Lupin Tier 1 Skills

Part Water

Ingame Description : The foundational Lupin technique. It is said that a Lupin can part water with a single stroke.
Additional Skill Bonus : Your Attack Power stat is increased by 5% when using this skill.
Character Level Requirement : 15
Initiate Tier Requirement : 8 skill points spent on Initiate tier.
Quest Requirement : Tier 1 questline completed
Skill Type : Active, Attack Skill
Target : Single monster or player
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : Instant

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Bonus Damage
Rank 1	15	19 SP	45
Rank 2	17	19 SP	49
Rank 3	19	20 SP	54
Rank 4	21	21 SP	58
Rank 5	23	22 SP	62
Rank 6	25	24 SP	67
Rank 7	27	25 SP	71
Rank 8	29	27 SP	76
Rank 9	31	30 SP	88

Free Spirit

Ingame Description : To thine own self be true.
Additional Information : Permanently increases both your maximum Health and Spirit
Character Level Requirement : Level 16 or higher
Skill Requirement : Part Water Level 1 or higher
Skill Type : Passive, Stat Increase

Skill Rank	Level Required	Health Increase	Spirit Increase
Rank 1	16	95%	95%
Rank 2	24	190%	190%
Rank 3	32	285%	285%

Full of Love

Ingame Description : You are overcome with strong emotions, which temporarily raises your attack power.
Character Level Requirement : 25
Skill Requirement : Free Spirit Level 2 or higher
Skill Type : Active, Buff skill
Target : Yourself
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : 3 minutes

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Attack Increase	Duration
Rank 1	25	42 SP	5%	16 seconds
Rank 2	27	48 SP	6%	18 seconds
Rank 3	29	54 SP	7%	20 seconds
Rank 4	31	60 SP	8%	22 seconds
Rank 5	33	66 SP	9%	24 seconds
Rank 6	35	72 SP	10%	26 seconds
Rank 7	37	78 SP	11%	28 seconds
Rank 8	40	84 SP	12%	30 seconds

Cloudbreaker

Ingame Description : Chop a cloud into rain under a crescent moon. Attack a single nearby target, making them lose health and spirit over time.
Additional Information : The bleed effect doesn't work on all monsters. Jade Dynasty's version of Cloudbreaker is different from the other versions when it comes to the HP/SP loss and duration of the bleed effect.
Character Level Requirement : Level 40
Skill Requirement : Full of Love Rank 6 or higher.
Skill Type : Active, Attack Skill
Target : Single Monster or Player
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : 4 seconds

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Additional Damage	HP/SP Loss	Duration
Rank 1	40	30 SP	60	288 / 576	8 seconds
Rank 2	42	30 SP	66	N / A	10 seconds
Rank 3	44	31 SP	72	N / A	12 seconds
Rank 4	46	32 SP	78	N / A	14 seconds
Rank 5	48	34 SP	84	N / A	16 seconds
Rank 6	50	36 SP	90	N / A	18 seconds
Rank 7	52	38 SP	96	N / A	20 seconds
Rank 8	54	41 SP	102	N / A	22 seconds
Rank 9	56	44 SP	108	N / A	24 seconds

Haste

Ingame Description : You feel weightless and nimble.
Additional Information : This skill temporarily increases your movement speed.
Character Level Requirement : Level 20
Skill Requirement : Part Water Rank 3 or higher.
Skill Type : Active, Buff skill
Target : Yourself
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : 4 minutes

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Movement Speed Increase	Duration
Rank 1	20	100 SP	0.6 yards / sec	16 seconds
Rank 2	22	100 SP	1.1 yards / sec	18 seconds
Rank 3	24	100 SP	1.6 yards / sec	20 seconds
Rank 4	26	100 SP	2.1 yards / sec	22 seconds
Rank 5	28	100 SP	2.6 yards / sec	24 seconds
Rank 6	30	100 SP	3.1 yards / sec	26 seconds
Rank 7	32	100 SP	3.6 yards / sec	28 seconds
Rank 8	34	100 SP	4.1 yards / sec	30 seconds

Love's Snare

Ingame Description : "Love is the most pleasurable pain imaginable." This skill stings like a passionate embrace.
Additional Information : This skill has a chance to paralyze the target.
Character Level Requirement : Level 30
Skill Requirement : Haste Rank 5 or higher.
Skill Type : Active, Attack Skill
Target : Single Monster or Player
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : 5 seconds

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Additional Damage	Paralyze Strength	Duration	Range
Rank 1	30	30 SP	31	40	2 seconds	0.5 yards
Rank 2	32	30 SP	36	44	2.7 seconds	1 yards
Rank 3	34	31 SP	41	48	3.4 seconds	1.5 yards
Rank 4	36	32 SP	46	52	4.1 seconds	2 yards
Rank 5	38	34 SP	51	56	4.8 seconds	2.5 yards
Rank 6	40	36 SP	56	60	5.5 seconds	3 yards
Rank 7	42	38 SP	61	64	6.2 seconds	3.5 yards
Rank 8	44	41 SP	66	68	6.9 seconds	4 yards
Rank 9	46	44 SP	71	72	7.6 seconds	4.5 yards

Meditation

Ingame Description : Elementary Lupin Technique. Meditate to become aware of changes in your environment.
Additional Information : This ability permenantly raises the caster's attack power and accuracy while also decreasing their chance of being slowed.
Character Level Requirement : Level 16
Skill Requirement : Part Water Rank 1 or higher.
Skill Type : Passive, Stat Increase

Skill Rank	Level Required	Attack Increase	Accuracy Increase	Resistance to Slow
Rank 1	16	3	20	5%
Rank 2	18	6	40	10%
Rank 3	20	9	60	15%
Rank 4	22	12	80	20%
Rank 5	25	15	100	25%
Rank 6	29	18	120	30%
Rank 7	32	21	140	35%
Rank 8	36	8	160	40%

Mist

Ingame Description : This ability temporarily increases your defense, but lowers your attack power.
Character Level Requirement : Level 25
Skill Requirement : Meditation Rank 4 or higher.
Skill Type : Active, Buff skill
Target : Yourself
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : 3 minutes

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Defense Increase	Attack Decrease	Duration
Rank 1	25	43 SP	77	60%	16 seconds
Rank 2	29	46 SP	141	57%	18 seconds
Rank 3	33	50 SP	229	54%	20 seconds
Rank 4	37	55 SP	353	51%	22 seconds
Rank 5	41	62 SP	525	4%	24 seconds
Rank 6	45	70 SP	757	30%	26 seconds
Rank 7	50	78 SP	1061	35%	28 seconds
Rank 8	55	88 SP	1449	39%	30 seconds

