[X] My Assistant

Is there a significant difference between S5P4 and S4P5 on a willow staff? (I'm not sure how much the already-included counter-resist on a willow staff affects the stats you want) If I remember right, S5 is still preferred. And would a level of Archmage or two really be so bad, in the place of a level or two of Penetrator on a willow staff?

I'm finally doing my first serious IW run, and while I don't care about getting the perfect piece, I want something quite good at least- for me that would be ideally S5, and maybe some combination of P and Arch. Someone correct me if, in fact, my ideas suck and are way off.

[alt.hentaiverse.org] This is the staff in question

This post has been edited by PapaJuk: Jan 31 2019, 22:24

Is there a significant difference between S5P4 and S4P5 on a willow staff? (I'm not sure how much the already-included counter-resist on a willow staff affects the stats you want) If I remember right, S5 is still preferred. And would a level of Archmage or two really be so bad, in the place of a level or two of Penetrator on a willow staff?

I'm finally doing my first serious IW run, and while I don't care about getting the perfect piece, I want something quite good at least- for me that would be ideally S5, and maybe some combination of P and Arch. Someone correct me if, in fact, my ideas suck and are way off.

good question!

It's very very hard to get staff IW right, so if you want a 3 type perfect IW, it's almost impossible. So, having said that:
1. Pen 5 is essential. No, pen4 is not good enough. Sorry. Reforge.
2. My dream IW would be Pen5 Spel3 Arch1 - good for Pffest, plus for SG. You need high cast speed for pffest, but you can just use a charged for that.
3. The best IW is Pen5Spel4, according to the real experts. Or if you never play PFFEST, then Pen5Arch4
4. I got Pen5 Spel3 Annihilator1 - and I love it! Especially in DWD. They say that Arch would be even better, but ann is also rocking it. But, I have a pretty good (and expensive) staff, with very high crit.

In summary: pen5spel4 or reforge.

Well this discourse is meaningless unless we know for sure what vincento meant by "first" - is it when I have limited stamina I should prioritize on 60,65,80 arenas for better drops, or is it better to spend those stamina over 80 on them because they are better exp-wise.

I just completed the 125 arena on Nintendo and it gives only 29m exp above 80, which is miserable compared to 11m from 60 arena on iwbth, even if we take into account 60 arena was done on iwbth. BUt then again it's only fair to make this comparison as I'm looking for personally most efficient way to gain exp, and I can't handle SG on iwbth yet.

I'll have to do some more testing, but I think it's highly possible 60,65,80 are more efficient drop-wise due to the reasons you stated, and maybe also exp-wise if I can handel them at higher difficulty, or maybe the 2nd SG arena just really sucks ass.

I just completed the 125 arena on Nintendo and it gives only 29m exp above 80, which is miserable compared to 11m from 60 arena on iwbth, even if we take into account 60 arena was done on iwbth. BUt then again it's only fair to make this comparison as I'm looking for personally most efficient way to gain exp, and I can't handle SG on iwbth yet.

well IWBTH gives 1.5x more exp than nintendo, what are you expecting for...
if you play both on IWBTH that 125 arena should give about 43mil exp.

and that shows that my number is incorrect I guess...

actually I found this on my old folder I guess it's exp from each arena, forgot at what level, but I believe around 400-ish

60 530,562,161 XP from Dreamfall, => 530.562.161 / 2.4 (2.4 from 60/25 as in 25 round/stamina) ~ 220m exp/stamina?
65 614,942,014 XP from Exile, => 614,942,014 / 2.6 ~230m/stamina
70 664,921,482 XP from Sealed Power, => 664 / 2.8 ~ 237m/stamina
75 709,616,254 XP from New Wings, => 709 / 3 ~236m

100 1,055,227,659 XP from To Kill a God, 244 sec => 1,055/3.2 ~329

110 1,216,082,986 XP from End of Days, => 1,216 /4.4 ~270m
125 1,108,637,439 XP from Eternal Darkness, => 1,108 /5 ~ 220m
150 2,366,121,718 XP from DwD, => 2,366 / 6 ~390m

Wow that's some nice information. Well technically speaking, iwbth might be a bit more than 1.5x because the PL also increases, so maybe it's closer to 1.6~1.7, but nevertheless second SG arena sucks a lot. I guess best strat for me is to either run 60,65 arena on iwbth with stamina bonus or 100 arena on nintendo with stamina bonus until I unlock DwD for most exp. Best thing would be for me to run 100 arena on iwbth but idk if I can handle it atm lol.

