Having said that, I will not bother with blatant and unsupported arguments that are personal or derogatory in nature.

*edit*
Be advised that everything i have written here is an opinion or a suggestion. At this early stage of the game (open beta) alot of information and technical knowledge is not complete so there is a fair amount of speculation in this guide. Again it is based on ‘experience’ (and i believe i have enough of that) more than anything else. So if you believe in something otherwise, then go ahead and do it – no one is forcing you to use or read this guide.

I didnt think i’ve ever needed to say this but you are responsible for your own actions and i do not need to answer to you or need to change my thoughts or opinion based on what you think if i feel they do not make enough sense.

Again. correct me based on reason and sense. or write your own guide.
*edit*

Notices (most recent first):
-added a small section devoted to 2nd class changes to explorers
-addition to ‘future impact’ section on snipers
-completed all sections, added more content to previous sections.
-guide has been edited for grammar and spelling mistakes. con section edited abit.
-the guide is made at when 2nd class jobs are still not available, will be updated when they are.
-the guide is still a draft atm, obvious spelling errors and all. more to come and will be pimped up with pics and formating in time.

INTRODUCTION
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First i guess its important to remember that the explorer is meant to be a DPS class. You will never be able to tank better than a merc or a saint and you dont have the nobles phantom pain. Explorers have the weakest armor set in the game with weaker physical defense (compared to the merc) and even weaker spell defense (compared to every other class). You wont necessarily deal more damage than a noble either and atm you have no AoEs (while all other classes do).

The only thing you do have is the best ranged attack in the game and a pretty decent amount of damage output from both normal attacks and your skills. You will usually be able to land 2 or more hits on an enemy before they even reach you. Another thing you have is the best stuns in the game and all your skills are instant (note that snipe is an instant skill with no casting time but a post delay animation instead). So the challenge really is to be able to sustain that damage output while staying alive. It is a specialist class, your not well rounded like the saint or merc. you can only do one thing and do it well.

‘The best offense is the best defense’ applies to the explorer.

You will die more often than the saint or merc. If you cant accept this fact or am too lazy to use your skills properly and time then then change your class. Explorers are simply not a point and click class.

RIFLES VS DUALS AND BUILDS
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Rifles boast a higher damage and a longer attack speed (0.4 to 0.9 seconds longer) than duals while duals have higher attack speeds (1.0 to 1.5s) but snipe upsets the damage output between a pure rifle and a pure dual, which means that all duals should have atleast a point in snipe just to take advantage of the massive firepower it offers.

Here are some common builds explained. The stats outlined are the main component of stat points invested. Many explorers often opt to increase other certain stats by 5 to 10 points usually dex, con or will.

Full Str:
A build made to take full advantage of the high damage and ranged effect of the explorer class. You will have awesome damage, but will be highly susceptible to ganks and bosses. Most bosses would probably 2 or 3hit ko you and if you get critted by a mob on low hp then your pretty much gone as well.

People who go for this build usually fare well in parties as they have a saint or merc to heal, get buffs and to tank to support what is probably the best damage in the game. On your own however you’d have a harder time but if you can juggle your skills well and be tactical with mobs then that will give you an edge. FullStr explorers also need to be very careful with their gameplay as they are very fragile.

Full str builds should cap their will to 25 or 30 just to take advantage of the stun effect it gives. The critical effect also gives a good multiplier to that high damage.

Str/Will:
By investing a larger porportion of your statpoints into will, you dilute your firepower at the expense of being able to stun and stay alive and handing more of that firepower to chance rather than consistency. A little bit of will is probably good for all explorers although i do not know the exact ratio of Str:Will that will give the best damage/unit time (maybe someone can do some maths on this ? . If i have to force a guess, i’d reckon its prolly around 70:30 or 80:20.

Str/Dex:
Pretty senseless since dex is wasted and the amount of times you are able to hit mobs more due to increased Hit doesnt give you as much more damage than investing in Str or Will would. Str/Dex is a pvp build more than anything else, as it would allow you to land more hits on much higher leveled players while not take hits from the scores of players you will meet in an arena setting.