Thicken Blood

Ingame Description : Harden your blood and you will know no limits.
Additional Information : Increases your maximum health and spirit.
Character Level Requirement : Level 35
Skill Requirement : Mist Rank 3 or higher.
Skill Type : Active, Buff skill
Target : Yourself
Casting Time : 1 second
Cooldown : 4 seconds
Buff Duration : 30 minutes

Skill Rank	Level Required	Spirit Cost	Max HP Increase	Max Spirit Increase
Rank 1	35	68 SP	20%	5%
Rank 2	39	78 SP	40%	10%
Rank 3	43	89 SP	60%	15%
Rank 4	47	101 SP	80%	20%
Rank 5	49	114 SP	100%	25%
Rank 6	51	129 SP	120%	30%
Rank 7	53	144 SP	140%	35%
Rank 8	56	161 SP	160%	40%

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Balo Ascension Skills

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Faction Skills

Ascension Skills
Balo

Lupin Tier Skills
Tier 1

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Dagos All Around Build (PvE/PvP Ascended)

Introduction
If you went Dagos, you should know our Dagos Faction Skills are mainly AoE based thus you need to put points towards those skills.  This build ignores Furious Roar II and Tiger Smash II skills because I find them useless.  If you do not find them useless, then you will have to rewrite this build.  This is because this build focuses also on PvP elemenets.

The way you distribute your points is up to you.  I don't provide any methods on what you should use your points on for what skill first.  I just post what the final build should look like.

Faction Affinity Skills?
Affinity skills?  Read the above line and apply it to affinity skills.  I suggest the first faction skill to max is Warsong II with Thunderbolt II and Song of Antipathy II next.  Do note that currently, the effects for TB II and SoA II do not work.

Picture Fixes
Ignore the "10" on Dark Injury.  I was using Safari at the time and the skill simulator seems to hate it.  The max on Dark Injury is 9!

On the Combat tome, Heaven Design should be 3/3.

Heoric Fire should be 1/3 and not 2/3.

Necessary Skills on Esper
Powerful Aid
Ancient Soul
Sky Rift
Twisting Dragon
Dark Injury
Song of Antipathy

*Never seen Combat Spirit or Dragon Speed and such on a esper, but if that can be put on the esper, no need for Dark Injury and such.
*Ancient Soul must be on your esper.  That is your #1 priority.

Necessary Charms
Noble Hunt
Heaven Design
Light Walk
Cloud Climb
Dragon Fury (Elder of Arcaness)
Self Doom (Elder of Arcaness)

*It will take you quite awhile to get the EoA charms unless you are made of $ (or honor) and arcane coins.

Gear
I don't go in depth on this because it totally depends on your own personal tastes.

For PvE, get the most attack you can.  This means your imbues should be focused on attack, essence focused on attack, and so on.

Balo really need a Skyseal necklace over any of the other necklaces.  Getting that 4% critstrike necklace is dumb when you can get a 16% critstrike bonus and 3% critstrike rate with SS.  Is 1% critstrike going to kill you?

You should focus on having honor deity body gear.  Skytouch and BG are only for PvP or other activities that don't involve you grinding for 058450840584 hours.  Balo is the only faction period that can easily get the 135 ascended mobs to do -1 damage to them if you get +8 on your 135 gear.  But then again, you need more than +8 armor.  Affinity skills and gear matter.

Damage Reduction rings are needed for PvE and they need to be 3 star.  Its the only way you will take -1 damage.

Charm?  If you are going to spam fiery wind, the Fiery Land charm is what you should have on when grinding.  When you have ancient soul at 140, you should put that charm on.  Otherwise, you can always have the Dragon Fury charm on or even noble hunt if you spam Powerful Aid.

PvP, obviously, you need health, resistance rings, and so on.  I don't go in details like I said. There are a lot of things you can do in general for both PvE and PvP and I expect you to already know this.


Other
For those that don't care about the defense loss from dragon speed, you can replace the two tome points and put it somewhere else.  Really, in this build, you will have 1 tome point left over (which I put into heoric fire) so if you get rid of DS you would have a total of 3 points and can put the 3 points into Fury lord or something else.

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Tier 4

Tier 5

Tome

Heaven

Combat

Blood

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Which Affinity is for me?

Dagos
Dagos Faction Skills focuses on AoE and Support type skills.  Dagos in general is more of a defensive and support affinity focusing on defense, critstrike rate and bonus, and resistances.  They have some AoE skills too, but the defensive and support skills are mostly what Dagos is about.  They also have those Potions that give Attack and Defense (+ HP restoration) and Resistances (+ SP Restoration).  So you are looking at 20% attack and defense + 100% HP restoration at 10.

In my opinion, Dagos should be a Balo's primary choice for affinity.  The reason I say this is because when it comes end game time, what skill will you be spamming the most?  I imagine you went the Powerful Aid route and you would have the charm making its cooldown 2 seconds which means its a spammable skill.

The Affinity Skills from Felkin just don't seem any good as I can put the same status effects on the other player and spam it like no other.  If you want to play the "bleed" game with the felkin skills, you can but there are so many factors to consider when  it comes to health reduction.  If you are a cash shop player who has all the $ in the world, then I guess felkin may be the superior one, but even then, Dagos is better.

Fuwa's skills are actually really good when compared to Felkin, but in the end, I see myself saying I will just spam Powerful Aid all the time.  This may be different for you.  Penetrator II is a amazing skill along with the other one.  The passive SP skill makes it so you are better tank than the other 2 affinities.

Dagos faction skills are just good because not only are they aoe, but they have a 30 second cooldown and will remove the target's spirit and buffs (Thunberbolt II and Song of Antipathy II).  Warsong II will increase your critstrike rate and skill accuracy which you will need.  The other skills I don't find any good and will be the last thing I would max.

The AoE skills would be good for AoE leveling except that you would have to gather the monsters first.   The Dagos AoE affinity skills are for PvP mainly.

Lastly, the ascension skills for Balo already make me say I don't need to go Felkin or Fuwa despite their cooldown.

To sum it up, Dagos Balos will have higher resistances, critstrike rate and bonus, attack and defense than the other two affinities.

Felkin
I don't have much to say about Felkin because I do not like any of their skills.

The Felkin Faction skills suck in my opinion.  One of my main gripes with them are their cooldowns.  Sure, Ordeal II is 12 seconds and removes the target's movement buffs, but the rest have a minute or more cooldown.  The Fuwa skills are mainly 30 seconds which means as far as single targeting, Fuwa would be more effective in my opinion unless the "bleed" effects from the Faction Felkin skills are really that good.  Once again, it depends on the player.

Fuwa
I like fuwa and actually it was a tough choice when I ascended on choosing between Dagos and Fuwa.  All of Fuwa's faction skills are great!  You should max them all as they are all VERY USEFUL in PvE and PvP.

