<!> All You Need To Know About FINAL ATTACK <!>
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Final Attack is a passive, percentage based skill which allows your character to fire an additional arrow immediately after an attack. It is basically just 1 single arrow, fired with much more power hence the different firing animation.
Final Attack works with the following skills:
--- Arrow Blow
--- Double Shot
--- Arrow Bomb
--- Iron Arrow
All other skills will not trigger FA.
At maxed level, Final Attack has a 60% chance of activation, capable of dealing 250% plus the usual critical rate which adds another 100%.
Advantages:
--- Save potions by reducing the number of times you need to shoot AB/DS, not just money, but also time since you have to restock less often.
--- Potentially knocking back the monster, especially if you use DS.
--- Potentially killing the monster behind (or in front) in one hit, thus immediate bonus EXP.
--- Final Attack could be considered as a totally new attack skill, and being able to deal big numbers, affect psychological thinking and provides motivation.
--- A direct result from the advantages above, Final Attack helps you level up faster and hence, allows you to reach the 3rd job sooner.
Disadvantages:
--- Potentially provoking the monster behind (or in front), could result in waste of potions for monsters with magical attacks.
--- Could leave you exposed to magical attacks as you are unable to move during the Final Attack animation frame.
--- Could waste some time, although only mere milliseconds, it can get irritating if Final Attack activates while the monster has already died and you basically shoot nothing.
--- Potion savings may be considered miniscule to some, and is true in most cases.
Things You Should NOT Listen To:
Final Attack is useless because it does not work with 3rd job skills.
This is a stupid idea. Final Attack does not work with your 3rd job skills and that is a good thing. You do NOT want FA coming out while you shoot Strafe. Why on Maple Island would you want to switch to a pistol (Final Attack) halfway while shooting a machinegun (Strafe)? Or why would you want FA coming out when you use Arrow Rain? Shoot what? Air?
*** Final Attack does NOT cancel out any stun or freeze affect contrary to some belief.
Things You SHOULD Consider:
Final Attack is something which obviously only lasts, at most, to the early 70s. Once your Strafe is of a decent level, there would be no reason to be still using DS/AB + FA. Hence, something that you should think of is whether you can stand the 40 levels using just DS/AB.
If you don't think you can, Final Attack is for you. The element of surprise, bigger numbers, faster killing are there to aid you.
However if you think you can live without it or you're doing well without it, you might want to consider investing SP in things which will last for life, like maxed Focus, Soul Arrow and Bow Booster. This is especially in view of the Double EXP coupons which make life a lot more easier, though having Double EXP alone doesn't mean you should skip FA.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Final Attack should either be ignored totally OR maxed, do NOT leave it somewhere in between, the damage will be weak and you will only make it more unpredictable.
Other Things:
Final Attack is proven to actually reduce damage dealt over time.
Final Attack theoratically reduces damage dealt over time, however it is highly unlikely you would be standing on one spot and shooting AB/DS non-stop.
Final Attack makes your character rather uncontrollable due to its randomness.
You can "control" Final Attack by jump-shooting. Final Attack cannot activate while jump-shooting for Hunters, however for Crossbowmen, due to the slower firing animation, you will need to have a bit more "Jump" stat to cancel out FA. However you must have (Cross)Bow Booster on.
Although tiresome, jump-shooting itself speeds up moving and thus faster EXP gain, and in some cases and most in the higher levels, jump-shooting saves potions by avoiding magical and ground-based attacks like from the Star Pixies and Yetis. Thus, it is a good habit to develop whether you have FA or not.
Divided Views:
Final Attack reduces the usefulness of Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow.
Because Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow are mob skills, some think that having Final Attack, a single target attack, to come out randomly in-between slows down the killing speed of these skills.
For Arrow Bomb, this view is divided roughly 40 vs 60.
--- 40 believe FA actually helps because of the nature of Arrow Bomb. For reasons unknown, the monster that gets hit by the bomb itself gets very little damage, while the other monsters who get the explosion get the normal* damage. With FA, it helps resolve the issue so that all monsters roughly get the same damage.
--- 60, of course, believe otherwise.
*Arrow Bomb actually does 260% with critical, not 230% as the description says.
For Iron Arrow, this view is rather one-sided.
--- Majority believe FA really makes Iron Arrow useless and the time interval for FA allows monsters to move forward, especially without the stun effect that Arrow Bomb can give.