You would also not level as well or as fast as a str/will xplr.

Str/Dex/Con
Like the Str/Dex build, this is a build only good for pvp purposes.

Note: Fox Ears (CS Item) gives an extra 4% of crit so that percentage modifier will complement your WILL nicely. As far as i know, It is the only CS item that increases your damage/time.

Arguments about how if you ‘dont’ invest in dex or con would mean you spend alot of your time sitting and wasting time is a fallacy. Regardless of how you invest your points, as an explorer you WILL need sit, because unlike mercs, you dont have high hp or a shield, neither do you have heal like saints or phantom pain like nobles.

So the only reasonable comparison that can be made is to another explorer, and a Str/Will xplr who takes out the mob faster with proper stuns (from skills) and crits will sit as much or maybe less than a Str/con or Str/dex explorer. If your not using your skills properly and timing them right, then yes, con or dex might be the solution for you, but then again, you might as well be playing a merc. Not taking advantage of the 3x stun skills given and high damage and snipelock and opting to take hits instead is a waste of being an explorer.

STATS
—–
STR – increases your damage. your main attribute. atleast 60% of your stat points should go into this if not upto 100%. str makes all your other skills work and gives you the edge of being a ranged rifle damage dealer. the high damage output from str combined with your ranged attack would usually allow you to kill mobs before they land more than 3 hits on you, on which at higherlevels, 1 or 2 of those hits will miss.

DEX – increases your hit and avoid. not very useful since you already have a passive avoid skill and 2x accuracy skills. Not more than 25.

Needing dex to hit mobs at higher levels is a myth. As has been explained by alot of higher leveled explorers, you shouldnt be hitting mobs more than 2 levels than you since the xp you gain is still similiar and instead they die harder and hit for more. Anything less than 2 levels gives you a xp penalty. Being able to land a hit is based more on your level than your dex.

You WILL be able to hit lv30 40 50 mobs consistently even without dex.

Only reason you would want to raise this is for pvp. but since theres no guildwars yet and 99% of the enemies you fight are mobs, theres simply no reason to increase dex.

CON – increases hp. investing stat points in this is not a particular good idea. My suggestion is that you shouldnt put any stat points into this at all – unless you die alot or am pretty n00b at using your skills properly (then might i suggest you change to a 1h mercs which is easier to play)

An explorer shouldnt be taking hits in the first place, if you are then somethings wrong with your char build. Investing in con as opposed to str is like an addiction, the more con you invest in the more you will need to kill a monster which is senseless since you are not meant to be taking hits in the first place (and hits you do take should miss due to passive avoid and proper shoes). And a hit an explorer takes is very different to a hit a merc or saint takes since they have better armor and defense skills. you wouldnt be able to put that con into as good a use as a saint or merc would.

The only reason you would want to invest in this is that if you solo alot or am not that skillful at handling your char; avoiding mobs and preventing yourself from getting ganked. If you find yourself dying ridiculously alot then only then would con make sense. Getting it to 25 or 30 would be a good idea in this case.

How to level your explorer and playing it tactically is explained in the section dedicated to it below. Playing your char properly and timing skills effectively would mean you wouldnt take much or if any damage at all.

WIS – increases mp. If you invest your skill points properly and not make your skills cost 600mp/casting (not that it gives you more damage) then you wouldnt need this. ‘Be a Man’, buy pots.

INT – since skill damage is based mostly on your base damage you dont really need any of this at all. Its also not worth to max certain skills to take advantage of increased int due to pure mana/damage efficiency as explained. No stat points in to this.

WILL – increases crit rate. Will is great even in small amounts. A critical snipe is awesome to have since it increases your damage by 2x the difference from the crit damage. I’m not sure what ratio of str:will to have for rifles and duals is good for the maximum amount of damage output but since you can only stun an enemy once from a crit (and not stunlock by having high crit). I would suggest that you should increase this to the point where u can consistently get atleast 1 critical per mob fight for the amazing stun effect which would go into your defense as well since mobs will lose 1 or 2 hits on you when they are stunned saving you that much amount of hp. Duals will be able to make better use of will than rifle since they have almost twice the attack speed of rifles and so twice the chance to stun. (damage increase from will investment is the same for both rifles and duals).

