[X] My Assistant

If Imperil hits, it's good. This "if" is just way too rare for melee. Though perhaps people can get used to it.

When it comes to equips, no one who tries to optimize should listen to me. That said, my personal style of playing 1H differs from much that Killi said above. I wear light armor and have AGI as my top stat, but keep my "mage stats" relatively high as well.

My imperil works most of the time, provided that I boost it up with focus, and when I attack, I almost automatically hit my target. If only imperil could affect more targets at once!

The downsides are that much of my effort goes into defense or keeping enemies immobile (because I cannot take much damage myself) and that even if I hit I don’t do that much damage.

The play experience is pretty close to what I’m after, but it’s certainly not great for making lots of credits very quickly. For me, spirit stance feels almost as cool as dropping some bubble-gum, for the monsters really go down a lot faster, especially on lower difficulties.

My weapon of choice is club, largely because getting enemies stunned greatly helps my survival.

This post has been edited by Katajanmarja: Dec 18 2021, 10:41

Before that's a real thing, we'd need a patch for melee deprec hitrate. As it is, you miss so damn much, it'd be little more than one hell of a frustrating experience.
Don't get me wrong. If Imperil hits, it's good. This "if" is just way too rare for melee. Though perhaps people can get used to it.

We actually have some plans that should help with that a little, although it wasn't exactly my first choice - I would've liked abilities to expand how many targets deprecating spells hit, at the cost of increased mana (or even spirit). But there are some accuracy reworks planned and mathed out that should benefit melee on that front.

There are also future possibilities for better gear for it (and the next update is mostly internal technical changes that would allow equipment to be backwards- and forwards-compatible with new game versions, so existing gear could be buffed where applicable).

Even so, right now, I do think it's worth the extra imperils for melee generally - there are situations in which recasting is undesirable, especially for 1H who can focus on the unimperiled targets and let imperiled enemies die to counters, or SG arenas where you might only bother with the SGs and let the rest die from AoE effects. This holds true even at ridiculously high damage, so I think it should apply to lower damage players, and that's been my experience on isekai too with 1H, DW and 2H.

Oh, also, one day there's a slow-down of the game planned (less turns per second, but actions become more meaningful) - battles and/or rewards would be rebalanced around this at the same time. Unfortunately that's a really long-term kinda thing, and that's part of the reason melee hasn't been reworked already - there are a bunch of things that happen first, or otherwise everything is gonna need a second rework further down the line anyway. And with limited dev time, avoiding redundant work is pretty important.

This post has been edited by Nezu: Dec 18 2021, 10:57

Is there anyway to play this on mobile comfortably? I want to do RE but its annoying to click anything on mobile. thanks in advance

We actually have some plans that should help with that a little, although it wasn't exactly my first choice - I would've liked abilities to expand how many targets deprecating spells hit, at the cost of increased mana (or even spirit). But there are some accuracy reworks planned and mathed out that should benefit melee on that front.

There are also future possibilities for better gear for it (and the next update is mostly internal technical changes that would allow equipment to be backwards- and forwards-compatible with new game versions, so existing gear could be buffed where applicable).

Even so, right now, I do think it's worth the extra imperils for melee generally - there are situations in which recasting is undesirable, especially for 1H who can focus on the unimperiled targets and let imperiled enemies die to counters, or SG arenas where you might only bother with the SGs and let the rest die from AoE effects. This holds true even at ridiculously high damage, so I think it should apply to lower damage players, and that's been my experience on isekai too with 1H, DW and 2H.

Oh, also, one day there's a slow-down of the game planned (less turns per second, but actions become more meaningful) - battles and/or rewards would be rebalanced around this at the same time. Unfortunately that's a really long-term kinda thing, and that's part of the reason melee hasn't been reworked already - there are a bunch of things that happen first, or otherwise everything is gonna need a second rework further down the line anyway. And with limited dev time, avoiding redundant work is pretty important.

Sounds definitely interesting. Would personally like it if some of the rather obsolete weapon types get more of a meaning again.

When it comes to equips, no one who tries to optimize should listen to me. That said, my personal style of playing 1H differs from much that Killi said above. I wear light armor and have AGI as my top stat, but keep my "mage stats" relatively high as well.

My imperil works most of the time, provided that I boost it up with focus, and when I attack, I almost automatically hit my target. If only imperil could affect more targets at once!

The downsides are that much of my effort goes into defense or keeping enemies immobile (because I cannot take much damage myself) and that even if I hit I don’t do that much damage.

The play experience is pretty close to what I’m after, but it’s certainly not great for making lots of credits very quickly. For me, spirit stance feels almost as cool as dropping some bubble-gum, for the monsters really go down a lot faster, especially on lower difficulties.

My weapon of choice is club, largely because getting enemies stunned greatly helps my survival.

