Driller Build Guide

[Burn_X]

Driller Build Guide by Burn_X

Last updated: 2006/09/20

Other than the obvious difference in playing style, the only other difference between this build and other fox builds are skills obtained.

This may not appeal to everyone, but for those who find themselves drilling for items more than killing innocent cute monsters then I hope this guide will be of use.


Table of Contents

-A- General

-A.1- Build
-A.2- Bonus Points
-A.3- Gameplay

-B- Archeologist (1st Job)

-B.1- Skills
-B.2- Leveling

-C- Adventurer (2nd Job)

-C.1- Skills
-C.2- Leveling

-D- Alternative Build

-D.1 - Driller/Growth

-E- Others

-E.1- Q & A


-A- General

-A.1- Build

Build: 1144

Compared to 1243 and 1342 which places points in Magic, only MP is useful for a drilling focused fox and that is not extactly great as you can just use a MP pot. 1144 with 4 points in Charm on the other hand have three stats that are useful. HP increase your life so you can take more punishment, DP improves your defense and HV helps your evade more hits. Combined, they make you a pretty good tank which is important; you can hang in there while halfway drilling for an item and being attacked by a monster or two.


-A.2- Bonus Points

Bonus points: DA

DA is where all your bonus points will go to. DA improves the chance of informing you if there is an item below the spot you are drilling before you use a drill life. This causes a light bulb to appear above your character. It also means it will inform you if there is no items below as well (squiggly lines appears).

Not only that; DA also improves your damage for both Stone Strike and Shuriken Master and increase your compounding success rate.


Links:

STATS, what they are, what they do, how to eat them


-A.3- Gameplay

Basically boils down to drilling and completing drilling quests. Additionally you should comeplete Love Hunter Robin quests for more TMExp and Head Hunter Yuri quests for items and Exp.

I suggest that you be at least 2 Clvl higher than the moster level you are going to hunt before accepting the monster hunting quest. Same applies for drilling at maps with numerous aggro monsters. That way you will strong enough to take the hits and thus cut down on pot usage.

You will get tonnes of items from drilling, many of them are either quest or compounding items. Sell as many as you can to other players where they can fetch a much better price than selling them to the NPC. Price your items reasonably so that you do not need to spend a long time vending.


Links:

Official Quest Guide for Trickster Online

Party Bonus EXP Guide

Drills and the best places to use them


-B- Archeologist (1st Job)

-B.1- Skills

Invicible Drill (TMLvl 1; Passive)

Enables you to continue to drill while being attacked; very useful at maps populated with aggro monsters.


Sixth Sense (TMLvl 1; Active)

Increases DA stat for a period of time thus improving item detection, damage and compounding success.


Stone Stike (TMLvl 1; Active)

Melee attack skill.

Pros: Avaiable from the start, very powerful melee attack; kills monsters with a hit or two
Cons: 3/4 hit rate, lots of MP pot used; can get costly


Heavy Carrier (TMLvl 10; Passive)

Increases your carrying capacity; allows more loot to be carried thus reducing the trips needed to return to town.


Shuriken Master (TMLvl 15; Active)

Range attack skill.

Pros: High hit rate, allows hit and run tactics, unlocks a 2nd job skill that improves its damage
Cons: Need to replenish throwing weapons; must either be bought, found or compounded


Sticky Foot (TMLvl 20; Active)

Reduces target evasion (HV) for a period of time. Good skill for high level monsters and in PVP, specifically Charms types.


Basic Detection (TMLvl 35; Active)

Detects where items are below the surface within a radius for a very short period of time. Mastered detects items up to depth of 110 meters.


Armor Destructor (TMLvl 40; Active; Prereq: Stone Stike Lvl 10)

Reduces target defence (DP) for a period of time; great skill against higher level monsters and in PVP, specifically Charms types.


Lucky Seven (TMLvl 50; Active; Prereq: Armor Destructor Lvl 1)

Improves your Luck (LK) stat for a period of time. More LK increases critical hit rate and the chance of getting good stats in equipment growth.


Compund Master (TMLvl 70; Passive)

Increases compounding success rate.


Links:

fox skill formulas (translated from japanese wiki with google <3)


-B.2- Leveling

I recommend getting only one attack skill so that you have more TM points for the skills that are extremely useful for a driller: Basic Detection and Heavy Carrier.

That leaves deciding which of the two attack skills you want. If you want any skills that Stone Strike is a prerequisite to: Armor Destructor and Lucky Seven, then go with Stone Strike only. Otherwise get Shuriken Master only.

