Fear Amplification

This resource is outdated and should not be followed.

* Stat Progression
* Inventory
* Strategies

Fear Amplification revolves around the use of the Fear status to deal damage or buff the player. In general, this is a very P2W reliant build, as it makes heavy use of imbues and niche armor skills, almost requires a certain set of core gear to function.

As the build is centered around Fear, the main goal of the build is to have multiple ways of applying and using fear, while maintaining contingencies in the event of failed applications. Due to the use of Terror Raiment's Fear Aura as a major mechanic, LUK (and therefore initiative) must be raised earlier than usual.

* Core
* Inventory(F2P)
* Inventory (P2W + Rares)

The core of the fear amplification build gives you several ways to apply and use fear, and make up your main efficiency income. Since they're relatively modular, you can fit pieces into other builds, or vice versa.

As I mentioned before, due to the relatively modular nature of this comp, you can take out pieces and still have access to general fear manipulation.

This set aims to make use of the core mechanic in a meaningful way without breaking the bank. Additionally, if you wish to go even more minimalistic, you can simply focus on Werewolf snarls and Jalek's Panic reaver to boost per-turn damage by a lot. Most of the slots on this comp are free slots, and can be traded for functional equivalents.

This section assumes you're a Guardian.

This must be one of the most monetarily demanding builds in the game (barring builds made exclusively from token package options), but it gives you options to deal with just about anything the game can throw at you.

This inventory composition aims to cover all the core elements of the Fear Amping build, while still carrying full coverage for every element, and contingencies in case of emergencies. As the core of this build is very modular, and due to the heavy use of redundancies, there are many swappable options in this comp, including 7 free pet slots.

* General Strategy
* F2P Inventory
* P2W+Rare Inventory

**General Use TL;DR**

As the core of this playstyle revolves around the use of Fear, you want to apply it as early as possible, and maintain decent fear income throughout the fight. Options are always carried in the case that you cannot properly apply fear (such as vs Boss Boost or high stat monsters, or low SP situations).

In most fodder fights, the presence of high initiative and LUK allow you to start battles using Fear Raiment, having an immediate attempt at fear as soon as the battle begins. Should this fail, use Werewolf to Snarl to apply fear instead. Then, switch to an armor that boosts normal attacks, immediately Eat Fear using Terror Eater, or imbue it to a better element and eat fear. This is a very quick and cheap way to dispatch foes, requiring minimal clicks, animations, and SP cost. Example

In longer or boss fights, the fight will begin the same, with a (hopeful) instant fear application. But instead of immediately Eating Fear, consume the fear with Jalek's Panic Reaver to get a Hypercritical boost, and then use Terror Fist + Terror Visage + armor skill or eat snarl fear to apply an even larger fear application. Since Terror Fist likes to apply high % stun Fear, this also acts as an effective stunlock. Example
From that point, you can choose to continue boosting your BtH and hypercritical with Jalek's (as it only costs one turn of fear) and continue to apply fear infinitely, or you can Eat Fear with Terror Eater and end the fight at any point. If the monster can survive it, you can also apply fear using THAT Eat Fear and hypercritical, resulting in extreme growth of Fear applications.

In situations where fear application is expected to fail or does fail, simply fall back to normal Warrior play until fear succeeds or the monster dies. Since there's a large number of imbues recommended, and a large number of offensive armor abilities carried, as well as action-generating items, you can often simply nuke the monster as if it was a non-fear comp. Example

**What Element?**

Due to the high number of imbues carried by this build, you have many options to elements. However, Eat Fear's intrinsic element neutrality mechanic determines what element you should be eating fear with at any time, and is also the heart of damage multiplication with this build.

Damage dealt using Eat Fear is Darkness element, then divided by the darkness resist of the foe during damage calculation (full formulae can be found here), as a way to always inflict neutral damage, regardless of the monster's darkness resists. For example, if the monster has 150% darkness resist, your damage is then divided by 150%, effectively cancelling out the benefits of increased modifier. Conversely, should a monster have a 30% darkness resist, it will divide it by 30%, yet again acting as if the monster had 100% darkness, negating their resistance. This means that you should NOT eat fear versus a 0% darkness resist, and if facing a negative darkness resist, caution must be taken with imbues.

So what does this mean for imbues? You can effectively abuse this calculation to generate some unfathomably strong Eat Fear uses, as you can change the original element resist that Eat Fear uses, while retaining the /darknessres%. Using Quicc Maffs©, you should always aim for the highest imbueres%/darknessres% you can. For example, in a situation like this, you can imbue to Water for a 1/.5 = 2.0x damage multiplier. As you can see, with a 1 turn 100% fear, you can do this. Conversely, though, don't be deceived by high numbers. In a situation like this, using any imbue would lead to a 2/2 or 1x damage multiplier, potentially being weaker than if you simply used a skill. In a situation where a monster has negative resist, be aware that you can use darkness or another negative resist to cancel it out, doing positive damage still. HOWEVER, if you use a positive resist over a negative resist, you WILL do negative damage.

Based on this, what you should imbue element will depend on a simple set of rules:

If darkres% =/= 0, you can consider eat fear.

If darkres% < 0%, you can still use darkness

If darkres% < 0% AND there is a res% < darkres%, use that imbue

If bestres%/darkres% > 1, use that imbue

If darkres% > 100%, and that is the highest resistance, use darkness

**Fear Amplification**

Last but not least, the most powerful option this build has access to, and its namesake: Fear Amping. Due to the fact that you can Eat Fear for disproportionately large amount of damage, null darkness resists, and apply fear BASED on damage dealt, you can effectively build incredible amounts of fear very quickly. For this strategy, you can approach it a number of ways.

The basic method of Fear Amplification is simply to apply fear, Terror Fist, Eat Fear, and repeat. Example. As shown, even with NO damage boosting, you can effectively run a nuking stunlock on a target, regardless of their darkness resistance (as long as it's not 0).

If you add any damage boosting options into this core, you can get some crazy scaling on fear applications. Using dual Dunamis, CiT, and Bloodzerker, as a "default" combination: Example.

Since the build also has given ways to manipulate fear for your benefit, notably Jalek's Panic Reaver, the way I recommend running this is this way: Siphon your first turn fear application into a hypercritical, and then apply fear using a skill instead. Every turn, continue to siphon fear once (as Jalek's only consumes one turn), and maintain BtH boost, hypercritical, and fear stunlock forever. Example. Unfortunately, there aren't many monsters with enough HP to test this on (and those that do tend to make testing it difficult, as they're bosses, however it will still work).

**How F2P?**

The F2P build aims to make use of the Fear comp core, while being entirely F2P (outside of Guardianship). For this, there are several criteria that are filled:

a) Cover every element with an armor + shield + weapon at 17% or better

b) Make use of Fear stunlocks with Jalek's Panic Reaver feeding

c) Remain mostly modular, with any piece of gear able to be switched with a BiS piece of the same element coverage + function

**Level 117 gear?**

Believe it or not, the Level 117G Guardian Despair Eater can still do some solid damage coming off of a 1 turn fear or a double snarl with just CiT and Werewolf Form, giving you access to a wide number of options still. However, as it now lacks the incredible oneshot potential of the fully boosted build, it's less viable as an FTKO tactic, instead serving more as a cleanup.

As well, Guardian Despair Visage and Raiment are still very effective at their respective tasks, despite being such a lower level. As long as you don't use the armor to do attacks, you're still similarly effective to the 150Z versions.

Instead, now focusing on the use of Jalek's Panic Reaver and snarl fear from Werewolf Forms, you can play a very aggressive hypercritical stacking build using Essence orb, and Werewolf forms for defense. Example

**Alternate Strategies**

1) Interestingly, this build carries more options for applying fear than the P2W version, however those are less efficient. You can double snarl + War's Legacy for a 90+% Fear, and refreshing it with War's Legacy will maintain it at that rate, giving you an effective stunlock. You can pull one turn for Jalek's Panic Reaver with each application, until you get to a satisfying Fear level, at which point you can simply finish the monster. Example Similarly, Khandie's Gown allows you to do similar when paired with Guardian Despair Eater Visage- passively inflict fear whilst attacking.

2) This build can make use of Celtic Wheel + Irt of Osiris to give you enough mana to cast a spell. Due to this, Moonwalker's Grace is highly relevant for the DEX boost, and you can add any more mage utility spells of your choosing to this as well.

