Dark Lancer PvE Guide

Intro

Lancer is top #1 DPS right now even after the so called nerf and I’ll try to give a brief explanation & possible optimizations for this specific class from my experiences playing it.

I’ll skip the basic game mechanisms, but in case you’re new; refer to Desparae’s guide and some basic info:

• [Guide] Optimizing PvE DPS.
• [Info] Basics of Elementals.
• Lancer main elemental damage is Dark.
• Critical damage cap is 315% (+15% from envoy).
• Attack speed cap is 74%.

Sub Weapon

I’ll start with lvl 80 and up cuz main quests give you enough lvl to reach that point.

Lvl 80 - 89

• Get full Lordswrath set, and craft dem all Imperials. I’d like to emphasize that movement speed is important. Faster movement = faster dungeon clear time. Don’t be a dead weight to your party. Generally, 250% mspd is minimal requirement nowadays.
• Craft destroyer and nocturnal Lvl 80 weapons. Dark element for your main weapon is a must.
• As for the trophies, get imperial guzigla, bestial time travel and imperial noripan. Imperial Noripan will be used for running.
• Accessories. Imperial Arcane Frost if you have low eidolon prayers and titles stats (especially newcomers). Otherwise Imperial Perfect War which has slight more advantages for those with decent prayer/title/story stats primarily because of DMG against elite and higher damage base.

Lvl 90+

• Top set: Imperial Blazing top Set
• Bottom set: Imperial Magic Sundering bottom set; this is really useful for Time Library and future awakening patch which translates overcapped crit to crit damage cap increase due to the effect it has.
• Craft destroyer and nocturnal Lvl 90 weapons. Dark element for your main weapon is a must.
• Preferably nocturnal core on your sub weapon so that you can use gold weapon for your main weapon in the future. Lvl 95 weapons are better than Lvl 90 regardless of their effects, this is mainly due to 10% primary dmg being better than 10% boss damage (this is assuming your boss damage doesn't suck and have atleast 90%).
• Get lvl 90 PvP Lancer weapon for running. It gives free 12% movespeed.
• Accessories: Imperial Fearless Set or Splendid Set, whichever suits your needs. There will be 95 gold accessories which increase your crit damage cap. Switch to this when it arrives.
• Trophies: Guzigla as your main trophy. Time Travel is still good but there are few alternatives that can do better in some dungeons.
  • Wind Spirit Feather: This is better than Time Travel for def-shredable dungeons such as Shattered Netherworld or Chronowood Cavern or lower level dungeons.
  • Delfonia Trophy: Time Travel replacement for higher dungeons, that is if you’re lvl 95+
  • Ancient Mask of the Dark Occultist: This is slightly better over Delfonia if you can +30 it, atleast according to my calculations (see below img) due to the fact that Delfonia needs to proc detail buff with a 10% chance whereas boss usually dies on first or two ticks of hymn, I estimate roughly 5% damage increase vs delfonia (without detail buff).
  • Lvl. 95 Dark Element Trophy (unreleased): Future trophy you'll be combining this with Ancient Mask of the Dark Occultist.

SLvl 1+
At this point, you'll just need to craft slvl1 both weapon and sub for the penetration effects;

Optionally, you want slightly more raw dmg from Slvl101 DPS Set.

I emphasize, this is completely optional since they offer the same detail dmg as lvl 90 top dps set.

SLvl 5+ (Very far in the future)

SLvl 5 Armor gives you 10% dmg increase against element and 4024 speed at the cost of 2% detail dmg and 6% movespd.

Use gear switch for this, see below for explanation.

SLvl 5 Weapon for Lancer

Gear Switch

This underrated feature allows you to switch a set of gear in a single button press. The idea is to use one set of Imperial gear for running, and another for DPS. You will not lose mspd from using gold quality gears and you can free up some skill slots and save money on cheap movespeed cards on weapons.

Img figure: DPS Tab on gear tab slot 2 (left), Movespeed set on gear tab slot 1 (right)

Mod edit: Video removed due to use and showcase of third party software of this nature being TOS borderline.

Elemental Gear

At the current content, it is best to use Mounts + Hats element switch; however this also depends on your elemental skill dmg and dmg against ele modifiers.

You'll want to balance them both to get the highest damage output. A friend of mine written a nice detailed guide about this if you want to read here.

I've made a calculator if you wish to optimize your setup and want figure out what's best for you here.

• Emblems: Dark dmg emblem and a 14% mspd emblem for running.
• Hats: Get all dmg against element hats enchants, dmg against boss for violent bosses.
• Mount: Get all dmg against element mounts + dark skill dmg mount.
• Holy Chests: Nazrudin / Zaahir’s to boost dmg against Ice and Fire targets.

Gear Enchants

7% cdmg & 8% dual drive for your main weapon with PEN stat

(dun need mspd cuz pvp lancer wep for running as mentioned)

7% mspd enchant & 8% dual drive for your sub weapon w/ PEN stat

DMG enchants w/ PEN on armors/accessories etc.

Costume Enchants

• Face: Frozen Lance +5
• Costume: 25% CDMG against boss (or CDMG against elite 50%)
• Weapon: Sacrificial Lance +5

Secret Stones

You'll want to get 2% dmg atleast as the primary stats (more detail dmg %, the better),

Secondary stat would be elemental damage. The following elements should be your priority: Dark>Lightning>Ice

• Lava stones for main weapon and sub
• Frozen Lance Range (or Divine Sunderance range if HS sub)
• Infernal Exile Duration
• Sacrificial Lance CD
• Rest can be any tbh

Masteries

• General Skill: Merciless Soul Strangler (or Storm Song / Refrain of Paradise if bard sub for zumzum)
• Atk. Spec: Zeal
• Adv. Skill: You have two options for these, they are situational depending on your party setup
  • Funerary Dirge: This should be your main mastery if you don't have any other lancers in your party that use the same mastery or if you are doing solo
  • Otherwise: Deadly Ditty

• Defense Spec: Extreme Speed
• Special Skill: Deep Blue or Best Defense

Stats Distributions

Activate Soul Reincarnation buff when trying to allocate your stats points and take dungeon stats debuff into account.