Focus helps, but is something I'd rather not include into my standard course of actions. Feels like against all the hard hitting trucks, the inability to evade/block/parry/resist damage, when that's the biggest damage reduction you have, is not a fun idea.
That said, did you try dual wielding? With light armor and the heavy evasion, block isn't really doing that much anymore. Club + Rapier is what you could try. The idea behind 1h is that you get a lot of stuns from blocking/parrying and as such countering enemies. The evasion goes against that.

Is there anyway to play this on mobile comfortably? I want to do RE but its annoying to click anything on mobile. thanks in advance

I can get tampermonkey on my mobile firefox, hence monsterbation. The monster bar is nice.

Before that's a real thing, we'd need a patch for melee deprec hitrate. As it is, you miss so damn much, it'd be little more than one hell of a frustrating experience.
Don't get me wrong. If Imperil hits, it's good. This "if" is just way too rare for melee. Though perhaps people can get used to it.

I'd argue, when it comes to 1h melee, any weapon but Wakizashi (that's for 1h mage) would be ok, if Imperil could hit more than 60% of the time. You don't really need the parry as 1h, so even a Club or Axe could be fine. Most of your parry comes from Dex anyway, and you have all the block in the world. There's however still the ugly bleed overwriting thing. Vital Strike's bleed gets overwritten by a weapon proc. That'd need to get fixed as well.
Until then, everyone is going to continue to Rapier. No reliance on Imperil, that never hits. No problems with Vital Strike's bleed.

this is is really not the advice that the experts would give. Please do testing and research before claiming that something is not a real thing.

Extensive research shows:
1. Imperil play allows rapier players to clear arenas, IW and PFFEST with less turns
2. Imperil play makes shortsword and rapier really close in performance
3. Fully forged lv 500 end game gear: Imperil shortsword seems to just outperform imperil rapier (but still very close), and both outperform non-imperil rapier play
4. You do need the parry as 1h. You need overcharge, and parry may trigger counter attack. Dude claiming that parry isn't needed is just wrong. Also, try fighting the ponies without parry. Good luck with that.

I'm tempted to just delete your post dude.

That said, did you try dual wielding?

An interesting idea.

Back when I started playing on a somewhat regular basis, my original plan was to play two-hand and leather (could not even dream of getting good shade armor at that point). However, it became evident that relying on AGI alone was impossible in the long run, so that’s why I switched to 1H, reluctantly yet pretty soon.

Club plus sword is a combination that never crossed my mind, largely because I haven’t really heard of any real-life or fictional warriors using that.

This post has been edited by Katajanmarja: Dec 18 2021, 16:51

That said, did you try dual wielding?

An interesting idea.

Back when I started playing on a somewhat regular basis, my original plan was to play two-hand and leather (could not even dream of getting good shade armor at that point). However, it became evident that relying on AGI alone was impossible in the long run, so that’s why I switched to 1H, reluctantly yet pretty soon.

Club plus sword is a combination that never crossed my mind, largely because I haven’t really heard of any real-life or fictional warriors using that.

aye not many examples of club + sword in stories... but it does work remarkably well, especially against schoolgirls. I used this in isekai. But rapier + waki is also very good. However, most DW characters I know of from games use two the same weapons.... so yeah maybe HV isn't that realistic?

Snom's question to Experts-sama: If there was ~3000 Magic dmg with ~300% Holy EDB. Is that enough to play mage at Arena or "Resident Evil" ? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

However, most DW characters I know of from games use two the same weapons.... so yeah maybe HV isn't that realistic?

I also recall that there used to be a style of European swordsmanship combining a sword and a dagger. Not sure if that would be technically DW or 1H – just buckler replaced with dagger.

(My apologies for a remark that is blatantly off topic in this thread).

Snom's question to Experts-sama: If there was ~3000 Magic dmg with ~300% Holy EDB. Is that enough to play mage at Arena or "Resident Evil" ? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif) (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

at low difficutly for sure. At pfudor? Holy is just so crappy until you get great gear...

at low difficutly for sure. At pfudor? Holy is just so crappy until you get great gear...

Even a single round of PFDOR RE ? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

This post has been edited by shote1369: Dec 18 2021, 20:23

A'ight, I have two questions.

1.) Which targets are hit from center of effect? I have Tempest at max 9 targets, but it doesn't seem to hit, say, the first 9 if I target enemy 1. Maybe 8? If there are 10 targets 1-10, and I target enemy X, what is the area of effect if the number of enemies targeted is Y?

2.) How do you decide between equipment? It seems to take a lot of time and resources to improve a piece of equipment, so I'd like to save all that for late-game equipment, but what constitutes good late-game equipment?

