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Depends on what you want to achieve. For my part, I consider that Savage Shade is illogic, as if you want attack power you use power armor. Shade is more oriented toward agility, attack speed and evade, so it'd be more logic to go for Agile.
It doesn't mean that Savage Shade is wrong.

attack speed is for survival, crit damage for faster play, isn't savage gives extra crit damage rather than adb?

yes, for light armor, it's crit damage

one or two pieces of agile might be nice but full savage should be viable/preferable, afaik, even for pfest with the right weapon setup and forging

Depends on what you want to achieve. For my part, I consider that Savage Shade is illogic, as if you want attack power you use power armor. Shade is more oriented toward agility, attack speed and evade, so it'd be more logic to go for Agile.
It doesn't mean that Savage Shade is wrong.

Could you weigh up the differences between shade and power in terms of survivability (for non-1h players)? I don't think power armor is pfest viable for styles that don't have block (and shield mitigation, but I guess that's comparable to offhand parry). 2H should suffer the most but I've had my mind blown before about that style (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by lestion: Mar 29 2019, 19:03

yes, for light armor, it's crit damage

one or two pieces of agile might be nice but full savage should be viable/preferable, afaik, even for pfest with the right weapon setup and forging

Hmm, but lololol still can't clear pfest despite his full savage shade right? I think it's more suited for fast dwd, and agile for pfest might be worth to try.

Hmm, but lololol still can't clear pfest despite his full savage shade right? I think it's more suited for fast dwd, and agile for pfest might be worth to try.

last time I tried with my agile set I was curing more than with the savage one (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
I'll try it properly later

Hmm, but lololol still can't clear pfest despite his full savage shade right?

where do you get such infos? its exactly that, why Iam going for light

Free Average Weapon of Slaughter with IW10 could be usefull for starters?

Could you weigh up the differences between shade and power in terms of survivability (for non-1h players)? I don't think power armor is pfest viable for styles that don't have block (and shield mitigation, but I guess that's comparable to offhand parry). 2H should suffer the most but I've had my mind blown before about that style (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I'd like to, but I can't. I don't have the funds to try all the things I want to build up my knowledge.
As far as my observation goes for now, I think that Power 2H should be decently playable for IW100 and even reach better clear times than 1H, but I'm very, very uncertain when it comes to PFFEST. The main matter comes from these two questions:
1) Can a fully forged Power of Protection+Warding set withstand heavy damage income enough?
2) Can a 2H weapon kill monsters fast enough before they start unleashing spirit attacks?

Accurate answers, actual tests will have to wait for the day I have enough shards to attempt a OP5B4 on my weapon.

where do you get such infos? its exactly that, why Iam going for light

Well he posted about it a while ago when I asked if that's feasible.

This post has been edited by fuadhika: Mar 29 2019, 20:24

Hmm, but lololol still can't clear pfest despite his full savage shade right? I think it's more suited for fast dwd, and agile for pfest might be worth to try.

We currently think 90-95% parry might be the tipping point that makes it possible

where do you get such infos? its exactly that, why Iam going for light

See this page for our stats on IWBTH fest. As you can see... we're at 20k+ turns, and we still have to pay some attention to survival towards the end. IIRC, lolo had pfest get brutal around the 500-600ish mark.

It's not actually the armor's fault that the other styles aren't comparable with 1H's survivability - it's just that, block is essentially comparable to evade while also having access to higher mitigation from power armor.

That does bring up the balancing question of whether it'd be okay to equalize the mitigations between the two, though. Power armor would still be preferable for 1H because of the burden and higher attack damage and not wanting evade.

I'd like to, but I can't. I don't have the funds to try all the things I want to build up my knowledge.
As far as my observation goes for now, I think that Power 2H should be decently playable for IW100 and even reach better clear times than 1H, but I'm very, very uncertain when it comes to PFFEST. The main matter comes from these two questions:
1) Can a fully forged Power of Protection+Warding set withstand heavy damage income enough?
2) Can a 2H weapon kill monsters fast enough before they start unleashing spirit attacks?

Accurate answers, actual tests will have to wait for the day I have enough shards to attempt a OP5B4 on my weapon.

I agree that it should definitely be IW100 viable, and also that PFest is likely very uncertain. I do not think pure mitigation without avoidance layers is going to be enough. I do think it can clear fast enough to avoid spirit attacks generally though. I think it would need to be playing mace, and possibly it might even need to use weaken.

This post has been edited by lestion: Mar 29 2019, 20:44

We currently think 90-95% parry might be the tipping point that makes it possible

Are enemies with magic attack rare? Cmiiw but I remember that parry only affect physical attacks, shouldn't we focus on evade/attack speed instead?

This post has been edited by fuadhika: Mar 29 2019, 20:46

When it comes to avoidance, at least I do can tell you that I'm reaching around 22% base evade with a fully feathered peerless, non-mithril set right now. Which honestly is already not bad. Then you have Haste and Shadow Veil that do can be used as IA slots for a 2H set.