Take note that Basic Dectection will be replaced with the 2nd Job skill Daujingua. Due to this, some might want to consider not getting Basic Detection and level up mostly through monster killing until Daujingua becomes available. Though this is indeed a viable option, I do not recommend it. Daujingua requires TMLvl of 60, it will be a long time before it becomes available and during this time you need a detection skill which is Basic Detection.

Again this decision is for you to make.


TMlvl 1-14

Level up Sixth Sense to as high as possible without the MP cost going over your MP value. Going over will make this skill useless until you level up more and have more MP.

Also at some point you will want to get Invicible Drill, but you can get it later if you plan to drill at areas without aggro monsters.


Stone Strike user -

You have the option to level up Stone Strike first instead of Sixth Sense, level up whichever one you see fit


TMlvl 15-34

Stone Strike user -

Once Stone Strike is mastered or Sixth Sense is at Lvl10, start working on the other skill. Mastering Sixth Sense will not be possible until your ClVl is in the early 30s.


Shuriken Master user -

Stop leveling up Sixth Sense and put all TM points into Shuriken Master. You will not be able to master this skill with your current CLvl, so keep it at Lvl10, reserve 2 TM points to master it and level up Sixth Sense just like before.


Eventually for both builds you will have mastered both Sixth Sense and either Stone Stike or Shuriken Master; save the extra TM points.


TMlvl 35>

Put all available TM points into Basic Detection (if you want it) and once it is mastered get Heavy Carrier and master it.


Skill summary of must have skills:

Sixth Sense - Master (13 TM pts)
Invicible Drill - Master (1 TM pt)
Basic Detection - Master (13 TM pts)
Heavy Carrier - Master (12 TM pts)

Total TM pts: 26 or 39 *

* - With Basic Detection


Skill summary for Stone Strike user:

Stone Strike - Master (12 TM pts)
Armor Destructor - Lvl 1 (1 TM pt)
Lucky Seven - Master (15 TM pts)

Total TM pts: 28
Grand total TM pts: 54 or 67 *


Skill summary for Shuriken Master user:

Shuriken Master - Master (13 TM pts)
Compund Master - Master (13 TM pts)

Total TM points: 26
Grand total TM pts: 52 or 65 *


-C- Adventurer (2nd Job)

-C.1- Skills

Though not yet released, it is good to know what skills are avaiable and what to expect. 2nd Job skills are listed here:

TricksterWiki

Daujingua is the skill of interest as it is the only skill related to drilling available in 2nd Job. It detects items below the surface based on DA; more DA means this skill will search deeper. This is clearly a replacement for Basic Detection for maps with depths of more than 110 meters. The picture below shows how this skill works, taken from the link above.

The remaining skills are attack, buff and debuff skills. Most of these skills are available for both Stone Stike and Shuriken Master users except for Lucky Day and Bureibusurou which requires both Stone Stike and Shuriken Master to be Lvl 10 respectively.

One skill that will not be available for most Fox builds is Gloomy Mist which requires both Armor Destructor and Sticky Foot to be Lvl 10.

Moving on to the remaining two attack skills, Fear Bag is against a single target while Detoneita is area of effect (AOE). However there is a thread claiming that Fear Bag has a small AOE to it; link is provided below.

Unlike Stone Strike and Shuriken Master, these attack skills damage are not solely dependent on DA.

With Heavy Carrier mastered, Fear Bag becomes unlocked which gives you a choice of either attack skills. Again I recommend only getting one attack skill to have TM points for Daujingua.


Links:

a note on fear bag


-C.2- Leveling

Skill summary of must have skills:

Daujingua - Master (13 TM pts)
Detoneita - Master (15 TM pts) *
Fear Bag - Master (16 TM pts) #

*, # - Master one only of your choice

Total TM pts: 28 * or 29 #


Skill summary for Stone Strike user:

Lucky Day - Master (15 TM pts)

Total TM pts: 15
Grand total TM pts: 43 * or 44 #


Skill summary for Shuriken Master user:

Bureibusurou - Master (13 TM Pts)

Total TM pts: 13
Grand total TM pts: 41 * or 42 #


-D- Alternative Build

-D.1 - Driller/Growth

Skill wise, this build is extactly the same as the Stone Strike user build with two differences: Stone Stike and Sixth Sense are Lvl 10. Another difference is that all bonus points goes into LK instead of DA.

This creates a character that is less combat oriented as without DA, the Stone Strike damage will be very low. The plus is the better chance for higher stats obtained when doing equipment growth.

Keep in mind that eventually MyShop will have items that improves equipment growth results:

The amount of a stat that is placed on a piece of equipment varies on a given range (see the table below), and is weighted towards the lower end. As such, it is nearly impossible to get a huge (near the maximum of the range) stat boost from the Growth system, unless special MyShop items are used. Character luck is also a factor in the result.

