[X] My Assistant

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.

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.

Check the profs too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Max 8.29 for Redwood, 6.15 for Willow. That's quite an enormous gap too, IMHO.

Check the profs too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Max 8.29 for Redwood, 6.15 for Willow. That's quite an enormous gap too, IMHO.

Ah yeah, that is quite a difference - but then, elemental mages have better reduction from imperil also.

By my calculations - an elemental mage only needs 0.79 prof factor to completely negate a monster's specific elemental mitigation, whereas a holy or dark mage needs 1.0. So there's a lot more wiggle room there.

A redwood elementalist staff user could go 5 phase, even! Though I don't think that's ideal (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I've realized recently that Physical Crit Chance is dependant on burden. How does it apply exactly? What I've read is:

- For every point of burden beyond 70, I lose a 2%.
- At 120 burden, I lose my Physical Crit Chance.

Does burden 120 = no critical hits at all? Or that you only get base critical chance?

Second, how does burden evolve with quality and level?

- Do higher level gears have higher burden?
- Do higher quality gears have higher burden than lower ones or the reverse?
- In case I'm checking an item, what does 98% burden mean? Higher burden or lower burden? (meaning that is 98 percentile best, that is, only 2% of the gears have higher burden).

Right now my burden is 77 and my Critical chance around 27%. I know I can use featherweights to reduce it, but would I notice the difference as it would be 41%?

I've realized recently that Physical Crit Chance is dependant on burden. How does it apply exactly? What I've read is:

- For every point of burden beyond 70, I lose a 2%.
- At 120 burden, I lose my Physical Crit Chance.

Does burden 120 = no critical hits at all? Or that you only get base critical chance?

Second, how does burden evolve with quality and level?

- Do higher level gears have higher burden?
- Do higher quality gears have higher burden than lower ones or the reverse?
- In case I'm checking an item, what does 98% burden mean? Higher burden or lower burden? (meaning that is 98 percentile best, that is, only 2% of the gears have higher burden).

Right now my burden is 77 and my Critical chance around 27%. I know I can use featherweights to reduce it, but would I notice the difference as it would be 41%?

Gear level doesn't have any effect on burden (anymore, it used to though).
Higher quality tend to have lower burden and interference.
98% means it's close to max burden, which is 100%.

Thanks for helping me understand why getting mage gear is suffering. I didn't realize that the staffs had such wildly different suffex possibilities, I just assumed they'd be roughly the same.

Anyway it seems I got grandfathered into something neat!

Thanks for helping me understand why getting mage gear is suffering. I didn't realize that the staffs had such wildly different suffex possibilities, I just assumed they'd be roughly the same.

Anyway it seems I got grandfathered into something neat!

LOL! Well, the in-game descriptions are notorious for being outdated, so that's probably what happened here. Otherwise, you found a bug!

LOL! Well, the in-game descriptions are notorious for being outdated, so that's probably what happened here. Otherwise, you found a bug!

No, it's a known problem related to 0.82 changes. The cost and requirements for better potion abilities were adjusted (it's not in the main post, but discussed later). Some people had to reset the ability to get it to work, losing a tier or two in the process.

No, it's a known problem related to 0.82 changes. The cost and requirements for better potion abilities were adjusted (it's not in the main post, but discussed later). Some people had to reset the ability to get it to work, losing a tier or two in the process.

Interesting, does that mean I'm actually not benefiting from the ability?