[X] My Assistant

Sorry if that came across as complaining to you.

I was seeking advice for maging.

Anyway, I've edited the original post.

This post has been edited by mustardpie: Jun 29 2019, 17:39

Well, complain is maybe the wrong therm. But from your post it seems like you are not happy with your cleartimes as 1H and wanted because of this advice for how to switch to mage, or did i missunderstand something? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) Okay, now you ask about how to forge 1H. Tbh, it is quite hot here, did i missread your whole post or what is going on?

Anyway, imo the best way of forge your 1H set is imo to concentrade on what is important to you. From the original post or at last as far as i remember, you dont do all arenas every day, because it takes you too long, but your survivability is no problem. And in this case i would say, concentrade your forging on damage, crit chance, STR and DEX. And maybe look out for a of slaughter armor piece to incrase your damage even more. Btw, because the actual bonus you get from every upgrade gets smaller the higher that upgrade is, upgrade 5 gives you more bonus as upgrade 30, you should spread those upgrades between your set pieces. Also when you have actual plan to replace a certain piece very soon, skip it and dont waste credits for the catalysts on that one. Does this help?

Yeah I think you misread it, or went too far back and are reading something else. I'm not asking anything about 1h forging.

I'm asking about maging.

edit:Post #11037

This post has been edited by mustardpie: Jun 29 2019, 18:13

No, i am absolutly sure as sure, after you did edit that post you were talking about upgrades for 1H. I know what i did read and that your post was edited again, proves my point. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

??????

I'm legit just looking for advice here.

These are my questions:

??????

I'm legit just looking for advice here.

These are my questions:

Legit answer:

1. Start with the staff - that determines your element
My advice: go for elemental, wind or elec are the best in the current meta. Find a leg temp/shoc willow of destruction.
Staff IW: penetrator5 spellweaver4. Nothing else will do. (don't look at my staff! That's different. It is! Really!)

2. Build up proficiency. Play with lots of proficiency cotton at first (2), and plain phases.

3. Collect credits. A lot.

4. Buy better gear.

5. Forge the shit out of it

6. Repeat 4 & 5 for a couple of years.

This post has been edited by DJNoni: Jun 29 2019, 18:28

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Oh, and check the wiki advice advanced - I made a starting guide into mage there.

Legit answer:

1. Start with the staff - that determines your element
My advice: go for elemental, wind or elec are the best in the current meta. Find a leg temp/shoc willow of destruction.

I'm not really looking to play mage anytime soon or probably ever, but I'm interested in what makes Wind or Electric best in the current meta. Do they actually out preform Cold or is it just more reasonable to obtain gear for them and thus they're "better"?

but I'm interested in what makes Wind or Electric best in the current meta.

Who told you that? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) Best in current meta is holy mage and because of that it is also the most expensive style.

I don't play Item World often, but what's the deal with the difficulty scaling there? I was doing a legendary item world grind (90 rounds) on merely "normal" difficulty but about 25 rounds in I found myself having to cast cure every few turns. I suppose this is normal behavior for a Legendary Item World but I was just caught off guard considering I play Arenas from Nintendo to PFUDOR difficulty and I consider curing to be common there but not so much on the easy difficulties.

Nevermind, i guess i will take a break from the experts topic until temperatures drop again below 30°C.

This post has been edited by Uncle Stu: Jun 29 2019, 23:12

I'm not really looking to play mage anytime soon or probably ever, but I'm interested in what makes Wind or Electric best in the current meta. Do they actually out preform Cold or is it just more reasonable to obtain gear for them and thus they're "better"?

They match with Willow, which has Counter Resist. Redwood doesn't.

Holy? Better? Dude... Only if you spend 700m+

I don't play Item World often, but what's the deal with the difficulty scaling there? I was doing a legendary item world grind (90 rounds) on merely "normal" difficulty but about 25 rounds in I found myself having to cast cure every few turns. I suppose this is normal behavior for a Legendary Item World but I was just caught off guard considering I play Arenas from Nintendo to PFUDOR difficulty and I consider curing to be common there but not so much on the easy difficulties.

It's in the Wiki:
Difficulty: Monster damage starts at 100% base and increases by 2% per round.


So after 25 IW Rounds enemies hit 50% harder than normal. After 50 IW Rounds enemies hit 2x harder than normal, and so on. This is why IW difficulty ramps up so much compared to Arena.

This catches a lot of people off-guard (myself included) when you try to play IW at Hell or higher and you get your ass handed to you.

Holy? Better? Dude... Only if you spend 700m+

Well for such prices are all those rich people who play holy to blame, not holy itself.

I would like to start a mage build so I can speed through the arena on lower difficulties.

But I'm not really sure where to start.

What should I look for when I IW a staff?

What do I use for armor? 1 proficiency piece and the rest EDB? Or does it matter?