As far as Fuwa Affinity Skills go, I don't really like most of them besides the "bleed" skills.  Bodhi Works seems pretty nice along with Moshu Disaster.  The Pet skills are always nice.  You would think Fuwa would focus on permanent resistances for your character, but Dagos actually focuses on that.  True Conversion is the only skill that focuses on any type of permanent resistance.

Any Balo who is a Fuwa will have the most HP/SP a Balo can have.  The only other thing is that it will be hard for a Fuwa Balo to come up with a good build compared to the other two.  This is because you NEED Powerful Aid and not Durable Fighter if you plan on having any kind of DPS in general.  The other issue is you have to max out most of your faction affinity skills compared to dagos.

Conclusion
In the end, if you want to be truely effective, you will need to have powerful aid maxed and have the charm to make it a 2 second cooldown.  After that, it is up to you on how you use your affinity skills as all 3 affinities can be effective.

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Balo Other Skills Analysis

 What Expertise Skills should I focus on?

Well personally, I prefer my Balo to be a Critshield ******* so I focus on Noble Spirit.  With all the bonuses you get from your skills, you should have a really high critshield value if you focus on Noble Spirit.

The second skill I focus on is Warrior's Heart for more power.  I believe the evasion one is useless for us as we should be taking low damage regardless.  If you care about resistances and you are PvP heavy, I suggest you do the resistance type skills before Warrior's Heart.  Do Warrior's Heart second if you are mainly PvE.

Why do I not go for the pot skill?  Because I have more than enough from the treasure chests.  Then again, I never needed those things, but if you want them badly, go ahead and make that your first priority.

Other things

I suggest you get Tailor Mastery to 10 for more Critshield.  The point is to make you a unstoppable beast.  Balo are meant to be a great decoy in mass pvp wars.

The order you go in when following one of my builds is up to you.  There is no specific order. You can either save up all your skill points to a certain point and spend them on the ones that are needed the most.  Or you can do the complete opposite and have no skill points.

This will be updated later to have more stuff in it.

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Balo Support Build

 Support Build

If you just want to be useless in battle, use this build. *Sarcasm*   Once again, its the powerful aid route.  You can always do durable fighter or both.

Tier 1

Hard Blow 3

Finese 6

Muscle Repulse 3

Vigor 6

Flanker 3

Ordeal 3

Scoff 7

Potent 8

Furious Roar 9

48

Tier 2

Fiery Flame 3

Nothingness Walk 3

Dragon Speed 3

Dark Injury 3

Tiger Defense 3

Penetrator 4

Blood Drip 9

34

Tier 3

Mountain wind 1

Oubliette Break 3

Vilen 3

Twisting Dragon 9

Shatterer 4

Dragon Light 5

Ambition 5

30

Tier 4

Reinforce 3

Warsong 8

Combat Spirit 5

Sky Rift 9

Iron Guts 5

Blade Breaker 4

34

Tier 5

Blade Swinger 3

Powerful Aid 5

Durable Fighter 0

Ancient Soul 2

10

Tome

Heaven

Savage Beast 2

Dragon Fury 2

Endless Strike 3

Spicy Paw 2

Hellfire 2

Blood Blade 2

Ruthless Kill 3

Slaughter 3

Dragon Soar 2

Heoric Fire 3

Gold Dagger 3

27

Combat

Light Walk 2

2

Blood

Glaring Eye 2

Unbending Soul 3

Frenzied Escape 2

Self Doom 2

Full Protect 3

Iron Bone 2

Mass Evasion 2

Battle Spirit 3

19

48 tome

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Balo Tanking Build

 Tanking Build

I suggest you only use this build for PvE, but can be used in PvP even though I don't recommend it (You'd be a decoy basically).  This build follows the Powerful Aid Route, but you can switch it to where it follows the Durable Fighter route.  I suggest you don't because in order to keep the monster's hate on you, you need to produce adequete DPS and Durable Fighter won't cut it.  Once again, you can add points to durable fighter if you want, but it just won't be as effective.

For people who hate Potent, you can get rid of it and distribute the 8 points elsewhere.  Dark Injury and Ordeal is what I sacrificed due to lack of points.  If you wish to have these maxed, you must sacrifice something else and there is not much leeway in doing so unless you want to get rid of the PvP elements.

Tier 1

Hard Blow 3

Finese 6

Muscle Repulse 3

Vigor 6

Flanker 3

Ordeal 7

Scoff 7

Potent 8

43

Tier 2

Fiery Flame 1

Dragon Speed 2

Dark Injury 5

Tiger Defense 3

Penetrator 4

Blood Bathed 5

20

Tier 3

Mountain wind 1

Oubliette Break 3

Vilen 3

Twisting Dragon 9

Tiger Smash 3

Furious Roar 9

Shatterer 4

Dragon Light 5

Ambition 5

41

Tier 4

Reinforce 3

Warsong 8

Combat Spirit 2

Sky Rift 9

Iron Guts 5

Blade Breaker 4

Spirited 5

36

Tier 5

Blade Swinger 3

Powerful Aid 5

Durable Fighter 0

Ancient Soul 2

10

Tome

Spend the last tome point on whatever you wish, its not going to make much a difference here.

Heaven

Savage Beast 2

Dragon Fury 2

Furious Charge 2

Vital Charge 2

Dragon Shadow 2

Heaven Vault 3

Noble Hunt 3

16

Combat

Beaming Chat 3

Mad Ravage 3

Hot Debate 3

Light Walk 2

11

Blood

Wrath Hand 2

Glaring Eye 2

Unbending Soul 3

Best Power 2

Great Valiancy 3

Frenzied Escape 2

Self Doom 2

Iron Bone 2

Mass Evasion 2

20

47 tome

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Balo AoE Build

AoE Build - Powerful Aid Route

This build can be used in both PvE and PvP settings though I don't recomend this build in general.  You have a choice of making two skills which are Ordeal, Dark Injury, Twisting Dragon, or Sky Rift 3/9.  I chose Ordeal because the target would not be able to move anyways if they are paralyzed or stunned.  I chose Dark Injury since I prefer Paralyze and Stun.

This build also combines both the Offensive and Defensive builds into one, but at a cost of power.  It is a AoE build after all.

You can also switch it with the Durable Fighter skills, but I suggest not to since this build is already at a lost of power.

Tier 1

Hard Blow 3

Finese 6

Muscle Repulse 3

Vigor 6

Flanker 3

Ordeal 3

Scoff 3

Potent 8

35

Tier 2

Fiery Flame 3

Nothingness Walk 3

Dragon Speed 3

Dark Injury 3

Tiger Defense 3

Penetrator 4

Blood Bathed 5

Thunderbolt 9

33

Tier 3

Mountain wind 1

Oubliette Break 3

Vilen 3

Twisting Dragon 9

Shatterer 4

Dragon Light 5

Ambition 5

30

Tier 4

Reinforce 3

Warsong 4

Combat Spirit 5

Sky Rift 9

Iron Guts 5

Blade Breaker 4

Spirited 5

Song of Antipathy 9

44

Tier 5

Blade Swinger 5

Powerful Aid 1

Durable Fighter 0

Ancient Soul 2

8

Tome

The reason why I decided to go with the Heaven Design route is because of the loss of power in this build.  With the shorter cooldown, you should be able to make up for some things.  You can change it if you wish, though you're not going to be effective regardless as after all, it is a AoE build.  Not a DPS or single target damage dealing build.