Anyways thanks for that info

good question!

It's very very hard to get staff IW right, so if you want a 3 type perfect IW, it's almost impossible. So, having said that:
1. Pen 5 is essential. No, pen4 is not good enough. Sorry. Reforge.
2. My dream IW would be Pen5 Spel3 Arch1 - good for Pffest, plus for SG. You need high cast speed for pffest, but you can just use a charged for that.
3. The best IW is Pen5Spel4, according to the real experts. Or if you never play PFFEST, then Pen5Arch4
4. I got Pen5 Spel3 Annihilator1 - and I love it! Especially in DWD. They say that Arch would be even better, but ann is also rocking it. But, I have a pretty good (and expensive) staff, with very high crit.

In summary: pen5spel4 or reforge.

Thanks DJNoni! I think in that case, I'll go for P5, and whatever combination of Spel and Arch I can get, hopefully more on the Spel. I just wanted to make sure I didn't get the most important stat wrong, and I can live with decent potencies otherwise. That said, I'm starting to see why some people despair over the perfect IW, going to have to go buy some shards at this rate, and I'm not even aiming for perfect!

Is there some kind of "hidden" mechanic that makes the game 5x more difficult randomly?

I'm getting shat on randomly, consistently, against merely 5 monster. Missing 2-3 times in a row with 200%+ accuracy, and taking 50% HP damage per single turn.

Meanwhile on the same difficulty, against 10 monster, I'd take 10-20% damage per turn, hits for 50% (2-3 turns) kill a bunch of them. Incredibly inconsistent. This has been going on again and again, on and off, without any consistency whatsoever. Rounds that are supposed to be easy is more difficult than rounds that's meant to be difficult. 4 monsters taking as long to kill as 8, sometimes longer (via CD check), etc.

This post has been edited by ihatenamingthings: Feb 1 2019, 08:26

Is there some kind of "hidden" mechanic that makes the game 5x more difficult randomly?

I'm getting shat on randomly, consistently, against merely 5 monster. Missing 2-3 times in a row with 200%+ accuracy, and taking 50% HP damage per single turn.

Meanwhile on the same difficulty, against 10 monster, I'd take 10-20% damage per turn, hits for 50% (2-3 turns) kill a bunch of them. Incredibly inconsistent. This has been going on again and again, on and off, without any consistency whatsoever. Rounds that are supposed to be easy is more difficult than rounds that's meant to be difficult. 4 monsters taking as long to kill as 8, sometimes longer (via CD check), etc.

Isn't that just RNG doing? I myself sometimes got parried 3x even 4x in a row by the same monster

Could be, but the consistency of things are so out of wack, I can't even describe it. Either that or I'm getting weaker as I level up, because the grind gets more and more tedious despite no difficulty change. Used to be cast skill - hit 3 times - advance, heal every 3 rounds or so.

Maybe it's just monster RNG, the only consistent-ish thing I've seen is monster strength in a round. They either all deal no damage and dies instantly, or deal tons of damage and tank 6+ hits.

probably because today every mitigations get reduced by 5 point for both player and monsters...
so you hit harder but also get hit harder too...
https://ehwiki.org/wiki/Battles#Day_of_the_Week

Could be, but the consistency of things are so out of wack, I can't even describe it. Either that or I'm getting weaker as I level up, because the grind gets more and more tedious despite no difficulty change. Used to be cast skill - hit 3 times - advance, heal every 3 rounds or so.

Maybe it's just monster RNG, the only consistent-ish thing I've seen is monster strength in a round. They either all deal no damage and dies instantly, or deal tons of damage and tank 6+ hits.

I think it's possible you get weaker as you level up unless all your equipments are soulfused. I mean you get that proficiencies but with equipment tailing behind it's possible monsters outpace you in terms of growth in power.

