[X] My Assistant

1.How much damage can Shatter Strike actually hit comparing to a normal attack? (in brief the rate)
I am not quite good at test but really want to know whether it is worthy to use Shatter Strike after Rending Blow.

2. The formula in wiki:

CODE

Base Skill Damage = Physical_Attack_Base_Damage * Skill_Multiplier * Overcharge %?* 0.02

What is the meaning of this:

CODE

Overcharge %?* 0.02

This post has been edited by EromancerX: Apr 13 2023, 07:18

I am not quite good at test but really want to know whether it is worthy to use Shatter Strike after Rending Blow.

I'm not sure about the damage but using shatter strike on a monster who has penetrated armor (or after rending blow) will cause them to be stunned. If you don't use a mace having monsters stunned for 5 turns is too good to pass up which makes the use of rending blow and shatter strike a powerful combo.

Yep, I play 2H, and Shatter Strike is probably the most important tool at my disposal. If you're playing with an estoc that can penetrate armor, you might be able to skip rending blow and go straight to shatter strike after a few attacks. If you're playing with a long sword, you'll need to use rending blow to penetrate the armor, followed by shatter strike. The reason it's so important has nothing to do with damage it causes, it's because it will stun 5 monsters in a mob, preventing them from doing any damage for 5 rounds, which is a lifesaver on harder difficulties since light armor has such low defense.

Want to know does that worth serveral million GP for the lottery......
For the lottery, there is a good equipment......peerless savage power of slaughter

I'm not sure about the damage but using shatter strike on a monster who has penetrated armor (or after rending blow) will cause them to be stunned. If you don't use a mace having monsters stunned for 5 turns is too good to pass up which makes the use of rending blow and shatter strike a powerful combo.

Yep, I play 2H, and Shatter Strike is probably the most important tool at my disposal. If you're playing with an estoc that can penetrate armor, you might be able to skip rending blow and go straight to shatter strike after a few attacks. If you're playing with a long sword, you'll need to use rending blow to penetrate the armor, followed by shatter strike. The reason it's so important has nothing to do with damage it causes, it's because it will stun 5 monsters in a mob, preventing them from doing any damage for 5 rounds, which is a lifesaver on harder difficulties since light armor has such low defense.

Thanks for your reply.
My problem is I do use a mace and wonder the better choice between use 50 overcharge for normal attack in spirit stance and a shatter strike.

This post has been edited by EromancerX: Apr 13 2023, 11:52

Thanks for your reply.
My problem is I do use a mace and wonder the better choice between use 50 overcharge for normal attack in spirit stance and a shatter strike.

"Best" is situational. Depending on your survivability, the number of monsters in the round, how much overcharge you have, cooldowns, and probably a few other things if you're really looking to optimize, you'll want to follow rending blow with either shatter strike, FRD, or even normal attacks without spirit stance. I usually turn on spirit stance to quickly clear the monsters that were hit with rending blow after enough monsters are stunned to be safe. You want to finish each round with enough overcharge to safely start the next round and have rending blow off cooldown.
I haven't tested out how to best use OFC because I don't have it yet.
If your question is just "what does more damage for the overcharge cost" then I'm quite sure it's spirit stance attacks.

Want to know does that worth serveral million GP for the lottery......
For the lottery, there is a good equipment......peerless savage power of slaughter

yes that item was good enough to spend 20,000 kGP on it - if you're into gambling that is. The chance of winning is still quite low.

yes that item was good enough to spend 20,000 kGP on it - if you're into gambling that is. The chance of winning is still quite low.

I wish 1 of those 2 Chaos Token Prices would change into something else (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

It really needs a rework... maybe every day a different Material or so

If your question is just "what does more damage for the overcharge cost" then I'm quite sure it's spirit stance attacks.

Thanks for your reply.
For me I noticed that damage of Shatter Strike can be 15 times than normal attack (an example is 120k:8k), at the same time normal attack has a chance to miss while Shatter Strike ensure a hit, in that case maybe Shatter Strike will do more damage on average, but I am not sure about this. That's why I would like someone professional help me test this.

