[X] My Assistant

It's not that bad for short battles. Actually mages have a bit of an advantage in raw damage, in a very small burst.

But a pure mage (except maybe Cyriel) can't complete the high arenas or legendaries in the ring.

...
The rounding up of spell costs has a much bigger impact at lower levels. In your example, suppose the spell had a base cost of 15 rather than 10. At level 10, it costs 2MP (rounded up from 1.5), and you can cast it 15 times. At level 50, it costs 8MP, and you can cast it 13 times. Not such a big difference.
...
You get access to more powerful spells as you level up... although I couldn't tell you if Flare does more damage per MP than Fireball, so this point may not be relevant.
...

That's still a 13% reduction in how much magic can be tossed around. For an analogy, consider if a normal melee attack went from 1 action point to 1.13 action points as a player levels from 10 to 50. Not a huge difference at first glance, but the effect would add up over time.

If the power of all spells uniformly scaled up, then things would be different. You get more powerful versions of offensive spells, but you're using the same shield, barrier, and cure to stay alive as the monsters get tougher. You also get to cast those spells fewer times. I'm not counting regen as a more powerful cure after its recent gimping, but I could be wrong about that one.

Regen is fantastic, I get a hell of a lot better mana efficiency out of it, I almost never use cure.

That aside, I'm still quite sure mages are pretty gimped at high levels. I'm greatly enjoying my spellsword, but I am not spell dependent, just spell aided. I don't have to cast to do damage, and even without mana to cast offensive spells I'm not screwed. Oddly I don't think a pure mage around my level could match me even at spellcasting, due to pen armor giving a much greater damage boost than any staff would.

proficiency increase the power of those spells as you level though, so as long as your proficiency is keeping up with your level it works out to some extent.

To some extent yes... Can you clear 30+ round arenas with a staff? I can't do the 25 D:

edit: in an item efficient manner.

This post has been edited by marcho: Oct 20 2009, 05:55

i've never tried since my offensive magic proficiency is so low that it kind of defeats the point of bringing a staff. Although i guess I could try it tomorrow.

proficiency increase the power of those spells as you level though, so as long as your proficiency is keeping up with your level it works out to some extent.

Yes, you get an extra notch on the shield / barrier multiplier for every 10 points of proficiency. Even casting shield like the dickens ever since I got it, my supportive proficiency is still under 20, though (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/anime_cry.gif)

In the early arenas, where you don;t have to use much magic on anything else, chain cast the spell you want to level, maybe even bring a few low potions as well. I got my deprecating prof from 0 to 65 or so after I hit level 70 entirely on the early arenas, I didn't use it anywhere else.

---

Just tested Killzone with a staff, it cost me an extra 1-2 greater mana draughts to complete over my usual spellswording strategy, and I was having a much more difficult time keeping mana stocked as the 2-3 miniboss rounds hit.

Yeah, I already cast as many shields as possible before delivering the final blow. Not that I usually get more than 0.06 or so each time I do it. It's gonna take a while, but it does increase faster than my level.

This post has been edited by Panuru: Oct 20 2009, 07:06

proficiency increase the power of those spells as you level though, so as long as your proficiency is keeping up with your level it works out to some extent.

I get that, but what if you're leveling faster than you can raise your profs? Take me, for example. I have no AP in Experience Boost anymore. On the other hand, I've done a bit too much training in Adept Learner, plus I've got 6 or 7 Auras, each of which means an exp boost, plus I'm on a couple of toplists, so even more exp coming my way. At this rate, I would literally have to go into many grindfests, and use spells WITHOUT killing all the monsters to get my spell profs up to my level. Which I can do, but I don't want to reset my AP and have the cost go up again...

Though now that I think about it, it may be more effective to do a light/cloth mix with no staff at all.

(I guess I COULD stop doing what I'm doing to get on the toplists, but I like seeing my name there... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

But don't get me wrong, there are some good points to leveling fast. Can't wait until I get my next plus damage bonus...

I get that, but what if you're leveling faster than you can raise your profs?

Then you need to spend some time grinding on cake. That is really what it is for, not item farming (unless you maxed out scavenger or something), but proficiency gains.

I have no AP in Experience Boost anymore. On the other hand, I've done a bit too much training in Adept Learner, plus I've got 6 or 7 Auras, each of which means an exp boost, plus I'm on a couple of toplists, so even more exp coming my way....

Trust me, your exp bonuses pale in comparison to mine, and my profs are building well. Think about this: when we _got_ proficiencies and could start building them, I was like level 80, with maybe 5 prof in 3 categories and nothing else. My curative was at 10 when I got regen.

