Blue Protocol: Star ResonanceMarksman Falconry Spec GuideBest build and how to play the class.

Basic ATK

Bullseye

Skill

Double Arrow

Ultimate

Luminary Bolt

Slot 1 - Mandatory

Arrow Rain

Slot 2 - Mandatory

Focus

Slot 3 - Mandatory

Radiance Barrage

Slot 4 - Flex

Powerdraw

/

Deter Shot

Photon Energy - Our main resource, which regenerates at a rate of 3 per second naturally, but can also be gained via many of our different attacks. Unlike the base Marksman, when Photon Energy reaches its maximum, our Special attack, Double Arrow, temporarily evolves into Quadraflare, and using it consumes all Photon Energy. Because of this, the lower our Photon Energy cap is, the better. Our goal is to use as many Quadraflares as possible.

Note

Some abilities also gain bonuses when at maximum Photon Energy, such as Powerdraw. If using them, cast before consuming energy with Quadraflare.

Fixed Skills

• 

  Bullseye
  - Our basic attack and filler ability we’ll use while waiting for cooldowns. Recovers 2 Photon energy per hit, is fast to use, and has a solid hit count, making it reasonable for triggering Falcon attacks through frequent Crits. Spamming basics gets us to our next Quadraflare faster.
• Double Arrow - Double Arrow replaces
  

  Storm Arrow
  as our Special Attack and fires a 2-hit shot on use, dealing strong damage which has a boosted Crit Rate thanks to talents. Has three charges baseline and a cooldown of 7s, which is reduced by 1% for every 1% haste we have. Becomes Quadraflare when Photon Energy is at max.
• Holding down in a direction when using this ability will cause you to dash while firing.
• Quadraflare: Upgraded version of Double Arrow, which causes us to leap into the sky and fire 6 exploding arrows with double Crit Rate at the cost of consuming all Photon energy. One of our strongest abilities and the focus of our rotation.
• 

  Luminary Bolt
  - Shoots a massive arrow that gathers enemies toward your target while deploying a gravity zone that continually deals damage and applies a 10% increased damage taken to enemies you and your party can benefit from.
• The gravity zone damage cannot Lucky Strike.

Mandatory Skills

• 

  Arrow Rain
  - Our best Photon Energy generator, which hits targets 10 times each, making it a key ability for triggering our falcon and accessing Quadraflare faster.
• This ability cannot Lucky Strike.
• 

  Focus
  - Grants us a large %Haste buff alongside a Flat amount, providing us with increased ability frequency, which in turn means more Falcon Strikes. It can later be improved with talent tree nodes for even more buffing power. Also provides a 50% Special Attack cooldown rate.
• 

  Radiance Barrage
  - Locks us in place with a long cast time in order to fire a barrage of arrows, which hit each target 10 times baseline, making it another strong choice for triggering Falcon attacks. When used while Photon Energy is maxed, it gains 50% increased hit count, resulting in 50% more damage. Save this ability until you have max photon energy.
• This ability cannot Lucky Strike.

Flex Skills

• 

  Powerdraw
  - A slow-to-charge high damaging piercing shot that gains 100% Crit Dmg for free, has 2 charges, and a 30-second cooldown. It is significantly faster to use while Photon Energy is maxed. And with the help of a specific talent, the faster charging time only requires having more than half of your Photon Energy to be effective.
• 

  Deter Shot
  - Our defensive cooldown deals a small amount of damage but grants us and up to 10 nearby allies full immunity to all attack damage for the next 5s. This ability is an incredibly powerful teamwide utility option that, if you’re ok giving up some damage, can be a useful tool for your group. Holds two charges and has a 25s cooldown.
• While a damage loss to use, not a major one, as talent points dedicated to enhancing
  

  Powerdraw
  can be re-allocated to passive damage instead.

Skill Priority

Bullseye

> Double Arrow >

Focus

>

Powerdraw

(If Used) >=

Radiance Barrage

>

Arrow Rain

=

Luminary Bolt

>

Deter Shot

(If Used)

Ensure all abilities you’re using are levelled to 30 - only advancement requires consideration.