Besides, currently this question has not yet been answered, I would like to quote it and wait for an expert to answer:

2. The formula in wiki:

CODE

Base Skill Damage = Physical_Attack_Base_Damage * Skill_Multiplier * Overcharge %?* 0.02

What is the meaning of this:

CODE

Overcharge %?* 0.02

This post has been edited by EromancerX: Apr 14 2023, 02:38

For a mage，which Hath Perks more importent？
I only have buy Innate Arcana IV

Vigorous Vitality (250 hath) is a great defensive option, giving +10% base health, which also improves your heals. The relevant proficiency perk (1000 hath) for your damage type lets you get away with less proficiency cotton and more damage phase, so it's good to have. Daemon Duality I (2000 hath) is a more direct damage boost and is very good.

Enigma Energizer (200 hath) is a small but nice boost and good for the cheap price. Riddlemaster bonus tends to last more rounds for mages because they kill stuff quicker.

Effluent Ether and Resplendent Regeneration (500 hath each) help with mana costs, but mana elixirs are really cheap at the moment, so these hath perks are probably not worth it.

1.How much damage can Shatter Strike actually hit comparing to a normal attack? (in brief the rate)
I am not quite good at test but really want to know whether it is worthy to use Shatter Strike after Rending Blow.

2. The formula in wiki:

CODE

Base Skill Damage = Physical_Attack_Base_Damage * Skill_Multiplier * Overcharge %?* 0.02

What is the meaning of this:

CODE

Overcharge %?* 0.02

A few of the formulas and little numbers on the wiki and some pages seem wonky and might contain dubious or difficult to decipher information (like that particular damage section or the loot and trainings one), besides it wouldn't help that much in terms of gameplay so don't worry about it to much, because there's a chance nobody knows what that part means.

For me I noticed that damage of Shatter Strike can be 15 times than normal attack (an example is 120k:8k), at the same time normal attack has a chance to miss while Shatter Strike ensure a hit, in that case maybe Shatter Strike will do more damage on average, but I am not sure about this. That's why I would like someone professional help me test this.

The actual multiplier for Shatter Strike is smaller, you seem to be getting high damage because you're either using it after Rending Blow or Imperil which add 3 Penetrated Armor stacks or reduced Physical Mitigation to your damage. At several points in time I was curious about the skills and tested a bit about their multipliers vs a normal hit in the same conditions, but what I'm going to post is from reduced samples, thus not exhaustive and so your mileage may vary. But it should be useful as a reference point.

SKILL MULTIPLIERS

Rending Blow x3.32-4.28
Shatter Strike x2.43-3.36
Great Cleave x10-11
FUS RO DAH x3.8-4.4

These were preliminary results, then later did some more and got these average values:

Rending Blow x4.1083333333333
Shatter Strike x3.386
Great Cleave NOT TESTED
FUS RO DAH x4.1788888888889

So raw they're not even rounded, but yeah basically Shatter Strike is potentially slightly weaker than FRD or RB while those latter two seem to be similar. It may seem common sense to use SS after Penetrated Armor stacks, but according to old forum posts some people used it alone as an opening attack in a round when RB was on cooldown, making sure they always had a big secure attack every start of a round so it's worth mentioning.
SPoison and trogon are right in that it's a perfectly viable way of survival, but I have to agree with namae56709 in that it mostly depends on a lot of things whether it's worth to use for you or not considering you're a mace user. I personally think that since mace traded power for stuns you can maaaybe get a bit more out of using Spirit Stance over Shatter Strike in terms of OC unless you're still struggling for survival.

For a mage，which Hath Perks more importent？
I only have buy Innate Arcana IV

The perk that boosts proficiency for your element is very high priority for both imp and non-imp play. Proficiency also takes a while to build up. After that Vigorous Vitality helps in making your play smoother and reduce sparks. Innate Arcana V is desirable because it's a chore to continuously cast support spells to protect you. Then after that it's probably the first Dæmon Duality I.