At this rate, I would literally have to go into many grindfests, and use spells WITHOUT killing all the monsters to get my spell profs up to my level. Which I can do, but I don't want to reset my AP and have the cost go up again...

Get some heavy armor and a staff with ether theft, then cast nothing but magic missile and regen. And hit them a bunch to regain the mana.

This was done in about 10 days:

One-Handed: 53.25 (+15.82)
Two-Handed: 70.78 (+57.92)
Dual Wield: 102.33 (+24.38)
Staff: 71.39 (+45.71)

Shield: 14.06 (+5.44)
Cloth: 85.23 (+26.87)
Light: 70.64 (+16.25)
Heavy: 124.46 (+74.05)

Supportive: 94.23 (+20.57)
Deprecating: 94.58 (+20.89)

This post has been edited by DemonEyesBob: Oct 20 2009, 19:40

Get some heavy armor and a staff with ether theft, then cast nothing but magic missile and regen. And hit them a bunch to regain the mana.

The problem right now is that the only staff with ether theft that I have has a very low chance and duration, and even with heavy armor, I can't really depend on it (at least not for regaining mana). I tried your method when my MP hit the halfway point, and it did work, for a while. But pretty soon I had to stop using attack spells entirely and save all MP for healing, especially when the mobs grew to four monsters. In other words, I ran into the same problems I always have with magic: the staff with ether theft is the weakest of the 3 I have, and the stronger ones don't have it at all. Either way, I run out of magic, spirit, and HP, in that order.

But I noticed I lasted longer casting magic with an all cloth armor, sword and board setup. And with my luck, Second Wind would probably do a better job of restoring mana than my staff, eventually. So I think I'll have to stick with that until I can get my hands on a better ether theft staff.

Edit: Karma for you...

This post has been edited by dap00: Oct 20 2009, 23:24

This question is really more directed at Tenboro for him to confirm or deny, but others are welcome to comment if they've have a similar experience.

First off, I don't remember exactly when it was, but several updates ago I used to be able to one-shot the regular monsters on Normal almost 100% of the time and the mid-bosses fairly frequently. Since then, the regular monsters take 1-3 hits and the mid-bosses take 2-6 hits. I figured it was just an issue related to the offhand nerfing for duel wield, but I'm beginning to think otherwise. Since then, I've gained plenty of levels and upgraded my strength and equipment considerably, yet the relative damage hasn't increased. The thing is, when I change the difficulty to Battletoads, the same attacks do several times the amount of damage, to the point where I can kill the regular monsters in about 8-10 hits.

So my question is, is there some type of difficulty based attribute cap in place? Normally, if I could do a certain amount of damage to a monster on Battletoads, then I should be able to do the same amount of damage to the same monster on Normal, which would utterly devastate them. Unfortunately for me it doesn't, so the only conclusion I could come up with is there must be an attribute cap keeping my massive Strength stat in check on the lower difficulties (which is currently 334.)

This question is really more directed at Tenboro for him to confirm or deny, but others are welcome to comment if they've have a similar experience.

First off, I don't remember exactly when it was, but several updates ago I used to be able to one-shot the regular monsters on Normal almost 100% of the time and the mid-bosses fairly frequently. Since then, the regular monsters take 1-3 hits and the mid-bosses take 2-6 hits. I figured it was just an issue related to the offhand nerfing for duel wield, but I'm beginning to think otherwise. Since then, I've gained plenty of levels and upgraded my strength and equipment considerably, yet the relative damage hasn't increased. The thing is, when I change the difficulty to Battletoads, the same attacks do several times the amount of damage, to the point where I can kill the regular monsters in about 8-10 hits.

So my question is, is there some type of difficulty based attribute cap in place? Normally, if I could do a certain amount of damage to a monster on Battletoads, then I should be able to do the same amount of damage to the same monster on Normal, which would utterly devastate them. Unfortunately for me it doesn't, so the only conclusion I could come up with is there must be an attribute cap keeping my massive Strength stat in check on the lower difficulties (which is currently 334.)

maybe not just the offhand nerfing but also the result of the 0.3.7 multiplicative instead of adding certain stats that was introduced in one of the recent patches? "- Changed the way the system combines all percentage stats that should naturally land between 0-100% from additive to multiplicative. You can no longer combine items to form a base above 100%.
-- The affected stats are: Attack/Magic accuracy, Attack/Magic mitigation, elemental mitigations, evade, parry, block and resist.
-- For example, equipping two items with +50% will now result in a 75% total bonus. Three items with +50% will result in 87.5% bonus. Four will give 93.75%. Five will give 96.875%. "

This question is really more directed at Tenboro for him to confirm or deny, but others are welcome to comment if they've have a similar experience.

