[X] My Assistant

shade? have you found the lost piece?

Pretty much, but I'll probably need to change it later. I just took it for the sake of my studies (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I suppose I probably should start looking for arcanist shade if I continue towards that path... By the way which is better: shadowdancer or arcanist?

This post has been edited by boulay: Feb 6 2014, 00:27

#1. Don't bother with Item Worlds until you hit ~250 at least. Chew on Grindfest if you run out of Arenas.

#2. See Wolfgirl for some free stuff.

#3. I'm sending you some armor that I know won't sell in my shop.

Thank you very much for the fast reply and freebies (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Pretty much, but I'll probably need to change it later. I just took it for the sake of my studies (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I suppose I probably should start looking for arcanist shade if I continue towards that path... By the way which is better: shadowdancer or arcanist?

can i see also that?
it depends on tastes, it seems that shadowdancer is a bit more melee-oriented than arcanist... also, it seems to me easier to find a large variety of PABs on arcanist pieces than on shadowdancer
personally, i've a full shade arcanist set to run and not a single piece of shadowdancer because i prefer to be able to cast more supportive and deprecative spells rather than to count on a ipotethical crit hit...
further references are available here

@zondervan: woah, you have good tastes (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Feb 6 2014, 00:51

can i see also that?
it depends on tastes, it seems that shadowdancer is a bit more melee-oriented than arcanist... also, it seems to me easier to find a large variety of PABs on arcanist pieces than on shadowdancer
personally, i've a full shade arcanist set to run and not a single piece of shadowdancer because i prefer to be able to cast more supportive and deprecative spells rather than to count on a ipotethical crit hit...
further references are available here

@zondervan: woah, you have good tastes (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I've also been wondering about Shadowdancer vs Arcanist for a while now. Somehow the added survivability from resist bonus and lower casting cost that Arcanist offers seems more appealing than the critical bonus from Shadowdancer. Plus, magic accuracy would help debuffs to stick on mobs. Then again, with full Shadowdancer/Fleet you evade quite a lot so that really helps you to survive too.

Not sure how things are at higher levels though.

Pretty much, but I'll probably need to change it later. I just took it for the sake of my studies (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I suppose I probably should start looking for arcanist shade if I continue towards that path... By the way which is better: shadowdancer or arcanist?

Shadowdancer: higher crit, higher evade -> better suited for 2H and DW, who lacks overall defence, not as good for 1H since evade lowers counter rate. Crit is not as huge a factor for 1H

Arcanist: higher resist, lower inteference, more PAB(from int and wis) -> better suited for 1H, who consumes more MP/SP. And for 1H, resist is better than evade, resist, unlike evade, has lower priority than block, and mitigates magical damage not covered by parry. Not as great for 2H and DW, which rely heavily on crit to circumvent monster block/parry/evade.

This post has been edited by holy_demon: Feb 6 2014, 01:06

I've also been wondering about Shadowdancer vs Arcanist for a while now. Somehow the added survivability from resist bonus and lower casting cost that Arcanist offers seems more appealing than the critical bonus from Shadowdancer. Plus, magic accuracy would help debuffs to stick on mobs. Then again, with full Shadowdancer/Fleet you evade quite a lot so that really helps you to survive too.

Not sure how things are at higher levels though.

at my level a full arcanist gives you about 32% evade, and mixing with two fleet i gained 34%...
a few days ago i read in another topic of a level 300+ player who had just accomplished a 45 or so evade, so i think mine isn't so bad either... i suppose with a full shadowdancer set i could move to a 36%, but the mana modifier would be about 125 versus my current 113... it isn't so much, but it could save you in the last two rounds of an IW item (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

but this is the impression of an arcanist user, you should ask also to a shadowdancer one...

Shadowdancer: higher crit, higher evade -> better suited for 2H and DW, who lacks overall defence, not as good for 1H since evade lowers counter rate. Crit is not as huge a factor for 1H

Arcanist: higher resist, lower inteference, more PAB(from int and wis) -> better suited for 1H, who consumes more MP/SP. And for 1H, resist is better than evade, resist, unlike evade, has lower priority than block, and mitigates magical damage not covered by parry. Not as great for 2H and DW, which rely heavily on crit to circumvent monster block/parry/evade.

i've made wrong till now then (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
by the way, this same set also grants me about 34% critical chance with DW: is it a good enough value?