Advance

Bullseye

Focus

Powerdraw

Radiance Barrage

• Overclock Wave: Releases an energy wave, interrupting all targets within 5m.
• Provides us with an interrupt to stop elites from casting annoying skills and interrupt some raid and dungeon boss mechanics.
• Unyielding Spirit: Grants 35% additional Resistance for 5s. This skill can store 2 charges.
• A great defensive option to use when we know we will take a big hit.
• Master of Stealth: Conceals the caster's presence to prevent Aggro generation and cleanses all debuffs from the caster for 10s.
• A good tool to use when the tank is pulling enemies in a dungeon to avoid drawing aggro to yourself.
• Energy Reflux: Instantly recovers 50% Stamina and increases Movement Speed by 15% for 5s.
• A good tool for situations when you need to dodge often or chase after high movement enemies.

Important!

Embedded are two separate trees for Falconry, one for the Powerdraw playstyle and one for the Deter Shot playstyle. Choose the one you prefer.

Gameplay Altering Talents

Most of our talents just help us do what we’re already planning on doing better, but some have a drastic impact on our itemization and rotation. Below is an outline of all the gameplay-altering effects you need to be aware of in the Falconry spec and Base Marksman talents.

Base Marksman Tree

• Photon Limit and Meditation - These talents improve our base Photon Energy generation from 2 to 3 and also reduce the Photon Energy cap from 100 to 80, making Quadraflare far more accessible.

Falconry Tree

• Falconry Spec - Our first talent node grants us access to Double Arrow, Quadraflare, and our Falcon Pet while also granting us 1% cooldown reduction for Double Arrow per 1% haste we have. The Photon Reforge state will be replaced for an enhanced Special Attack ( Quadraflare) when reaching full Photon Energy.
• Falcon: The Falcon deals a large amount of our damage, it has a 23% chance to strike upon the hit of our Class Skills, but the Falcon Strike is guaranteed if the hit dealt is critical. The Falcon cannot Lucky Strike.
• Rule: If the Falcon’s registered strikes exceed 5, it will use all of the excess strikes to deal a singular high damaging hit, combining the damage of all the strikes used for it.
• Note: This is especially useful in AoE situations, all our hits against all the mobs will be noticed by our Falcon, greatly increasing its strike damage.
• Piercing Shot - Increases Crit Rate of Quadraflare and Double Arrow by +7%. This is especially potent on Quadraflare, which gains double Crit Rate, making this an effective +14%.
• Focused Concentration - Gives a gradually increasing boost of Crit and Crit DMG every 0.5 seconds for a maximum of 15 stacks throughout Focus duration. With its other talent Radiant Spirit, it further increases the duration, making Focus overall damage-boosting effect even more significant.
• Falcon Raid - Causes the Falcon to launch a hard-hitting Lightning Strike every 3 Crit Hits we deliver with Specials. The lightning Strike scales with other talents, making building Crit Rate even more important.
• Steel Beak - Causes us and our Falcon to apply Steel Beak to targets whenever we Crit. Steel beak is a stackable debuff on enemies that, when applied and has more than five stacks, has a 30% chance to cause an AoE implosion to trigger. It also makes it possible to trigger Lightning Strike, for every 10 stacks of Steel Beak applied on targets, at most once every 3s.
• Meteor - Every Falcon attack now has a 30% chance to add a stack of Weak Point Aim, with a max cap of 5. When using Quadraflare, the stacks will be used to launch Photon Arrows, one for each stack consumed. A visual indicator indicates the current number of Weak Point Aim stacks. This talent doesn’t perform as good as it could be, and is only taken for some additional passive damage in the Deter Shot tree.

