Cie's Skysong Guide for Beginners

[xciex]

Hello. My name is Cie, curently playing on JD Reborn server as a noob-ish Hydran. This noob-ish Hydran:



If you have opened my guide you are either interested in making a skysong or have already created one and need a few information that would guide
you through the ways of the Skysong. I hope I will be able to provide the answer to as many of your questions as I can.

I have divided my guide into three parts:
   
     I.   Pros and Cons
     II.  Pre-Ascension thoughts and build
     III. Ascension

I. Pros and Cons

   Pros:
      - Has strong One-Vs-One capabilities due to the ton of CC they posess.
      - Is almost indispensable in any Group-PvP, be it Alliance War, Party PvP in a certain map etc.
      - Is able to make smart plays in sticky situations. Skysong has the kit for it.
      - Super tanky if built well.
      - Fun to play.
      - Can be played in many ways.


   Cons:
      - People will flame you for being way too annoying in PvP. (This can be a plus if you enjoy seeing people raging though)
      - Has low DPS if you miss the timings or screw up the combos.
      - Harder to lvl up with. Usually you will need help until you get some of your offensive skills.


II. Pre-Ascension thoughts and build

First, the tier build:



A pretty straightforward build, centered on your Tier 5 skill Imensurable Truth which is your bread and butter. I will
explain all the odd choices but only those, given the fact that some skills are obvious choices if you read them.

Tier 1:
1/9 Bodhi Tree => because of a Tome passive that gives +30% Crit Shield. The rest are self-explanatory.

Tier 2:
1/5 Soul Mirror => because of a Tome passive that gives +6% Crit Rate.
4/8 TFE - Fire & Wind => because I prioritized things that will help you survive in Pre-Asc PvP better than
Weaken/Silence resistances.

Tier 3:
1/8 Scripture of Mercy => you will use it to reset the cooldown of one of your best defensive skills. Didn't put more
points because the cooldown doesn't drop from 180 seconds.
8/8 TFE - Water & Earth => because there are many Jadeons & Incense Mages and Para + Stun resistances help
a lot against them.

Tier 4:
Here you don't have much of a choice. You can't take The Six Cycles to 9/9 because you lose on other, better
things as a pre-ascended character.
This skill becomes kinda nice after ascension, depending on affinity.

3/3 Demon Blast => One of the best Negative Effects removals we have. It can be used for allies too which
makes it a very valuable skill. It can remove Incense Mage chain bind, can cure you from deadly bleeds, etc.

Tier 5:
5/5 Fawin Wisdom => Lovely skill. Annoying for others. Can be reset using Scripture of Mercy.
4/4 The 10000 Things => It gives a Health shield based on a percentage of your Maximum Spirit.
Immensurable Truth 2/2 => The bread and butter of skysongs. This is the skill that makes you to be feared.
This sleeps your target for 15 seconds or until it is hit by an attack. What's better is that it is an AOE skill and
can catch a lot of people by surprise.


Now that we're done with the Tier build, let's have a look at the tomes:



Oblivion:
3/3 Endless Woe => less cooldown for our IT? Perfect for us.
4/4 Higher Conciousness => more attack for our IT? Sure, why not?
2/2 Spirit Matter => getting more resistances is always a good thing. Also we get an Attack Power buff for 30 minutes.

Justice:
2/2 Fohjo Sage => for the huge bonus we get for some of our skills. Plus, the chance to reset our Fawin Wisdom.
3/3 Shady Bodhi => gives +30% Crit Shield. Awesome stat. It helps your live longer.

Xen:
This one is more tricky. I chose the best for a pre-asc character, but that's about it. Nothing here that needs an explanation.

Again: READ YOUR SKILLS! Thank you. Let's go on now.

III. Ascension

Congratulations, you have ascended and chose to spend your ascension as an adorable and innocent skysong.
As this is a more complicated subject, let's divide it into a few more parts:

1. Affinity

a. Dagos
They can be called the Anti-Skysongs. They have skills that can defend against sleep which render a Skysong useless.
On top of that, they pack a punch too with Self-Destruct II which hits for enourmous amounts of Damage rendering the target
unable to use potions for a few seconds. Enough to get the kill.
Dagos Skysong has the highest Skill Accuracy of all three affinities, thanks to Great Kindness II and Passage of Salvation II.
Keep in mind that having so many benefits comes with a price. The squishiness is a part of a dagos skysong, even though they
have so many rajas/heals. There is a limit.

b. Felkin
They have lots of bleeds based on the target's Health. The bleed is pretty strong and can make someone run for their life if
they don't have something to remove it on the spot.
Besides bleed, they have debufs that reduce the target's Health making them unable to pot through their bleeds.
Blessing of Prosperity II makes them really dangerous, because at end game they can hit like a truck with that skill. With the
addition of Chroma System felkin skysongs have become stun+sleep lockers.
They too give up defense to get more offense so you have to position yourself correctly to survive in Party PvP.

a. Fuwa
The "support" affinity that can dish out the most DPS of all three if used well. Also it can tank very well thanks to all of the
buffs you get as a fuwa Skysong.
It is the most wanted skysong in a party because they have high survival rate, can be really tanky, they help the group take
down targets faster and also have a lot of AOE debuff removals and AOE shielding/healing skills. Also they can stand for
themselves too and go to 1 v 1s or Free For All (FFAs).
More on the combos for this affinity after the build section.

2. Build after you max Affinity skills

I believe there are two viable builds. For both of them a lvl 50 chroma is necessary.
Before I show you the builds, let me say that usually it is best to go preasc skysong into asc skysong.
This is because Beyond Heaven will reset the cooldown of some of your most useful skills, such as Fawin Wisdom.

a. The Six Cycles + Saying of Bodhi build





This is an interesting build because you trade AOE power for single target DPS. The Six Cycles skill is usually
underestimated and will usually hit like a truck if used well. If you want to go DPS skysong this is the way for you.

Note 1: You will still use your IT/IT2 as much as you can, but it won't hit for that much.
Standard combo for 6C: Chroma Burst -> IT2 -> Beyond Heaven -> Rooted Sequence -> 6C.

Note 2: The first 3 hits of 6C will sleep, so you can you it for utility too, if your combo skills are
in cooldown.

Note 3: Combine this build with a firmus and usually this combo should kill your target:
IT2 -> Firmus -> SoB -> SoB2 -> IT2.

Note 4: Fuse your esper with a silence/slow effect or anything that will lock down your target and
you will become a monster in 1 v 1 and a bigger threat in wars or group PvP.

b. The Standard build




The build focuses on sleep, sleep and SLEEP! That being said, I've took all the things that could help you
lock down a target.

Eclipse and Wisdom of Scriptures are two skills that people forget about. WoS reduce the target's Sleep Res by an
enormous amount and has a really low cooldown. Eclipse should be self-explanatory.

3. Gears
There are two posibilities in this server. Both are ok. You choose:

a. Expensive Gears: BG + Chu Han
You have to work your *** off for these, but they pay off so much!
Chu han for the Health Shield from 10000 Things explained above.

b. Cheap way out: Skytouch
A cheap way to gear up a useful char.

On every part of the gear imbue Sleep Res besides weapon.
For weapon you need Anti-Dmg Reduction imbues.

At endgame you should reach about 1400 Sleep Res. With that, only another skysong can take your IT2 up front.

4. Soulstones
The most important are:

2x Sleep Res + 2x Skill Acc
3x Spirit
2x Damage Reduction + 2x Crit Shield

The end! Thanks for reading my guide! See you in game.
Have A Nice Day!

[CompeR]

I love this guide. +2500 GJ granted!