Although it was true this combination of Light-Fire Dual Elemental Master and True Totem Demon had the worst possible middle game out of all other combinations, she had the Dark Weaver, which could cut her some slack through the AoE effects.

Plus she had yet to choose her specific DPS class; if she chose something also with a good middle game, wouldn't that solve her problems?

In fact, it would be best if her DPS main class had a good early and mid game, its late game didn't matter, it just had to bring the group to the point where she could break the game. This contradicted her goal of gear reliance, as a gear reliant class would have poor early games, but good middle and late games.

But that didn't mean she had no options.

In fact, combined with her desire for a ranged class, she had two.

They were both physical ranged DPS. The first was the Ballista. Although it was true any class could wield any weapons, some classes had weapons so exotic that knowing how to realistically use them could only be granted by the system. Ballista was one such class, as they were granted skill in using oversized ranged weapons, one of the few classes that could do so. Bows the size of the user, or perhaps even larger, as an example. The class had high inherent physical stat bonuses to allow it to do so effectively, as well.

The primary weakness of using such a weapon was its slow fire rate, so although it could deal high damage per shot, its DPS was only above average. Early on it would be able to destroy any enemy in one shot. In the middle game, it would retain this advantage with gear, and even be able to shoot quicker with speed increasing gear.

Later, however, no amount of gear could make up for its bottom-tier ability in AoE damage, and even its single target damage would start to fall off because the best late game DPS was high attack speed proccing multiple abilities per shot.

The ballista, no matter how much it wanted to, couldn't accomplish this!

Although the class could use regular sized ranged weapons, since most of its [Skills] weren't tailored for doing so and it has zero [Skills] which increased fire rate, it wouldn't be wise to do so. Nontheless, it was definitely a great fit for Chan Si's needs.

The second option was the Cannoneer. Like the Ballista, it was about using oversized ranged weapons, but every single one of the class's [Skills] required it to be using use gunpowder based weapons. The signature weapon of the class would be a handheld cannon, only slightly smaller than the kind that could be rolled around on wheels, although the class could use any gunpowder based weapon effectively, even regular sized ones. Being able to swap between a cannon, a musket, and gunpowder pistols would be easily doable, giving the class a greater range of use cases than the Ballista. It would also have numerous AoE [Skills] in addition, such as explosives.

It was a brutal class, capable of dishing out tons of damage. The main weakness was that gunpowder was an expensive consumable the class would constantly need to use its weapons and [Skills].

In fact, gunpowder was one of the most expensive consumables in the game, even the super guilds could only support five Cannoneers at most!

As such, Cannoneer was one of the least popular classes, as it could be rendered near useless without enough money. Chan Si already planned to pour all her spare money into her main character DPS class anyway, so the real question was whether it would be enough to support the Cannoneer.

If she could, it was strictly superior to the Ballista, and if she couldn't, it was strictly inferior.

The amount of gunpowder the class would need would actually scale with its level. With the little bit of starting gunpowder the class received - though it was untradable and unsellable - she would be fine for the first ten levels. At that point she would be running low, and need to purchase more, and her needs would only continue increasing at the class continued to level.

She could use some tricks to prevent the class from leveling past what she could support financially, if that became an issue, but then her DPS would start to stagnate. She could make up some of that gap with items, but not the full gap.

Alternatively she could let the class level freely, and use the fact she planned on giving it many items to extremely limit the gunpowder usage, relying on [Skills] granted from other sources for most fights and only utilizing the class [Skills] and gunpowder weapons if the situation warranted it. This would increase her maximum possible damage output compared to not leveling the class, but slow her farming speed.

In either case, it was still inferior to the Ballista unless she had extreme confidence in her ability to supply enough gunpowder.

Although she thought about her options deeply, once she made a final decision, Chan Si would not go back on it! And so Chan Si, considering her options, chose the Ballista class for her ranged DPS!

She already had great AoE due to the Dark Weaver, and the main advantage of the Cannoneer over the Ballista was having a real late game in addition to good early and middle games - again, so long as one could afford it. But she had already decided to sacrifice the late game for her main character DPS, she would go all out on making sure she could level her party!

This gave her extreme confidence to be greedy in her other choices, so she chose the combination of the True Totem Demon body cultivator class, and the Light-Fire Dual Elemental Master pet master class.

Thus, in terms of classes, her build was set!

Her main character, full DPS focused and gear hog, Ballista.

Her AoE everything, with a slow build up but great effects, Dark Weaver.

Her primary Healer and downgraded to Off-Tank, Light-Fire Dual Elemental Master.

Her primary Tank, secondary DPS, and source of economic efficiency, True Totem Demon.

And her late game plan, through which would be her main source of breaking the game, the monstrous character of a yet-to-be-decided evolution.

If she had to separate her forces into different groups, she was confident any of them could solo certain content, with the exception of the Dark Weaver and monstrous character, who she would want to pair together in that case. That gave her four degrees of freedom. She could mix and match her forces into two or three groups as well, if doing so would advantage her.

She still planned to keep them together as much as possible however, as each of them could only truly shine in that case.

After making such a tough decision, she rewarded herself with a snack. It was important to keep well fed and hydrated. A poor stomach led to a poor brain.