Wakfu Fire Cra Guide

Wakfu Fire Cra Guide by Djibuti

1. Introduction

Hello everyone, this is Djibuti here, outlining many things you might want to know about the good ol’ Cra. This installment is all about the fire branch. Cra are by far one of the most versatile classes and the fire branch, in particular, has great damage capability. Your role is essentially to pew-pew everything to death while keeping at a distance, and utilizing some map manipulation.

2. AP/MP build options

You have a wide variety of options due to the flexibility of spells in terms of how you want to build you AP/MP. More AP is nearly always better, assuming the trade-off isn’t large, but there are a few viable options.

a) 10 AP (4 or 5 MP)
My favorite, and what I dreamed a fire Cra could someday be since the beginning of beta testing. This allows you an immense amount of flexibility in spell usage/customization while still keeping high damage and mobility.

b) 9 AP (4-6 MP)
Another viable option, and this build will be more monotonous than any other, because you’ll likely rely on the same one or two spells as all other fire Cra with 9 AP for most of your damage. However, increased mobility can sometimes make your ratio of damage dealt:damage taken skyrocket.

c) 8AP (4-6 MP)
While this build might seem not as viable, the damage per spell you can mount is often colossal, due to not having to stat an AP. However, your base spell damage per turn goes down.

d) Less viable (11/12 AP builds)
These have been done in the past….likely with moderate success. They are much more difficult to manage and have very severe trade-offs, often significantly lowering your hp, resist, or damage. I would not recommend starting with one of these in mind, but it is definitely an option should you be so brave.

3. General Mechanics/Strategy

Beacons- These are your main drain on WP, and are used for a multitude of purposes. Each elemental tree has a beacon as the second spell, which can be placed on the map as an unmovable pillar. They start out with a number of charges and remain as long as they have 1 charge remaining. Charges are removed from beacons at the start of your turn, or when they are targeted by a spell or attack, with the exception of you targeting the beacon with a spell of the correct element. Their primary use is to take a spell of the same elemental branch as the beacon, and project it’s damage into an area of effect. The damage inflicted is proportional to the AP/MP/WP cost of the spell and is not affected by the damage value of the actual spell. Additionally, critical hits have no effect on the beacon damage. Using the spell Beacon Sneakin’, you can teleport to occupy the spot of the beacon, and you can also unsummon them using the Unbeacon active spell.

Beacon Placement- You can only place one beacon of each elemental type per turn, and can only have as many beacons on the field at a time as you have Mechanics. They all have a casting range of 3-6, with no LOS needed. Each beacon must also be 3 spaces from any other beacon, and cannot block bridges or any other paths. They can, however, be used to detour, delay, or block LOS.

Use of air tree- These two spells will be your primary map management; it is unnecessary to level them extensively, as their damage output is minimal with no gain from leveling:
Windy beacon – Range of 3-6, cost: 1WP. When hit by an air spell, it damages and pushes all enemies in its area of effect one space away from beacon. The AOE is 3 cells in a straight line out from each of the sides of the beacon. Use this to push enemies together for better AOE’s on fire spells or to keep enemies away from you. Your best option is to activate with homing arrow (2AP air spell) since push is not dependent on AP cost of spells.
Retreat Arrow – Range 1-4 (modifiable), cost: 4AP 1WP. Linear casting. This spell pushes an enemy in the targeted cell and an enemy in the cell behind each back two cells. Useful for getting out of a lock zone without consuming MP

Escape- As a Cra, it is important to keep your distance from enemies, and you have a few methods of doing so if you happen to get locked in close-combat:
WP usage: Use of air tree as described above, or Beacon Sneakin’ (as described later). This are the most abundant/versatile ways of escaping, but are extremely limited, especially in long fights, due to heavy WP cost.

Non-WP usage: Disengage. This is your only means of escape (except for attempting to dodge) that doesn’t consume WP. The catch is that you must have empty cells on the opposite side of you from your enemy, as you will jump back from the enemy (also described later).