From all that. Str/will is the only way to go regardless of rifle/dual, with bits maybe in dex or con depending on how you play. Remember an explorer is a DPS class, and the only stats that are helpful are str/will. Again i stress the point that explorers have 2 skills that increase accuracy and 1 skill that increases avoid. In combination with good +4 shoes and +4 gloves and ranged attack with stun effects with snipelock, this is pretty much all you need in terms of hitting and avoiding hits and staying alive.

SKILLS
———–
Generally not investing all your skill points is better than investing all of them. Having a surplus of skillpoints is natural for explorers since investing them in prerequisites such as quickshot or moving shot is a waste of skill points as you will not be using them at higher levels, and investing them in certain useful skills such as sniping gives you diminishing returns and exponentially increased mana costs (vs damage). Explorers also have the least amount of skills compared to the other 3 classes.

What is interesting with the Explorer skillset is that explorers have upto 3 stun skills which are instantaneous (no casting time). If your 1337 enough to juggle all 3 stuns during 10 hours of grinding then i applaud you but otherwise 1 stun is good enough for pvm and 2 is adequiate for pvp. Messing up your weapon/skill combo more or less translates to death for you in pvp. Though pvp is something that is still immature to consider at the moment since guildwars and pvp islands are not out yet.

Mana is also a big consideration for your skills. A 600 mp to 1k mp snipe is pretty much meaningless since you do not have the mp to sustain that. Spam a 280mp snipe every 30seconds (CD) for perhaps 500 to 600 less damage is much a better option. So the idea here is that you should be aiming for when considering skillpt investment is to be able to sustain a large amount of damage output as your mp allows it. Buying mp pots is almost compulsory for an Explorer. Having said that it would probably be justified to invest more points into skills than the suggested amount. But since 2nd class is not out yet, i’d very much rather save those points for the 2nd class skills instead.

Dual Mastery – max (according to level) for dualies. to a skill level of 5.

Rifle Mastery – max. its a cheap way to get good damage. and at lv7. you get an extra 200 damage on your normal attacks and skills. Lovely. Just like Artist.

Moving Shot – 1 point for duals, optional (recommended for bossfights and pvp) for rifles. a prerequiste skill that gives diminishing returns/skillevel. anymore than 1 point in this is a waste since it doesnt increase stun time or give you a good amount of damage per mp per skill level. The cooldown of 10s gives you even more incentive to keep it at slv1 to keep the mp cost low and be able to spam and stun your opponents all the time. the rollback effect is also good to increase the distance between you and your enemy and use burst shot when they come in close for the 2nd time.

Gunkata – this is the one xplr skill that im unsure about. The bleed damage over 15 seconds is too long to make full use of its effect. Also if you are taking 15 seconds to kill a mob then something is wrong. The initial damage is decent but the fact that it has to be used at melee range makes it at odds with the bleed effect that you would ideally want to have at the start of battle. This means that you either choose to engage an enemy with gunkata FIRST and _lose_ the advantage of range OR you open an attack with range and use gunakata at melee and _lose_ the bleed effect. To me thats a lose/lose situation.

Overall i would suggest not to put too much pts in this but its up to your own personal interpretation. Personally gunkata never worked for me.

Assault Vermillion – max for dualies. the dualie equivalent of shooting nova. good damage returns for skill lvl and this is where your points should be going into instead of moving shot or quickshot. personally i do not like the long duration and since it is considered as one damage dealt instead of multiple shots this would mean that shooting 5 or 6 times in the animation does not translate to you having 5 or 6 times more chance to stun which is a pity.

The knockback effect is decent though and you get a pretty animation which makes you look epic.

Quickshot – 1 point. a prerequistite skill that wont see much use at levels 20+ and should be totally obsolete by level 30+. Same thing as moving shot – poor returns per skillevel.

