SA is broken, but the skill itself has almost no SA break and everyone can easily escape out of it in PvP unless they’re lying on the floor, so I decided to leave it at lvl0.

Summon Comet (lvl0): In T4 more than twice the dmg from T3 and less cooldown. It is affected by dark naturally now in T4. Good dmg and the only force user skill with one hit which makes it easier to achieve the whole dmg since it only has to crit once. Unlike my old build I leave it at lvl0 this time since I have better options for DPS which also has a good amount of SA break on a single target.

Gravity Crush (lvl0): Less cooldown, but dmg is first better in higher levels so no need to lvl it since its use is still the SA breaking debuff. Unfortunately the debuff is useless since most of not all bosses are immune to it, which is the same with Time Stop, Time Dodge and Slow Area in PvE. In PvP it still has its use like pinning down mercs with iron skin, but it is not really worth to spend that much SP to learn it for this use, unless you really have that much SP free.

Meteor Storm (lvl0): As a force user I don’t recommend to use dual ultimate, both ultimates are quite the same and don’t have different effects. The skill has iframes at the beginning and benefits from dark% in T4. Also the highest SA breaking force user skill.

Gravity Spark/Void Blast (lvl1 both):  Learned both for PvP. Interesting is that gravity spark is actually a better DPS skill than Summon Comet or Gravity Ball, but since we have to use blink for it I don’t recommend to lvl it since every dodge could save your life especially in lvl60 nests.

Linear Ray (lvl16): Less cooldown and much more dmg in T4 now. Less SA break in T4 (was already low so that was unnecessaray xD). With 5 hits in T4.

Force Shield (lvl1): Almost permanent now in T4 with 20 secs duration and 21 sec cooldown, but still only activate when you get hit and this is something you normally don’t want especially due to the life suffix nerf which prevents us force user to “tank” most hits in normal nests.

Nine Tail Laser (lvl13):  It has five secs less cooldown in T4 and more dmg, but unfortunately only a coefficient of 1, though still number 11 in the DPS ranking. Due to Nine Tail Laser EX I leveled it to 13 since it is one of our best DPS skills. Had two SP left that I either could put it into Time Dodge or Nine Tail Laser and I’m fine with Time Dodge lvl5, so I decided to get more damage.

Force Mirror (lvl4): Same cooldown and the same duration in T4, but its debuff last for 12 secs now, so with a A grade crest you can have permanent 30% mdmg increase. I recommend to use a tech necklace for 35% mdmg increase.

Spectrum Shower (lvl10): Spectrum Shower received an awesome buff. 10 secs less cooldown and lvl1 in T4 is stronger than lvl7 in T3. I recommend using a tech earring to get the boost from lvl11.

Beam Tempest (lvl2): Not much to say, more dmg especially with lvl2 and deals more dmg than Meteor Storm. Unfortunately we still need it for our lvl45 skills otherwise I wouldn’t learn it since I barely use it, neither for group PvP nor for PvE.

Teleport (lvl1): 15 sec cooldown as usual at lvl1, but each lvl decrease the cooldown for 1 sec and not for 0,5 sec. Nothing changed otherwise, still as useful as ever.

Time Stop (lvl4): Starts with 6 secs now and each lvl gives two more secs. Cooldown is raised to 40 sec in PvE, but in PvP it is still 30 sec. Can be cancelled with pressing ADAD[…]. For PvP I use a tech ring for another 1 sec.

Time Dodge (lvl5): Starts with 1,5 sec and each additional lvl gives 0,5 sec for PvE. In PvP the duration is 70% of the PvE duration. Cooldown is now 21 sec instead of 28,5 sec in PvE, 30 sec cooldown in PvP.

Time Acceleration (lvl3): Max it. Each lvl give 3 sec duration in T4 and lvl3 is capped at 15 sec.

Slow Area (lvl1): Leave it at lvl1 if you really want it. It has more cooldown in T4, less duration, the slow is capped at lower % compared to T3 and the aoe of this skill is also shorter and it has dmg now in T4 which can’t be used as posion missile to lock someone on the ground. In my opinion they could change it back to T3 slow area, now it’s mostly garbage. Lvl1 vs lvl9 size.

Smasher:

Arcane (lvl2): Now a permanent buff that increases your matk for 12%/16%/20% depends on the lvl. MP consumption is raised to 1,24/1,32/1,40. You can use a tech necklace for lvl3.