4. Spells
Fire Branch

a.Blazing Arrow – 3AP/1MP; Limits: 2/target; Base Range: 2-6; Range Mod: Y; Needs LOS: Y
This spell is your single target damage spell. It has a the best base range of fire spells, and does above average damage, making it an important part of your arsenal. It will be a staple at low levels and will always be an integral part of your build. Its use is limited to two times on a single enemy in one turn, so pair this with other spells on single enemy targets, such as Blinding Arrow. At high levels, you should use it primarily as a filler or if you can’t get correct positioning to use another spell. Or if you’re trying to kill one particular enemy fast.

b. Incandescent Beacon – 1 WP; Limits: 1/turn; Base Range: 3-6, Range Mod: N, Needs LOS: N
This beacon is a stationary pillar that you can activate by targeting with a fire spell, with a circular AOE damaging anything within two cells of the beacon. Its damage is based upon the AP/MP/WP used on the spell that activates it. If the beacon is in the AOE of one of your spells, it will also activate even if not fired upon directly. Additionally, when a fire beacon is activated, it also activates all of your other fire beacons on the map for the same amount of damage. You are limited to the number of beacons in play by your number of mechanics, so be careful with placement! At low levels, it can be an effective “wall” to prevent your opponent from entering close combat with you. At higher levels it is used primarily for extra “bonus” damage on your AOE spells, and sometimes for positioning. Note on it’s damage: From spell level 0-24 = 1dmg per AP/MP/WP; 25-49 = 2dmg per AP/MPWP; 50-74 = 3dmg per AP/MP/WP; 75-99 = 4dmg per AP/MP/WP; 100 = 5 dmg per AP/MP/WP. This means there is little benefit besides elemental dmg % for leveling it beyond 50 unless you can get it to 75, and likewise for between 75 and 100.

c. Blinding Arrow – 4 AP; Base Range: 3-5, Range Mod: Y; Needs LOS: Y
A mid-range, moderate damage spell. This spell has an area of effect of a cross (it damages the target cell and each cell directly adjacent to target cell). The damage on this spell is not fantastic, but it has a chance to afflict blindness on all targets. Blindness will reduce the range of all range modifiable spells by 20 (aka to a minimum). This is absolutely crippling against most opponents with modifiable range to spells (Srams, Iops, and a few other excluded). At low levels, it will not be of huge importance, and gains value as you level up. Still, this is useful as an AOE filler spell and can have marginal usefulness by blinding opponents. If you’re a PvP junkie, this becomes more important.

d. Burning Arrow – 5 AP; Limits: Linear casting Base Range: 2-4, Range Mod: Y; Needs LOS: Y
This spell is your best damage/AP spell and has a chance of inflicting the Immolation state, which applies additional damage at the end of the target’s next turn. It also fires with an area of effect in a 3 square line, with the cells being the one you target and the two directly behind it. It’s major limitation is that it must be cast in a straight line in from of you. With high mobility, that limitation is less severe and this easily becomes one of your most powerful spells.

e. Explosive Arrow – 6 AP; Base Range: 3-5, Range Mod: Y; Needs LOS: Y
Crowd control. This has a massive AOE, damaging everyone in a 3×3 square centered around your targeted square. This spell also has fairly high damage and has a chance to inflict Explosion on its targets, causing additional immediate damage. A great spell when you have an AOE set up for it to work, but you will sometimes find yourself in a position where you will hit allies, so use sparingly!

5. Active Supports

a. Disengage – 3AP/1MP @ Lvl 0; 2AP/1MP @ Lvl 9
This is a great support ability often overlooked, but extremely useful in many scenarios. It is not a necessary spell by any means, but can prove very useful in long fights. This is purely because it is the only means of guaranteed escape that doesn’t cost WP. At max level, you can move backward 2 cells from an enemy with a 30% chance to push that enemy 1 cell backwards as well. The importance of this spell comes in the fact that it doesn’t cost WP. The other three methods of escape all cost between 1 and 2 WP, which depletes very quickly when you have a max 6 WP. And at max level, 2 AP is a cheap cost for an escape. If you choose not to level this spell, you will want to heavily invest in dodge. Maxing Disengage, however, means you can effectively ignore how much dodge you have.

