As many before me have already blogged, pet skills are incredibly helpful.
Especially for minstrel.
Ever since we received the pet skill "Learn" function, I've been feeding my existing pets boss eggs and been able to play around with many of the pet skills...
（‐＾▽＾‐）
Some, however, are more helpful than others.
Here are the skills in order of what I think is helpful for minstrels:
1. Hide Attack Passive
Hide attack is so helpful. It guarantees a critical hit at arguably 0% hate (because apparently it can be procured with more hate but I have never really tested the mechanics of the skill... we'll leave that for another day).
This is absolutely awesome when us DPS minstrels are soloing. It works on dragonewt, vampire blow, the first attack for dual blow, hard hit, etc...
The reasoning is that when you target a mob and your attack fails to be critical, that more or less spells death for the DPS minstrel. And death isn't great.
୧ʕ ⇀ ⌂ ↼ ʔ୨
PROS: it guarantees a critical hit
CONS: it only affects the first hit, it generally does not help magic based classes
2. Vampire Blow Active. Requires MP. Takes -.5 skill delay
I've been waiting for this skill in particular ever since グリ父さま wrote about it in his blog...
And it was well worth the wait.
.+:｡(ﾉ･ω･)ﾉﾞ
Vampire blow is such a useful skill, in solo or in party. It is extremely helpful when you are destroying mobs to procure a mini boss or when solo...
The recent implementation of Song Lore 3 allows minstrels to play 3 songs at once... which is terrific but this also means we have a lot more HP. Even with HP cutting gear, your HP with 3 songs could easily reach 7k.
And it is difficult to heal yourself with such mid-range HP.
Vampire blow helps us recoup that loss of HP. Combined with Hide Attack, vampire blow will always procure a critical hit (which loosely correlates with higher HP gain) for that first hit.
Plus, it is pretty strong. You can increase your damage with ATK and elemental damage. I'm not sure if other stats play a role but I will test it one day....
My vampire blow does about 29k-40k for the first hit, giving me back anywhere from 2k-12k HP.
Even though the received HP can be very temperamental (without hide attack) and although the range for vampire blow is just as short as dual blow... it's still great.
This means fewer deaths for us SDC minstrels! ^-^
PROS: short skill delay (.5 seconds), great heal potential for low to mid-range HP characters
CONS: very close-range skill, requires hide attack to guarantee high return of HP on first hits, generally lower HP return mid-fight
3. All Around
All around is pretty great for any type of class. It helps with elemental defense and even elemental damage.
I personally love using it on my bishop while she is leveling at jacobs, which hit pretty hard. With all-around, there is practically zero chance of dying even if you aren't paying attention..
PROS: increases damage and defense, great in all situations, long duration (5 min), lowish MP Cost
CONS: must be cast individually per party member
4. Quick Turn
Quick turn is very useful, not only for minstrels but for all classes. It is especially helpful for 0 defense and 0 agility types (I'm looking at you, snipers) while walking through maps with aggressive monsters.
Quick turn is a must have if your minstrel is soloing, regardless of whether you have agility or not. With 0 agility and near 0 evasion, my minstrel has over 800 agility when I use quick turn, evasion 1, and warrior song + 2 other songs (even without any stats into Green line).
As an aside, agi-type minstrels could probably use quick turn in lieu of warrior song to increase their damage.
Many new bosses, however, require a minimum of 900+ agility so quick turn will be handy in almost every scenario...
Plus, you can cast it on party members.
PROS: increases evasion +10%, makes cool sound and effect that could easily be mistaken with bishop's Quick buff
CONS: buff ends pretty quickly (2 min), somewhat high mp cost
5. Evasion
Evasion from pets is equivalent to hunter's evasion level 1. Which means the agi bonus from evasion is not so high. But it is still helpful, especially for non-agi minstrels!
If I have not placed any stat points into GL in apostolia, my evasion is under 800 even with quick turn and warrior song.
But!
