QUOTE(Somnophil @ Aug 20 2021, 01:12)
There is no turning back now. I already salvaged all my light armor. Oops.
I have about 2.8k soul fragments now. At the moment, I can only safely do nightmare, and it is still worse than how I would have done on my previous build. The only decent piece of equipment is a iw10 fiery shortsword of slaughter. Everything else was just whatever the hell I could find - I'm even using two "average" items. Because I am poor - only 3 mil. credits - I am trying to be careful on what I buy, for fear that I will bankrupt myself.
More importantly, there just isn't that much stuff above exquisite usable for my level, and the stuff that is at my level is actually below it, so I'd need to soulfuse it, meaning I'd run out of soul fragments.
Oh well. If I *only* do this badly with shit equipment, imagine how I will do once I actually have things I don't plan on throwing away asap!
My best advice is to just keep checking the Bazaar, I had similar problems with finding EQ near my level and had nowhere near as much credits as you do. The important thing is to check frequently - or at least once a day.
As I mentioned you should use scripts if you don't already (there's a pinned thread with recommended ones), you can easily check for relevant EQ in a matter of seconds.
On top of that, my personal experience for prioritizing ability assignment would be the EQ Abilities>Supportive spells/Consumables>Deprecating spells, at least at somewhat higher levels of proficiency. Any spells not yet unlocked are obviously excempt from the priority order until you unlock them.
For 1H it depends on how much Mitigation you have, but from my perspective the general priority for Support/Consumables would be Cure>Regen>Spirit Shield/Protection>Consumables>Spark of Life in point assignment.
If your Block and Parry is low, or you're struggling in general, you may want to also add Haste, but for established 1H builds Haste seems to be better to ignore. If your Burden is too high, Haste is pointless (unless it ignores the burden modifier). Heartseeker is useful but of low priority compared to the others imo - also remember to save casting it for last in your "setup phase" of combat so you can use a potential Channeling proc on it. Don't bother wasting mana and turns on Shadow Veil, it's hardly noticeable (if at all) unless you have a low burden set AND use featherweight enchantments - and even if you have nothing else to use Mastery/AP on you probably don't want to use it on a 1H build regardless.
Deprecating generally has less priority than Supportive/Consumables for points, but is still important - especially if you want to tackle stronger enemies (RoB). If you don't have a decent EQ set tackling RoB without Silence seems largely suicidal. For regular mobs the priority depends on your weapon, if you're using Rapier Imperil is less important but is always worthwhile because it significantly improves your damage output and you're unlikely to be dealing enough damage where applying Imperil to (most) monsters takes more time than the time it saves you - just how much depends heavily on levels though, both for the abilities to improve Imperil and how much Mitigation monsters actually have.
If prioritizing safety, I reckon the priority for applying and assigning points to should be (Silence first against bosses); Weaken>Imperil>Slow>Silence. Don't understimate weaken - it only takes 0.6 of a turn to cast fully upgraded and can reduce their regular damage output by up to 50%.
Slow is a luxury - I wouldn't upgrade it until you've fully upgraded everything else you need and still have points and mastery remaining, and even then it's only really useful if you're struggling in general or against especially powerful enemies. If you're cruising you shouldn't bother at all.
Silence is a top priority against powerful enemies but is also useful even against regular mobs if you feel you still need to cut down their damage output - especially to avoid burst damage. It will save you health and/or Spirit (Spirit Shield/Spark) if you're not cruising.
More general notes; Don't be stingy with consumables and your mana - in anything except possibly the last round or single round combat you'll generally want to (almost) always have a Mana (and health) Draught running, and don't be afraid of using Health Potions if your Cure is on cooldown or you may be nuked after casting Cure (consumables have no cast time). Same for Mana potions, if your Draught isn't keeping up then use one. For Elixir's it's more up to you, I personally only used them for dire situations in either the longer arenas or in the RoB.
The only reason to not use consumables is if you're not worried about as much for your safety and want to leave room for what Gems can fill up.
Spirit restoration is a bit more complicated - how early and often you want to have a Draught running depends on how much damage you're taking, as a Melee you don't use much spirit on Spirit Stance alone - most of it comes from Spirit Shield or Spark triggers.
If you notice that your spirit is steadily decreasing
and you might have Spark trigger for you then you probably want to pop a Spirit Draught pretty early, popping Spirit Potions shortly after falling below the threshold for how much it restores - scripts help with more accurately determining when that is. If Spark triggers are uncommon or not happening against the current powerlevel of enemies then you can feel free to leave room for Spirit Gems.
Finally, even if you have spells on autocast don't be afraid to use scrolls against bosses or similar that you expect to take a while to defeat - scrolls not only save you MP but also give you a slightly more powerful version of whatever spell it casts on you. I wouldn't bother with any of the rare consumables (Gum/Vase) unless you're planning to tackle something you deem out of your league in the RoB or similar, they sell for ~10k on the HVMarket.
If you're playing enough to need stamina consumables (Candy/Drink) then - at least if I'm reading it correctly - you can use them in battle instead of outside to also refill your stamina and overcharge on top of stamina. Specifically they restore 10% spirit&overcharge/turn for 5 or 10 turns respectively.
Personally I'd just sell Energy Drinks though, they sell for around 90k, but it also looks like 90k were a significantly larger sum to me when I was around your level than it is to you - seeing how I couldn't even dream of getting anywhere near 3 million back then without getting most of it from selling Hath.
Something else to keep in mind is that if you're on the defensive, you can use 'Defend' to both reduce your damage taken and recover a small amount of health at the cost of some of your Overcharge. If you're struggling and have the Dovahkiin title (min L300), you can use 'FUS RO DAH' if you have enough Overcharge to buy yourself some time to recover.
Economically, another reason to always keep Draughts running whenever it won't be wasted is - apart from the fact that they exist to be used in the first place - is because even if you run out of consumables purchasing Draughts is dirt cheap (~1c/2.2c each), but Potions/Elixir's are significantly more expensive (~40x for potions and 400c/700c for Elixir's). With those differences it's better to risk "wasting" Draughts than risking having to use a Potion instead - and in the case of running full on mana you can cast/re-apply those that are on autocast/already cast. The cost differences for Spirit consumables are similar, but their Draughts go for ~32c.
Don't know how much of this you knew or didn't already, but if nothing else I - or someone else - can refer to it for other people. I know I wish I had known even half of it in the past, I wasted mana on keeping Shadow Veil (and Haste) on autocast for a pretty long time, and I didn't start using most Deprecating spells until far later than I should've.
This post has been edited by Xiandora: Aug 21 2021, 18:43
Ask the Experts!, Ask anything about hentaiverse. Hints for beginners
Aug 20 2021, 18:48