b. Unbeacon – 1AP, Range of 6 @ Lvl 0; 0AP, Range of 13 @ Lvl 9
An interestingly useful spell that is situationally useful. It unsummons your beacon and has a 20% chance to return the WP spent at max level. It also reduces the damage % of everyone in the AOE of the beacon, by up to 20%. Lastly, it can trigger Riddling on anyone in the AOE that has a riddling stack (described in a bit).

c. Long-Distance Combat – 1AP/2 MP Lvl0-8, 2MP @ Lvl 9; Limit: 3/Turn
A great spell for any leftover MP. Can be cast up to 3x per turn, in exchange for 2MP, it gives +20% Critical Damage at max level. At low levels, this has limited usefulness due to the rarity of crits. Thanks to Heightened Vision, and possibly using stat points toward crits, Cra often have 40+ crit % near end game, making this a much better investment as you approach end-game. I’d highly recommend this for any fire Cra who has more than 4 MP. If you have 4 or fewer MP, LDC becomes only marginally useful, as you need to move less than 2 spaces in a turn in order to use it, which happens occasionally.

d. Bat’s Eye – 4AP @ Lvl 0; 2AP @ Lvl 9; Limit: 1/target, not used on same target during previous turn.
Reduces range and lock of an opponent, with -3 range and -50 lock at max level. It also applies the Bright Eyes state, which prevents Bat’s Eye from being cast on it the next turn, meaning you can only use it on any one target every other turn. The range penalty can often be crippling to enemies with range modifiable spells. The reduction to an enemy’s lock can also help you escape from a lock zone, but this still leaves you relying on a dodge roll, and leaving your battles up to chance is something to leave to the Ecaflips. PvP-minded players will find this skill more useful, but it is better for the other elements of Cra that don’t have a spell that can blind opponents.

e. Beacon Sneakin’ – 5AP/1WP @ Lvl 0; 2AP/1WP @ Lvl 9
This is something every Cra should max. For 2AP/2WP (including beacon cost) you can teleport anywhere in your LOS between 3-6 spots away where a beacon is placed. This is fantastic for creating separation between you and your enemies, and separation is your best friend. Max it early on if you are a solo player, as you will absolutely want it to keep you alive. Players who will do primarily group play can wait a bit longer to invest points, but maxing this should still have high priority.

6. Passive Supports

a. Archery
This adds a passive bonus of 2 Dodge per level and increases initial charges on beacons by one at levels 5 and 15. It also increases the number of beacons you can have out at one time (Mechanics) at levels 10 and 20. The passive dodge bonus is a nice bonus, but as always, relying upon a dodge roll is not advisable. Depending on your play style, having more beacons out at one time can be beneficial, but the charges to beacons is only minimally helpful. You’ll find that by the time beacons run out a few charges they won’t be in a good position anymore, so it’s unlikely you’ll want that extra charge for one more turn.

b. Cra Precision
Passive that enables you to have a lucky hit, either adding 30%, 50%, or 80% to your elemental damage. The chance increases by 2% per level invested, finishing with a 40% chance at max level. A great idea to put a few points in at an early level, and you’ll definitely want it to be at least level 10 my the time you reach max level. As a fire Cra, this spell gets monumentally better because AOE spells activate on each target one by one in a consecutive manner. If you get an 80% boost on the first target, it applies to the rest of the hits for that spell, and each enemy has a chance of activating a lucky hit. Note, however, beacon damages processes first and beacon damage does not have a chance of activating Precision.

c. Heightened Vision
This passive adds 2 range to all of your range modifiable spells as well as an extra 10% critical hit chance at max level. Without question, this is an absolute must and should be maxed out as soon as possible. The extra range and critical hits will help you do more damage early while also being able to kite opponents with greater efficiency more quickly.