• Eagle Eye - A quality of life talent, which makes Radiance Barrage needing us to have only half of our Photon Energy to trigger the Photon Reforge effect, contrary to previously needing our Photon Energy full.
• Swift - When Lightning Strike triggers, we gain 10% attack speed for 8s, which may stack up to 3 times for a total of 30%. Hard to maintain early, but maintains high uptime with endgame gear, marking an absurd stat increase.
• Falcon Break - Let our Falcon ignore a part of the target’s armor, 20% on a normal hit, and 40% on a critical hit. It goes well with the Falcon’s Heart Talent which simply a flat 30% ignore. With both talents, our Falcon will then ignore 50%, or up to 70% on a critical hit, of the target’s armor.
• Radiant Sharpshooter - Decrease Photon Energy limit from 80 to 60, making Quadraflare even more accessible.
• Lightfall - One of our strongest talents, which makes Crit stacking even stronger. Grants 0.3% Crit Dmg per 1% Crit Rate and also causes Double Arrow and Quadraflare to now generate 2 Photon Energy per Crit Hit they deal further boosting Quadraflare access.

Powerdraw Talents

When playing with the

Powerdraw

tree, some passive damage is exchanged for

Powerdraw

specific talents:

• Energy Gathering Power - Halved
  

  Powerdraw
  cooldown. Also makes the faster charging time only requiring us to have half of our Photon Energy, previously needing our energy to be full.
• Steel Beak Strike - On
  

  Powerdraw
  hit, apply 2 stacks of Steel Beak. If it was a critical hit, apply 5 stacks instead.
• Dual Arrow Mastery - Reduces the cooldown of
  

  Powerdraw
  by 1s when our Special attacks land any Crit Hits

• Powerdraw Tree
• Deter Shot Tree

Recommended Blast Shot Build

Alternate Deter Shot Build

If you want to create your own Talent tree, check our tool:

Talent Planner

Important!

All gear & talent related info is based on extensive in-game testing, parsing, theory crafting and simulations. If you want to learn more about how damage works to understand our decisions, check out our Damage Formula Guide.

Note!

The percentage value shows the impact of the module compared to not having any module equipped (each module is calculated based on it being +6).

Here are the best modules for Marksman - Falconry - listed in priority order:

Lvl 3: +1.03%

Lvl 6: +7.13%

Elite Strike

A great module for damage, since we are often fighting at least one Elite or higher-level enemy. Not active outside of Elites/Bosses.

Lvl 3: +1.03%

Lvl 6: +6.67%

Agility Boost

Providing both Agility and General Physical Damage, making it one of the strongest buffs.

Lvl 3: +0.72%

Lvl 6: +5.95%

Strength Boost

Despite not needing Strength, the Def Ignore makes this a competitive choice.

Lvl 3: +0.96%

Lvl 6: +5.67%

Attack SPD

ATK SPD% is a very important stat and pulls ahead with the help of our Falcon attacking more.

Lvl 3: +0.37%

Lvl 6: +5.42%

Crit Focus

The extra Crit DMG is a solid bonus, but we're already highly saturated in that stat from our talents. This is usable but falls short of other options due to the absence of a second offensive stat.

Lvl 3: +1.03%

Lvl 6: +3.83%

Special Attack

It provides Adaptive attack and main stats while also providing Elemental Damage for our Special attacks, making it a fine choice.

Lvl 3: +0.37%

Lvl 6: +1.51%

Luck Focus

It provides Luck DMG Multiplier, but since the majority of our abilities can’t Lucky Hit, it's not a good option.

Premium/F2P

Rorola

/

Muku Chief

+

Crimson Foxen

F2P

Muku Scout [A5]

+

Muku Chief [A0]

Universal

• 

  Rorola
  - This Imagine is overall the best DPS Imagine that we can ask for, providing a 10% unique multiplayer during his active and a stacking 1.2% bonus added to that multiplayer based on hits done up to 5 times. Those buffs last essentially for 35s due to the extension properties this Imagine has, providing essentially a 16% final multiplayer that is very strong and makes this Imagine the best overall on every DPS. Additionally this Imagine provides 1% lifesteal and has 2 Charge making it able to be used roughly every 60s instead of 120s as others, Making it having an almost perfect uptime on burst windows.

Top Gold Imagines

1. 

   Crimson Foxen
   - Providing ATK% on the Pets practically permanently up, that is our highest damage portion. With the active it provides even more of this ATK% to companions, also enhancing our burst window. Making this overall the Best Imagine in relation to Ascensions.
2. 