This is why I'm very underctain: can a full-forge+haste+shadow veil compensate the lack of block and lack of weapon parry?

Shade is more oriented toward agility, attack speed and evade, so it'd be more logic to go for Agile.

my shade set is full agile, the goal was to make PF IW a walk in the park rather than give the best possible clear time, and it gets the job done

Are enemies with magic attack rare? Cmiiw but I remember that parry only affect physical attacks, shouldn't we focus on evade/attack speed instead?

Resist is the equivalent of parry for magic. Magic attacks are rarer, but decondelite rightly said recently - even if they're in the extreme minority, they only need to hit hard once to disrupt your gameplay and force a cure (or, in lategame fest, trigger spark).

Up to 95%ish parry is theoretically possible (max parry slaughter rapier mainhand, max parry nimble waki offhand, both full forged). Evade won't get anywhere near close to that afaik. Attack speed bonuses are useful long-term as a form of avoidance - sort of - but again, hard to stack to highly meaningful levels (and it's essentially comparable to killing monsters faster to save you from taking more damage from them).



This post has been edited by lestion: Mar 29 2019, 22:17

The answer for Pfesting with any non-1h melee style is "Dovahkiin"... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

This will be a really lonnnnng post, don't bother reading it if you don't want... I'll give some insights about how to play with this style, and how "any" melee style can clear PFest...



I never see anyone talking about it, probably because it's not even close to brain-dead moving mouse up and down, but from a defensive standpoint, Dovahkiin is extremely OP!
(there were a guy going for that style last week, but the subject didn't last too much)

The trick is very simple... Fus Ro Dah stuns every monsters in the playfield for 5 turns, but has 10 turns cooldown... however, with enough Attack Speed you can get FRD ready again before stun have ran out on monsters... so, with the right build and by timing your skill correctly, you can keep all monsters in a perfect stun-lock state.

That's it! you never get attacked, you never die!... you don't need to worry about any kind of defense anymore, FRD will supply it alone.

Well, of course it's not that easy, I mean, it is easy, but the "never get attacked" part is partly wrong... FRD style is totally dependent on OC management, not only you need to care about its' cooldown but you also need to make sure you have 100 Overcharge ready to cast the skill again after stun ran out on monsters, and of course, you must have FRD ready in the start of every round (when "all" monsters are alive and so are more dangerous) but like I said, manage that is also easy, you just need to use the last (or the last two) monster(s) to build up OC for the next round, try to start every round with around 200 OC and everything will be deadly easy... in other words, you will need to fight a max of two monsters face-to-face (without stun) per round! (late rounds of Pfest are really dangerous, but if your set can't handle two monsters at once, just stop playing PF difficult).

Getting the necessary Attack Speed to stun-lock with FRD is easy too... IW, forget about Overpower (you'll be attacking stunned monsters 90% of the time, overpower is close to useless in FRD style) go for Lv.5 Swift Strike (in both weapons if using DW or Niten)... burden kills attack speed so make sure to feather your entire set if using heavy armor (mithril prefix "may" help, but go for "more attack" when you can), you should try to get as much attack speed as you can to make things easier, so, if using light armor, agile prefix definitely helps a lot, but may also be overkill, always go for more attack when you have to choose.

Light armor synergies better with Fus Ro Dah 'cause of natural Attack Speed... but even using 2H (with Lv.5 Swift Strike) and full feathered heavy armor is enough to stun-lock monsters... in fact, once you get used to the style you'll see that light armor lacks attack power and is too slow, I found better results using Niten + full power slaughter armors when testing that style (like 4-5 years ago), with 2H Estoc coming very close to it (it's easier to OC management with 2 Lv.5 swift strike weapons).

Well, of course that style have its' own Cons... it's a style focused on defense so it should be used to play PFUDOR and only PFUDOR, it becomes too slow for any other difficulty since it's overkill on defense and requires attention, timing, OC management, etc... when using it, you should focus on using FRD skill so OFC and Spirit Stance is a completely no-no, you can use other skills at situational times (when OC is overflowing) but you'd also be avoiding that, and just by using Dovahkiin tittle you lose 10% attack and 3% evade... well, FRD counters some of these things though, you don't need to worry about defense, so 3% evade is negligible, and you'll be attacking stunned monsters all the time, which means no turn loss due to parry, this surely is better than the 10% attack bonus of godslayer.

Now... maybe everything I said here is "outdated", I mean, I know the stun-lock works, I know it is defensively OP, and I know it allows "any" melee style to clear PFest without trouble... however, all the tests I made with that style was almost 5 years ago (I was already playing mage, but I always loved to try all sorts of different playstyles, there are a lot of misconceptions about this game and players should really try somethings by themselves instead of blindly following what the "experts" say... anyway, like I was saying...) the game was "totally" different at the that time, we didn't have infinite spirit, infinite mana, let alone 5 different ways to regain health multiple times per battle, FRD style was the "only possible" way to get even close to finish a PFest with non-1h melee style, and it was so OP that I did it with a bunch of Exquisite and Magnificent equipment, yeap, that's right! (legendary equip was very very rare at the time), using Niten/Heavy and Estoc/Heavy (let's not talk about the time I needed to finish them... well, ok, it was around 3 hours), I made some tests with DW and with Light armors too, but they were too slow (probably 'cause of crappy equipment) so I never played till the end of the fest...

So, when I say that this info may be outdated, I mean: we don't have items limitation anymore, High Quality equipment is deadly easy to acquire and forging materials cost pennies nowadays... so, maybe, a correct build with full forge can outperform FRD style in current game, maybe not, I don't know... probably a mix of playstyles would be the best way to play PFest nowadays (using fast killing on early rounds, reserving FRD for the end) ...anyway, if you're struggling to stay alive in PFUDOR difficulty, Dovahkiin is the answer for sure!

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I remember that one post of a guy, roughly one year ago, building a hilariously complicated strat to play PFUDOR with Estoc and FRD. The OC management is too tight and tricky IMHO.

That being said, your post contains a few key elements that do are important even for a simpler approach, like attack speed and evade. Most 1H players tend to forget that even Power armor is capable of such things.

but even using 2H (with Lv.5 Swift Strike) and full feathered heavy armor is enough to stun-lock monsters...

Not sure about that, especially with unlucky oc rolls.

I remember that one post of a guy, roughly one year ago, building a hilariously complicated strat to play PFUDOR with Estoc and FRD. The OC management is too tight and tricky IMHO.

It's not that complicated when you try it... at least it's not more complicated than playing mage, imo.

OC management is really tight if using Estoc + Heavy... but becomes very easier if you go with two weapons (Niten/DW) or use shade.


I'll sum up how the rounds should go through the entire gameplay:

Use the first rounds to build OC till ~200... then...

1. Use FRD as soon as round starts
2. Keep attacking like crazy without caring about anything else
3. As soon as stun runs out on monsters, use FRD again...
4. Don't use FRD if there are two or less monsters (you'll kill them the normal way to build oc for next round)
5. Repeat from step 1 'till battle ends.

---
Haste must be up all the time for obvious reason... anything else is optional and would be used as backup mostly...
Anyway it's advisable to keep all the buffs up, it'll help in the "building oc" part while facing non-stunned monsters, and will save your ass when you slip-up and forget to use FRD at the right timing (it'll happen!).

And that is really the only "tricky" part (the timing to use FRD), if you use FRD while monsters are still stunned, stuns won't refresh... you just lost a turn, lost OC, and need to fight all monsters for 10 turns till you can use FRD again (you "must" use FRD only after stuns ran out), and for a perfect stun-lock (so you avoid 100% of attacks) you need to re-use it in the "exact" same turn that stun runs out on monsters... for that, there's no other way but slowdown attacks a bit when you see stun flashing... anyway, as long as you have your buffs up and don't have a total crappy set, mistiming FRD and getting attacked for 1-2 turns should not be a problem (if using SoL, you can't die anyway!).

Not sure about that, especially with unlucky oc rolls.

You're right... a single weapon with Lv.5 Swift Strike is enough to allow 10+ attacks before stun runs out (this will get FRD out of cooldown and ready again)... but it's "impossible" to build 100 OC with just these attacks, that's why you must use the last monsters of the round to build oc for next round. By starting the round with high OC you ensure you'll be able to maintain the stun-lock for the entire round... from my tests with Estoc + Heavy, ~200 OC at the start of every round makes it possible to maintain monsters stun-locked for a entire fest. (and that's the tight oc management in decondelite's post)

Now... maybe everything I said here is "outdated", I mean, I know the stun-lock works, I know it is defensively OP, and I know it allows "any" melee style to clear PFest without trouble... however, all the tests I made with that style was almost 5 years ago (I was already playing mage, but I always loved to try all sorts of different playstyles, there are a lot of misconceptions about this game and players should really try somethings by themselves instead of blindly following what the "experts" say... anyway, like I was saying...) the game was "totally" different at the that time, we didn't have infinite spirit, infinite mana, let alone 5 different ways to regain health multiple times per battle, FRD style was the "only possible" way to get even close to finish a PFest with non-1h melee style, and it was so OP that I did it with a bunch of Exquisite and Magnificent equipment, yeap, that's right! (legendary equip was very very rare at the time), using Niten/Heavy and Estoc/Heavy (let's not talk about the time I needed to finish them... well, ok, it was around 3 hours), I made some tests with DW and with Light armors too, but they were too slow (probably 'cause of crappy equipment) so I never played till the end of the fest...

Do you intend to redo these tests with the current equipment? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) It would be interesting to see if anything has changed in those years. Or if this method of play is still valid.

If so, do you already have the necessary equipment?

Do you intend to redo these tests with the current equipment? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) It would be interesting to see if anything has changed in those years. Or if this method of play is still valid.

If so, do you already have the necessary equipment?

the time needed to clear a FEST would be interesting when using this method, survivability is good, but when you need 4 hours for it...