For me I noticed that damage of Shatter Strike can be 15 times than normal attack (an example is 120k:8k

There is no way those hits were under the same conditions. I've been seeing shatter strike at around 3.5 times more damage compared to a normal hit under the same conditions.

at the same time normal attack has a chance to miss while Shatter Strike ensure a hit

Except at low level, or with poor gear, misses are going to be only from parry which isn't very common especially since stunned monsters can't parry and you're using a mace. Although it could be argued that domino strike not proccing could count as a miss, so you could hit fewer targets, but you are likely to hit more. Let's look at some numbers.
Shatter strike will do a total of around x17.5 normal damage against 5 enemies and around x14 normal damage against 4 enemies (3.5 times 5 or 4). With domino strike you get around x0.75 damage on the main target from elemental strikes and can hit up to 7 enemies but let's look at 5 and 4 enemies first. Assuming no misses, against 5 enemies your expected total damage is x4.177 normal damage with a maximum of x4.7 normal damage (1+2*p(1+p*0.85) where p is domino strike probability). Against 4 targets the expected total is x3.4885 with a maximum of x3.85 (1+1*p+p(1+p*0.85)).
Against 7 targets, the expected total is x5.23 with a maximum of x6 (1+2*p(1+p(0.85+0.65))).
So for 5 targets and below, shatter strike deals around x3.5 more total damage than normal attacks and for 7 targets and above it only deals around x2.5 more. But your initial question was about spirit stance with normal attacks, so we can halve those to x1.75 and x1.25.
So yes, shatter strike will hit more consistently but not by much, and it will do more damage in a single turn. But it would be a more efficient use of overcharge to use normal attacks in spirit stance. I hope all of this is easy enough to read.

Besides, currently this question has not yet been answered, I would like to quote it and wait for an expert to answer:

Be wary of any information on the wiki with a "?" near it. By looking at the page history you can see here https://ehwiki.org/index.php?title=Skills&a...amp;oldid=26747 that there used to be the belief that total overcharge affected the damage but it isn't true. Similarly, most of the skill multipliers are wrong, see https://ehwiki.org/index.php?title=Skills&a...amp;oldid=23912

Vigorous Vitality (250 hath) is a great defensive option, giving +10% base health, which also improves your heals. The relevant proficiency perk (1000 hath) for your damage type lets you get away with less proficiency cotton and more damage phase, so it's good to have. Daemon Duality I (2000 hath) is a more direct damage boost and is very good.

Enigma Energizer (200 hath) is a small but nice boost and good for the cheap price. Riddlemaster bonus tends to last more rounds for mages because they kill stuff quicker.

Effluent Ether and Resplendent Regeneration (500 hath each) help with mana costs, but mana elixirs are really cheap at the moment, so these hath perks are probably not worth it.

THX a lot，it seems i can buy Vigorous Vitality and proficiency first

A few of the formulas and little numbers on the wiki and some pages seem wonky and might contain dubious or difficult to decipher information (like that particular damage section or the loot and trainings one), besides it wouldn't help that much in terms of gameplay so don't worry about it to much, because there's a chance nobody knows what that part means.
The actual multiplier for Shatter Strike is smaller, you seem to be getting high damage because you're either using it after Rending Blow or Imperil which add 3 Penetrated Armor stacks or reduced Physical Mitigation to your damage. At several points in time I was curious about the skills and tested a bit about their multipliers vs a normal hit in the same conditions, but what I'm going to post is from reduced samples, thus not exhaustive and so your mileage may vary. But it should be useful as a reference point.

SKILL MULTIPLIERS

Rending Blow x3.32-4.28
Shatter Strike x2.43-3.36
Great Cleave x10-11
FUS RO DAH x3.8-4.4

These were preliminary results, then later did some more and got these average values:

Rending Blow x4.1083333333333
Shatter Strike x3.386
Great Cleave NOT TESTED
FUS RO DAH x4.1788888888889

So raw they're not even rounded, but yeah basically Shatter Strike is potentially slightly weaker than FRD or RB while those latter two seem to be similar. It may seem common sense to use SS after Penetrated Armor stacks, but according to old forum posts some people used it alone as an opening attack in a round when RB was on cooldown, making sure they always had a big secure attack every start of a round so it's worth mentioning.
SPoison and trogon are right in that it's a perfectly viable way of survival, but I have to agree with namae56709 in that it mostly depends on a lot of things whether it's worth to use for you or not considering you're a mace user. I personally think that since mace traded power for stuns you can maaaybe get a bit more out of using Spirit Stance over Shatter Strike in terms of OC unless you're still struggling for survival.
The perk that boosts proficiency for your element is very high priority for both imp and non-imp play. Proficiency also takes a while to build up. After that Vigorous Vitality helps in making your play smoother and reduce sparks. Innate Arcana V is desirable because it's a chore to continuously cast support spells to protect you. Then after that it's probably the first Dæmon Duality I.