d. Riddling
This passive improves your arrows, enabling them to apply 1-2 levels of Riddled and Reach per AP/MP/WP used. Each level 1-10 increases the chance of applying 1 level of the Riddled state by 10%, with 100% at level 10. From level 11-20, each arrow is guaranteed to apply one level of Riddled per AP/MP/WP and adds the possibility of adding a second level of Riddled, increasing with 10% per level, finalizing with a guaranteed 2 levels per AP/MP/WP at level 20. Reach applies as a state to your character in the exact same manner, but doesn’t have any bearing on the fire branch, as it applies only to one earth spell. The Riddled state does nothing but accumulate on targets and will disappear if not re-applied. When you use the Active skill Unbeacon, it activates and removes the Riddled state of any character in the beacon’s damage AOE, applying the Pinned Down State. Pinned Down removes MP from its victim, based on the level of Riddled that was on the target, removing more MP for higher levels of Riddled. At first glance, this seems like an overpowered passive spell due to it’s ability to remove MP. For solo leveling, it takes 4-6 turns to apply enough riddled to even remove a few MP, which is too slow to be a consistent tool. It can be useful in PvP and when grouped with other Cras with Riddling.

e. Powerful Shooting
Another must. Increases damage at a distance: for enemies 4-6 by 2% per level, to 40% at max level. It also increases damage to targets 7+ cells away by 3% per level, to 60% at max level. Note about how this applies: When using an AOE spell, PS is applied based on the actual cell you target and is only applied once per spell before damage is applied. It does not act like precision and activate when damaging the enemy, nor does it calculate the distance between you and the damaged enemy.

7. Characteristic Points

There are many good options in which to invest your character points. A few stand out, and there are certainly some less desirable options. Dodge, HP, Ini are viable, but not optimal. You’ll want to put most of your points into AP, MP, crit, and intel, as these will bolster your damage capability. You can also stat a range to get the 7th cell range damage boost of Powerful Shooting when using Burning Arrow (ty for tip Ari!). Here is my pre-frigost setup as a reference. Most of the gear is pretty modest and you don’t have to spend months to get the everything. The hardest items are Moowolf Set and Zeorus’ Blade. The blade is absolutely replaceable with another AP weapon, but I liked the stats on it and also the ability to hold a dagger/shield. (NB: CM fire bonus was at 10% at time of SS)
5/9: I’ve since updated my gear by selling nearly everything else I owned. My new, complete setup for now is below. This is only for dedicated or rich players, as it will run you ~3-4 million kamas depending on how shrewd of a buyer you are. Or much cheaper if you can beat Magmog.

a. 10AP/4-5MP
Spend your first 50 levels of points on an AP and an MP if you want 5 MP endgame. Otherwise just stat the AP. After that, you’ll want to put points into crit and intelligence. If you statted an MP you’ll have 345 left at 120. I’d suggest 10 crit and the rest into intel, which puts you at 65 intel at 120. You could also sacrifice 27 intel or 5-6 crit for 1 range. This will allow you to benefit from the second buff (7 cells away) of Powerful Shooting without having to find equipment that adds range. If you decide 4MP is enough, you’ll have an additional 100 points to distribute.

b. 9AP/4-6MP
You will want to stat one MP (two if you want 6 MP endgame) with your first points ASAP. The rest into crit and intel. For level 120, again you’ll have 345 points leftover, meaning 115 intel, 22 crit +3 intel , or a mix of the two. I’d go 10 crit, 65 intel. If you don’t stat that second MP, you’ll have an additional 150 points, meaning you can stat another 50 intel or 10 crits.

c. 8AP/5-6MP
Stat an MP if you want 6, otherwise, go all into crit/intel. You’ll have 595 points, meaning 198 intel, or a mix of intel/crit such as 15 crit+ 123intel.