First off, I don't remember exactly when it was, but several updates ago I used to be able to one-shot the regular monsters on Normal almost 100% of the time and the mid-bosses fairly frequently. Since then, the regular monsters take 1-3 hits and the mid-bosses take 2-6 hits. I figured it was just an issue related to the offhand nerfing for duel wield, but I'm beginning to think otherwise. Since then, I've gained plenty of levels and upgraded my strength and equipment considerably, yet the relative damage hasn't increased. The thing is, when I change the difficulty to Battletoads, the same attacks do several times the amount of damage, to the point where I can kill the regular monsters in about 8-10 hits.

So my question is, is there some type of difficulty based attribute cap in place? Normally, if I could do a certain amount of damage to a monster on Battletoads, then I should be able to do the same amount of damage to the same monster on Normal, which would utterly devastate them. Unfortunately for me it doesn't, so the only conclusion I could come up with is there must be an attribute cap keeping my massive Strength stat in check on the lower difficulties (which is currently 334.)

If your strength is 334, what are your other stats O_o

...
-- The affected stats are: Attack/Magic accuracy, Attack/Magic mitigation, elemental mitigations, evade, parry, block and resist.
-- For example, equipping two items with +50% will now result in a 75% total bonus. Three items with +50% will result in 87.5% bonus. Four will give 93.75%. Five will give 96.875%. "

Trust me, Hito is aware of this. Anyone who's tried taking on the Unicorn is aware of this.

If your strength is 334, what are your other stats O_o

Lol.

The problem right now is that the only staff with ether theft that I have has a very low chance and duration, and even with heavy armor, I can't really depend on it (at least not for regaining mana). I tried your method when my MP hit the halfway point, and it did work, for a while. But pretty soon I had to stop using attack spells entirely and save all MP for healing, especially when the mobs grew to four monsters...

But I noticed I lasted longer casting magic with an all cloth armor, sword and board setup. And with my luck, Second Wind would probably do a better job of restoring mana than my staff, eventually. So I think I'll have to stick with that until I can get my hands on a better ether theft staff.

It has become harder with the changes to grindfest. And my best ether theft staff is quite good, 2 turns @ 22% chance, so that's not exactly normal (hito has one with like 4 turns 30% or something, good god xD). Also, you might need some better heavy armor, the mitigation changes made them less powerful. Also, until you get your heavy prof high enough, heavy armor is heavy. My interference should be 68.6 but it's 44.4 because of prof and primary attribute reductions, and my burden is 60 instead of 81 for the same reason (burden isn't reduce by primaries, so that's just proficiency). You need a better ether theft staff though, and I will admit they are generally hard to find :\

Also, thank you for the karma.

This post has been edited by DemonEyesBob: Oct 21 2009, 02:47

and the big thing is he is doing different amounts of dmg on normal compared to battletoads, so its definitely not a multiplicative thing

In the early arenas, where you don;t have to use much magic on anything else, chain cast the spell you want to level, maybe even bring a few low potions as well. I got my deprecating prof from 0 to 65 or so after I hit level 70 entirely on the early arenas, I didn't use it anywhere else.

---

Just tested Killzone with a staff, it cost me an extra 1-2 greater mana draughts to complete over my usual spellswording strategy, and I was having a much more difficult time keeping mana stocked as the 2-3 miniboss rounds hit.

I just did killzone with my staff can't say that it was too bad no items used, but I normally don't need items for killzone. The one thing that did suck was the last round took 280 turns cause my holy and soul spells do jack shit to dalek, but I suppose it might not have been so bad if I had all the elemental spells for weakness it would have been much better. But mana was never really and issue but pretty much the only spells I used were Soul Harvest and supportive spells.

I just did killzone with my staff can't say that it was too bad no items used, but I normally don't need items for killzone. The one thing that did suck was the last round took 280 turns cause my holy and soul spells do jack shit to dalek, but I suppose it might not have been so bad if I had all the elemental spells for weakness it would have been much better. But mana was never really and issue but pretty much the only spells I used were Soul Harvest and supportive spells.

Killzone doesn't have Daleks... Also, doing anything that high with a staff would take way more than 280 turns for me :x

This post has been edited by DemonEyesBob: Oct 21 2009, 02:55

Blah, I only used supportive/curative and soul but my ether theft couldnt keep up. You can keep shield, absorb and regen on and cast offensive spells just with your ether theft?

He probably meant endgame, which I didn;t try so as not to waste items D: