• Introduction
• Reasons and Usages
• Pros & Cons: Understanding your Strengths & Weaknesses
• The Exciting Conclusion!

The Pros & Cons section of this guide cite things from when you’re already playing a musician. These things are updated as of June 19, 2009 (GMT+8). Please take note that the things I’m citing here all come from experience from the THEBES server, so certain things may not apply to other servers. When I hear examples from players from the other servers, I will cite them as references. (:

Pros of a Musician

• Excellent for beginners: See above list on Reasons and Usages.
• Easily earns money.
• Musicians can debuff well.
• Instruments are inexpensive at the start.
• Fast levels: You can outlevel your mercs. Therefore, you can be able to start quests earlier than you’d expect.
• Grinding becomes fun, in the odd event that you do grind.

Cons of a Musician

• Musicians now suffer from lower HP than other ranged-type characters.
• Armor becomes increasingly expensive, especially in the end.
• You’ll need to equip your mercenaries well throughout the game: no hand-me-down’s.
• Instruments become expensive as well at the end, even more than certain weapons.
• You will vastly outlevel your mercs. Therefore, you will be the last one standing and musicians aren’t made to withstand too many hits.
• There are a lot of musicians; you’d seem cliche, though powerful.
• Rumors of nerfing the musician’s Ravaging Melody will decrease their usefulness in PvP.
• You will fart out your money just as much as you earn it.
• Musicians cannot spike damage, so battles usually take a bit longer.
• Musicians are masters of debuffing, but they suffer from being susceptible to other mercenaries’ (and other musicians’) debuffs.
• You will mostly rely on one skill throughout the game, as other DoT skills for ranged characters pale in comparison to it, and you don’t deal powerful damage until level 100. Some people would say you’re a one-trick pony; provided that this trick is actually very good.

Quoting said poster, the effects of the nerf is said that for PvP, Ravaging Melody will deal 40% less damage than on PvE. In PvE, everything remains the same, but the nerf can still be salvageable with a few charms on hand. However, as of the June 17 patch, musicians have been nerfed in terms of maximum HP and attack power, as well as Ravaging Melody. Melody of Madness’ cool down has been reduced (but so has its damage) as well as the musician’s evasion being increased.

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Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about how to understand the strengths and weaknesses of a musician. The main strength of a musician lies in his or her debuffs, that allow the musician to fit in perfectly with a pressure build. In PvE one may say that debuffs don’t matter. As a matter of fact, it does — especially in the latter parts of the game, when debuffing monsters make it easier for you to really put in the hurt on the opponent.

Enemies in the Taj Mahal, for example, or enemies in the Valley of the Kings. Having Ravaging Melody (or a number of other debuffs: certain mobs really help bring out the usefulness in certain mercenaries. Mana Seal works wonders for the mummy magician mobs and sage Anubis mobs in the Valley of the Kings. In the same way, Ravaging Melody shows its usefulness in almost every situation.)

To be able to work well in PvP or PvE, you have to build your mercenaries around your debuffs. Think for a moment of what you want to do in the future: your musician’s damage over time works well for damaging opponents down and whittling away at their sanity — at least if they don’t know what they’re doing. What would work well around those debuffs?

In PvE, massive spiking is good and easy with your musician. This means you can AoE all you want — in PvP, it’s a different matter. Being as though you’re fighting real people who have experience, it’s different — massive spiking becomes rather hard due to holy guards or shamans/oracles, and you never really count on monsters to heal themselves — and even if they do, their heals are rather weak.

Keep to mind that with musicians (and with other mains,) not everything that works for PvE will work in PvP. Your musician is a vital part of your team — use him or her well, and you will reap many rewards.

—

The musician’s weaknesses lie in PvP. Musicians come at a handful in PvP, which makes it hard for you to be diverse. The only way to be diverse is to build your mercenaries properly. Remember that you must build your team around your debuffs, and what would work well around it. Pick your battles well, and really pinpoint your opponent’s weaknesses.

Also remember that with DoT, your musician is able to sneak experience points away from your other mercenaries, which makes it hard for them to level. Ravaging Melody can really sap your experience, which can make you vastly outlevel your mercenaries. It’s expensive to be a musician because of the upkeep: you have to really let your mercenaries wear the best to let them survive in areas twenty levels higher than they are. It becomes really expensive in the end, so you really have to work at it.

Added to the fact that most starting mercenaries really usually don’t work well with your musician; the mercenaries you get in the end or while playing are the ones that work rather well with your musician. That doesn’t mean you should be discouraged, it just means you really, really have to build well.

Still reading? Thanks for coming this far. Coming up next: THE EXCITING CONCLUSION!

You’re probably asking, what about the musician’s skills? or what build fits well with a musician? Well, this guide isn’t here to feed you information to use during the game. This is the beginner’s look into the life of a musician: how they work and how they are generally seen in public view.

Besides, one can learn about the powers of a musician while playing — and most of the good things a musician can really get is in the end. The starting skill, or Ravaging Melody, is the A+ Musician skill one can use.

As for your builds, test it out for yourself and see what works. Don’t stress on it, you can always level later. The musician is there to help you ease your stay in Atlantica, and the musician will always be the #1 debuffer around.

In conclusion, if you’re new to Atlantica and want to play someone fun, easy and will help you to your second character, a musician may be one of the better companions to your journey in search of the ancient civilization. Who knows? Perhaps you’ll stay on the musician. Everyone I know has loved playing one, and it’s true and tested that a musician really shines as a main character.

This has been your loyal servant Fantine, signing off saying, “please give musicians a chance!” ^_^

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