Snipe – not more than 3 points
the characteristic skill of the explorer. damage of the snipe is calculated by: (base damage) x (constant factor) + (skill damage). This constant (from guessing) should be about 2.5. This means that snipe damage comes more from your base damage than anything else. Poor damage/mana effiency per skill level means that its not worth to invest more than 3 points in this. You really want to be spamming this awesome skill on evey cooldown. At lvl 2, snipe costs about 280mp, at level 6 it costs about 600+mp and offers 600 extra damage. And if you think about it, for 600mp you can easily spam another 2 other skills for 3 to 4x the damage. So if you want to be consistently sniping and dealing awesome damage, then about 2 or 3 points is the break even amt.

A common misconception is that snipe is a casting skill. The fact is that the damage from snipe is dealt as soon as you click it, and what follows is not the casting time but the delay animation that keeps you from your next tick. The effect of this is that a target gets ‘snipelocked’ while the snipe animation plays if his HP is < snipe damage which makes this a good finishing skill. As long as the snipe doesnt miss then the mob/player is as good as dead when you click snipe. Using this effect to your advantage means you can avoid one or two ticks/hits from the mob/player when timed properly saving you that much amount of hp.

Shooting Nova (or as i prefer to call it, jumpshot – max according to level. Even dualies can consider a point or two in this, but that is a longshot.

If snipe is the bread then this is the butter. Each skill pt gives you good damage/mana returns and unlike snipe doesnt diminishes over skill level and the high damage is dealt quickly to the target as opposed to vermillion which has an unnecessarily long animation. The knockback effect is a plus as well as mobs take time to get back up. This skill is best used in combination with a burstshot. Which at twice abot the mana cost, can be considered as an instant close range snipe with a stun effect.

Burst Shot – 1 pt to a max of 4 for rifles. 1 pt recommended for duals.
One of the best stun skills in the game (the other would be mercs which at lv4 or lv5 gives 6second stun). An instant stun skill that gives decent damage and upto 5 second stun (at skill level4). If you do your build correctly and have a high damage output, burst shot will offer you decent time to off the mob and is also defensive in nature since you are not taking any hits when the mob/player is down. Putting more skill points into this increases the stun time by 0.5 seconds each level to a max of 5 seconds at level5. Putting the 5th skillpoint into this would be a waste since your getting it for only the stun effect/duration.

For duals a good combination of skills to use is to start shooting a mob, once they are near, switch to rifle and throw a burstshot, then shoot it once or twice when its stunned and snipe when its hp < snipe damage beforeit before it lands a hit on you.

In terms of pvp and when combined with moving shot, you get a total of 8 seconds worth of stun effect on an enemy giving you ample time to do a jumpshot followed by vermillion/snipe as a finishing move. The amount of damage and stun dealt by that should be enough to take out any noble or saint at your levels if you get the initiative in the battle. Mercs in pvp however are in a heavenly class of their own. More on pvp in the later sections.

Wings of Wind. Max.
Best skill i ever invested in. I was abit dubious at first and i was worried i would regret investing in this, but after maxing it, this has become the skill that i love the most apart from snipe. 40% movespeed at slv3 gives you the ability to run past through almost all the mobs and the ability to effectively lose aggro meaning you get an awesome escape option in case you are ganked. Being ganked as an explorer is a dangerous thing due to low hp. The 40% movespeed will also allow you to have a powerful option to play hit and run with those annoying mercenaries in pvp though at the moment due to battlerange limitations this aspect cannot be fully explored yet.

Raise Agility. Max
This is the skill that will be allowing you to dodge a third or upto half of hits from mobs at level 50 (again i dont have dex). this is the explorers solution to defense. Not maxing this is like Artist without bunny ears – just not right (so hard).

Hitchain. 1 skillpoint. Possibly more. Since i dont have a problem hitting my mobs (even with 0 dex), and the first point gives you 16 hit while the next gives you only 3 – i would recommend just 1. Most of your accuracy should come from your gloves and …

Concentration : max
the accuracy equivalent of raise agility. max or you will make Artist cry.

EQUIPMENT
—————
Due to the poor diveristy of equipment and items in the game at the moment, there is nothing much you can do but upgrade your items. If you are lucky enough to get an uncommon or rare weapon then that would be great. But unlike D2, there is no super rare weapon that you should save all your stones for.