8. Gear

Depending on how you decide to level, there are two routes to go regarding gear. The first, as you can read in the next section tactically manipulates melee mobs into submission, meaning you don’t NEED much gear until ~60 when fighting solo mobs becomes less beneficial. The second method assumes you’ll be changing out your gear every ~10 levels for the latest and greatest gear. It should seem fairly obvious which one is easier and more efficient, but there are these who might not have the same penchant for speed-running things as I do, so I’ve included two different methods for leveling/gearing up. (Links to items to come soon!)

a. Powerleveling
You will want to get an MP as soon as possible through gear. The fastest way to do this is to acquire a Tofu Set, which can be full worn at level 15, which has a full set bonus of an MP. Ignore the fact that it doesn’t have fire damage, the damage you will get will not outweigh the extra MP at this point. If you take some time to hunt out to hunt with groups, you can wear the entire Cloudy Tofu set at 34, which also has a set MP bonus. Around level 40, boots with an MP become available, the best being Polnuds, which are acquired from the Dominant Strich mobs in Brakmar’s Pabong Fields. At level 45, you can wear Penn Knives, which will give you an extra MP in exchange for an AP. All of these are viable sources, just get one MP from gear. After that, just equip whatever you pick up along the way to piece together your own, unique gear combo. I can’t stress enough that all you need is the MP. Sure fire damage helps, but is in no way required. The only other thing you might want is filler gear that has initiative…going first helps tremendously. Once you hit level 60, turn to the Gear Roulette section to steer your progression/gear needs as solo mobs become a part of your past.

Most of these have fire dmg and initiative:

1-H Weapons: Twiggy Needle (8), Ticlock Hand (35), Bloodenbone Wand (60) (unobtainable?), Feather Duster (86)
Off-Hand (or 1-H): Croclage Daggers (39), Pumice Stone (46), Assassin’s #1337 Daggers (90)

or

2-H Weapons: Agride (27), Nubby Shovel (30), The Sickle (30), Bifmaro Bow (35), Yamato’s Rope (45), Munster Shovel(55), Pulperizor (60), Demolisword (60), Dreamy Blade (68),Sacred Scepter (74), Demented Club (93)

b. Gear Rouletting
1-15
You’ll start off with Dark Wodent set. Keep that until you can equip pieces of the Gobball Set between levels 12-15.

15-42
You have a few options here. You can wear that (by now dirty) Gobball set until 42, when you can fully replace it with the Golden Scara Set.

You can also mix and match Prespic Set with Zinit Stalagmote Set, but you’ll lose the AP bonus. Assuming you stat an AP at level 31, 8 AP is often better than 7 AP at the same level for fire Cra, and the damage bonus from the stalag/prespic sets will be minimal compared to the damage you inherently have.

42-62
At 47, you’ll want to equip Brakmar Riktus Boots / Epaulettes to replace whatever you may be wearing at the time. These should take you to just about 62.

62-72
At level 62,you want to start investing in new gear. The Stone Cold Set should be a nice improvement upon your current setup until you can get to 65 and acquire all the pieces for your next set: Duke Whelkington. This set has great fire damage and you can keep your Stone Cold Ring/Boots equipped while wearing it. Don’t bother for the Imperator or Magmacrack Sets, as they are much more difficult to obtain and you’ll out-level them quickly. While you’re leveling up, it can’t hurt to start acquiring Lunar Set items, as you might want to think about these both as future equips and future gear materials for your end-game crafts.

72-110
From here on out, you should acquire a Dark Hurl Set, a Monk Set, and a Moowolf Set. While you are working on the elusive Moowolf set, pair a full Dark Hurl with Sacred Ring/Boots. This should maximize your damage until you can get your hands on a Moo Set. Equip parts of the Moowolf Set as you acquire them, but don’t break the AP bonus of the Dark Hurl Set until you have full Moowolf. Then, your more ideal setup is full Moo, Hurl belt/epp, sacred Bp/ring/boots thanks to the 3 item bonus of the sacred set. This should be your gear setup for the near future unless you can somehow manage to acquire Magmog or Gobbalrog equips. If you go 8 AP, plan on either using Demented Club instead of AP weapon, or use Sacred set for MP bonus. Otherwise, find a good AP weapon you like. There’s lots of options.