THX，so i think Vigorous Vitality and Proficiency is first，then Innate Arcana V

for cheap mage at low difficulty, I'd say Fire or Ice would be much cheaper. Dark gear is expensive.

yeah, a friend showed me the prices for Dark gear
boy, ain't that expensive lol
I decided to focus on my one hand for now
the armor parts will come easier than mage stuff lol
already got Legendary armor and leggings Power of Slaughter
possible boots too, waiting reply
hopefully won't take long until I see a helmet and gauntlets lol

this is my current gear by the way
Legendary Ethereal Rapier of Slaughter
Legendary Cobalt Force Shield of Protection
Magnificent Power Helmet of Protection
Magnificent Jade Power Armor of Slaughter
Legendary Ruby Power Gauntlets of Balance
Magnificent Plate Greaves of Dampening
Legendary Cobalt Plate Sabatons of Warding

thanks to some level ups I'm having problems only with End of Days and above
due to the schoolgirls causing too much damage
regular Arenas I'm finishing easily at PFUDOR
End of Days and Eternal Darkness at IWBTH
though I still take over like 1:50 hour to finish all that
A Dance with Dragons I don't even try since only that takes at least 30 minutes and I need to heal myself pretty frequently, too long for the Credits it gives
so I'm hoping that a full set of Legendary Power of Slaughter will cut a good chunk of that time

This post has been edited by Thiaguinho-sama: Apr 15 2023, 03:21

Rending Blow x4.1083333333333
Shatter Strike x3.386
Great Cleave NOT TESTED
FUS RO DAH x4.1788888888889

Thanks a lot for your test! It helps a lot.

Except at low level, or with poor gear, misses are going to be only from parry which isn't very common especially since stunned monsters can't parry and you're using a mace.

Thanks a lot for your patient reply! Indeed what bothers me is actually being parried, and since monsters are various I met such situations pretty much. That's why I felt Shatter Strike dealing more damage.

Except at low level, or with poor gear, misses are going to be only from parry which isn't very common especially since stunned monsters can't parry and you're using a mace.

Shatter strike will do a total of around x17.5 normal damage against 5 enemies and around x14 normal damage against 4 enemies (3.5 times 5 or 4). With domino strike you get around x0.75 damage on the main target from elemental strikes and can hit up to 7 enemies but let's look at 5 and 4 enemies first. Assuming no misses, against 5 enemies your expected total damage is x4.177 normal damage with a maximum of x4.7 normal damage (1+2*p(1+p*0.85) where p is domino strike probability). Against 4 targets the expected total is x3.4885 with a maximum of x3.85 (1+1*p+p(1+p*0.85)).
Against 7 targets, the expected total is x5.23 with a maximum of x6 (1+2*p(1+p(0.85+0.65))).
So for 5 targets and below, shatter strike deals around x3.5 more total damage than normal attacks and for 7 targets and above it only deals around x2.5 more. But your initial question was about spirit stance with normal attacks, so we can halve those to x1.75 and x1.25.
So yes, shatter strike will hit more consistently but not by much, and it will do more damage in a single turn. But it would be a more efficient use of overcharge to use normal attacks in spirit stance. I hope all of this is easy enough to read.

Your calculation is convicible and quite accurate, I made a mistake for forgetting to control parameters.

Thank you guys I am now quite sure that abandon Shatter Strike is proper decision for most cases as a mace user (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

This post has been edited by EromancerX: Apr 15 2023, 08:32

I always see lots of advice for mage builds, but are there any particular armor potencies I should be trying for in a melee build (currently using 2H just to be difficult)? Do I need Juggernaut 5 or will any mitigations do just as well?

And is there any particular strategy for getting a potency up to level 5? I always get one or two levels of one thing and then it switches to something else. There are 8 armor potencies, so the probability of randomly rolling for the same one 5 times in a row is incredibly small, if that's how it works. Do I just need to reforge a couple thousand times (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)?

