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.