With the combination of 3 songs including warrior, quick turn, and evasion, I can get over 800 evasion which helps me evade most attacks for most of the older bosses.
(≧ڡ≦*)
[If you invest at least 10 points into green line, however, you could attain 800+ evasion without evasion]
PROS: increases evasion and attack (depending on your weapon), easy to get from pet
CONS: not much evasion will increase and negligible attack increase if your weapon increases attack with agility
6. Large Shield
Now... I know what you're thinking.
Large shield sounds kinda bad for minstrels. For most classes, really. For nearly all situations....
But let's think of it this way.
How often will you level your minstrel?
And of course, considering the fact that my minstrel is DPS-orientated, there is only one real type of scenario I'd use this skill for....
That is at...
BAUM WARRIORS!!! ww
If you are like me, actively gathering mobs at baums and refusing to restat just to level, then this skill is for you.
Large shield gives DPS minstrels the defensive power a non-DPS minstrel has. It doesn't increase your defense or magic defense. Instead, it mitigates the damage you receive.
I've already mentioned that a good way to level with hard-hitting, fast mobs like baum warriors when you have a low HP/DEF/MDEF character is using wound transfer + myrica wristlet.
Now.. let's kick it up a notch.
(ﾉﾟοﾟ)ﾉｵゥｰ!
This time, I used these set up:
W.Trance [sauro] ☆HP
Licht Armor Up [sauro] ☆HP
Arubus Shield [sauro] ☆Quick Cool
☆Quick Cool
Myrica ☆Quick Cool
The point of this setup is to decrease your damage as much as possible, regardless of how much your damage suffers.
So...
1. Your bishop doesn't have to worry about your HP as much
2. You can still sing 1 second songs without incurring too much damage (with high dex)
3. You get 15% extra exp
4. You don't have to use life song if not needed
5. You can probably tank low level bosses
The results were great!（￣▽￣）=３
Without any buffs at Baum Warriors (with non-upgraded equipment):
highest regular damage taken: 2176
highest critical damage taken: 3231
With Large Shield:
highest regular damage taken: 1687 (or 22% damage reduced)
highest critical damage taken: 2345 (or 27% damage reduced)
With Large Shield & All Around:
highest regular damage taken: 1619 (or 25% damage reduced)
highest critical damage taken: 1640 (or 49% damage reduced)
It looks like, in general, damage was reduced by a about 20+%.
All in all...
PROS: helps make a tank in a character with 0 defensive capability ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ, lasts quite a while (3 min)
CONS: you must actively cast the buff, your atk/matk decreases significantly, you must wear a shield
7. Assault
Assault is not a boss skill but it is still pretty helpful for barrier bosses.
That being said, you would never really use assault in a boss fight with a party if you are a DPS minstrel to avoid hate....
So for solo barrier boss fights, this works pretty well.
PROS: breaks boss barrier, easy to get from pet
CONS: you have to be extremely close to the boss for the skill to connect
8. Dual Blow Takes -2 second delay to spam
Ah...dual blow.
So many types of characters can benefit from this one skill.
Minstrels can use this skill too, but the effect for a DPS minstrel is not as great. Why? Because the second attack can miss even if you also have Hide Attack.
This one problem could mean death for the unsuspecting minstrel...
But, if a minstrel was a sword type, they could probably use dual blow much like a samurai or even enchanter. Of course, the effect will not be as impressive.
(My alternate character wearing Nasturtirum):
Regardless..
I don't use dual blow on my minstrel anymore.
It scares me...
PROS: can be high damage especially if used with autoskill, for some reason can be pretty hard to get from non-boss pets
CONS: you have to be very close for the attack to connect, skill delay for dual blow can be a problem, there is no guarantee the second attack will connect or be critical
9. Hard Hit
Hard hit is surprisingly strong! It also works with Hide Attack.
For example, if my vampire blow does 36k on a mob, my hard hit will do about 40k on that same mob.
