Damn, so much wrong Informations...
1).About EQ, It is possible to outpot it (Beer,Yggs a.o.), to tank and to evade it with Magic Mirror or with Prestige. Even with enough HP you can stand against it under Inspiration.
Earth Drive against EQ?? Can you block EQ with Land Protector / Magnetic Earth? A ground targeted Buff/Debuff like songs, Traps, Pneuma, SW???
Even if the name is "Earthquake", it ain´t Earth Property and it aint and Physical Ground targeted AOE Skill. It is a Magical-Long Ranged Neutral attack. So no, you cant time ED and smash Earthquake, would be cool though.
2.) If you go the Inspiration route, GR is already in you skill tree. It is just up to you if you use it. +It hits MVPs in AGI Up, so ocassionally it has its uses.
3.) VP as Main Damaging MVP Skill, yes for sure. We where talking about alternatives for AGI Ups w/o using the Gungnir or the Combo. Even without the Mummy Combo you still have a chance 1/4 to Hit so with enough ASPD and SP regen pots you could still Kill the MVP. But with the Right Setup and with all those Crazy Enchants you have in iRO you can make sooo much good damage with PPA and EB as an alternative if VP misses. You are alone on a MVP map or Bloody Branching? NP, grab yourself a +9 Glorious Holy Avanger and make your own Lex Aeterna for Mad PPA or Crit EB damage. Gloria Domini hits always too so why not?
4.) Okay, getting Prestige over Inspiration now with the 175 Patch should be good for MVP Guard and you can allocate a lot more Skill points into other useful skills. I give you right on this one.
1. About EQ, Please notice that I said I have heard some one said about ED against EQ and I also said I have never tried it myself. Ok I apologize if it cause any confusion to any of you.
2. About GR
1) Only lvl 4 is required, I apologize that for some reason I thought kazu max this skill. I want to make a point that this skill is not worth to max
2) GR only works when Inspiration is on (unless you have a fellow RG and you have banding)
3) When MVP AGI up, only magical damage part will hit (Disclaimer: It is written on IRO WIKI, I never tested it. If some one want to be picky don't blame me). As MVP RG you won't put a lot of focus on Int, and Imperial Spear gives you a miserable 40 MATK, making GR damage on AGI UP MVP very low.
Conclusion. OK GR might has its uses but is very, very rarely. I can't think of any situations when it will be your best choice. (Maybe it is AOE?). I once saw a video of RG using GR against Nidhoggur, but with VP you can kill him more quickly
3. Against Agi-up MVP: Use Gungnir so you get VF/Prestige vs. EB/PPA
a) Let's first think about skill points. Ignore sword-man skills. At Paladin stage, you have 70 points. Of course you want Inspiration. You also want to ride Peco-Peco, and thus you have to max Cavalier Mastery and Spear Quicken to ensure ASPD for VP (We already agree no matter in what case VP is a must right?) You also want to max Defending Aura. This is skill is so good in many circumstances. That is 69/70 used. At this point you already have to use 3rd class skills because you also want Sacrifice, at least lvl 3. Otherwise good luck finding bio4 parties to level to 175. So know you use 70/70 for 2nd class skill and you have 22/60 for 3rd class skill. For 3rd class skills, no doubt you max OB and VP. Now you have 13 points remaining
Now you make a decision. I spent the 13 points on VF and Prestige, and I can still hitting MVP-up Monsters with Gungnir. Note that Gungnir is 2 slots so you can put 2 AK cards. I won't suggest mummy combo because when you deal with high difficulty MVPs you will need Alice. In this case you hit MVP average 4 hits. You should be at around 190 ASPD. I don't remember how many VP you can cast at 190 ASPD, but definitely more than 1 hit landed in 2 secs. I don't know about EB+PPA too much , but seems EB has long cast time (4.5+2.5s, think about how many VP you can do), and I believe Gungnir is better than EB in the following case
1) (Disclaimer: For every single word here I haven't tried myself, they are just what I deduce from IRO WIKI)So based on IRO wiki's description , EB is normal attack+crit, so you have to focus on Sharp enchants to have high enough Crit instead of EA, probably something to reduce cast time too. This means you have to switch to different gears. You also need something to prevent cast being interrupted so your choice of gears are limited. Note that most MVPs don't AGI-UP immediately. They do it when they reach certain HP. So you have to either use EB gears from the beginning and sacrifice a lot of VP damage before MVP AGI-UP, or you use VP gears and when AGI-UP, you have to change to another set of gears. While for Gungnir, you just switch the weapon and use the proper element endow if necessary. It is easier then switching to another set of gears
2) If you go EB/PPA, you will have to give away Prestige at least, maybe not able to max VF too. You lose a HUGE Def bonus and chance to dodge magic. What I can tell you is that I just use my RG with GTB to tank Valkyrie Randgris for my Gene friend to kill her. I use VF, Prestige, SS3 Def bonus and still have to spam Ygg seed, Ygg berry and Green Ale in turn to keep me alive. Without Prestige you are never going to do it. The point is that you are not going to mess with Mistress all the time. You will shift to high difficulty MVPs that do Agi-up. In these cases keeping yourself alive is also important.
I have been using Gungnir for AGI-up MVPs all the time, the only agi-up MVPs I can't deal with are Valk and Beez. There's no problem for me to deal with other AGI-UP MVPs. I can even use this set up to solo Bangogunt before she turns to second phase.
Edited by MournHaibara, 20 April 2015 - 08:24 AM.