Start as Imperil [cast Imperil first, then start killing] mage (element: Fire, Cold, Wind or Elec).

Staff: any matching for your selected element (even Exquisite quality forged to 5). Potency: at least Penetrator4+.
Cloth: 1-2 Cotton (proficiency), rest is Phase (damage). Plain (no Charged or Radiant prefix).
2 proficiency pieces may slightly decrease clear time in the last 2 arenas (125, 150 rounds). Otherwise use 1.
But also depends on staff's suffix. If of Elementalist = -1 cotton piece (i.e. 0-1).

It'll be enough for all arenas.


You may also check the guide here

This post has been edited by tox01: Jun 30 2019, 00:09

-snip-

Agree with Noni, start with staff. You will (almost always) fully forge your staff. You'll want at least decent staff to start with. Lame staff, even with full forge, will make you want a replacement, thus a waste of forge material. Armor are less rare than matching staff, so their priority is lower.


====

... but I'm interested in what makes Wind or Electric best in the current meta.

Again, it's the staff. After you spent credit forging it, you'd want the staff to perform well anywhere, not just arena. Redwood generally perform poorly in Grindfest, so people who seriously want maging will go for either Oak or Willow. Oak is staff for Holy, Willow is for Dark, two element has no problem staff-wise.

For the rest of element, you'll be forced to compromise. For Wind and Elec, it's easier to bear as Willow has high EDB for them, so it can be done. But for Fire and Cold, albeit higher EDB in Oak, that staff does not have Destruction suffix. It makes Fire and Cold an awkward element. Since MDB came from mainly staff*), serious Fire and Cold mage usually go with Fiery or Arctic Willow of Destruction.

So, if you think Wind and Elec is the best because its Willow factor. People will say Holy's best, because on top of well support from Oak, it also has fantastic Breached Defense effect on top of lower monster resistance against it. For Dark, I actually wonder about Dark...

*) MDB is half your own stat half your equipment. From equipment side, it's mostly staff. Armor contribute only if they're Radiant.


====

I don't play Item World often, but what's the deal with the difficulty scaling there? I was doing a legendary item world grind (90 rounds) on merely "normal" difficulty but about 25 rounds in I found myself having to cast cure every few turns. I suppose this is normal behavior for a Legendary Item World but I was just caught off guard considering I play Arenas from Nintendo to PFUDOR difficulty and I consider curing to be common there but not so much on the easy difficulties.

What SivSilly's said. You're unfortunate doing 90 round IW for your first. I usually put on a bunch of infusions on armor if I want to do IW.

Why all that hate against RedWood? Do you all have seriously played mage before advising Willow for everything?
That's not because RedWood doesn't have counter-resist and has lower depr prof that it's bad and should be avoided like the plague or something. The monsters don't resist that much you know... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Just saying, but the mere fact that a RedWood has both higher elemental prof and EDB should be your #1 determining factor why you'd choose one for pretty much any elemental element. Including Wind and Elec. More prof and EDB on the staff = able to focus on even more EDB on the clothes. In other words, choosing a RedWood is a sure-fire way to focus on raw damage output. Isn't that all what you guys are always looking for?

That's not the small boost in counter-resist of a Willow that will change everything. Same goes for the depr prof. You will miss Imperil regularly anyway, Willow or not. So at that point what's important is making sure that pretty much every monster, imperiled or not, dies faster (=higher elemental prof,=higher EDB). Not having Imperil to land at all costs. Not having a spell not resisted once in a while.

So basically, yeah cool Willow is quite consistent and the most reliable staff around, no doubt about it. But unfortunately that's not really what one needs to survive hard challenges. You don't break rocks by throwing eggs at them. What you need is raw damage output. Willow is primarily for Dark. Using Willow for Wind and Elec is an alternative to LTRD and LSRD, not the other way around. But LAWD and LFWD? That's the funniest joke I've read since a while.

I concur, to some degree - the difference in EDB between fire/cold redwood & willow is enormous. The difference between S/FWoD + S/FRoD is much smaller however: 21.78 max base for redwood, and 18.56 for willow. Still a fairly significant amount at peerless levels fully forged, though. For comparison, the difference for fire/cold is 11.33 on willow, to (the same) 21.78 on redwood.

I did play Leg Arctic Redwood of Destruction from lv400 to lv500. It is actually very good. Imperil style, I could finish PFFEST in 1hr20min. Elec and Wind will be a bit quicker in the end, that's all. But at much higher cost. As relatively cheap mage, LARD is a very very good choice.

Dark? Yeah it works for arena's and schoolgirls without imperil, and can be used in PFFEST with imperil. PFFEST without imperil is not impossible, but has a very slim chance of making it to round 1000. I can only do it with the t3 spell out of rotation, and then starting each round with t3 manually. But if you are going to cast manually anyway, imperil is probably easier.