[X] My Assistant

That doesn't apply to the real combat anyway, as you used to say. You don't purely look at the stats and say hey that's what you need.

I've played first a LARN, then a LARD for quite a while, before finally being able to use a LDWD. In other words, I've played these 3 kinds of staffs a lot and I know very well what they are truly capable of. According to my observations, there aren't many players who can say as much, because there seems to be a trend of leaping over the "budget mage" step, by going straight to the LSWD/LTWD/LDWD/LHOH, thus without ever playing a Redwood. If I'm not mistaken, you are one of those who did so. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but at least it's safe to say that such players who did that leap cannot pretend to know better than those who did not.

If I'm using (stupid) numbers and calculations to back up my logic, it's only because the majority of the players is unable to take any judgement regarding the viability of a playstyle without the use of these. I have never judged the efficiency of a playstyle with numbers myself: the numbers only come in handy when I'm on "something that looks good/promizing" and I'm trying to optimize.

If I'm telling you that Redwood is better overall for every of the 4 elements, Elec and Wind included, it's precisely because I know very well what both Redwood and Willow are really worth/capable of. While I'm at it, I'm pretty sure that Katalox is actually way better than what it's usually credited for. I'd even go so far at giving a try at Katalox for a non-imp playstyle.

BTW, if landing Imperil was sooo much more important, why are Curse-Weaver clothes considered as shit? Do you even know how often monsters actually Resist?

Don't be mistaken: I'm not trying to tell you that you are entirely wrong. I'm mostly saying that there aren't any staffs that are absolute superior to others and that the player's choise tends to be based out of popular beliefs that are complete bullshit and based out of thin air.
Willow is clearly the best at being super-reliable and consistent, no doubt about it. But there are also times when raw strength is better, and you can't possibly beat Redwood at that:

1. Who cares if a monster resisted once (thus takes only 90% of the damage), while it wouldn't with a willow, if the higher damage output compensates?
2. Who cares if Imperil fails to connect on a monster, when your damage output does kill more monsters in a single blast? That is, the non-imperiled monsters will die faster anyway than when playing a willow staff.
3. Why playing Willow, if in the end it takes you more turns to clear a round? Because even with a Willow there will (almost) always be 1-3 assholes who did not get imperiled. That is, they will also profit from still being alive for 1-2 more turns to whoop your ass.

So let me put it in other words for you: LTWD and LSWD do are good, yes, but they should be considered only when one intends to make it their final staff, to forge the entire set to its fullest and to have many levels of Daemon Duality. Or call it making it so that having even more MDB and EDB would be pointless, and this is where having more counter-resist and depr prof becomes better. Otherwise, Redwood is the way to go.

Think about these considerations.

TL;DR
Counter-resist and depr prof are cool, but that doesn't solve all problems. and sometimes just hitting harder does solve problems better.

-Snip-

I have no intention to discuss this with you further because I know I'm right, and all advanced mages are using willow staffs. This is a fact and this is what everybody knows.
Your play style is not optimal for maximizing speed and survivability. Everything you mention you've used to rationalize your argument won't apply to the general players.

because you simply want to finish Arenas without imperils.
You only use your mage set for Arenas, which is very small number of monsters on average each round.
You have cold and your dark set 1.0 prof factor and non-imp style,
and you have DD6 long ago
and you've never done a 1000 round PFDfest with any of your mage set, I believe. In fact, I'm very confident you cannot complete a PFDfest with your mage set yet. Because they are not the most efficient setup. All your experience only applies to your situation, your Arenas play only. And if I had your DDs and your resource, I could have been more better. That's what advice I tried to give to other players. As, there are always better ways to play and worse ways to play.

Your opinion on shortsword style does not apply to other players either. Just a few days ago, a player around Lv300 told me how miserable he plays with his shortsword. According to him, his legendary hallowed shortsword play was much worse than his play with exquisite rapier(4~6 hits in contrast to 8~12 hits for shortsword). He also reports problem of very low imperil success rate.
The reason I mention this is because this situation is literally the same for your advice on mage. You had more DDs and peerless protection power set long ago, and high level, high magic accuracy. But this play style was much worse than the usual rapier play style for general population.
Now this advice for mage is again the same. This only applies to you, because you are not interested in maximizing speed. You have more resource than most players, and you come out and say your style maybe isn't the best, but it's just fine, which is not in fact. You haven't done GF with your mage set, or experienced massive counter-resist and SoL. Surely you can say whatever you want because you don't know yet.

Last words, I've mentioned that redwood is as good as willow for Arenas.