Plus, unlike vampire blow, assault, and dual blow, hard hit's range appears to depend on the weapon you are using. So if you are using bow, your range can be pretty far.
This is pretty helpful when you are quickly collecting items on your minstrel (but not for targeting dragonewt... vampire blow, dual blow, or even assault is better in this respect).
Then again, using a bishop or high wizard would be 1000x more effective.
(」゜ロ゜)」
PROS: surprisingly high damage, low MP cost, instant cast and fast delay, long range
CONS: long range, normal dragonewt is still stronger
10. Protect
Protect is not a boss skill, but it is helpful. Many will argue that the defense it adds is negligible... but if you have 10 defense to begin with.... it helps.
Combine protect with an assortment of defense/mdefense orientated gear and Large Shield, you'll have a pretty tanky minstrel!
PROS: increases defense, low MP Cost, instant cast and low delay, easy to get from pet
CONS: does not increase that much defense, doesn't protect against magic attacks
11. Provoke
Provoke is not a boss skill nor is it very strong. It is equivalent to a warrior class's provoke 1 skill...
So even if you are a tank minstrel, the effect will not be that impressive.
But it's still nice to have...
PROS: looks cool
CONS: doesn't really help with hate as you would think
12. Double Attack
Double attack is interesting. It is an autoskill that cancels out any other autoskills you may have in place. So if you are an auto attack minstrel using WOL, double attack will cancel out WOL's effect. I guess instead of WOL, you can use Beezlenoid for higher damage while retaining double attack from pet skill....
Anyhow, it would be nice if double attack worked on dragonewt.
Double dragonewt!! (๑º﹃º)♡”
But it doesn't.
PROS: great with auto-attack type characters
CONS: not so great with skill spammers
13. High Cycle
ASPD + 100%! Σ(ﾟДﾟ)
Sounds great, right?
In practice, though, I've only found this useful for low level alternate characters soloing main quest.
With samurai, I must mention that because High Cycle only increases 100% ASPD, if you are using muramasa, your ASPD will still be -100% (plus High Cycle drains your low MP like crazy). So forget about auto-attack with muramasa.
PROS: increases ASPD
CONS: high MP cost, very low duration (60 seconds)
14. Spell Boost
Spell boost is a must-have for all magic-type characters. It is absolutely great. Although you could easily use the spell boost crysta instead...seriously, no one wants to change equipment just to use one skill, especially when the effect is so short.
PROS: increases MATK, corrects lowered MATK in boss fights
CONS: short effect time (30 seconds), costs a lot of MP
12. Homing
This skill...sucks. Unless you have real accuracy problems (levels 100 and under), then this is not a good skill to keep... for any type of character.
PROS: increases accuracy
CONS: everything.
13. Mana wave, Dark blast, Sonic Boom
These skills are so incredibly weak. Unless you're making some kind of jack-of-all-trades adventurer (which would still be incredibly weak and susceptible to attack), these skills should not be skills you'd aim for.
PROS: does a low level skill without an equipped crysta or job skill
CONS: damage is low
14. Life Charge
I wished this was better. (ಥ﹏ಥ)
The 10 second delay cannot be shortened by skill delay equipment (I've tested it, others have tested it) AND you can't move during the duration of the delay.
PROS: it heals you, at least
CONS: everything.
15. Self-Healing
I'm a bit torn about this one. On the one hand, sometimes I feel wasteful just using HP/MP pots when I could just sit for a bit and let it naturally regenerate. Self healing is great for that aspect. But on the other hand, it's much faster and practical to use pots.
PROS: great for players low on spina and can't afford too many pots, very fast regeneration
CONS: you can't regenerate faster while fighting, you can just use an item
16. Escape
This skill does not move you back a map, as many have guessed. It literally just takes you to the last town you were at. Just use an item.
PROS: No need to use a TP for that city you last visited
CONS: seriously, you can just use an item
♡～٩( ˃́▿˂̀ )۶～♡