Note: This is not really a hybrid in the truest sense of the word. It's basically intended to make use of a single spell - Bluff - while still planning for a long-term strength-based character. The goal is to act as a hybrid build for the lower and possibly middle levels and then switch over to a single-stat (strength) in the later levels.
Chance-based Ecaflips seem to be all the rage. They have a few miserable failings, however:
- Bluff does more air damage than water damage... so why focus on chance?
- Chance becomes expensive very, very quickly for an Ecaflip.
- Almost all your other spells are based upon strength.
So why all the chance ecas? Well, Bluff has been upgraded to a pretty powerful spell. Up to 40 base damage twice per turn at level 11 is pretty appealing.
Additionally, there is a minute increase in prospecting which never hurts. The one thing to keep in mind, however, is that people seem to greatly overestimate the importance of the later. It's really not going to make a noticeable difference if you have 105 to 110 prospecting.
So, the goal here is to make use of a good spell, without blowing all of your plans down the road. While I haven't tested this particular build, it's what I'd try if I were restarting an ecaflip. Start with an agility-based ecaflip and convert it over time to a strength and crit-based one. But bluff eca's are not as usefull as strenth eca's in the long run. So if you are thinking of becoming a bluff eca i strongly sugest becoming hybrid.
Stats
Note that this is going to assume you're working without scrolling. More than most characters, any hybrid benefits greatly from even 25 small scrolls. Nimbly rings, arachnee legs, prespic peaks and acorns are cheap and easy to get.
- At every stage of the game, your character will be stronger if you can get some scrolls for Strength, vitality, chance, agility and wisdom together before starting to boost those stats.
Level 1-11: 50 agility
Level 12-31: 100 Strength
Level 31-81: 100 more Strength, 50 Vitality
Totals at level 81:
- Strength: 200
- Agility: 50
- Vitality: 50
(Note: if you get a few small agility and any strength scrolls before you hit 50 or 100 in the appropriate stat, you'll have a few points left over. You could possibly use these in chance, if your base chance is still under 20 or, preferably, in Strength and get to 200 sooner.)
Spells
There are two spells to acquire. The first, Felintion, is easy to get, you need to kill the class dopple. You want to get this as soon as possible. This guide will assume you pick it up at some point before level 20.
The second is Sword Skill. This is significantly harder to pick up. Once you do, you can determine when to boost it.
Level 11: Level 5 Bluff
Level 21: Level 5 Felintion
Level 27: Level 4 Feline's Leap
Level 30: Level 3 Heads or Tails
Level 36: Level 4 Wheel of Fortune
Level 43: Level 5 Heads or Tails
(After this, it depends upon how much you want to risk with Smell. Personally, I'd say level 2, 3 or 5 - with 2 being safe and 3 and 5 being progressively riskier but having bigger rewards. At this point you should know what you're doing but I'll continue as though Smell were going to 3.)
Level 49: Level 4 Clover
Level 54: Level 3 Smell (2 points left over)
Level 56: Level 5 Feline's Leap
Level 60: Level 5 Wheel of Fortune
Level 70: Level 5 Playful Claw
(Notice that I'm skipping Reflex. While it seems like a great spell for an agility hybrid ecaflip, it doesn't come along until level 60. At that point, you really would be better off switching over to strength and I wouldn't advise spending points on it. If you really, really want to stick with agility, you can keep Clover, Leap and Wheel one level lower and max Reflex at 60.)
Total Spells at level 70:
- Heads or Tails: 5
- Bluff: 5
- Clover: 4
- Feline's Leap: 5
- Wheel of Fortune: 5
- Smell: 3
- Playful Claw: 5
- Felintion: 5
NOTE: since the update that bluff became 4 ap at level 5 I adivise you not to boost it nad beceome a full strength based Ecaflip. From Sword-Impulse : My way of playing hybrid is by boosting the two of a hybrid's main stats by 4:1. Keep adding 4 to chance till soft-capped and always add 1 for vitality.When chance is soft-capped, add 4 to agility and 1 to vitality. Keep addind your agility and use items and parchments to boost your chance and vitality.
Equipment
Levels 1-20: Young Adventurer Set It's providing a reasonable boost to your Chance, Agility and Strength (for Bluff and Felintion) while adding a healthy 40 Wisdom. You can do more damage and get more HP with a lot of other sets, but to level your character, nothing beats it. With ring and weapon slots free, you could do worse than to use a good Bouze Lite Yeah's Ring and a Slash.
Now's the time to start working on your pets, too. Get a Bow Meow and an Earth Bwak as soon as possible to start feeding them. A +agi bowmeow is a great thing to have against cracklers, treechnids and earth kwaks while eventually you'll be using the Bwak for strength. If you're fortunate enough to get a wisdom wabbit or dragonne, then get to feeding it as soon as possible.
Level 21-37: The last piece of adventurer gear is what gives the biggest boost. As such, breaking up the set isn't all that desireable. If you have the funds, then get yourself whatever Agility, Strength, Life and Wisdom gear you can but keep in mind that you might be pretty well served by sticking with your trusty adventurer gear for a long time. If you just want to enjoy playing your character at these levels rather than working towards levelling, then you probably want a custom mix of stuff.
Particularly noteworthy equipment includes:
- Gobball Boots for the life and %damage boost to neutral, air, earth or water
- Kitten Tails for air and water damage (sound familiar?) and a nice big crit bonus
- (more stuff... will get it later)
Level 38-45: Prespic Set I wouldn't invest a bundle into it (in fact, with Perception, I'd go out hunting and get my own) but a prespic set will power you through these couple levels and get you to the good stuff. Keep it around, as it has its uses long after 45.