Heaven

Savage Beast 2

Dragon Fury 2

Spicy Paw 2

Hellfire 2

8

Combat

Light Walk 2

Cloud Climb 2

Thunder Crash 2

Frantic Charge 3

Fury Lord 3

Route Cut 2

Flood Voice 3

Heaven Design 3

20

Blood

Glaring Eye 2

Unbending Soul 3

Best Power 2

Great Valiancy 3

Frenzied Escape 2

Self Doom 2

Iron Bone 2

Mass Evasion 2

Heroic Rotting 2

20

48 tome

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Balo Defensive Build (PvP)

This follows the same route as the offensive route, but there is a minor change in the tome allocation.  I suggest you get Iron Guts on your esper along with The Unbending Soul charm to be truly effective.  You need to max out Noble Spirit and / or Cloud Awareness or Path of Masters (both if you ask me) in your expertise skills to have a high resistance.  Get Tailor  Mastery and Hatcraft Mastery to rank 10 to get additional Critnull and Critshield up too.

Powerful Aid Route

Tier 1

Hard Blow 3

Finese 6

Muscle Repulse 3

Vigor 6

Flanker 3

Ordeal 9

Scoff 3

Potent 8

41

Tier 2

Fiery Flame 3

Nothingness Walk 3

Dragon Speed 3

Dark Injury 9

Tiger Defense 3

Penetrator 4

Blood Bathed 5

30

Tier 3

Mountain wind 1

Oubliette Break 3

Vilen 3

Twisting Dragon 9

Shatterer 4

Dragon Light 5

Ambition 5

30

Tier 4

Reinforce 3

Warsong 8

Combat Spirit 5

Sky Rift 9

Iron Guts 5

Blade Breaker 4

Spirited 5

39

Tier 5

Blade Swinger 3

Powerful Aid 5

Durable Fighter 0

Ancient Soul 2

10

Tome

You can spend the last tome point on whatever you wish.

Heaven

Savage Beast 2

Dragon Fury 2

Furious Charge 2

Vital Charge 2

Dragon Shadow 2

Heaven Vault 3

Noble Hunt 3

Spicy Paw 2

20

Combat

Light Walk 2

Cloud Climb 2

4

Blood

Wrath Hand 2

Glaring Eye 2

Unbending Soul 3

Best Power 2

Great Valiancy 3

Frenzied Escape 2

Self Doom 2

Iron Bone 2

Mass Evasion 2

Heroic Rotting 3

23

47 tome

Durable Fighter Route

Work in progres......just switch what I have for the Powerful Aid route and make it for durable fighter for now.  The Combat tome would remain the same, but the path leading to noble hunt would be switched to Unceasing Hatred in Blood.  I'll update this later.

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Balo Offensive Build (PvP)

 Powerful Aid - PvP Offensive Route

You cannot have both skills for powerful aid and durable fighter route maxed along with the tomes.  Its impossible.  You can allocate points to durable fighter if you want, but I chose not to.

Remember, this is a PvP offensive build.  You prefer power over anything else.  You still have Tiger Defense and Iron Guts so you can level easier in PvE.  If you don't want these 2 skills, you can allocate their points to something like Slaughter if you wish, but you'll pay the price regardless pre ascended and after ascension.

Tier 1

Hard Blow 3

Finese 6

Muscle Repulse 3

Vigor 6

Flanker 3

Ordeal 9

Scoff 3

Potent 8

41

Tier 2

Fiery Flame 3

Nothingness Walk 3

Dragon Speed 3

Dark Injury 9

Tiger Defense 3

Penetrator 4

Blood Bathed 5

30

Tier 3

Mountain wind 1

Oubliette Break 3

Vilen 3

Twisting Dragon 9

Shatterer 4

Dragon Light 5

Ambition 5

30

Tier 4

Reinforce 3

Warsong 8

Combat Spirit 5

Sky Rift 9

Iron Guts 5

Blade Breaker 4

Spirited 5

39

Tier 5

Blade Swinger 3

Powerful Aid 5

Durable Fighter 0

Ancient Soul 2

10

Tomes

You can spend the last 2 tome points on whatever you want.  Current total is 46

Heaven

Savage Beast 2

Dragon Fury 2

Furious Charge 2

Vital Charge 2

Dragon Shadow 2

Heaven Vault 3

Noble Hunt 3

Spicy Paw 2

Hell Fire 2

Heoric Fire 3

23

Combat

Light Walk 2

Cloud Climb 2

Route Cut 2

Flood Voice 3

Heaven Design 3

12

Blood

Wrath Hand 2

Best Power 2

Great Valiancy 3

Frenzied Escape 2

Self Doom 2

11

46 tome

Durable Fighter Route - Offensive PvP Build

Work in progres......just switch what I have for the Powerful Aid route and make it for durable fighter for now.  The Combat tome would remain the same, but the path leading to noble hunt would be switched to Unceasing Hatred in Blood.  I'll update this later.

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Balo Hybrid / DPS Build

 Balo Hybrid/DPS Build (PvE Only)

I recommend all my Balos who follow this route to get the Noble Hunt, Unceasing Hatred, and Heaven's Design charms when the charm lotto is unbugged. I also recommend you try and get Combat Spirit or Iron Guts along with Ancient Soul (Guardian NPC has a scroll for it) on your esper to be effective.  If you are not PvP heavy at all, you should get Warrior's Heart for Expertise first.

For ultimate DPS mode, get rid of Potent and Scoff and add the points to Blood drip and Slaughter. The only problem is that if you pvp, the enemy can outrun you like no other, but once again, you aren't really pvping so I guess its ok lol.

Tier 1

Hard Blow 3

Finese 6

Muscle Repulse 3

Vigor 6

Flanker 3

Ordeal 9

Scoff 3

Potent 8

Tailslip 9

50

Tier 2

Fiery Flame 1

Dragon Speed 3

Dark Injury 9

Tiger Defense 3

Penetrator 9

25

Tier 3

Mountain wind 1

Oubliette Break 3

Vilen 3

Twisting Dragon 9

Shatterer 9

Dragon Light 5

30

Tier 4

Reinforce 1

Combat Spirit 5

Sky Rift 9

Iron Guts 5

Blade Breaker 9

29

Tier 5

Blade Swinger 4

Powerful Aid 5

Durable Fighter 5

Ancient Soul 2

16

Something has to be sacrificed for the tomes since in order to use the tome, you need 49 tome points and you are only allowed 48.  You can sacrifice whatever you want, but in this case, I gave Heaven Design 2/3 instead of 3/3.