9. Leveling Strategy/Zones

a. Powerlevel
General Strategy:
You will want to use enemy pathing and AI to escape the most damage possible. The crux of this method is that enemies will attack your front if it is the only available option, but will always go to your side or back if that is available. The tactical aspect to this is that if you are, say, 8 cells away on a diagonal, and face away from the opponent, they will take less efficient paths to get to you. Namely, they will run to get in the “linear cast zone” of your back as if they were to use a charge move on you back from a distance. This is illustrated below:

P=Player, E=Enemy

Turn A Turn B Turn B2

xxxxP xxxxP xxxxP
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxE
Exxxx xxxxE xxxxx

Assuming you are facing towards the top of the page at the end of Turn A, an enemy with 4 MP will run to the cell designated in Turn B, while an enemy with 5MP will run to the cell in Turn B2.

If your enemy has 4MP and so do you, your goal is therefore to create a “5×5 square setup” with you on one corner and your enemy on the opposite corner. With this you move from corner to corner, always facing outside of the square, you can kite the enemy forever. An enemy with 5 MP will require a 6×6 square and 5MP on your part. The enemies I have listed will sometimes follow this method or another, but I encourage you to analyze enemy AI/attacks to figure out other mobs you can use any described tactics on. The reason this is an effective leveling strategy is that you can take 5 second turns: attack, attack, run to corner, end. Repeat. Your enemy will just run and won’t attack, taking a quick turn too. You’ll be able to pull off 7-10 turns in the time it would take a party of 4 to take one whole round of turns against ~3 enemies. And the enemies will have lower HP since there’s no party buff (monster buffs due to more attacking players). Win-win all around.

Last note: Don’t be afraid to use your WP early on. Beacon sneak or retreat arrow to set up the kiting extravaganza is totally worth it. After a few fight’s you’ll get the hang of how to set it up.

Things to look for in enemies: Melee attacks only, or very close ranged attacks. Low MP. Low fire resist.

In General
1-60
Your goal for levels 1-60 is to fight solo mobs that are between ~1.2-2 times your level, preferably melee. Not more than 2x your level and also not less than your level, to maximize exp and level up rate.

60+
Fight groups of monsters that total ~1.2-2x your level, melee mobs once again highly preferred. The higher base level of each mob (i.e. fewer w/ higher level) is better than massacring a large group of low-level mobs. Do challenges. These will upset your spell exp, but you can gain it back later. It can pay off to have those extra ability points early on, and you can catch up on spell levels later.

Level by Level
1-12/15
After acquiring your Dark Wodent set (don’t you look dashing), go straight to the gobballs of your respective nation. You’ll want to start fights against groups of 1 and 2 Gobbly, either black or white. Keep your distance as much as possible, and kill them one by one using primarily Explosive/Blazing arrow. Once you hit level 8, start fighting solo Gobbettes as you can find them. The Gobball family is a great example to illustrate AI analyzation. Gobblies, Warchiefs, and Gobballs will all run towards you and will stay in close combat with you once they reach you. Gobbettes, however, will always use up the entirety of their MP. They will walk up to you attack, then use the rest of their MP to walk away. On turns you can’t be more than 4 cells away, get as close as possible. The Gobbette will attack, and run away, leaving you with up to 4 cells of distance. Attack and increase the separation between yourself and Gobbette. Continue to attack and run away until you cannot remain far enough away to prevent an attack. On these turns run close, suffer an attack and watch it run away from you. You can get more damage turns than your enemy this way and defeat solo mobs a small bit above your level.

15-22
You’re looking for things with low fire resist between levels 25-40 (remember not more than double your level) that are melee only. Amakna’s Strawcrow population in Fertile Prarie will do the job, as will the Exploding sunflowers if you can find solo mobs. Moogrs in Bonta’s Justice Plains or Sufokia’s Snapper (not Bernardo or Zordfish) mobs can do the trick here.