Linear Ray EX: In T4 we get it at lvl48 instead of lvl47. We can blink out of it now which is great and the hit range to the left and right was increased. Each charge stage will increase the dmg for 25% + one meter more range and at the 2nd and 3rd charge stage it has the ability to flinch people. Unlike Linear Ray, which was buffed with T4, its EX version lost 50% of its dmg, but it is still very powerful and can also break alot of skills in PvP so use it, especially since it’s most of the time even without charging dealing more than 10k dmg.

Laser Cutter (lvl4): It’s our best and 2nd best DPS skill as a smasher. The skill now has 10 sec less cooldown, increased hit range and the amp% +add.Dmg was buffed a lot, but still some people overestimate this skill a little bit. Best and 2nd best due to fact that some versions don’t have old manticore staffs. Triple Orb can surpass Laser Cutter with 107% dark atk, which might or might not be able to obtain is several versions, but this is only the case if you can get the 1,83 coefficient of Laser Cutter and this chance, especially against nest bosses, is literally at 0%. Against dragons e.g. where it is impossible to get the burst hit since a wall isn’t close enough to the dragon we only need 50% dark with Triple Orb or 13% with Triple Orb EX if we compare majesty and smasher. You can use a tech ring for lvl5, but it won’t change the skill dmg that much since the first big jump is on lvl6.

Nine Tail Laser EX: Like Linear Ray EX it also gives a 50% boost, not to its original lasers, but to the new three red core laser. Each core laser has three hits, which increases the hit count to 27. Coefficient can be found in my coefficient chart. It improves the previous lasers with a slightly bigger AoE. Unfortunately the SA break is still left to the explosion hits which are only available for the normal lasers, core lasers SA break is low and is unable to break skills with a similar SA to dash. Highest SA break is at the beginning and when the lasers explode.

Force Mirror EX: With its EX version the skill has a faster casting time and can deal damage now. The mirror will deal damage 6 times over the whole duration, while the first hit is a clean 130% mdmg hit, the 2nd to 6th benefit from mirrors own debuff. Coefficient depends on the level of Force Mirror itself. Each level increase the coefficient for 0,25.

About those pictures:
Left picture is always damage while the right picture is DPS. Since it might be also interesting how every skill compares to the rest of the skills I also made a complete damage and DPS chart, but only with T4 data. Splitted into two charts each since it became too much skills for one chart.
Damage 1 – 14; Damage 15 – 27 & DPS 1 – 13; DPS 14 – 27
It looks confusing since most skills overlap with others or almost have the same color so I’ll give you a ranking chart. You can orientate yourself on the corresponding numbers, so you should be able to find what you’re looking for.
The right column isn’t for dragons only, mostly for all nest bosses and it’s mainly to show that Laser Cutter can be weaker than Triple Orb even when you use an old manticore staff. But still this chart doesn’t have to say what you can actually see.
E.g. during sea dragons last phase the dragon flies every few seconds, not much time to use all skill so if you can only use Laser Cutter once, but Glacial Spike twice each time he lands even Glacial Spike would surpass Laser Cutter (atleast DPS wise), but as you can see this only happens in specific situations.
In all pictures I used 13000 matk, 37,50% dmg reduction from enemies defence, the highest possible coefficient(without bugs) and I assumed that the whole skill crits. Why 37,50%? I’ll explain it via math.

In T3 the calculation was: 1,25*(amp%*matk+add.Dmg.)
In T4 the calculation is: 2*(amp%*matk+add.Dmg.)*(1-def). Now we have to equate both equations and we get this:
1,25*(amp%*matk+add.Dmg.)*skill coeff.=2*(amp%*matk+add.Dmg.)*(1-def)*skill coeff. |divided by (amp%*matk+add.Dmg)
1,25*skill coeff.=2*(1-def)*skill coeff. | divided by skill coeff.
1,25=2*(1-def) | divided by 2
0,625=1-def | -1 | *(-1)
Def=0,375 or 37,50%

This is the number where T3 and T4 crit will deal the same dmg which is needed for a fair comparison. If the dmg reduction is lower than 37,50% T4 crits > T3 crits and when the dmg reduction is higher than 37,50% T4 crits < T3 crits.
Why did I told you this and don’t just say it’s like that? Well I have to proof what I say and otherwise I could tell you that the moon is clue, the sun is a lie and you all owe me 10€ and you actually have to believe this xD