Weapon – the central piece of your explorer. Definiately get this to +3 atleast and +4 ideally. The difference between a +4 rifle and a normal rifle at level 40+ for me is about 200 damage.

Keep in mind that the lv26 Brennin Quest offers you a green (uncommon) weapon that adds an extra 30 to 50 damage which you should definately try to get to upgrade over a normal 25 weapon.

Gloves and Shoes – the next two most important equipment for an explorer. Ideally these should be +4. The added hit and avoid does wonders for your char. And an effort should be made to keep getting these to +4 as you level rather than investing points in dex or con.

PARTY PLAY VS SOLO
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*please read everything in detail if you wish to challenge this*

The true potential of the explorer is only realized in party play as a ranged puller ontop of a DPSer. A committed team in a _good central grinding spot_ where spawns _do not exhaust_ and with _everyone_ is doing their tasks _efficiently_ gives you _MORE_ xp (30 to 100% more) than soloing yourself and is probably 10x as fun as soloing. Please note the highlighted factors (without those conditions, party play does _NOT_ give you more xp).

Despite the popular thought that you get more xp soloing, this works because:

– you are an explorer. You do not solo as well as a merc or saint. committed party play gives you more xp.
-everyone runs less in a central grinding spot. In a non central and linear party or solo grinding stance, you probably spend 70% of your time running to the next mob and 20% of the time killing it. Since mobs are doing all the running towards you instead of 3 people running to a mob. Your weapon more or less keeps firing while you run alot less than normal.
-you get 10% extra xp per mob divided with each extra party member.
-you do not need to sit, you do not need to rest. you do not die and if you do you get ressurected, no time wasted there.
-AoEs from mercs and saints will not be wasted.
-you will be able to spawncamp a mob boss area and take him for a nice little extra xp (and chance for a good item)
-everyone gets each others buffs

The numbers are proven by a timed xp check for percentage xp gain /unit time. But the feeling of faster xp is obvious enough.

A typical party set up should be an explorer, a merc and a saint. A noble is optional but nice to have around for the aoes if there are enough mobs. Anything more and you get less xp. Your job would be to pull a mob with your ranged attack which makes rifles better for the job due to increased range. After that pull the next mob and the next one depending on how much mobs your team is able to take; provoke and damage from the merc and saints should be enough to draw the mob away from you. This would effectively make you the central figure in the party and the merc a support figure who takes aggro from mobs you take. However the main tendency is for mercs to run to and fro mobs and expect its saint and explorer to follow him around, which results in less xp than soloing. So party discipline is important and if the merc starts running to mobs instead of engaging the ones you pulled then this will not work. Ideally the merc should always have more than 1 mob engaged and never stop swinging his weapon nor you your rifle.

Choosing a proper central spot to do this is the most important aspect and there are not many in flo. They are listed in the next section. For this to work the mobs should not be spread too far apart and should all be around your firing range in a circular radius. Mobs must also be non exhaustible which means that they should spawn faster than you can kill in the particular area.

Leveling Spots (levels are tentative)
(This part is no longer accurate due to game updates)
You should not level anything 2 levels below you due to xp penalty.

lv 1 – 12: Classes are not specialized enough to play in a party environment. Although i guess demons valley and most spots in some foxden arent too bad.

lv13 – 16: Not much goot spots here either, just solo or duo and do the spiders, bushes and waht not. I would recommend you to go to magnel when you hit 13 since the mobs in foxden are tougher to kill than the bushes.

lv 17-18: Queen hornets are good here. With a Str build, a snipe and a normal shot will kill each queen hornet.

lv 18 to 21: A great central spot for party leveling are Imps and Mightys at the Hot springs area.

lv 21 to 23: solo or duo livres. leave for exeter at lv 23. tulac is a nightmare due to narrow spaces and stronger mobs.

23 to 27: party or duo to fight Moles at the right after entraace. The elevated area on your first right is also alright for party grinding.