Take my staffs for instance. I'm currently wielding https://hentaiverse.org/equip/88089748/295a07fe99 , but I also have https://hentaiverse.org/equip/274359167/82dd577cbd in inventory. The Magnificent Destruction staff sure does add a flat lot of damage; is the Legendary ethereal staff's lack of Burden and greater elemental Proficiency going to increase my DPS if I'm mostly cycling through the four top-tier elemental spells (with a scattering of protective, deprecating for utility, and Paradise Lost)? How does one calculate this?

Or how about armor? How do you calculate useful protection? Currently my body slot is https://hentaiverse.org/equip/187687150/eba0685248 , magnificent phase, but I also have a legendary cotton, https://hentaiverse.org/equip/182354547/5f57871231 , with more than double the physical mitigation for a percent less Evade and slightly worse attribute boosts.

I could go through my whole list and ask y'all "Which of these is better?" but of course I'd really rather know how to make the decision myself.

A'ight, I have two questions.

1.) Which targets are hit from center of effect? I have Tempest at max 9 targets, but it doesn't seem to hit, say, the first 9 if I target enemy 1. Maybe 8? If there are 10 targets 1-10, and I target enemy X, what is the area of effect if the number of enemies targeted is Y?

2.) How do you decide between equipment? It seems to take a lot of time and resources to improve a piece of equipment, so I'd like to save all that for late-game equipment, but what constitutes good late-game equipment?

Take my staffs for instance. I'm currently wielding https://hentaiverse.org/equip/88089748/295a07fe99 , but I also have https://hentaiverse.org/equip/274359167/82dd577cbd in inventory. The Magnificent Destruction staff sure does add a flat lot of damage; is the Legendary ethereal staff's lack of Burden and greater elemental Proficiency going to increase my DPS if I'm mostly cycling through the four top-tier elemental spells (with a scattering of protective, deprecating for utility, and Paradise Lost)? How does one calculate this?

Or how about armor? How do you calculate useful protection? Currently my body slot is https://hentaiverse.org/equip/187687150/eba0685248 , magnificent phase, but I also have a legendary cotton, https://hentaiverse.org/equip/182354547/5f57871231 , with more than double the physical mitigation for a percent less Evade and slightly worse attribute boosts.

I could go through my whole list and ask y'all "Which of these is better?" but of course I'd really rather know how to make the decision myself.

1. if you target monster, you'll target all monsters from 1-3 if your spell is able to hit 3 monsters. if you target 2, you will hit monsters 1-3 as well. If you target monster 3, you will hit monsters 2, 3 and 4. If you target monster 5, you will hit monsters 4, 5, 6. If the last monster is monster 9, and you target monster 9 with this 3-hits-spell, you will only hit monsters 8 and 9. Similar for spells that hit more monsters than 3.

2. Ethereal staff is utterly useless. You can't cast spells of void magic! You miss out on all the EDB damage. The magnificent is better, but the wrong type of wood. But for higher difficulties, a legendary matching staff is recommended. You need to match prefix, wood type, suffix. All needs to match.

The cotton of protection is completely useless. The phase gives EDB damage. But you need cotton of the elementalist as well, to get proficiency.

In short, I recommend that you read the wiki on how mage playstyle works

this is is really not the advice that the experts would give. Please do testing and research before claiming that something is not a real thing.

Extensive research shows:
1. Imperil play allows rapier players to clear arenas, IW and PFFEST with less turns
2. Imperil play makes shortsword and rapier really close in performance
3. Fully forged lv 500 end game gear: Imperil shortsword seems to just outperform imperil rapier (but still very close), and both outperform non-imperil rapier play
4. You do need the parry as 1h. You need overcharge, and parry may trigger counter attack. Dude claiming that parry isn't needed is just wrong. Also, try fighting the ponies without parry. Good luck with that.

I'm tempted to just delete your post dude.

I only wrote that it's frustrating due to all the missing, not that it's bad. And how it's bad with Vital Strikes against school girls. I'd argue most stick to Rapier because it's just a better player experience. Imperil reduces turns, but increases the amount of active stuff the player needs to do.

Maybe I didn't say it clearly enough, but Imperil isn't bad. It's just not a very nice experience. 1h is the master of "barely paying attention while playing".

So let me see if I can suss out the answers from this:

1.) If targeting X, the area of effect attempts to be X +/- (Y-1)/2, and shifts to the first Y or last X is at most (Y-1)/2 or at least "last minus (Y-1)/2." What if Y is even and one targets near the center? Is the center of effect at the end of the first half of Y/2, or the beginning of the second half?

2.) Not being a complete fool, I have indeed read the wiki on the mage playstyle and was hoping for a little more detail. The useful advice on the wiki appears to be "Uses primarily damage and evasion stats" -- so between this and your statement, do I understand that I should completely ignore mitigation and solely focus on the Evade (and possibly Resist) stats? -- and "Use 1 or 2 cloth armors to boost the relevant proficiency (elemental/forbidden/divine), with the rest phase of your element.", in which case, how much proficiency boost do I want, versus damage bonus?