Level 45-ish: You've got 3 primary options here.
Wind Kwak Set Which, conveniently, gives a small boost to strength as well. If you're still enjoying your Bluff and want to keep at it, then here you go. If you go with 7 pieces of wind kwak, then you can combine with with some strength or chance gear, depending upon your preference.
Earth Kwak Set Which, conveniently, gives a small boost to chance as well. With this, you'll find that your Bluff damage levels off a bit, but you can start getting into your newfound strengthliness. I'd be tempted to go with 7 pieces of Kwak and a Treecaska and Ringtree for 3 move, 8 ap and a +30 strength bonus. That allows you either a sword hit or Felintion AND Heads or Tails, Bluff, Feline's Leap or Wheel of Fortune, as you need it.
The last option is to go over to the more standard build and get yourself a Treechnid Set. You're now a normal strength ecaflip with a backup weapon for that earth-resistant opponent.
Level 70: Crocodyl Chief Set It might be a bit odd but you could even try revisiting your glory days at level 70. While the set is very hard to complete, it provides good bonuses to wisdom, vitality, chance and agility, along with 8 AP, 4 MP and a rather nice neutral damage sword.
Even if you don't go back to your bluffing ways, that agility isn't a waste at this point. It will pay off down the road in meeting requirements and helping you dodge and the small increase in crit percentages. Unlike the guys who sunk points into chance, your stats are actually helping you win the fight, rather than just profit from it.
A slightly different way
Note: I didn't go past lvl 63 with this build. I realized that at high levels I'd be using strength 95% of the time, so going this way would've just made me weaker than my pure strength counterparts. Instead I remade the build by scrolling 50 chance, 50 agility, 50 strength and 30 vitality. Needless to say this resulted in a lot stronger character as it gave me 190 more characteristic points to spend. Leveling was pretty easy with Bluff until level 70 at which point I unlearned the spell.
Since I am building a hybrid eca in the same sence as the original writer, I thought that I could give an alternate point of view. I also aim for the strength build with good crits, only the way of getting there's a bit different. Here's what I've done:
Note: As this isn't my first character, I started with an adv set. I would've propably done things differently without it.
Lvls 1 to 7:
- 20 Chance
- 10 Agility
- 5 Vitality
- Bluff lvl 4
Lvls 8 to 11:
- 20 Chance Note the stats are presented as total amounts, not what was added
- 25 Agility
- 10 Vitality
- Bluff lvl 5
Lvls 12 to 21:
- 30 Chance
- 40 Agility
- 25 Vitality
- Feline's Leap lvl 5
Lvls 22 to 31:
- 40 Chance
- 50 Agility
- 35 Vitality
- Felintion lvl 5
Lvls 32 to 37:
- 45 Chance Note: 5p added with scrolls, not stat points
- 50 Agility
- 50 Vitality
- 15 Strength
- Wheel of Fortune lvl 4 (3AP, little less damage on me)
Lvls 38 to 43:
- 50 Chance Note: Scrolls again, not stat points
- 50 Agility
- 70 Vitality
- 30 Strength
- Summoning Claw lvl 4 (I fight mostly alone, so the 71HP Kitten makes a nice buffer)
And this is where I am now.
Gear used:
lvls 1 to 7:
- Nothing. I spent a while fighting the arachnee in the trainin room...
lvls 8 to 26:
- -Young Adventurer Set
- -Muh Mush Wedding Ring (found me a near perfect one: -6 Str, -1 Cha, 3 Physical red.)
- -[[Hevlavav Hatchet (not the best choice, but didn't feel i needed a better one)
lvls 27 to 43:
- -Adv set
- -Warrior Fecalizer
- -Sargasse (+40 Cha, -20 str)
- Note: The ones with neutral damage are cheap, and as I do nearly all my damage with Bluffs, the -20 Str don't matter much
Future Plans:
- Unless the Karne Rider Nails come much easier to acquire, I've stopped building chance. The 3to1 rate or the 80 to 100kk cost just don't seem worth it. So from now on it's strength, vitality and agility. I'm planning to get my vit and str to 100 at first (lvl 63). After that I'll do the same to agility (lvl88). After that it's all Str and Vit.
- For spells I've thought about getting Summoning Claw to lvl 5, Smell to lvl 2, and Reflex to lvl 5 as soon as they come available. This way I should be able to get the good damage spells up to lvl 5 as I get them. I've also thought about leveling All Or Nothing and Heads Or Tails for faster resource hunting and added range.
- I've got waiting a good Blue Scaraleaf Set added with Bashers (+40 Agi), a good white scararing and great Cracklers Boots and Amulet. I'm also trainin an agi Bow Meow, which is relatively cheap with tofu feathers. When it gets around +50, I'm planning to change the bashers to my near perfect Cracklers Blade for Str and slightly better Init, Vit and reductions. I'm dreamin of the Chief Crocodyle set, but since it is hard and expensive to get, I might start lookin for a good strength gear.
Training has been relatively easy so far. After the training room I went to the tofu's corner and mostly stayed there until lvl 21. The higher lvl larvas are no match for the lvl 5 Bluffs. From 21 to 35 I mostly trained in the Astrub Forest, Treechnids Forest Border, Tainela and Porkass Plains. From that on my main exp sources have been the forest in Amakna and the fields south of Bonta.
Well that's about it folks. Looks like I'm going with Bluff for at least lvl 70. After that it depends a lot on the gear I can get my hands on.
Ok, I've used this build (with a few of my own upgrades and changes) but I would just like to say that it works really well. Bluff is a great low range spell, plus HoT for long ranged but lower damage, and add that with a TON of buffers that help a lot, and you have a pretty sweet ecaflip build.