Really, you don't have much leaway in this as this build wants both Durable Fighter and Powerful Aid to be powerful and have a lower cooldown.

Tome

Heaven

Savage Beast 2

Dragon Fury 2

Furious Charge 2

Vital Blood 2

Dragon Shadow 2

Heaven Vault 3

Noble Hunt 3

Spicy Paw 2

Hell Fire 2

20

Combat

Light Walk 2

Cloud Climb 2

Route Cut 2

Flood Voice 3

Heaven Design 2

11

Blood

Glaring Eye 2

Unbending Soul 3

Wrath Hand 2

Shattered Gold 2

Cracking Spirit 2

Dead End 3

Unceasing Hatred 3

17

48 tome

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Balo Tome Skills Analysis

Heaven Tome

Spicy Paw

Personally, I don't think the 18 accuracy is going to help you much, but if you are a accuracy nut, go ahead and get it.  Kinda useless for non ascended characters fighting non ascended characters.

Hell Fire

This will increase your critstrike rate.  For non ascended players, I suggest you get this if you care about your critstrike rate.  If you are ascended, you may want to opt out on this because you will be able to obtain a high critstrike rate regardless.  But if you want the maximum critstrike rate period, max this.

Iron Twist

This increases your focus by 1.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what the heck this is talking about.

Furious Charge

If you are planning to get Noble Hunt tome, you have to max this even if you don't like the skill.

Dragon Soar

This is totally up to you.  Since pre ascended players have only 48 tome points at 150, if you went both the powerful aid and durable fighter route and you want both Noble Hunt, Unceasing Hatred, and Heaven Design tomes, you will have to sacrifice something.

I suggest you not to max this unless your plan is to be a pure offensive balo meaning you don't care about Iron Guts at all.  This is for pre ascended players though.  Personally, I don't think the decrease helps out a lot, but it starts to show the higher the level you get.

Heroic Fire

I think they translated this incorrectly or I'm just not understanding it.  Read the above comment for Dragon Soar and decide for yourself.

Gold Dagger

I find this tome skill useless unless you are PvPing a lot and you switch postures a lot.  Do not get this tome if you plan on not switching postures a lot during crucial times.  Otherwise get it.

Vital Blood

If you want Noble Hunt, you will have to max this.

Dragon Shadow

If you want Noble Hunt, you will have to max this.

Heven Vault

If you want Noble Hunt, you will have to max this.

Noble Hunt

If you went the Powerful Aid route, you MUST max this tome skill.  It has a 30% chance to remove one negative effect, increases your base attack, and best of all...it decreases the cooldown timer by 3 seconds!  4 if you have the charm!  This tome is necessary for pre ascend and ascended Balos if they choose to go the Powerful Aid route.

Blood Blade

This increases Blood Drip's bleed effect by 4 seconds.  I don't remember if there is a charm for this but if there is, then its a additional 6 seconds.  This could be useful if you love Blood Drip, but if you don't even have the skill, there is no need to tome it unless you need to get to the other tomes.

Ruthless Kill

This is only useful if you have the skill Slaughter.  It will bump up the health requirement by 6%.  I forget if there is a charm for this, but if so, its 8%.  Not too shabby if you ask me, but still not worth it to me.

Blood River

This tome skill will reduce the cooldown timers for Blood Drip by 3 seconds and Slaughter by 6 seconds.  If you have these skills and use them regularly, then these will be a must have.  Otherwise, its not necessary to get or even go this toome route.

Tiger Maw

If you plan on getting the Dragon Light skill, you must max tiger maw regardless.

Dragon Fury

This will improve the Dragon's Light attack increase by 50%...75% with the charm from elder of arcaness.  I suggest you get this tome if you have dragon light.

Endless Strike

This skill increases the duration of tiger maw and dragon light.  Personally, this is a waste for pre ascended players and even ascended players.  The only reason you would need it is if you are buffing someone who is going to be away from you for a long time.  Even then, I'd tell that person to go get a Vim who has a longer buff time.

Combat Tome

Constant Dance

Useless tome, but you will have to max it if you want to reach the other tomes.

Wary Wind

This tome skill is actually pretty good if you use mountain wind reguarly in afk grinding.  Otherwise, it is useless.

Cloud Peak

This tome is useful if you like to spam reinforce, but I doubt many will be spamming that skill so unless you do, you skip this tome too.

Light Walk

A must have if you have Potent.  It reduces the cooldown by 20 seconds which is a must for PvP or PvE.

Fiery Land

If you use fiery flame in normal afk grinding, this would be useful, but even then, I wouldn't get it.

Sheer Cliff

Once again, if you don't use reinforce, you don't need this tome skill.  You have to think to yourself, will you be using Reinforce in endgame terms?

Double Blade

Raises base attack of Fiery Flame and Reinforce.  Useless once again unless you use those skill 100% of the time.

Cloud Climb

Reduces Nothingness walk by 20 seconds.  If you have this skill, its a must have, but if you are planning to reduce the cooldown for Ancient Soul, you have to max this anyways.

Route Cut

Reduces Tiger Roar's cooldown by 20 seconds.  If you want to reduce Ancient Soul's cooldown, it has to be maxed regardless.

Flood Voice

Increases the range and reduces spirit consumption of War Song.  Useless to me, but if you wish to reduce Ancient Soul's cooldown, you must have it maxed.

Heaven Design

This reduces Ancient Soul's cooldown timer by 1 minute.  1 minute 20 seconds if you get the charm.  Its really up to you if you want this tome as its not really a must have, but if you want to spam Ancient Soul faster, you must have it.

Thunder Crash

Increases the max targets for Thunderbolt by 2.  If you use thunderbolt all the time, then its a must have, otherwise its useless.

Frantic Charge

Same thing as Thunder Crash except its Song of Antipathy skill and its 3 targets when maxed.  If you use that skill all the time, this is a must have.

Fury Lord

Increases the effect duration for thunderbolt and song of antipathy by 3 seconds.  If you get this tome skill to rank 3, Blade Swinger's maximum targets is increased by 1.  If you are a AoE build Balo, then you must have this.

Beaming Chat

Increases the duration of scoff by 2 seconds.  Only useful if you are a tanking build.

Mad Ravage

The duration of Furious Roar is increased by 2 seconds.  Only useful for tanking builds.

Hot Debate

Reduces the cooldown for Scoff by 15 seconds and Furious Roar by 30 seconds.  If you are not a tanking PvE build, this skill is useless.  Otherwise, its a must have.