3) Use of Moonwalker's Grace, Irt of Osiris, and Fujin no Shukufuku can give you a HUGE accuracy increase, allowing you to grant hits against particularly evasive foes.

4) The presence of Love Potion and Shadowfeeder's pendant give you access to safe turns for eating fear or nuking, allowing you to do it in any armor you'd like.

5) The pet inventory is set up to give you several utility options for SP, HP, and MP income. You can add any 0CHA damage pets if you wish, as well.

6) The use of Zabura's Hammer, Emancipator Radiance, and Cryo Chrono shield can net you some neat stuns and blinds, for more defensive play.

7) Zabura's Hammer, Blade of Thornful Rose, and Werewolf Beast Form allow you to spend lots of SP to do large nukes, which can further synergize with Jalek's Panic Reaver boost, giving you Hypercritical and BtH for them, while maintaining a Fear stunlock on the foe, making Essence Orb's HP drain less problematic.

**Why P2W?**

The heavily pay-to-win inventory comp aims to fill several more criteria on top of just the core composition of the build.

a) Similar to the F2Pish one, have an armor + shield to cover every element at 17% FO or better

b) Carry several contingencies in the case of special monsters, fear immune monsters, and other difficult situations

c) Carry an imbue of nearly every element, freeing up MANY inventory and weapon slots. The free slots under this build are: The bottom 5 weapon slots, 3 armor slots, 1 spell slot, 7 pet slots, and 4 misc slots. Additionally, switching items for equivalent function frees up an additional: 1 weapon slot (Bloodzerker blade -> high damage boost weapon), 1 armor slot (Mason -> Bloodzerker), 7 shields (any shield except CiT -> equivalent element), 1 spell (at the cost of 1 armor, FDT -> Bloodzerker), 1 misc (ZSoul + Cupcake -> Essence Orb)

**Alternate Strategies**

The build carries several smaller combo loops to produce beneficial effects. To break these down:

1) Prime Chaos Orb exists to cover the major weakness of Fear comp: if darkres% ends up being an unusable percentage or too high, you can swap the foe's elements to a more favourable setup. Due to the wide range of options and res% interaction of Eat Fear, you don't need an optimal or near-optimal result, just to take off the unusable percentage.

2) Due to the wide variety of imbues carried, you can effectively convert a skill or Eat Fear over to any element in the game except for Wind (and Ice, if you don't have the Frostval armor). However, the imbues also have their own slew of useful utility function, and due to damage scaling interacting with Eat Fear's high damage, you can get a tens of turns paralyse using Thunder Wave Blade, or a down to 1% Choke using Mason (if you have it). As well, having imbues allows you to abuse weapon effects with armor skills or bloodzerkers, effectively meaning you can have a Thundersplitter Bloodzerker imbued attack of any element you want.

3) Carrying 16th Cupcake and Zfin Soul instead of Essence Orb is a contestable choice, however it's based on the fact that you generally will not spend much SP in fodder fights, and it's incredibly high efficiency if you don't, as you effectively get 395 + 176 SP for free each fight, and can generate 1061SP for only 207HP first turn due to that. However, due to Soul being your only continuous SP generation source, you only have an SP income of 490SP per turn, which can run low due to generally needing an imbue + skill use/bzerker attack + Dunamis upkeep per turn, but assuming you're not fighting consecutive boss fights, you'll generally have enough SP buffer to bypass this. Even given that, you can simply switch to Fear Amping and generate SP.

4) Due to the blinding nature of Zabura's Hammer, the MRM boost from Defender of Frostval past, and the free slots you have, you can effectively comp shield blocking effect abuse. You can translate this to the Golden Dragon Head shield (niche, right?) for a hypercritical boost, and combine it with Jalek's Panic Reaver for effectively quickcast hypercritical guarantees. You can translate this using Corrupted Pyro Chrono shield for block paralyses. You can also use this with shields such as Sham's Offhand Blunderbuss for other interesting utility, as well.

5) Carrying Zfin Time and Shadowfeeder pendant mean that you can get off guaranteed Eat Fear uses and then switch to more defensive options, depending on the boss fight that they're needed in.

6) Carrying Hunger and Bloodzerkers means that you can make gold farming easy, although can treat this as a free slot. Similarly, carrying AoS and Bloodzerkers means that warring can be easy.