Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Ganondorf's Destroyer/Hammer Merc Guide

Ganondorf's Destroyer/Hammer Merc Guide
by Ganondorf [ source ]







IMPORTANT: Lately DN CN has been updated so players will be able to use 2 ultimates instead of one and gives players added 10 maximum SP. Its not shown here but recommend getting whirltyphoon not only because its fearsome in pvp, but also its usefullness in PVE like invincibilty and suctioning effect.

Why do you get all skills? Looks noobish but i think its neccesary. It just turns out that most mercenary skills have a retardly long cooldown so if you want to make use of your superarmor and keep the spamming.. I suggest you do take all the mercenary skills. I suggest taking out heavy slash and heavy hook from your skill bar when at PVE to make space for ur Merc skills. Well the build is pretty self-explanatory to peoplewho have a decent experience playing mercs but for those still wondering..

Lvl 5 Battlehowl: Have I stressed howimportant crits are for hammer mercs? See below for reason why. You can put this skill at lvl 1 if your rich enough to get ur crit to 15k. However I would prefer increasing my final damage and leaving the crit to 12k.

Lvl 4 Iron skin: making it lvl 5 wontadd much. Only 2.5 armor and same duration :(


Lvl 3 Rolling attack and whirlwind: These 2 skills are just equally good and important in my opinion. Although whirlwind is the boss slayer, rolling attack is just better at everything else beside it. This screenshot is old with the new update in DNCN i can get whirltyphoon and get giga bomber and leave the charging howl at lvl 1. Making me raise my rolling attack to lvl 4.

Breaking point at lvl 2: Yeah i can just place it at lvl 1 just to get maelstrom howling but it’s still decent at pvp so I decided to put it at 2.

Tips before making a merc:
If you plan to make a mercenary as your first char and you don’t have a lot of cash to back it up. I must warn you that in this game Mercenaries are probably the most gear-dependent class. Why? Cuz well.. we don’t have block, parry, no range, no evasive maneuvers and our skills our slow so at the end of the day we do get hit. Mercs compensate by having superamor skills (skills that when cast reduce damage and immune to flinching)but even superarmor wont save you on noobish armors.. also if you decide tododge too much your DPS would most likely be garbage cuz the skills are slow and tends to be inturrepted. Im not saying mercs are weak.. again im jus tsaying that we are gear dependent. My main character was a paladin first and it funded my merc pretty well.

Tips before making a hammer merc:
If your making one cuz hammers are cheaper than axes.. or because hammers have good stun and delay stat.. then I advise you to reconsider. Stun and Delay are pretty much INVISIBLE stats now… Iused to have 15,500 stun and all I got was a few laughs for easily downing theonly one boss (Black Manticore) that is affected by it. Delay.. is also not noticeablein PVE, and a guy name heartless from freedom said it doesn’t do much on pvp anymore just like what my observations are telling me,, The one good thing about hammers though is that it have pretty good max damage compared to axes. Alvl 40 grade A axe would only have 700+ max damage while a hammer would give you 1k.. You can make use of this by raising your critical parameters with battle howl, crests and pot codes. Crit ensure that ur damage will always be onthe upper limits of your attack power. 6-7k crit (not including buff) is essential and rewarding… but if don’t reach that then the low minimum damage of hammers would hurt your DPS a lot. So its as costy to fund a hammer merc thanan axe merc.

Stat Crests --> Vit - HP - str - crit - agi - physical damage - final damage - magic defense
bonus stats of crests --> at least 4 crests with added crit bonus

Skill Crests --> if ur more on support -- taunting howl debuff time extension,  Battle howl buff extension, charging howl buff extension, flying swing reduced cd.
if ur more on offense -- flying swing bonus damage, rolling attack bonus damage, whirlwind bonus damage, battle howl buff extension.

If u reach level 50 delete one skill crest for maelstorm howl reduced cd.

Recommend Equipment Prefix on Armors:
1) Mag def prefix on helm, life prefix on the rest. Increased survivability by a lot. This is the one I use I havent tested the other but this works well for me.   
Analysis of Destroyer skills:

Why life prefix? Unlike other classes who prevents being hit either by block, dodge etc, mercs actually focuses on reducing damage even if its easier to get hit. Getting hit more often means activating the life effect more and with the damage reduction you can actually end up healing your merc on many situations if your good at timing your damage reduction skills.


Analysis of Destroyer skills

Breaking Point: Woah this skills is ridiculously overpowered! To the point that if have a multi-hit skill ready(eg. Rising Slash, Whirlwind, Rolling attack etc,) you can be confident that you will cancel out the monster's attack! But theres a catch to it... The developers made this skill not work for NEST BOSSES making this skill from overpowered to PITIFUL.Seriously how dumb can a balancing design get to make one class-defining skill worthless to something you'll be doing 80% of the time playing this game. This is the reason why some mercs stray away from the Destroyer class. A part of me still hopes that the developers will think of changing this skill in the future.. But while one skill flops let’s see what our lvl 47 and lvl 50 skill has to offer..

Flying Swing Ex: Thank goodness the devs didn’t screw this up.. in PVP its still hard to hit enemies just used mainly for its armor. Flying swing has always been the staple merc skill in PVE with not only offensive, defensive and armor breaking purposes its also one of the few merc skill that have a low CD and is the best damaging among them..Though its damage lose out to other skills when kept at lvl 3 but Barbs will still use this skill to save their ass in dire situations. Destroyers have the luxury to buff this skill up to a useful 11 and get 60% (each shockwave deals 20%)bonus damage more. Now thats a worthy damage boost.


Maelstrom Howling: Excellent skill.. PVE this prolly the best mob-control you’ll ever have. Its base damage is higher than bone crush and why would you not likeanother life saving heavy –armored skill the skills triggers fast as well and doesn’thave a long delay after casting so it won’t put you in danger like the othermerc skills. In PVP its pretty awesome too.. The suction effect deals minor damage so it flinches its victims making them unable to blink or do anythingmaking everything within its range to NOT BE ABLE TO ESCAPE, and I must say the range (higher range and AOE than circle swing!) and suction of this skill is just epic, that my guildmate nicknamed it “Blackhole on steroids”.

Maelstrom Howl Combos:
1. Maelstrom howl + rolling attack + whirlwind = Malestrom howl is one of the few skills you can connect rolling attack with, the other two which is flying swing and circle bomber is alot harder to connect. Best combo I use in 1v1 deadly if the enemy fails on using aerial evade.

2.Whirltyphoon + Maelstrom howl = cast iron skin before getting near a mob of players. You can also use rolling attack to close in your distance. Expect alot of red circles popping on your screen if done correctly. Best combo I use in group pvp/guild war

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