--- However, a small, small group believe the opposite. Iron Arrow's damage gets lesser and lesser and it penetrates through the mob, thus the last few monsters may not get knocked back and hence, move forward. FA may, in some cases, knock back these monsters, and in others, simply kill off the monsters faster.
Either way, the majority believe FA disrupts mobbing ability. However, as mentioned earlier, you can "control" FA by jump-shooting.
Final Attack reduces Soul Arrow and (Cross)Bow Booster, assuming you have maxed Power Knock-Back.
Because FA takes up 30 SP, you cannot max Soul Arrow and (Cross)Bow Booster if you still want PKB, which means lesser time and to some, more trouble because you have to press them more often.
With that, it is recommended that you have 15 (Cross)Bow Booster and 5 Soul Arrow if you want both FA and PKB so that these 2 skills timing coincides.
--- Some think it has more of a hassle to press both Soul Arrow and Bow Booster of the same time, and also more often. Logically speaking, it would be much better to be pressing lesser buttons less often, as having to press SA and Booster more often and together may be annoying in party training (where spawn rate is faster) or in crucial times like Zakum battles.
--- However the others (including myself) strongly feel that it would be much more of a hassle to press Booster 3 times for every Soul Arrow. And maxed Soul Arrow is more than enough, thus 150 seconds is enough.
150s - build
SA/B.........SA/B...........SA/B...........SA/B.............SA/B
0...............150..............300............45 0.............600 sec
|__________|__________|__________|__________|
Total no. of casts within 600s = 10, interval between casts = 150 s
Max SA/Booster build
SA/B.................B......................B........ ...............SA/B
0....................200...................400.... ..................600
|_____________|_____________|_______________|
Total no. of casts within 600s = 6, interval between casts = 200 s
*** Credits to xiaodoudou for the diagram.
Divided Views: (continued)
AB/DS + Final Attack provides a good alternative to Strafe in its earlier levels.
Strafe in its earlier levels does weak damage and is expensive in its MP cost. Thus some who have FA prefer to continue using their 1st job skill instead.
--- Theoratically speaking, Strafe can do a higher maximum damage, however AB/DS and FA does more stable damage, plus knock back and is much more cost effective by a mile.
--- However, nothing can beat Strafe's speed as of yet. Thus some believe that although more cost effective, generally better damage and knock back, Strafe's speed makes up for those.
It is better for Hunters to get Final Attack.
Some believe so because Hunters have faster firing rate, so a little lag from Final Attack won't do as much harm to a Hunter than to a Crossbowman.
Others believe otherwise and Crossbowmen are just as fine with FA, since they already have the damage advantage over Hunters, having FA would just give more damage boost than slow down.
However, in making your decision, you might want to take in consideration the above discussion on Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow.
The Builds:
Final Attack Build ------------------------------------------- FA-less Build
(Cross)Bow Mastery MAX ------------------- (Cross)Bow Mastery MAX
Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow MAX ---------- Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow MAX
Bow Booster 15 --------------------------------------- Bow Booster MAX
Soul Arrow 5 -------------------------------------------- Soul Arrow MAX
Final Attack MAX ---------------------------------------------- Focus MAX
Power Knock-Back MAX ----------------------- Power Knock-Back MAX
Final Attack, PKB-less Build
(Cross)Bow Mastery MAX
Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow MAX
Bow Booster MAX
Soul Arrow MAX
Final Attack MAX
Personal Thoughts:
This is the only section that would be updated occasionally.
Last updated Monday, May 14, 2007.
Power Knock-Back has been extensively nerfed, I strongly believe PKB is thoroughly useless now. It doesn't 100% flinch so chances are you're just going to get run over trying to knock the monster back, especially at high levels.
My personal favourite build:
20 Bow Mastery
30 Arrow Bomb
30 Final Attack
10 Soul Arrow
20 Bow Booster
20 Focus (Remainder points of 11 SP)
Generally the most popular build and also deemed best build:
20 Bow Mastery
30 Arrow Bomb
20 Soul Arrow
20 Bow Booster
20 Focus (Remainder points of 11 SP)
20 Power Knock-Back
I don't recommend Crossbowmen to get Final Attack. It screws you quite a lot.
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<!> Closing <!>
The choice is yours, choose carefully, unless you want to invest in 2nd Job SP Reset Scrolls, whether intentionally or out of regret.
I have Final Attack if anyone wants to know.
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All You Need To Know About Final Attack
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