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Feb 6 2014, 01:10

If it's resist you're after, you want old negation shade... The resist on this is enormous XD little wonder it doesn't drop anymore

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=833c1b372b

If it's resist you're after, you want old negation shade... The resist on this is enormous XD little wonder it doesn't drop anymore

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=833c1b372b

simply magnificent *.* planning to sell it?

simply magnificent *.* planning to sell it?

Heck no! I'm slowly building up a set of super high resist shade to try out (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) If I don't like it I may sell it then XD

EDIT: Although I'm not using it at the moment so I'd be prepared to lend it to you (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Also have these too although not as magical lol
Boots: http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=196dfd70f7
Leggings: http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=18b179522e


This post has been edited by animeai: Feb 6 2014, 02:09

and you're also trying to buy all of the ethereal weapons around here it seems... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

That resist is impressive though the other stats were raised since. It would be useful for someone that was obsessed with min maxing.

rapiers are so expensive :<

This post has been edited by Gay Douche: Feb 6 2014, 02:09

Rapier generally is the best all around. It gives parry, which supplements his lack of block, and PA which makes focus killing a breeze.

Axe can be good, but he'd need OFC (ie. having ~1.3m to spare) or at least FRD (lv 300+) to make it work. Plus he'd need a bit of block to make up for the parry loss from not wearing rapier (the 15-20% parry bonus from the rapier can make a huge difference between facerolling and forced to spam cure)

Honestly, I'm not sure Rapier is better than Axe for 1H.

If you're just facerolling monsters with full time Spirit Stance, Axe is going to be much better because everything dies in 2-3 hits regardless of if PA even procs or not on the mob. If you're forced to fall back to Shield Slam > Vital Strike spam due to monsters having too much HP and getting a lot of their Spirit attacks off, Rapier is going to be better because you'll actually be able to get PA stacks on a monster before it dies. And a 3x PA + Spirit Stance stack'd Vital Strike is pretty much going to kill anything short of a high difficulty schoolgirl/boss.

The thing is, a lot of your damage for 1H comes directly from counters. Not only does PA not proc on a counter, Rapier's low damage also doesn't help much. So if you're facerolling with perma-Spirit Stance, cranking up the attack as high as possible is much preferred for kill speed and Axe has a much higher weapon damage than Rapier (peerless slaughter axe has ~50% more weapon damage than peerless slaughter rapier which is going to be 500+ weapon damage depending on level).

The parry bonus is nice from Rapier thou but its really probably more critical for a Power Armor Slaughter set than it is for a Shade Fleet/Shadowdancer set. The additional evade from Shade and attack speed bonus (so you don't max out # counters/round as much) makes parry (or crazy high block) much less of a requirement for facerolling w/out spamming cures.

And you don't need OFC/FRD for 1H Axe. Honestly, OFC is just really good for situations where you're pushing the limits and you enter a round with like 8 power level 1200+ mobs (like Aasta + 2x In memory of something + Kodou Yuki + Rarefew, etc in 1 round) that all hit like trucks. You get an instant round clear, move onto the next round and hope for an easy group of mobs to build up your overcharge again. But that's true of 1H Rapier, DW, 2H, etc... just bypassing a pack of really nasty mob rolls is a very nice bonus regardless of what setup you run.

Honestly, I'm not sure Rapier is better than Axe for 1H.

Without a clearly defined definition of what exactly is a quality that made things "better", debate gets nowhere.

If it's resist you're after, you want old negation shade... The resist on this is enormous XD little wonder it doesn't drop anymore

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=833c1b372b

According to the release notes for 0.78, only the Arcanist had it's Resist nerfed in favour of INT/WIS attributes, but I do agree that for the best Resist proficiency, the Negation Shade rules.

Here is a pre 0.78 Arcanist Breastplate that dropped in one of the Arena runs.

And here's a Negation Breastplate which had a slightly lower base level than the Arcanist one but has a slightly higher Resist.

Honestly, I'm not sure Rapier is better than Axe for 1H.

If you're just facerolling monsters with full time Spirit Stance, Axe is going to be much better because everything dies in 2-3 hits regardless of if PA even procs or not on the mob. If you're forced to fall back to Shield Slam > Vital Strike spam due to monsters having too much HP and getting a lot of their Spirit attacks off, Rapier is going to be better because you'll actually be able to get PA stacks on a monster before it dies. And a 3x PA + Spirit Stance stack'd Vital Strike is pretty much going to kill anything short of a high difficulty schoolgirl/boss.