22-35
Head to Amakna’s Holey Forest to take out solo mobs of Oafish Toads (the black ones). Not only do they have 4 MP and are melee only, but they also drop a nice ring (at least they used to), Silimelle’s Bejeweled Wedding Ring. Beware they have a teleport move if you get too close. Just stay far away, moving horizontally left and right with ~5-7 squares at the end of its turn (9-11 at the end of yours), always giving them your back at the end of turn. They’ll follow you left/right but never will get closer to you by a square. These will give great exp until ~35.

35-60
At this point, your targets are Boowolfines (4MP, Sadida Kingdom), Boowolves(5MP, Sadida Kingdom), Calamar Starfish (4MP, Calamar). If you can find other, better ones, more power to you.

60+
Beyond this, very few solo mobs will be worth your time. Start looking at Wild Gobballs in your nation’s Wild Prarie, pairs of Boowolves, groups of Kraloves. Or do challenges for great exp. Or of course Whispering Island.

b. Gear Roulette

Group with other players if you go through this leveling strategy, as it might be more difficult to solo mobs. You can still try to kite utilizing the strategy described above, but it is best to try to level in groups. All you’ll be doing is ranged attacks on enemies. Focus fire to take downs mobs one at a time but there’s really not all that much to leveling a Cra in groups, just pewpew….it’s why much of the community say Cra are easy mode. In choosing mobs, go for things that are ~1.2-2 times your group’s level, but it’s hard to direct beyond that, as all groups are different. Use the tactics laid out above to survive longer.

10. End-Game Builds
a. The Double Burn
Just like it sounds, you main spell is going to be Burning Arrow, and you’ll strive for a 10AP build to pull it off twice. Since this spell has a linear cast range, mobility will be your best friend. 5 MP seems to be good. You’ll want to you active spells: 9º/0*/9/0/9º, passive spells: 0*/20/20/0*/20
º = You should have one or the other for escaping, but both are recommended.
* = You can level these with unused points

The goal is to get a linear shot on 1-3 opponents with Burning Arrow. If you feel you still have enough MP to kite and use LDC, use it. Otherwise, just move into LOS, burn and run away. You can use Burn/Blaze on turns you need to use Sneak to distance yourself. You can also Blaze/Blaze/Blind or Explo/Blind, etc. if you can’t get a linear LOS.

Extremely useful for most all PvE, with the high dmg% and base damage. Can be a good PvP build depending on how you play with gear.

b. The Blinder
This build focuses around Blinding arrow and it’s extremely crippling status effect, which gives -20 range. Essentially, any range extendable spells are reduced to minimum range, making you a giant pain in the rear for most enemies. If you want to be more useful in PvP, go 9/10 AP and level one of the other three spells to a comparable level, depending on your choice of AP. If you’re only concerned about PvP, go 8 AP and double Blind. That’s not to say 8AP double blind doesn’t have it’s uses in PvE, it’s just slightly weaker. Your downfall is going to be boss monsters, as many of them are immune to blind, invalidating your build completely. It’s still super fun for PvP though.

Since you don’t have to stat an AP, you can stat Willpower/intel/crit. Personally, I’d go 1MP/25Willpower/81 intel for the heavily increased chance to blind. Ideally, aim for Excarnus set, while filling in the empty slots with whatever you can for added damage/willpower. I’d add archery/unbeacon/riddling as potentials for this build to increase damage/kiting ability.
Suggested specialties:
Actives: 9/9/0/0/0
Passives: 10/20/20/13/20

The battle strategy is to blind your opponents and run away, forcing them out of their usual strategical rut, and possibly unable to attack. Debilitation at it’s finest.

c. The Explosionnaire
Your main spell will be Explosive Arrow. Treat desired specialties much like the double burn build. Your choice here is whether to go 9/10 AP, depending on what you choose for your remaining AP to be used on. This will be another great PvE build, with the added bonus of not needing linear LOS to attack, in addition to a larger normal AOE. The downside, however is that your single target damage takes a huge slide. While this build is still viable for endgame content such as UB, it is definitely not the most optimal. Great for crowd-clearing though.