I always see lots of advice for mage builds, but are there any particular armor potencies I should be trying for in a melee build (currently using 2H just to be difficult)? Do I need Juggernaut 5 or will any mitigations do just as well?

And is there any particular strategy for getting a potency up to level 5? I always get one or two levels of one thing and then it switches to something else. There are 8 armor potencies, so the probability of randomly rolling for the same one 5 times in a row is incredibly small, if that's how it works. Do I just need to reforge a couple thousand times (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)?

Juggernaut 5 is the only thing that matters, really. Just get Jug5 and take whatever comes with it. Same for Melee as for mages, actually.

Strategy, that depends on if you have Dark Descent perk. If you do, you want to get 2 potencies in one go. I continue even with 1 Jug out of the two. Generally, reforge when Jug5 isn't possible anymore. You should use a dark-descent service if you don't have the perk. For non-soulfused items, most of the time IWBTH will give you 2 potencies. Use HV Utils, that script makes IW so much easier.

The potencies are not random. Chance of getting another level of the one that you got earlier is much higher than the chance of a new one. So, if you start with Jug1 Elec1, chance of Jug or Elec are much higher than other potencies. Also, you can get a maximum of 3 potencies. Never thousands of reforges needed in practice. More like <100 for Jug 5.

This post has been edited by Noni: Apr 15 2023, 11:53

Thank you guys I am now quite sure that abandon Shatter Strike is proper decision for most cases as a mace user (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Just don't discard it completely, if anything do experiment with it for a while. It may end up being more comfortable or consistent for you and it could very well be the superior choice and if that happens do tell us plese because it would be valuable piece of information.

And is there any particular strategy for getting a potency up to level 5? I always get one or two levels of one thing and then it switches to something else. There are 8 armor potencies, so the probability of randomly rolling for the same one 5 times in a row is incredibly small, if that's how it works. Do I just need to reforge a couple thousand times (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)?

Adding to what Noni said, there's something like a 30% chance? or so of getting a third potency after you have the first two so it is indeed more likely to get more of the ones you have than a new one, but still frustrating nonetheless. Copypasting some stuff from the past regarding strategy:

I personally aim to get 2 potencies at a time because I feel it's relatively balanced between the pxp you get vs the stamina wasted and the cost of the Amnesia Shards. Then after those 2 are obtained it comes down to 3 choices:

-Got 2 different potencies you wanted?
Crank the difficulty to max and see what happens

-Got 2 of the same potency but you do want said potency?
For weapons keep the difficulty as is and go for another 2 potencies. If you get another 2 of the same but it's the one you aimed for level 5: I'll gamble for the second wanted potency*, otherwise reforge.
If aiming for Juggernaut you crank it to max and go from there.

-Got anything you don't want?
Reforge

But it also depends on the status of your equipment, as you might be aware stuff such as Shade armors and Peerlesses get the full 100 round treatment and the pxp required varies so the difficulty you go with also changes with that, but in order to obtain only 2 potencies on the first round I think it's basically:

-Soulbound item
Nightmare for 80 rounds, Hell for 100 rounds

-Not soulbound
Nintendo for 80 rounds, IWBTH for 100 rounds


*The problem lies in that for melee weapons there's like 1/10 chance of getting the two you want on the first round or so, so if I got only one potency I like I will gamble on the second one among the pool of 3 left rather than reforge and yank my hairs waiting for that tenth of a chance. And you can imagine how fun it could be to IW a staff with a specific setup now that you have 5 choices to play with.

I don't have Dark Descent so it seems wasteful to lose at least 2 AS per try but like I said the Stamina gets consumed too and the exp, items and gear you lose by playing many rounds on low difficulty seem just as wasteful. So no matter what prepare a few shards because you can eat through them rather fast. Also consider your clear time too, so if you don't have DD, are slow/have trouble surviving later rounds and the item is not soulbound really consider sending it to a IW service, the users offering the services are usually busted and seem to clear a IW round every time they blink.

looking to clear up some space in my inventory, should i auto salvage or auto sell legendary leather equipment? my persona who has a use for it already has legendary shade on