27 to 32: mole area near Treasure Hunter Mole. this is one of the best party ginding places. Farm the Treasure Hunter boss for xp.

32 to 36: party to take on hagtis and magtis in the caved area next to the fountain, a decent spot although u’ll have to run a fair bit to pull the mobs from the caves. a 2nd (and poorer) choice is the 8 lv31 shrinemens near the shrineboss area.

36 to 41: party to take on the shrineboss and occupy his spot. this is my favourite grinding area. lure the boss into a open area without mobs and have the merc run in a straight line with you as midpoint while continuously provoking. while the boss runs around just chip his hp away with your ranged weapon. merc is not tanking because he cant take the damage fullon. keep stunning at every opportunity. If you have a noble you can run up the ramp to pull the 8 shrinemen to fry for extra xp.

lv 41 to 45: not much good spots here, since avery1 is narrow and mobs are spread wide. A decent spot is the warloss area. If you’d like to solo then go to hidden port as the mobs there die abit easier and give abit more xp.

45- 50: one of the many rooms in avery2 are good for party grinding. take out the bosses and occupy their spots and grind away.

50+: do the emps near jefferey.you will be running along the stretch between the two ramps and pulling all the mobs around.

53+: go level sea or write a guide

Personally i never like to solo and have been playing in a party 90% of the time from level 1 to level 50, though at higher levels it was more difficult to party due to lack of players at those lvl ranges. I keep my friendlist well stocked with saints and mercs. I’ve been known to be a fast leveler by other players despite joining OB 2 weeks after it started and that is both due to hardcore grinding and as i would prefer to attribute it to; party play.

LEVELING AND TACTICAL PLAY
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In solo play, explorers should be standing away at the max range from a mob before when they engage the mob to as to make full use of the ranged attack. This allows you to land 2 or more hits on a melee mob before he can land the first hit on you, meaning he’ll die faster and not be able to hit you saving you that much HP. When the mob does reach you, you have a few options. As a rifle i like to land a 3rd hit before i go for the killing snipe. Either that or i use a burstshot, attack the mob once or twice followed with a jumpshot. Ideally you should be using your most damaging moves as a finisher since mobs are disabled if your finishing move deals more damage than their hp, saving you a hit or two from the mob. Dealing with lv50 mobs with that technique means mobs do not land more than 2 hits on me and usually one (or two) of that hit will miss. Letting you take up to 10 mobs before you’d need to rest. Around 8 to be safe.

Getting ganked for an explorer in solo is one of the worst things that could happen. In such cases ideally run to lose the mob or just to let your CD finish.

CHANGES BASED ON FIRST BALANCING PATCH
—————————————————————————-

Dual guns Tree
Since dual gun mastery is now a .04 or .05s increase per level opposed to the original .10s increase (-ve modifier, which is good). It doesnt give as much damage increase to dualgun users anymore. As again i recommend all explorers regardless of 2ndclass to use rifles because the damage here is just more. Since the tree is split into two seperate branches, you dont need any skills in the dg tree to access excavator skills (not including gasbomb which is still a 1stclass skill)

So with the dg tree, namely, dg mastery, moving shot, vermillion and gunkata. What you get here is a lousier stun (3s compared to 5s max of burstshot) which also happens to be your only disable.

A salvation here is gas bomb which is a decent and the only AoE skill you get before level 40. Since i dont have this skill when i was <40, i really have no idea how you’d use it or work with it for the first 40 levels. If you could make dg work for you this would probably be key.

Rifle Tree
Snipe has been made a sniper exclusive skill and replacing it is Aimed Shot and Poison Shot. Aimed shot is an awesome disable skill allowing you to land 4 to 5 hits before the mob (ideally melee, restricting you to mostly melee mobs if you use this skill as part of your routine) lands its first hit on you. Jumpshot (nova) has increased damage now.

Burstshot is still as viable as ever to put 4pts into for the 5s stun effect.

I’ve not tested out poison shot so i dont have anything on that.

All this comes to the conclusion that in terms of damage and usefulness, rifles are _still_ definately a much better option than dualguns now that they have been given an additional disable.