This might make this build useless, but that remains to be seen.

Links:

Trickster: Wanna Be One? - Equipment Growth


-E.1- Q & A

If DA acts like an auto detection for drilling, why the need for Basic Detection and Daujingua?

Both detection skills have a very high chance of activating and detecting buried items. This eliminates the situation of guessing where to drill and then praying for a light bulb to save a drill life.

With deeper grounds, the auto detection occurs less frequent; you will need more DA to increase your chance of detection as the ground gets deeper. Basic Detection and Daujingua has no such limitation and will always detect items within a given depth and radius.

More importantly though, these skills save time and increase profitability from drilling.


Why get combat skills if drillers are mostly drilling?

Getting a few combat skills is important for all characters and builds including drillers. This is because you need to fight off aggro monsters in many maps that are great for drilling. Invicible Drill only helps you drill while being attacked, but it doesn't get rid of the monster attacking you. You will not regain your lost HP and as long you get damaged, no matter how little, you will eventually die.

Some quests require you to collect items that only drop from monsters. You are not giving yourself the opportunity to do these quests if you do not have any combat skills.


Is Heavy Carrier a must?

Ultimately you do no have to get it if you do not want to; the decision is yours.

The reason why I recommended Heavy Carrier is because it saves you time similarly to the detection skills. The more you can carry means the less time you need to go back to town. You can spend more time drilling than traveling.

Another plus to Heavy Carrier is that it is a prerequisite to Fear Bag, a 2nd Job attack skill to completement the only attack skill you have from the 1st Job.

[Optical]

Nice Guide. :)

[FrozenFlame]

Eh, good guide, I got a few questionable areas in my head though, but I'll save those for when I make MY Fox guide... gotta finish my Dragon guide first though. I personally think you can't be both a compounder and a fighter at the same time. With my compounding build, I grudgingly got Heavy Carrier, so I'll have 3 points left over by TMlv70 when I get Compound Master. I wouldn't have even gotten Heavy Carrier if it wasn't a requirement for Fear Bag... I am NOT going to be doing 600 dmg Stone Strikes for the rest of my life.

[Sasuto]

you didnt really need to add all this stuff, its basically a fox guide getting basic detection and invis drilling, invis drilling isnt really useful because even if you dont hurt from the aggo monsters foxes can end up killing them in one hit and going back to digging

[Slayersemaj]

I actually used the driller build from option A myself for my fox. Invincible Drilling is an absolute must, otherwise you're just wasting drill life every time a hostile monster spawns. And I agree very much with the assessment on Basic Detection. I will never drill again without it, not on any character I make, save for my drill straight to TM 50 fox I plan for when 2nd jobs are out. I've got a screenshot of my current fox over in the What Level Were You thread. I don't think a driller build will go very far without Heavy Carrier personally, as I ended up taking trips to town frequently for Caballa Dungeon with it maxed. Almost all of the items you can drill up there weigh at least 50, so you get full after one or two yellow drills, even if you don't pick up things like ashtrays (grrrrr) and Lapis Lazuli.

[Burn_X]

Sorry for the late response guys; been busy with work and other gaming commitment on Dark Reign.

Originally Posted by Sasuto

you didnt really need to add all this stuff, its basically a fox guide getting basic detection and invis drilling, invis drilling isnt really useful because even if you dont hurt from the aggo monsters foxes can end up killing them in one hit and going back to digging

Yeah, this guide is more or less the same as another Fox guides, but I've mentioned this at the beginning of the guide that the only real differences between this build and others are the skills and the gameplay. Maybe it wasn't necessary for me to make this guide afterall...

Invicible Drill is useful because you might be drilling in a clear area and an aggro monster spawns nearby and attacks you; you won't be interrupted. This is what Slayersemaj said as well. Again, its really up to the individual to decide what they want, not for this skill, but for any skills for that matter. However I highly recommend it considering it only takes one TM point, is a passive skill and is useful throughout the lifetime of the character.

Originally Posted by FrozenFlame

I personally think you can't be both a compounder and a fighter at the same time. With my compounding build, I grudgingly got Heavy Carrier, so I'll have 3 points left over by TMlv70 when I get Compound Master

I agree, it is difficult for hybird builds to be great at any one thing, but thats really where their strengths lies in that they can do many things with reasonable success.

I recommend Compound Master for Shuriken Master user only so that they can have access to more thowing weapons without resorting to buying them from other players. With high DA, the success rate of compounding these weapons should be very high. It might even be possible to forgo Compound Master as all the bonus points are going into DA; maybe a higher level player can comment on this.