Blood Tome

Iron Bone

Useless if you ask me as I will be taking -1 damage anyways most of the time and I never thought of Balo as a Evasive group of people.  If you need the tome skills below it, then you have to max it.

Mass Evasion

This skill is actually pretty useful as once Vilen reaches Rank 3, your Critnull is increased by 2%.  This makes such factions like Lupin cry because they probably won't critstrike you.

Heroic Rotting

I have no idea what Resilience is so no comment for now.

Wrath Hand

Only needed if you plan on getting Unceasing Hatred.

Glaring Eye

Only needed if you plan on getting Unbending Soul or you just want the attack decrease.

Unbending Soul

This will increase the amount of damage that Iron Guts will deflect to spirit by 30%.  If you get the charm, its 40%.

Battle Spirit

Its the same comment as what I said about the Gold Dagger in the Heaven Tome.

Shattered Gold

Only needed if you plan on getting unceasing Hatred

Cracking Spirit

Only needed if you plan on getting Unceasing Hatred

Dead End

Only needed if you plan on getting Unceasing Hatred

Unceasing Hatred

My comment for this is the same as what I said for noble hunt.  It will add a bounce damage effect to the skill and the rate is 30% of each level of Durable Fighter and lasts for 4 seconds.  You also get a 34% chance to resist damage and negative effects for 3 seconds.  Best of all, the cooldown is decreased.

Best Power

This skill will raise your resistances for the skill Blood Bathed even more.  A must have if you PvP a lot.

Great Valiancy

This raises your resistances for the skill Spirited even more.  A must have if you PvP a lot.

Unique Aptitude

This reduces your chances of being slowed by 9%.  Kinda useless skill if you ask me, but you can max it if you want.

Frenzied Escape

You must max this if you want Self Doom.  Its the only way unfortunately.

Self Doom

This will raise Ambition's health increase by 50%.  I think there is a charm for this and it would be further raised by 75%.  A must have for PvP players if you ask me, but for PvE players, you can skip this.  For ascended players, this skill may not be as useful and you can skip out on the whole thing.  But if you want the most HP possible even after ascension, you must have this tome skill maxed.

Full Protect

Read my comment about Endless Strike and apply it here.

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Balo Tier Skills Analysis

Tier 1

Hard Blow 

No need to max beyond 3 unless you are a idiot.

Finesse

This skill is great.  Not only will it increase your max hp, it will also speed up the regeneration process.  I usually max this in any of my builds as well, you want to have high HP period!

Muscle Repulse

Raises your attack power.  Needs to be maxed.  Otherwise, you gimp yourself.

Ordeal

This skill is ok, though I never use it in PvP.  Its useful though.  Only max it if you are planning to go the Powerful Aid route.

Tiger Maw

Waste of skill points.  The level 95 one is better and you will end up hitting yourself in the head if you max this.

Scoff

Only good if you are planning on tanking a lot aka a tanking build.  If you're just going for potent, just max it at 3.

Potent

Our movement speed buff.  I suggest if you are going to be PvPing or just running around in general to max it and get the tome to reduce the cooldown.  You move at 3.4 yards and you have a 80% chance to remove weaken so its not bad at all.  With warsong buff, you can move as fast as a Lupin.

Furious Roar

(Think its called something else since something else is called FR also)

Useless skill if you ask me.  You frighten a monster which would probably not work on a boss and on a player, you weaken then.  Not very useful, especially if we're talking ascended here.

Vigor

Just like Finesse, this one deals with your Spirit.  I suggest you max this, but if you like having low SP, go ahead and just do the minimal to get to the other skills.

Flanker

A must have to max.  You're going to need all the defense you can get, especially after you ascend.

Tailslip

Not a bad skill as it interupts their skills and they can't use them.  If you are going the durable fighter route (or both), I suggest you max it.

Calm Wind

Same thing as Tiger Maw.  Waste of points.

Tier 2

Fiery Flame

Leave this skill at either 1 or 3.  This skill is actually really good in PvE due to the low spirit cost.  I suggest you put it in your esper when you grind or afk grind.  If you are really that broke with SP pots (Which I doubt since treasure chest will give you some), then don't put it in your esper slot.

In PvP, its useless and if you max this skill, you will be hitting yourself in the head.

Dragon Speed

This skill will further enhance your attack power while losing defense.  If you are planning to be a offensive Balo to max this.  I suggest you don't use this skill while PvE grinding as unless you have your gear refined to a high +, even with the tome reducing the amount of defense lost, you will still be taking some good hits.

Dark Injury

Once again, only max this if you are going the powerful aid route (or both).  Too bad it only weaken's the target by 20%.

Blood Drip

I know what you are thinking.  When this skill is maxed, it should be awesome.  I decided not to max this skill so I wouldn't know, but I suppose it is somewhat useful in early PvP and in PvE.  If we're talking ascension here, they have more than enough HP that they won't even notice.  If this every second for 6 seconds, then I would say different.  With the tome and the increased duration, this can be useful in PvE if you prefer a DPS build.  Unfortunately, I cannot add any points to this skill until 140+ so the analysis of this skill will not be updated until then.

Nothingness Walk

Only useful if you plan to PvP a lot.  Make sure you get the tome to reduce the cooldown.  If the cooldown was like 20 seconds or 15 seconds, then I would say its good in PvE.  You will need the skill regardless if you plan on not buying a Skyblade or to complete some quests that you don't have a skyblade for.

Thunderbolt

If you're wanting a good AoE as far as damaging monsters, this is not the one.  This skill is kinda useless in non ascension, but ascended, it may be required to max if you went Dagos and you want the Faction Dagos skill that relates to this.

Tiger Defense

This needs to be maxed regardless.  If you want to -1 damage (non ascension), you need to be using this.  If the loss of attack power bothers you, just get the tome to reduce the attack penalty.  You will have to anyways.  This will save you a lot of pots when you are ascended too and only idiots would use Dragon Speed when they are ascended grinding on their exp monsters.

Penetrator

This skill is pretty good in PvE and early PvP.  You will do more damage with your skills.  Late PvP and esepcially after ascension, it loses its flavor if you ask me.  If its a DPS race, I suggest you just spam Powerful Aid and Durable FIghter though instead of this skill.

Blood Bathed

This skill needs to be maxed if you plan on PvPing.  No ifs ands or buts.

Tier 3

Mountain Wind

Leave it at 1 or 3.  Its actually good when grinding or afk grinding, but some people may not like the SP usage on this one to use for afk grinding.  You can hit up to 2 targets so you can kill a bit faster in general.

Oubliette Break

Unless you want to be a weak Balo, this needs to be maxed.

Twisting Dragon

Once again, this skill needs to be maxed if you are going the powerful aid route (Or both).  If you are going the felkin route for ascension, it needs to be maxed regardless.  Like all the other skills, it is a useful skill.  What can I say?