Buff yourself with Shuriken or Holy Sword buff if that's your sub class.

Offensive:

Ideally, you want to reach 50% speed and 90% crit rate first then you can invest in DMG.

Lancer has low crit rate in idle by default, try to reach the desired primary stats before investing in DMG.

Defensive:

Make sure you're at 80% DEF, then remaining points for HP.

Envoy Path

Choose one that you need, some dungeons easily break Mark Protection’s shield, while some don’t.

In this case you can sacrifice left mspd tile and take Mark Protection tile to your preference.

Also things to note: Frozen Lance tiles range is actually AoE, not the actual distance. (ty chros)

Weapon Mastery

Lancer dark path is the left one. List ordered by priority:

• 15 to mspd
• 20 to dmg against all elements except storm and holy
• 30 to dmg
• Remaining points go to crit dmg, speed, or crit rate

Eidolons

Either Yumikaze, Hel or Verdandi. They all provide 4s stun which is most important (only if you don't have stun ability from sub class).

Some dungeons may give you hard time if you don't have stun.

Reroll one of those to 25% ATK SPD and 45% Dark DMG for your main dps eido, 25% ATK SPD is essential to cap your attack speed and smoother gameplay.

Get a 15% mspd cleo or tiger for running for zumzum, 25% ATK SPD is optional in this case.

However if you don't have the luxury to reroll yet, Yarnaros with the default buffs still works fine.

UPDATE: With 4-star eidolons being released; Ideally, you will want one of these:

• 25% attack speed, 45% dark dmg, 16% dmg
• 25% attack speed, 45% dark dmg, 30% dmg against dark
• 25% attack speed, 45% dark dmg, 10% chance to zeal (50% dmg)

Eidolons reroll chances can be seen here: http://guildless.net/forum/thread-76-1-1.html

With 0.5% chance of having 16% dmg and how expensive 4-star reroll is, I would recommend rerolling Alice since it has def shred trophy and skill although lacking stun (which is not a problem for hs/bard sub user)

Food & Drink

Dreamy Heaven + Royal Jelly Tea best

Rotations

Whenever a Lancer skill is used, a Mark of Fire or Mark of Ice will appear on the stone tablet. The stone tablet is visible on the UI and is linked to the skill Mark's Awakening. Once there are three marks on the tablet, a special skill can be used depending on the combination:

Three Fire summons: Blood Lance - Soul Reincarnation

You need to cast this before any bosses. This one is really OP buff.

Two Fire and one Ice summons: Demon Lance - Hymn of Doom

One or two casts of these are enough to melt a boss.

There are other two skills but they’re practically useless:

One Fire and two Ice summons: Thunder Lance - Sudden Death (nerfed).

Three Ice summons: Soul Lance - Divine Frost.

Lancer rotation is quite linear and self-explanatory.

You basically want to summon 3 fire runes first and get Soul Reincarnation buff.

Then get 2x fire, and 1x ice to cast Hymn of Doom.

Rinse and repeat.

Do note: Soul Reincarnation only lasts 11 seconds hence timing is essential so please pay attention to boss spawn/cutscene time on each dungeons.

Any input/suggestions or questions are welcome.

For lightning, not only they reduced the coefficient but skill range increased and area affected by the ricochet hits increased. This means if there are trash mobs around the boss, your damage will be even more potato due to nature of its mechanism. There's absolutely no reason for you to go lightning unless you want to be a special cupcake.

Oh and dark first tick can also 1 pew the boss.

Consider this: You have to cast 5 skills to create the shield and the mobs only have 8s to break it. Now not only that but people mostly run at 250% mspd thus making it hard for them to touch you and these days you can reach 50%+ evasion without spending any points on it. It'll be so little chance for it to proc it (atleast for me running with 300%+ mspd constantly), even less chance if you arent the front runner.

The only dungeon that makes it worth to take this tile is SFL cuz sarpa's blue fireballs thingy range can hit you at long distance rapidly once you get past them.

But then again it's up to your preference, it's what I think is ideal and doesn't mean you have to copy it exactly. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Dmoe33 wrote:

I see that makes sense but to that i say if you're running end game gear and are already melting bosses in like 2s that 15cdmg is hardly noticeable no? There's that and say a situation where theres lots of mobs as that's how dungs are done now then the ms and stats would have a much bigger effect no? This is looking at specific situations like f30+st or being hit by certain bosses attacks (Fatima lift plus spiny thingy of death, time library f3 etc.)

Oh sorry I was writing that at 2am. If you're only aiming for the paper stats+10%, cdmg cap increase will be much better for those situations you mentioned without question regardless the comparison of their chance to proc and not to mention you get much better paper stats too from Soul Reincarnation buff. This would later be more relevant when they add lvl 95 gold accessories that can increase your cdmg cap and awakening stuff cause it will be all about increasing cdmg cap trend.

Updated for future content.

Naoko wrote:

Isn't it prohibited which you've shown in the video? I always thought that macro using isn't allowed cause it's a third party software which brings you an advantage.

I remember somewhere in old forums a former GM stated that it was okay to use Programmable Peripherals as long as the user isn't afk. /shrug