This post has been edited by -vincento-: Aug 29 2019, 17:43

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif) Don't worry, I'll be ranting again

occasional rant is fine, but your repeated cherry picked rants? you need to start consider stopping, or else people would start ignoring whatever you say and label you as part of village idiot.
happened before a few times.

at the very least do your rants on (not an) accomplishment thread, poor player club, or ponyverse chat, not here where unsuspecting newbie might consider your cherry picked data as fact and join the bandwagon.

Interesting, "delicate flower" around 1m or more? Thanks, I will ask in stores aswell.

Also my dexterity is 0. I am an elec mage aswell, has been since day one. Is it really a good idea to put points into dexterity? How many?
Currently I have 400 for agility and endurance, 507 for intelligence and 501 wisdom. Just wondering. Is it REALLY necessary?¿ I don't wanna waste those points. Sounds weird to me.

obsoletes could sell for high amount, some past easter artifact go for few hundreds k credits on auction.

dex is cheap and easy way to increase your survivability through parry.
if you redistribute your 7 int and 1 wisdom to dex, it would increase it to 460~ish maybe. That's like 18.5% parry at the cost of like, what 5 MDB and 0.01% mcrit chance?.

is that REALLY necessary?
it's just like asking if charged really necessary for maging, the answer is usually no but in some case, yes.

If you still doubt it, nobody force you to change.
If you're happy with your current setup and doesn't feel the need of extra survivability, then whatever float your boat, right?
But if you still intrigued by it, why not trying to redistribute thouse 8 points to dex? make a new persona or something then try it for a while, and experience by yourself how those 18.5% parry feels compared to little to no parry at all.
I did that once, mid level 2nd page arena turned into a perfectly flawless smooth play with just draught and potion compared to sometimes needed to drink health/mana elixir, less curing of course. never turn back.

This post has been edited by Fudo Masamune: Aug 29 2019, 17:59

don't underestimate the effect of counter resist. If you have 10000 damage, 50% resisted, your damage will be only 5000. The less they resist the damage, the faster you are. We're not talking about a measly 20% more damage, but about double the damage when it's not resisted. Imperil counter resist is nice, but that is not what makes willow so great / expensive. It's the damage effect of counter resist.

Interesting, "delicate flower" around 1m or more? Thanks, I will ask in stores aswell.

Don't expect it. There are older obsoletes and more recent obsoletes. There are rarer obsolete and quite (relatively) common ones, or simply not requested.

Look at last Super's auction, there where quite a few obsoletes and iirc also a Delicate Flower.

If I'm not wrong, it sold for a bit less then 600k, and all others with same tier where around that too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

Edit : Mind you, this could change with time, even a lot. As for shops, prices in WTB for such items are mostly rip-off ... and for WTS also, but in the opposite sense (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

They are simply too rarely traded, so buy/sell spread can be huge

This post has been edited by mundomuñeca: Aug 29 2019, 20:34

Everything is simple.
For imp elemental style,

arenas only->both willow and redwood works
grinding IW&GF->willow better

I am cold mage and I have done hundreds PFGF with a LAWD.
Frankly I don't think a LARD will perform better than LAWD in PFGF.

This post has been edited by qr12345: Aug 29 2019, 21:05

After reading all of you guys reply two things are clear to me: My mage equiment sucks and I'm not going to waste time building a Mage set because is hard, complicated and the reward is minimal compared to a full set of DW... (or maybe I'm just dumb and very lazy)

Maybe I can post a WTB post asking for a set of phase Mjolnir but after seeing the prices on the auction, phase mats, IW, etc. etc. I don't thinks is really worth it for me at this time.

I thank you all of you experts!

After reading all of you guys reply two things are clear to me: My mage equiment sucks and I'm not going to waste time building a Mage set because is hard, complicated and the reward is minimal compared to a full set of DW... (or maybe I'm just dumb and very lazy)

Maybe I can post a WTB post asking for a set of phase Mjolnir but after seeing the prices on the auction, phase mats, IW, etc. etc. I don't thinks is really worth it for me at this time.

I thank you all of you experts!

If you want my advice, or rather, my example: what I'll do is just go with whatever I get, either from drops, lottery or finding a bargain somewhere.

If I drop a LHOH/PHOH (hah), then I'll go with that. If I get a decent Willow or Redwood, with proper Prefix and Suffix, that works too.

I'd check people's shops, sometimes you find nice things out there.

Also, even if you don't do proper arenas for now with your mage, I'd use it. You need the profs to make it work.

It's normal to think that a style sucks when your profs aren't up to par. You've got to give it time.

PS: also, check Magnificent grade clothes/phases at first, to at least get the proper fixes in place. Depending on the mag, some reach leg ranges, so it isn't that different and it's something to get by while you get the proper stuff.