Force Shield and Force Mirror:
Since those two charts are different from the other ones I think I should explain it. I’ll only explain it for Force Mirror, but you can adapt it for Force Shield too since it’s pretty much the same.
In T3 Force Mirror had +20% mdmg taken with a cooldown of 25 sec and a duration of 12 sec. In my chart you can see it is 9,60% and not 20%. Yes you’ll deal 20% more mdmg during this 12 secs, but before you can cast the next mirror you have to wait 13 secs and those 9,60% are basically the +% you get over the whole cooldown time.
As an example I’ll do 100 mdmg each second. This over the 25 sec.
Without mirror: 100 * 25 = 2500 mdmg dealt
With mirror: 100 * 13 + 120 * 12 = 2740 mdmg dealt
Difference between mirror and no mirror is 2740/2500 = 1,096 or an increase for 9,6%. As soon as the duration is longer than the cooldown which is the case for both skills crested in T4 you get the number you can see on the skill itself.

General:

The biggest jumps for skills are at lvl6, lvl11, lvl16 and lvl21. If you want to decide for which skill you want to craft a tech accessoire go for a skill that is at lvl5, lvl10, lvl15 or lvl20. In this build it would be spectrum shower since it is at lvl10 while the other good tech earring would be linear ray, but since it is already lvl16 it would be better to use it for spectrum shower.

If you read that guide attentively enough you might have noticed that I mentioned three skills for tech necklaces. Arcane necklace can be used since we’re able to replace the necklace after 10 secs to another necklace due to the 180 sec duration from arcane. But still there is Force Mirror and Triple Orb necklace left. Triple Orb could raise the dmg, with the numbers I used, for ~15,5% while Force Mirror would raise it for 5%, but for every skill which could be better. But then again, Force Mirror won’t stack with other force user’s mirrors anymore so if someone else had a Force Mirror necklace you actually don’t need it, but again it is very situational. So choose what you like or what will fit your playstyle more.

In PvP the cd from every skill is the same as in T3 for force user, but as you might already know every skill dmg is nerfed which isn’t really a problem or at least isn’t the reason why T4 1vs1 seems unattractive for many people. That is more due to the high defence. But in my opinion it isn’t that bad. Smasher can still kill everything quite fast. Killed a priest (not sure if it was an inquisitor or a saint so I call him priest) from 100% to 0% in 8 secs and hit several classes during a battle with a 43k crit.

What actually changed for force user in T4?

Actually not that much. Well smasher probably are as good as majestys now in terms of DPS, maybe better thanks to more buffs for laser skills, but well majesty can learn those too except for Laser Cutter, but one skill isn’t the world. One slap for majesty might be that more mobs now have dark defences, which actually suck for a class with dark skills only in her tree.
During Gravity Crush I mentioned that it works unfortunately like Time Stop, etc.. Why unfortunately? Well actually they’re all useless now for nests and abyss dungeons. We can only time stop/gravity crush/slow mobs that are A: not bosses or B: bosses with only 1 hp bar which are two harpies during the 2nd wave in Typhoon Kims nest before the lava ogre. We can’t even time stop/gravity crush/slow the 1st boss in Prof. K nest after its last split when there are 16 of it. Bowmaster are still able to bind them while clerics are also able to bind them with para bolt/bind relic and the cleric binds works even in the first few phases of it. Basically we lost our crowd control and I won’t count simple mobs in abyss/master dungeons since we completely don’t need it for those mobs. If we ever get the separated PvE PvP build system I think about leaving time stop, time dodge and slow area at lvl0 since they’re useless in PvE.

PvP:

Will this build work for PvP? It depends on you. As I said in my 2nd sentence it fits my playstyle and it doesn’t have to fit yours. Not sure if I should give any PvP advices since mostly all are already known and writing everything again and again won’t make someone better, so if someone has a question just ask. Since I said some sentences before I have to proof what I say:
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Unfortunately I only have pictures and no videos at the time I’m writing this. If someone makes a request for a video I’ll try to record it, but since I don’t join random 1vs1 rooms in cDN it might take some time to get what I want. Something like protect/respawn is easier to record, but the video will be significant longer than usual videos.

Choices of gear (Dark vs Matk):

Not really sure if I should call it choices of gear since it’s still your choice what you want and anyway you have to calculate it yourself later on if something is better for you or not.

First thing to say is that crit, final damage and element give the same dmg output. 10% FD = 10% Ele = 10% crit. While some people still think that something like 5k atk + 100% FD is the same as 10k atk, I have to say that is wrong. 10% atk increase =/= 10% FD/Ele%/Crit.

It is easy to understand that FD% and Ele% is pretty much the same since both are separated from atk.

