BPSR: Skyward (Aerial) Wind Knight Comprehensive Guide (Season 2)

Season 1 Guide Here

If you just want to see the rotation video: Rotation Video

Intro

Season 2 comes with a few new systems and skill changes that make playing Skyward a bit different than in season 1, but the core of the class is still the same, thus for this guide I will focus on only the new stuff.

Similar to season 1, the experience in global and other regions will be vastly different than the experience CN had due to the large number of bugs when new contents and systems come online, frequent bug fixes and updates that are directly impacting class balance, and the large mid season class balance update. By the time CN got stable with bugs and class balance changes it had already reached mid game (Lv 140 gear). For global and other regions they would have all these changes at the start of the season if it follows the same pattern as season 1.

With that being said this guide will be targeted at mid game (Lv140) and beyond, the CN player base never had the chance to experience early game with the current changes and class balance. Because of that, for early game Lv120 gear there could be builds that are more optimal than what’s outlined in this guide.

Deep-Slumber Psychoscope (S2Armband)

This is the new system that equivalent to seaon 1’s armband. Only three options are worth considering for Skyward: Dreamforce, Oblivion Dream, Phantom Arrow. Each of these options are timegated, as the season progress they unlock from left to right, top to bottom.

Within each option is a tree with a few branching points, those nodes in the tree are also timegated.

Use Dreamforce at the start of the season. When Oblivion Dream unlocks, either keep using Dreamforce or switch to Oblivion Dream. Switch to Phantom Arrow when it unlocks for final build.

Phantom Arrow’s main effect:

When using damage type expertise skill (Falcon, Instant Edge, Sharp Impact, Galeform) summons Phantom Arrow, this effect can trigger once every 7 seconds. Each time this is triggered the next summon will increase arrow count by 1, up to a max of 8 arrows (later on in the tree there’s a branch that increases the max up to 10). Each time special attack (Skyfall) is used, it reduces the cooldown by 0.6 second. As long as you are continously performing rotation, you will be maximizing the effect of Phantom Arrow.

For Phantom Arrow branches select the following :

Phantom Factor

In the Psychoscope we select 2 class specific Phantom Factors and 3 common attack Phantom Factors.

Early Lv120 Class Factors

Pick 2 out of these 3 depending on what you need

Galeform extension Must have
Sharp Impact auto charge In Lv120 without raid gear luck % is too low to take advange
of Tornado lucky hit, and crit % is also too low to do
rotation consistently. Instead of Tornado lucky hit, using
Sharp Impact auto charge is a better option.
This factor should be swapped out once rotation is consistent
(getting at least 2 Chasing Steps per rotation).
This should be your number 1 priority factor if you crit is less than 30%
Azure guarantee crit If you no longer need Sharp Impact auto charge,
use this until your luck is high enough then switch
to Tornado lucky hit (around 3-4 piece of raid gear).

Lv140+ Class Factors

Galeform extension Must have
Tornado trigger lucky hit Must have

Common Attack Factors

Convert Mastery to Crit
Increase strength
Increase all element damage

Defense Factors

Defense factors don’t really matter too much, personally I use:

No damage taken for 8 seconds max health goes up (for triggering life wave)
All element resist
Damage reduction during Galeform
(Class Defense Factor)

Stats and Gear

Sigils

This section is just a general explanation for the sigil system, you can skip over it if you only care about Skyward build.

Sigils are the same as gems that you put in gear in season 1, the difference is how you obtain them. In season 1 you craft them with life skill, in season 2 you have to kill normal mobs, elite, and world boss to get them.

Different sigils gives different stat and can only be sloted in their designated gear piece. Here’s what sigil can go in what gear and their possible rolls (the roll chances are the same as season 1 at 60% / 35% / 5%):

There are also sigils that gives main stat, which go on earrings, necklace and ring. And sigil that gives all element attack, which goes on weapon, but since they are not that relevant in terms of stat planning I didn’t include their values here.

120 Gear

TLDR: Get as much crit as you can, get high crit on all pieces that can have crit, reforge 3rd stat to crit on all pieces and sigil crit on all pieces that can have crit sigils.

With 120 gear your crit will be quite low, if you get crit on every piece of gear that can have crit, and put on decent sigils, you will barely make high 30s to low 40s percent crit, so without all the right gear pieces most people will be around low to mid 30s percent.

Assuming you have high crit roll on all pieces except L/R bracelets, this is the final crit rate with different sigils:

Sigil Configuration All Sigils Roll Lowest All Sigils Roll Highest
Blue on helmet, armor, gloves, boots
Blue on L/R bracelets, charm		 38.12% 39.54%
Blue on helmet, armor, gloves, boots
Purple on L/R bracelets, charm		 39.24% 40.93%
Gold on helmet, armor, gloves, boots
Purple on L/R bracelets, charm		 41.88% 43.44%

Breakdown on the 39.24% option:

You can acutally get mid to high 40 percent crit by using Life Wave module, but you need to ensure your crit is your highest substat. This means for people with T5 Goblin King you would have to either not use Goblin King until later, or not use Life Wave, since as you can see even with the best gear and best sigils you cannot reach 44.44% crit.

If you are about to upgrade your T3 Goblin King to T4/5, and you have Lv6 Life Wave module, it could be wise to hold off upgrading your GK going into season 2 and keeping your vers lower than your crit until Lv140 gear comes out. Once Lv140 gear becomes available it’s easy to get above 44.44% crit.

You can actually keep using Lv80 raid L/R bracelets to get a bit more crit and you will be doing that until the bracelet dungeon comes out (assuming they don’t change dungeon release schedule from CN). But once 120 bracelets are available you will be trading Illusion Strength and strength for crit, which might not be worth it in the end, and the crit you get is very minimal (400 raw crit, if you have 39.24% crit, you will go from 39.24% to 40.14%).

(note: These value might not be reachable before 140 gear comes out, since they include the 800 crit stat from Psychoscope, which is also timegated)

140 Gear

6pc raid gear set is also an option, it won’t be much worse than 4pc + two of 1.5% strength pefect gear setup because raid gear can be upgraded to Lv150, which gives more stat. And compared to farming 1.5% strength perfect gear it is much easier.

160 Gear

This section will come at a later time.

Modules

TLDR: Life Wave »> Damage Stack > Strength Boost > Attack Speed ~= Crit Focus ~= Elite Strike

For the majority of the players, your goal should just be getting a 66 with Life Wave. Getting anything higher than that requires either a lot of luck or a lot of money. If you do not have Life Wave then use 666 or 665 following the season 1 modules. In most cases Life Wave 66 is stronger 666 with no Life Wave no Damage Stack.

Life Wave Activation

The best and most consistent way to ensure having high Life Wave uptime is to have a lifebind healer in the party, as long as you are getting healed by a lifebind, your life wave will be active (90+% uptime). This is from lifebind’s 2pc set effect, which changes your max hp everytime they heal you.

Imagines

Out of all the new season 2 imagines, only the pGoat is worth using, it replaces Muku Scout and T0-2 Celestial Flier. If you are already running double T5 gold then you can skip it.

Lv120

Lv120 Best to Worst

(Assuming all gold imagines are equal level, and all purple are T5)

In Lv120 when stat is lacking, stat imagines are better than the non-stat imagines in general (Goblin King, Celestial Flier, pGoat). For most of early game with Lv120 gear the lower crit rate makes Muku Chief’s value much lower. Ideally you want to use Celestial Flier / pGoat, and swap in Muku Chief at around Lv140 gear when your crit rate is higher than 40%.

For people that use one gold one purple, in Lv120 gear pGoat is better than Muku Scout, but in higher level gear (around the start of Lv160) when you can get a lot of haste from gear Muku Scout would be better.

As mentioned in 120 Gear section, if you are using Life Wave you want to make sure your crit is the highest substat. This might be difficult to achieve with Lv120 gear, so if you have imagines that are preventing Life Wave from activating on crit, you could consider using something else if you have the options (i.e. swapping out Goblin King and use Muku Chief instead, with Life Wave active on crit Mukuk Chief’s value increases). That being said, Life Wave is not going to make make your T1 Muku Chief out perform your T5 Goblin King, so if you invested heavily in one and only one gold imagine, it’s still best to use that and not use Life Wave until Lv140 gear.

Lv140 / Lv160

Lv140 / Lv160 Best to Worst

  2. About the same as the above MC + GK in Lv140, but as we transition into Lv160 MC + GK will start to outperform.
  6. Muku Scout should start to outperform pGoat in Lv160 gear.

New player

If you are a new player starting from season 2 then this is your only real options.

Rotation and Talent Tree

These are the builds for season 2, the difference is highlighted in yellow. From left to right each build requires more stat (crit) with the right most build being current end game higest damage potential build.

Lv 120 Early Early Game Lv120 Early Game Typhoon (6 Sharp SI)
(Less Than 50% Crit)		 Non-Typhoon (3 Sharp SI)
(More Than 50% Crit)

The builds are called Typhoon and Non-Typhoon based on if the Typhoon: Sharp Impact node is selected.

Lv120 Early Early Game

This is for super early week(s) of season 2 when your crit is not even 30%. You can use this build along with the Sharp Impact Class Attack Factor, and use the seaon 1 rotation. With this build you only need to get 1 chasing step per rotation, if at the end of the rotation you got 1 chasing step and your sharp impact is not charged, you just left click attack and save your courage until the Sharp Impact factor charges the last bit for you (worst case is you get stuck on the ground waiting for charge for 8.8s with G4 factor, but most of the time you don’t have to wait that long).

Lv120 Early Game

This build is for early game when your crit is severly lacking.

Typhoon: Sharp Impact (6 Sharp SI)

This build is for less than 50% crit, 50% is not a hard cut off either, it’s based on trial and error and 50% is around where the Non-Typhoon build starts to do consistently more damage.

Non-Typhoon: Sharp Impact (3 Sharp SI)

Rotation Video

Video that goes through the Non-Typhoon Rotation:

This is the current season 2 meta build, but it need quite a lot of stat to perform well. The most important thing is to have high crit rate (~55%). This is achieved by having ~45% crit and having Lv6 Life Wave for the last 10%. If your crit rate is only around 45% (without Life Wave active), then this build won’t really outperform the Typhoon build.

The idea of this build is to use high crit rate to generate more Chasing Steps, which boosts Instant Edge damage and crit rate and generates more Sharp refunds. This in turns reduces the amount of Skyfall needed per rotation.

Rotation

1a. Falcon Toss (if available, otherwise jump cancel) > Sharp Impact. For running Lv120 or Typhoon build. 1b. Falcon Toss (if available) > Skyfall (until at 2 or 3 Sharp) > Sharp Impact. For running Non-Typhoon build.

  1. All Imagines > Galeform
  2. 1x Instant Edge > Skyfall until 6 Sharp
  3. 2x Instant Edge
  4. Azure > Skyfall until 6 Sharp
  5. 2x Instant Edge
  6. Repeat from 1.

This is the core of the rotation, it’s basically the same as season 1 with the added Falcon Toss at the very beginning. But there are nuances with this rotation and places that can be optimized and some on the fly decision making.

Other Things to Consider

Damage Breakdown Reference

The skill 7997 is Phantom Arrow.

These two parses are done with the following setup:

Parse one: this is from the same parse showed in the video above.

Parse two:

Updates