This post has been edited by ahroun: Aug 29 2019, 22:17

... and the reward is minimal compared to a full set of DW... (or maybe I'm just dumb and very lazy)
...

The reward is quite high. DWD in 1600 turns, 100 round arena in 3 minutes, 100 round IW in 3.5 minutes

The reward is quite high. DWD in 1600 turns, 100 round arena in 3 minutes, 100 round IW in 3.5 minutes

These rewards require 300m+ investment, right? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
Anyway, with around 20~30m beginner build you can finish PFdwd around 2500 turns.

This post has been edited by qr12345: Aug 29 2019, 22:39

These rewards require 300m+ investment, right? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

It is like the same for everythingelse in this game. When you want something, you have to pay for something. You want a big reward? Well, you have to pay big money for that. For nothing, you get nothing. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

There's a reason why elec and wind are so popular. And there is a reason why a catgirl I knew salvaged his perfect holy set and switch to imp dark.

I am confused. Why would they salvage a "perfect" holy set? The cost of fully upgrading a mage set is not that high, relatively speaking. This seems silly.

Also, what even is a "perfect" holy set? I didn't know anyone had fully peerless charged/radiant yet.

I am confused. Why would they salvage a "perfect" holy set? The cost of fully upgrading a mage set is not that high, relatively speaking. This seems silly.

Also, what even is a "perfect" holy set? I didn't know anyone had fully peerless charged/radiant yet.

sssss2 has a holy set that is pretty close to 'perfect'. And there are a couple of PHOH's around from lottery, those winners should have a decent holy build as well.

sssss2 has a holy set that is pretty close to 'perfect'. And there are a couple of PHOH's around from lottery, those winners should have a decent holy build as well.

All of his pieces could be significantly improved by replacing them with peerless versions. This is not to say that it is not a very good (maybe even the best right now?) holy set, but I wouldn't call it perfect.

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) How exactly works the Repair Bear Mk.1? I dont undertand what is write in the Wikia.

How come one could want to switch from holy to imp dark?

I have no doubts regarding Imp Dark being powerful and capable of one-shotting the entire party quite frequently and reliably, but it's the number of turns / game action time it requires to do so that leaves me with doubts about it being better than simply brute forcing as non-imp Holy. I mean, it takes at the very least 4 turns for Imp Dark to clear a round (3 Imperil + 1 Ragnarok). No idea about the actual action time, I have never measured that and the wiki is very lacking regarding this matter.

Do non-imped monsters with 25% resistance against holy left (read: 1.0 prof factor against Celestials, Elementals, Mechanoids, Sprites) take that many hits before dying?
Or is it that the cooldowns for Paradise Lost and Banishment are problematic, due to randomness, for non-imp holy?
Or is it that these 4 turns of Imp Dark take less action time than 3 Holy spells?
Or is it that non-imp Holy requires one to go full Radiant to blast with enough power, thus making your cast speed much lower than with Charged, effectively lowering your survival ability?

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) How exactly works the Repair Bear Mk.1? I dont undertand what is write in the Wikia.

your gear has less damage per round, and less damage for defeat. Basically, you would have to repair your gear less often. No, this does not have any realistic positive business case, as repairing materials are cheap and repairing costs little time.

No, this does not have any realistic positive business case, as repairing materials are cheap and repairing costs little time.

But it would only need around 20 to 30 years to pay off, so it is totaly worth it if you play that long. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

your gear has less damage per round, and less damage for defeat. Basically, you would have to repair your gear less often. No, this does not have any realistic positive business case, as repairing materials are cheap and repairing costs little time.

Only the last level of repair bear reduces the damage taken when being defeated. The other ones affect only the wear over time.
And yes, it's mostly a matter of having the repairs a bit less annoying, but economically speaking it's viable only after hundreds of repairs.

A question about mages.

How do they time their spells and their cooldowns?

I assume they Imperil, first they spread Imperil around (not sure if other Dprs, like Weakness too) and then they:

1. Blast that T3.
2. Clean up with selected T2s and T1s.

That's for single element mages, like Holy and Dark. Non-Imperil I guess they skip the Imperil phase and they reset the CD for T3 just with T1s or something, if anything is left.


But how do multi-element mages act? The only ones that come to mind are Willow and Redwood users, particularly the latter ones.

Do they cast their T3s in rainbow style (that is, combining elements as possible) and T2 afterwards until the first CD expires, or they just stick to their favoured element like single element mages do?


Also, are mages usually capable of clearing a round of monsters in a single T3 blast? Or they need multiple spells? How effective is usually the first blast?

This post has been edited by ahroun: Aug 30 2019, 10:01