(amp%*atk+add.Dmg)*(1+50% [from ele%])*(1+0% [from FD%])
(amp%*atk+add.Dmg)*(1+0% [from ele%])*(1+50% [from FD%])

As you can see, both would give the same dmg output. Probably most of you wouldn’t think that crit give the same dmg output based on the % you can see when you hover your mouse over your crit rate, because the multiplier is always 2x, but since crit is only working on x% of your hits it is different.

To make that example easy our dmg output from our left click is 1000 (non crit). Again we will choose 50% FD and 50% crit rate this time and we will hit 100 times.

(1000 * (1 + 50%)) * 100 = 150.000 dmg with 50% FD.

Since our non crit hits 1000, our crit dmg is obviously 2000. And out of 100 hits with a chance of 50% to crit we will manage to get 50 crits in this theory.

1000 * 50 + 2000 * 50 = 150.000 dmg with 50% crit.

Looks the same, but this is only theoretical since we can have some luck and hit more than 50 hits or if we’re unlucky we might hit less than 50 crits and in my case crit doesn’t matter at all since I’m bugged and the crit rate does whatever it want to do xD (mainly giving me high crit rate in lvl60 nests, but low critrate against <lvl60 mobs)

While those three stats are quite identical, there is one thing which divides them again. And this is elemental defence or crit resist. FD is the only multiplier which can’t be reduced by a stat (yes pdef or mdef can, but that works for all three stats so I won’t count that), but it is also the only stat that can’t be increased via skills.

Now we come to the math path again. I will show you here how to find out what would yield more dmg. We’ll have two equations, one with ele% and one with the unknown factor m which tells us how much matk increase is necessary to compensate ele% for elemental skills.

x = (z% * (y*m) + t) * (1 – def%)

x = (z% * y + t) * (1 – def%) * (1+ele%)

I’m sure you can find out on your own which letter stand for what in the normal equation, I just shortened it.
Divided by (1-def%), subtracted t and lastly divided by z% we will get this equation:

y *m = ((z% * y + t) * (1+ele%) – t) / z%

For an example we will use 7500 matk, gravity ball lvl1 (171% +21) and also we have 37% dark from 4x 8% pots and a 5% dark title.
Filling this into our equation will give out our matk to compensate the loss from ele%:

((172% * 7500 + 21) * (1 + 37%) – 21) / 172% = 10280 matk (rounded).

If we go one step further and divide the result or the previous equation with y we will get this outcome.

(((172% * 7500 + 21) * (1 + 37%) – 21) / 172%) / 7500 = 1,37060233

Probably anyone will notice that this looks similar to our 37% from ele%, but that depends on each skill. For another example we will now use Laser Cutter lvl4 (1369% +28852):

(((1369% * 7500 + 28852) * (1 + 37%) – 28852) / 1369%) / 7500 = 1,47397117

As you can see, we need 47,4% more matk for Laser Cutter to compensate the 37% dark we didn’t use anymore. How much matk we need depends on the skill itself and on our current matk.

All of this is based on the old manticore staff only the old version have that were released before T3. NA, SEA and every later released version probably will never have those weapons and for them this equation is somehow useless and can’t be used since only a few and not all skills are dark.

Would this work without old manticore staff? Probably no, I’ll give you a really easy example:
Two skills, one based on ele% and the other one normal. Both will deal the same dmg (e.g. 10000). We can start with one of the two skills, but after we used one, we need to use the other one, otherwise we can’t use the previous skill anymore (skill A -> skill B -> A -> B -> A -> etc.). If we get 50% dark now it will increase our dark skill to 15000 dmg, while the other normal one will stay at 10000. After we used both we did 25000 dmg instead of 20000 which is an increase of 25% more dmg.

Well we don’t have this restriction in Dragon Nest, but that was only to show that an increase for a few skills isn’t a total increase of dmg. If we would increase our matk for 10%, we would end up with 10% more dmg since all of our skills are based on matk, not so with ele%.

That should be all about this topic. Not sure if anything is missing or something isn’t understandable, if it’s the last case then just ask.

My own gear:

Don’t really know why people want to see this, but fine:
Int set
Vit set
Vit set is for DDN, while Int set is pretty much for everything else. Some items like my Force Mirror necklace or Spectrum Shower earring are quite shabby and my rings never get matk pot, too unlucky for that crap.

At last I won’t give anyone any builds about lvl40 or lvl50 simply because I don’t had T4 during those caps and can’t really know if my build could work due to the required SP for every row. And if anyone asks questions that can be answered by reading through this post I won’t answer it. I won’t support laziness xD