The thing is, a lot of your damage for 1H comes directly from counters. Not only does PA not proc on a counter, Rapier's low damage also doesn't help much. So if you're facerolling with perma-Spirit Stance, cranking up the attack as high as possible is much preferred for kill speed and Axe has a much higher weapon damage than Rapier (peerless slaughter axe has ~50% more weapon damage than peerless slaughter rapier which is going to be 500+ weapon damage depending on level).

The parry bonus is nice from Rapier thou but its really probably more critical for a Power Armor Slaughter set than it is for a Shade Fleet/Shadowdancer set. The additional evade from Shade and attack speed bonus (so you don't max out # counters/round as much) makes parry (or crazy high block) much less of a requirement for facerolling w/out spamming cures.

And you don't need OFC/FRD for 1H Axe. Honestly, OFC is just really good for situations where you're pushing the limits and you enter a round with like 8 power level 1200+ mobs (like Aasta + 2x In memory of something + Kodou Yuki + Rarefew, etc in 1 round) that all hit like trucks. You get an instant round clear, move onto the next round and hope for an easy group of mobs to build up your overcharge again. But that's true of 1H Rapier, DW, 2H, etc... just bypassing a pack of really nasty mob rolls is a very nice bonus regardless of what setup you run.

And where do you faceroll and kill everything in 3-5 hits with 1H? In hellfest, it takes me 10-20 hits to clear a typical 8-9 mobs round, and PFUDOR arena took me 20-30 turns on a 4-5 mob round. And that's with full power slaughter. It's safe to assume that shade would take more turns to kill, making PA even more appealing. If you're talking hell arena, then I'd rather play with 2H, it's faster (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

As for parry, I reckon it will be important to faceroll Hellfest at the 8xx rounds. Also, I prefer multiple counter procs (due to parry) to less proc with more damage. It's safer (more stun) and it hasmore aoe spread.

FRD is just not worth the 10% loss of damage. I'm still 3 figurines away from OFC so I can't comment much on that, but OFC is a lot better with 1H than DW or 2H due to 1H's overcharge gain

EDIT: anyway, don't mind my argument, just keep using your Axe. There's already enough people on the rapier bandwagon (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by holy_demon: Feb 6 2014, 03:26

Honestly, I'm not sure Rapier is better than Axe for 1H.

From my experience, 1H axe is not bad in most of the case, but you need to cast imperil from time to time.

When your attack power from armor getting higher, the damage from your weapon will give less proportion to your overall damage and PA will become useful.

In the current Hellfest, some monster require me to hit 5 times with 1H axe. And most of them require 2 hits or less. So it is good (better) to use axe in Hellfest than rapier.
In PF, the HP of the dark mage ™ series is so high and I think rapier is better.

The problem here is that the cost of a good rapier can be as high as a full set of mag power slaughter. So it is up to the player to decide which is better in their style.

Summary: just play as you like (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And where do you faceroll and kill everything in 3-5 hits with 1H? In hellfest, it takes me 10-20 hits to clear a typical 8-9 mobs round, and PFUDOR arena took me 20-30 turns on a 4-5 mob round.

I was referring to 2-3 hits on a specific mob, not to clear the entire round.

At 2 hits to kill a mob, I'm pretty sure Axe is the winner. More than 4 hits to kill a mob, rapier wins out. In between, it depends on your total attack power from your armor to figure out which one is better. Like Colman said, as you get more attack power from your armor, the difference between axe and rapier diminishes making PA more useful.

So if you use full power slaughter, rapier is probably better... unless that extra boost really helps you start to one-hit-kill a lot of mobs. If you use full shade, axe is probably better as the attack difference is more noticeable.

But again, it depends on what you're hitting. If it takes you 2-3 hits to kill a mob all the time and you're using shade, axe is probably better. If it takes you 4+ hits to kill a mob all the time, rapier is the clear winner.

This post has been edited by rancidmeat: Feb 6 2014, 04:43

Summary: just play as you like (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I agree with this, the golden rule for everything. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
The best equipment (and play style) is what you like.

I agree with this, the golden rule for everything. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
The best equipment (and play style) is what you like.

I totally agree with that but a lot of people come in asking what's the best setup (not what's the most enjoyable setup).