Dragon's Light

Our real attack buff.  Max this regardless unless for some reason, you don't care about the additional attack power.  With the tomes, it is further increased by 50% and if you get the charm, it is 75%.

Tiger Smash

Useful skill I suppose if you have someone running around a lot in PvP.  I think of this skill as useless in non ascension, but ascended, you may have to max this skill if you want the dagos skill.  Besides, its only 3 ranks.

Furious Roar

This is your Taunt AoE.  If you are planning to go a tank build, you will want this maxed.

Vilen

Another must have skill that needs to be maxed.

Shatter

Lowers the target's resistances.  Really useful in non ascension though ascended it may differ.  If you are going the Durable fighter route, you obviously need this maxed.

Ambition

Your real Health buff.  Max this along with the tome if you want more HP, but if you don't PvP much at all, you don't even need this skill.

Tier 4

Reinforce

Leave at 1 or 3.  Its actually a pretty good skill, but if you plan on using it in afk grinding, you will need to have a good amount of SP pots.  This skill and mountain wind work well together in that case.  I wouldn't max it if I were you, but you can.

Combat Spirit

This is for offensive Balos.  You will lose health by using this posture.  As far as I know, it only happens when you use skills.  I suggest you get this on your esper if you plan on being offensive.

Sky Rift

If you are going the powerful aid route, you need this maxed.  Its our stun skill and its damn good.

Slaughter

I choose not to ever get this skill, but I suppose it would be useful against snowman or corrupted if they don't have any immunity when they are back in the game.  This would fail on bosses as they would be immune to it and in PvP, it could have a use, especially if you get the tome for it.

War Song

This skill when maxed will give you a 0.8 movement speed increase.  Its up to you if you want to max it, but if you are ascended and dagos and want the War Song 2 skill, this needs to be maxed.  Ardens would love to have this skill as it further increases their movement and with the Potent skill, you would move as fast as a Lupin.

Song of Antipathy

Another AoE skill.  Once again, if you are planning to be a Aoe build Balo, this skill is pretty useful.  The problem with Balo AoEs in general are their cooldowns and this one has a long one of 30 seconds.  I am assuming it doesn't have a huge range and it just involves targets close to you.

Iron Guts

This skill is what makes us tanks.  You will want this skill maxed along with the tome no matter who you are.  This will also further reduce the damage in PvE thus making you a happier person.  This will also make non ascended factions such as Lupins cry because it also reduces critstrike rate and damage.  You'd have to have a very good reason to not max this skill.  Make sure you get the tome that goes along with it or else you won't unlock its true potential.  Get the charm too.

Blade Breaker

If you are going the Durable Fighter route, get this maxed.

Spirited

A must have if you plan on PvPing.

Tier 5

Blade Swinger

Another AoE.  This time around, it hits the targets two times and has the lowest cooldown of all our AoE skills which is 10 seconds.  The only downfall is that it hits only 4 targets and has no range whatsoever.  I suggest you not to max this skill, but you can if you have no other things to waste your skill points on.

Powerful Aid

The so called "Crybaby" skill.  It combines all the effects and power of Twisting Dragon, Sky rift, Dark Injury, and Ordeal.  It also hits 4 times.  If you get the tome, have the old skills maxed, and have the charm, you can reduce the cooldown to 3 seconds (it may be two, I forget) making this a spammable skill.  Its the crybaby skill because you can land those 4 effects all at once on a player making them your playtoy.  I suggest you max this by any means necessary if you went the powerful aid route.

Ancient Soul

This further enhances our HP, attack, and gives us immunity for a little while.  Its not a particulary bad skill and I suggest you max it.  If you hate the cooldown time, I suggest you get the tome and the charm.  You can further enhance the skill by putting the skill on your esper.

Durable fighter

This skill has the power and effects of tailslip, Penetrator, Shatter, and Blade Breaker.  The only difference is that this skill will hit 2 times vs powerful aid's 4 times and the first attack and effect is determined at random (tailslip or penetrator) and the second attack the other two skills.  This is also a "Cry-more" skill since you can spam this and Powerful aid.  With all the reductions, the tome skill, and the charm, you can get it down to a cooldown time of 3 seconds.  Personally from a DPS standpoint, Powerful Aid is better than Durable Fighter since it hits 4 times and its cooldown is less.

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Yuri's Guides

Balo Faction
Overview of Balo
--Skill Analysis
Tier Skills Analysis
Tome Skills Analysis
Other Skills Analysis
--Affinity Related
Choosing Your Affinity
--Pre Ascend Builds
Hybrid Build (PvE Pre Ascend)
Offensive Build (PvP Pre Ascend)
Defensive Build (PvP Pre Ascend)
AoE Build (Pre Ascend)
Tanking Build (Pre Ascend)
--Ascended Builds
Dagos All Around Build (PvE / PvP) 
Offensive Dagos Build (PvE / PvP)
--Other
Balo Charm Overview (For general knowledge or which ones to make to sell) 

Lupin Faction
--Felkin
----General Overivew

----Felkin PvE Skill Build

----Felkin PvP Skill Build
----Felkin PvP - Final Skill Build

----Felkin Hybrid Build

----Felkin Mystery Build
----Felkin Faction Affinity Skill Analysis
----Felkin Affinity Skill Analysis
--General
----Tier Skills Analysis
----Tome Skills Analysis
----Charm Overview

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Yawn

JD Source is now a blog.  My boyfriend really doesn't want to work on the site no more and I just don't feel like it either.  Therefore, we changed it to a blog.  It makes life easier for the both of us.

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Balo Overview

Overview of Balo

Balo is your status effect, tanking, and damage dealing faction.  I say status effect because they have a wide variety of skills that inflict silence, stun, weaken, defense lowering, resistance, and other effects.  I say tanking because they have both a single and AoE provoke skill along with defensive type buffs.  I say damage dealing because of their attack buffs and other support related buffs.  Don't get the wrong idea though, they cannot output the same damage as a Lupin.  A non buffed lupin though?  Probably lol.

The Balo have a great amount of defense on their armor and defense in general.  Think of them as a Vim and a Skysong put into one.  I can't say much for their Health yet until I see what it looks like at 150, but its pretty good speaking from a lvl 124 perspective.

Tanking?!?!

I still believe PWE (Chinese) didn't do a good job in regards to a tanking class if they intended to make balo the one and only tank class.  I say this because even with the tomes, their 2 provoke skills still have a long cooldown.  I think Scoff was like 45 seconds with the tome and furious roar 1 minute 30 second.  I don't know about you, but if you played FFXI, you would know that Warriors and Paladins (with warrior subjob) had a short delay of provoke.  A Lupin will end up tanking regardless unless you somehow outdamage that Lupin while provoking a lot when you can.