That being said, two of my armors are level 170 lol

problem is this is persistent, ever since a few days ago, and it varies too much. The game was much more consistent around ~180, now I can expect to do the same thing, die, and get slapped with an increasingly more expensive bill for repair costs.

Maybe I'm just getting weaker :/

What difficulty are you playing at? I can't precisely pinpoint your issue cuz you are 2H and I'm 1H, but for me first slot on IA and putting SoL was the best investment I made so far.

And around our levels I've been also experiencing some rounds fucking me up a LOT compared to some others because of one or two monsters spamming spirit attacks that deal 50% of my hp. It'd easily resolved if I looked at the battle log and get those bastards first, but then again I'm too lazy and it usually works out with SoL triggering once or twice

Is there some kind of "hidden" mechanic that makes the game 5x more difficult randomly?

I'm getting shat on randomly, consistently, against merely 5 monster. Missing 2-3 times in a row with 200%+ accuracy, and taking 50% HP damage per single turn.

Meanwhile on the same difficulty, against 10 monster, I'd take 10-20% damage per turn, hits for 50% (2-3 turns) kill a bunch of them. Incredibly inconsistent. This has been going on again and again, on and off, without any consistency whatsoever. Rounds that are supposed to be easy is more difficult than rounds that's meant to be difficult. 4 monsters taking as long to kill as 8, sometimes longer (via CD check), etc.

I made a very similar remark the other day.

For my part it occurs under way more suspicious circumstances.
Sometimes, I'm in the middle of a PFFEST, stuff has been dying without much resistance for 400-500 rounds, and suddenly for maybe 5-10 rounds I miss a lot of Imperil, get parried (that's the only possible thing when having 200% accuracy, 20% counter-parry) quite a lot, need to heal a lot, even get sparked 1-3 times. And then things calm down and I'm back to murdering everything till PFFEST 1000 without any particular issue.

I know only 2 options that would cause this: the extremely bad RNG luck, or some hidden RNG buff that is given to monsters from time to time. At least this kind of thing is why I say that everyone should always have SoL on at all times.

^This.

IA SoL is love.

Come to think about it, I am also having similar experience. I'm trying out IWBTH Arenas, and it's like a breeze until round 50, and then SoL procs twice, I have to use both spirit draught and potion, and still has a risk of dying, then after that it's breeze until the end. This happened twice and both rounds were like 10-15 rounds before the last round.

This post has been edited by Saioux: Feb 1 2019, 09:31

The thing is the arena I get screwed at is not even consistent. Normally the first few arena of the day will always be a breeze.

This result in 30-50 rounds arena somehow turning into nightmares. I burn through my entire MP pool within 5-10 rounds, while normally my MP is sustained with draught at ~90%.

Honestly could be observational bias, but it's too consistent to say otherwise.

Speaking of which, I need to buy/trade scrap leathers now >.> died twice to extreme bs RNG double taps.

Yeah, I always have regen, protection, haste, shadow veil, and spark of life on, and if I lucky and get channelling I'd immediately cast heartseeker as it's way too mana-expensive to be supported with charges, and i can only support the five buffs with charges

the only thing I can thought of is by some bad RNG, every monster you met are high PL-ed ones...
I also experienced yesterday, in 1 IW I finished it easily and in another one I got sparked 5 times...
other than that I really don't know why is that happens...

I know only 2 options that would cause this: the extremely bad RNG luck, or some hidden RNG buff that is given to monsters from time to time. At least this kind of thing is why I say that everyone should always have SoL on at all times.

Well most of the time people inflate their mob power level with whatever stat is cheaper to upgrade.
But rarely you run into stuff that has only useful stats upgraded, and I expect such mobs to also have a lot of tokens put into their stats and not only gift chance too. That's just my speculation though, might be just rng.
For mage and 2h you almost never see mobs live to do their skills and eating a crit from from t2-t3 skills is the main spark offender. I prefer to cover my weak resists with armor infusions if I do IW or pfest, though there's also void...

Yeah, I always have regen, protection, haste, shadow veil, and spark of life on, and if I lucky and get channelling I'd immediately cast heartseeker as it's way too mana-expensive to be supported with charges, and i can only support the five buffs with charges

Are you playing 1H? If so, at some point you probably wanna scrap haste and shadow veil to utilize counter-attack and parrying more.