   Muku Chief
   - Muku Chief provides passive +%CRIT DMG alongside a powerful active ability that grants even more +%CRIT DMG as well as +Flat Crit Rate. Furthermore, it has two charges, allowing superior uptime compared to other Imagines. Muku Chief is the best and only Gold Imagine worth using over Advancement 5 Purple Imagines before high-level Gold Advancements.
3. 

   Phantom Arachnocrab
   - Phantom Arachnocrab grants passive +Flat Mastery and additional +%Mastery on use. Mastery is one of our best stats but as we already have a lot of Generic DMG% and are likely to have a lot of mastery, oversaturation can become an issue. This all means that Arachnocrab at lower Advancements loses out to our top purple imagines at Advancement 5 in most cases.

Top Purple Imagines

1. 

   Muku Scout [A5]
   - Muku Scout gives us a passive 15% ATK, provided we are consistently hitting attacks. Upon activation, it doubles the stacks, giving a very potent and uncommon 30% ATK buff. This is easy to maintain with Falconry Marksman.
2. 

   Blackfire Foxen [A5]
   - Providing a large amount of Mastery flat with his passive and Mastery% when active, enchanting our mastery scaling making this Imagine stronger than the Arachnocrab till the second Advancement.
3. 

   Great Warhog [A5]
   - Generic Light DMG% Imagine, granting 7.5% passive Light DMG% and a further 16% on use. We gain more Light DMG% than Agility or ATK% in our kit, putting the hog behind our other 2 options.
4. 

   Gloomy Cabbage [A5]
   - Providing Crit damage that fluctuates, averaging it out at 15% CRIT DMG. With this active it provides additional CRIT DMG and Crit points based on the “Cabbage series” emblem embed we are using. Making this one of the best alternative due to the large uptime and strength

Class

General Offensive

Stasis (Defensive)

Note

The numbers shown reflect the respective Factors at level 10. This is something to work towards as they unlock over time.

Mirage Dream: When Basic Attack or Special Attack deals 12 hits to the main target (melee skills count +1), triggers Mirage Dream for 8s, stacking up to 10 times.

• Mirage Dream: ATK +18 per stack (up to +50, scaling with season level).
• Split Nodes: Battlestart - Rare -> Cross the Mirage -> Class DEF -> Decimate -> Immortal Stance

This Psychoscope is one of our best options for Marksman, it is a little hard for us to gain stacks quickly, compared to our counterpart spec Wildpack. As such we opt for the node that lets us gain the max stacks instantly at the beginning of a fight. The best thing we are looking for, is when reaching the max stacks, our highest stat being Crit in our case gets a whole 5% flat increase.

1. Crit - Provides us with Crit Rate %, allowing us to gain more procs and Falcon attacks.

Falconry doesn’t have a traditional burst rotation outside of aligning Imagines and the bonus Haste it gains from

Focus

• 

  Luminary Bolt
  if Available
• Imagines if Available
• 

  Focus
  if Available
• 

  Radiance Barrage
  if available and at or above 30 Energy
• 

  Powerdraw
  if available and at or above 30 Energy
• Quadraflare at 60 Energy
• Use Double Arrow if it is currently at max charges
• 

  Arrow Rain
  if available, preferably used when having low Photon Energy, following by Quadraflare if the energy restored allow for it to be casted
• Use remaining Double Arrow charges
• Basic Attack while waiting for cooldowns

Note

With the massive Crit DMG increase effect that our 4P set bonus provides, it is really recommended to align the use of your Imagines with

Focus

, to maximize the damage boosting potential.

Can Falconry be played on auto?

As a ranged class with most abilities wanting to be used on cooldown, Falconry is one of the most auto-friendly specs in the game. The most optimal semi-auto way is to put your Basic Attack, Double Arrow and

Focus

on auto, where you’ll only need to manually use

Arrow Rain

,

Radiance Barrage

and

Powerdraw

whenever your Photon Energy makes it more favorable to.