The other reason why they are a great tanking class is because of Iron Guts and Tiger Defense Posture.  A Balo is a Lupin's (and other factions) worse nightmare because of these 2 skills.  If a Balo has somehow got Iron Guts on their Esper and the charm to improve the tome skill, most factions, especially non ascended will have trouble taking them down.

I am not going to go in specifics on the skills themselves as you can look them up on my site (Not up yet) or in game.  Ancient Soul, their tier 5 skill, gives immunity to critstrikes and other negative statuses.  Once again, a Lupin's worse nightmare.  Imagine Ancient Soul +1 and Iron Guts +1 on the esper.

Now look at the tomes Unceasing Hatred (Blood), Heaven Design (Combat), and Noble Hunt (Heaven) and you can pretty much say that most people will have a hard time taking down a Balo.  Get the charms for these tomes and most unascended people will complain about the Balo and ask for a nerf.

AoEing

Balo suck at this unfortunately, but they do have some AoE skills.  These are mainly status effect aoe type skills and they normally hit from 4-6 targets depending on the skill.  Even though at endgame, they can actually produce decent damage, their long cooldowns makes them not so good when it comes to AoE leveling.  So even a Lupin with Shadow of Hope is better than them due to the amount of targets.

Ascended Balo has a good variety of AoE skills if they choose dagos, but the only problem is that you don't have a Jadeon's range so you can't really AoE powerlevel.  It may be useful in mass PvP depending on the situation at hand.

Offensive?

They can be offensive, you just have to build your character to be that.  The highest Critstrike Rate a non ascended balo (With tomes too) can obtain is 11% with a 2% necklace.  13% with a 4% necklace.  Thats not too bad, but nothing like a Lupin.  We'll go into details about this later.

You need to focus on Dragon Speed and Combat Spirit along with having all the skills associated with Powerful Aid (T5 skill) maxed.  You also need to have the 136 tome skill that enhances powerful aid even more.  This is the most "overpowered" skill for balo in general along with durable fighter.  The reason being is because you will have a short cooldown timer of 3 seconds for powerful aid (I thought it used to be 12 seconds for this, but I look and normal cooldown is 10 seconds) so you can spam this skill.

PvE Grinding

If you have tiger defense and Iron Guts posture on and you have pretty decent armor, you will take 1 damage (with crystals ofcourse).  The reason why I say Balo is a Vim and a Skysong combined into one is because Skysong has a Defense buff while Vim has good defense on their armor and a attack buff.  Since the Balo's armor is the same as Vim (I think....I can't really confirm that, but my level 90 celestial +6 equaled the same as a Vim normal +8) and Tiger Defense gives 6% defense when maxed, you are basically a Vim and Skysong combined into one.  The attack loss from tiger defense can be made up by simply adding dragon light buff.

Early PvP

If you have all your status effect single target attack skills maxed, most of your opponents should cry if you know what you're doing.  The only sucky thing is that you don't get your stun skill until 115 (Sky Rift).  The other issue is that the Balo's skills are kinda slow moving...atleast thats what I noticed and think.

Late PvP - Unascended

No comment, I cannot talk about this yet.

Affinities

Dagos

I personally like Dagos for my Balo mainly due to one of their faction skills.  You may feel different about it.  War Song II adds Critstrike rate and skill accuracy.  That is a godsend for any faction.  Their Dagos skills mainly focus on their AoE status inflicting skills and 2 single target ones.  If you wish to create a defensive / support ascended Balo, you should choose Dagos mainly due to the special Dagos skills and faction dagos skills.

Felkin

This is for the offensive Balo mainly due to attack increase the initial special felkin skill offers.  Most of the faction felkin skills are single target and status inflicting skills.  You will have to focus on the left side of your faction skills for these (i.e dark injury, twisting dragon, etc).  They aren't bad skills, but I rather have the critstrike rate array (war song II) or the skills from Fuwa.

Fuwa

This is the resistance, attacking, and defensive type of balo.  None of the special Fuwa skills adds attack or defense, but resistances, healing, and other support skills.  You will notice that fuwa faction skills focuses on the right side of your single target status effect attacking faction skills along with one passive skill.  If you wish to have a high resistance and have a wide variety of support skills that aren't that bad, then go fuwa.  Personally, this would be my second choice.

I cannot choose the path that is best for you, only you can decide that for yourself.  The only thing I can give you is my opinion and to sum it up, Dagos = Defensive/Support AoE, Felkin = Offensive / Single Target Attacks, Fuwa = Support / Single target attacks.

Pets

Not much comment here, but since you aren't really taking a ton of damage, you should get a DPS pet.  Otherwise, get a Flowen with Sincere Prayer.

Questions and Answers

Are balo's fast at killing things?

A. Depends.  You may want to read the skill analysis part or go straight to the pve build and read that.  In the end, it depends on your gear and if you use any skills while grinding.

Is balo just a support faction?

A. People who think like that makes me feel good that I can show people that Balo can be more than just a support faction.  Actions speak louder than words so you will just have to wait until I hit 150 until I can truly evaluate how Balo are in PvP.  Do not believe anyone who says balo is just a support faction unless they actually played Balo from 150 and beyond along with actually having a brain when it comes to PvP and their build.

Which Build is for me?

A. I can't decide that for you.  The only thing I can say is if you are un-ascended and you are planning to do very little pvp, then you should just follow the PvE grind build.  I mean after all, what are you going to do at 150?  PvP all the time and not ascend?  Then don't follow the PvE build.

Infact, the point of those builds is to make you think about making your own build!

Have you tested these builds?

A. After evaluating all the skills and testing a large amount of skills in my initial build, I can safely make assumptions about "x build."  Unlike what I did for my Lupin, I am not going to waste 30 usd x 6 to test a build for you unless you give me the $.  Remember, it is all about how that person utilizes that build and not how that build looks.  This is why most people fail at PvP and PvE with those so called "perfect builds" on the internet because they just can't use their brain.  You have to be one step ahead of your enemy......always....be it a duel, open pvp, or wars.

Can I look at your build in game?

A. Don't care, it is different than the builds I put on the site slightly due to last minute changes or mistakes.  I usually do PvE DPS builds since there is almost never any real PvP on my server.

I used "x build" and it failed

Not my fault.  I have fought against PvP players with PvE builds and owned them.  I have fought PvP players with a crappy build and still owned them.  This is why I don't like posting builds in general because majority don't really know how to utilize them in the first place.  They want something that is the best and since its the best, they think it will work for them also.  Yet they go and PvP and lose badly and call that build crap.  Oh well, not my fault you are lousy at PvP.  Go cry to someone else about it.

Can I ask additional questions?

A. Yeah, but do it in game if you want a good/fast response. If I'm not on, I'm not on and there is nothing you can do about it.  Just message Hazuki.  The second fastest would be via the forums, but I am absolutely notorious at not responding to topics so you should send me a PM.

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