I also don't understand your concern about the ethereal staff. Are you saying that "ethereal" and "shocking" are mutually exclusive prefixes, and I should prefer the latter, regardless of higher attribute bonuses? What about the fact that the Ethereal staff gives a much larger proficiency bonus, almost 90 higher, as much as a typical Exquisite Cotton piece of armor in the shop provides, and 1 or 2 of which is suggested as a part of my gear by the wiki? Is there any calculation with which I can compare the facts that the Mag staff gives flat +727 magic, +47 elec, with +79 Elemental proficiency on +60 Int, while the Leg staff gives only +462 mag and +26 elec, but +166 Elemental proficiency on +65 Int?

2.) Not being a complete fool, I have indeed read the wiki on the mage playstyle and was hoping for a little more detail. The useful advice on the wiki appears to be "Uses primarily damage and evasion stats" -- so between this and your statement, do I understand that I should completely ignore mitigation and solely focus on the Evade (and possibly Resist) stats? -- and "Use 1 or 2 cloth armors to boost the relevant proficiency (elemental/forbidden/divine), with the rest phase of your element.", in which case, how much proficiency boost do I want, versus damage bonus?

I also don't understand your concern about the ethereal staff. Are you saying that "ethereal" and "shocking" are mutually exclusive prefixes, and I should prefer the latter, regardless of higher attribute bonuses? What about the fact that the Ethereal staff gives a much larger proficiency bonus, almost 90 higher, as much as a typical Exquisite Cotton piece of armor in the shop provides, and 1 or 2 of which is suggested as a part of my gear by the wiki? Is there any calculation with which I can compare the facts that the Mag staff gives flat +727 magic, +47 elec, with +79 Elemental proficiency on +60 Int, while the Leg staff gives only +462 mag and +26 elec, but +166 Elemental proficiency on +65 Int?

Make sure you also read Nezu's Mage Guide. The HVUtils script is also helpful for figuring out mage builds. On the equipment page, it gives a whole bunch of numbers such as magic score and arcane score. Try to maximize the Schoolgirl 75% mitigation value for SG arenas, or Maximum 75% mitigation for other content. These values take into account your damage stats and your proficiency.

Basically all the armor pieces should help you kill stuff faster, so either boosting proficiency or edb. The idea is kill stuff faster before it can charge up its mp/sp bars and cast any spells at you, so protection is worthless.

Are you saying that "ethereal" and "shocking" are mutually exclusive prefixes

Yes, an item can only have one prefix.

Nezu has a really solid guide for mage equipment and other related stuff: https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?showtopic=246193

2.) Not being a complete fool, I have indeed read the wiki on the mage playstyle and was hoping for a little more detail. The useful advice on the wiki appears to be "Uses primarily damage and evasion stats" -- so between this and your statement, do I understand that I should completely ignore mitigation and solely focus on the Evade (and possibly Resist) stats? -- and "Use 1 or 2 cloth armors to boost the relevant proficiency (elemental/forbidden/divine), with the rest phase of your element.", in which case, how much proficiency boost do I want, versus damage bonus?

I also don't understand your concern about the ethereal staff. Are you saying that "ethereal" and "shocking" are mutually exclusive prefixes, and I should prefer the latter, regardless of higher attribute bonuses? What about the fact that the Ethereal staff gives a much larger proficiency bonus, almost 90 higher, as much as a typical Exquisite Cotton piece of armor in the shop provides, and 1 or 2 of which is suggested as a part of my gear by the wiki? Is there any calculation with which I can compare the facts that the Mag staff gives flat +727 magic, +47 elec, with +79 Elemental proficiency on +60 Int, while the Leg staff gives only +462 mag and +26 elec, but +166 Elemental proficiency on +65 Int?

You want enough proficiency to reach a certain proficiency factor. See This and this.
All prefixes are mutually exclusive since you can only have one on a weapon at any time, I don't know what you mean by that. Ethereal staffs are shit because they don't give any bonus damage to a magic type. The other prefixes do.
Here is the magic damage formula.

edit:

Targeting stuff

From what I can tell, the algorithm goes like this (using 0 indexing, monster "a" is at index 0, monster "b" at index 1 etc.):

CODE

m = array of monsters in round
n = number of targets
i = index of targeted monster
if n >= length(m):
  target everything
else
  start = max(i - floor(n/2), 0)
  target m[start] to m[start+n]

It prioritises monsters above the target.

This post has been edited by namae56709: Dec 19 2021, 01:02

Thank you, that precision is what I was looking for. So, in fact, if you target a very late monster then you don't get as many monsters targeted. That's interesting.

Thank you to those who linked Nezu's mage equipment guide, which I think helps as well.