[X] My Assistant

opps

well I guess it's about time I 'ask the experts' about my stats. Would appreciate if you guys could give me some tips. As you can see from my prof and against popular thought, I went pure melee. I think i shot like 5 magic missiles throughout my whole HV career. lol. But melee's getting tiring and boring with mainly just button mashing. I used to use heavy armor which didn't work out quite well and recently changed to cloth and am working on raising my profs. Do you guys think going pure melee is still feasible? To be honest, I have NEVER tried maging before and would prob have to spend quite a bit getting the necessary equips.

I pretty much clear arena until longest journey easily on normal mode. Main equip is rapier/shield (yes i should get a better weapon). I can clear a lvl 250+ magnificent weapon in IW till lv 40-50 on hard mode with a 2H weapon which is prob pathetic. Not sure if i am doing anything wrong so any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Ok I'll take a crack at it.

Switch to mage (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

No, but seriously, you CAN melee. Just as you CAN eat soup with chopsticks. It doesn't mean it's a good fucking idea.
With meleeing you have to spam the shit out of your numpad keys just to clear 1 round. Maging you can do that with 1 fucking shot.
I was melee until 130. Actually, it wasn't THAT bad switching to mage. Got a tree reset, took AP that I had put into OC boosts and got myself all fire+elec spells available to me. Then since I was already using silk ( cloth armor) I didn't get penalized for switching to gossamer/phase (also cloth). The biggest issue was staff proficiency. Fuck elemental prof, that was so easy it's not even funny. I didn't even level it. Just by nuking shit I leveled it up no problem. But staff... Fuck... That's like the only problem in switching melee -> mage. The way it is pretty much, you switch, grind the shit out of staff prof and then start killing mobs. At first (since you have low elem prof) you rarely one shot screens. Then in a few days when your prof catches up, you will be dancing the dance of awesomeness of how fucking awesome you are now.
Anyway, my point is: mage > melee

If you still wanna go with melee, then I suggest you lower your burden (lose the crazy ass shield. At the very least, if you still wanna go shield, get one that doesn't give you ~20 burden) and increase your physical absorption.
When I was about your lvl (and still melee) I had ~25% evade, ~28 physical absorption, ~22 burden.
Also, why do you have barrier? That thing is fucking useless >_>'
Also, maybe get shadow veil.

Aaaaalso, as a mage I can go through exquisite on hard (up to 300 lvls then I just quit) without using any potions.
With potions, the same thing on nightmare.
Never had a magnificent, so can't really answer that question exactly

This post has been edited by (Cheater) KamuiSeph: Mar 24 2011, 17:40

Never had a magnificent, so can't really answer that question exactly

The difficulty still the depends on the item in question, but the in magnificent item I used in the past(borrowed) it was very similar to grindfest.

Something I've never understood is why people add stat points in such a random order. When I first started I went with a very high STR but as I added points I would try and keep them in 25 points increments to take advantage of the secondary bonuses.

I think you've got the wrong idea about how that works. There's no advantage to making your stats a multiple of 25.

I think you've got the wrong idea about how that works. There's no advantage to making your stats a multiple of 25.

Primary attributes also provide the following additional benefits:

* Base Evade is increased by 1% for every 25 points of AGI
* Base Parry is increased by 1% for every 25 points of DEX
* Base Resist is increased by 1% for every 25 points of WIS
* Interference is decreased by 1% for every 25 points in both WIS and INT (applied after the final equipment stats are calculated)

Considering I have 2.9% parry with 73 dex with no parry bonus from my equipment, I think even that bonus is given in terms of 1/25 per point.


Gotta agree with Sayo here.

Also, it doesn't use your base stats. The calculations include all the bonuses from auras, equipment and the Shrine. It's easy enough to check how it works...

Maybe this should be a seperate topic, as I've gained a lot of questions. But I'll ask here firstly:

For many years (I gained lv 25 something before equipment were added) I haven't really don anything (am lv 30 atm)..


Untill that time I based my "build" around endurance only, to reap the benefits of "second wind" (and coincidelly using magic was severly limited at that time, requiring much more clicking, and procs on staves were bad).

Since lv 25 I'm more or less equalling my stats, as magic is more easy to handle with quickspells etc. Now this brings me to my first question: what are good stats? - I want to be able to do especially arena's easily as I love the fact you "build up difficulty" there with a "final boss" (might do ring of blood later, though am far from that lv). - Though I prefer to keep "melee stats"..

CODE

Str 29    
Dex 28
Agi 25
End 30
Int 20
Wis 25

I will now level "Dex -> AGI -> Wis -> End -> Str" and repeating that (every once in a while not lvling WIS in favour of INT)

Is this a good build?

Ok I'll take a crack at it.

Switch to mage (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

No, but seriously, you CAN melee. Just as you CAN eat soup with chopsticks. It doesn't mean it's a good fucking idea.
With meleeing you have to spam the shit out of your numpad keys just to clear 1 round. Maging you can do that with 1 fucking shot.
I was melee until 130. Actually, it wasn't THAT bad switching to mage. Got a tree reset, took AP that I had put into OC boosts and got myself all fire+elec spells available to me. Then since I was already using silk ( cloth armor) I didn't get penalized for switching to gossamer/phase (also cloth). The biggest issue was staff proficiency. Fuck elemental prof, that was so easy it's not even funny. I didn't even level it. Just by nuking shit I leveled it up no problem. But staff... Fuck... That's like the only problem in switching melee -> mage. The way it is pretty much, you switch, grind the shit out of staff prof and then start killing mobs. At first (since you have low elem prof) you rarely one shot screens. Then in a few days when your prof catches up, you will be dancing the dance of awesomeness of how fucking awesome you are now.
Anyway, my point is: mage > melee

If you still wanna go with melee, then I suggest you lower your burden (lose the crazy ass shield. At the very least, if you still wanna go shield, get one that doesn't give you ~20 burden) and increase your physical absorption.
When I was about your lvl (and still melee) I had ~25% evade, ~28 physical absorption, ~22 burden.
Also, why do you have barrier? That thing is fucking useless >_>'
Also, maybe get shadow veil.

Aaaaalso, as a mage I can go through exquisite on hard (up to 300 lvls then I just quit) without using any potions.
With potions, the same thing on nightmare.
Never had a magnificent, so can't really answer that question exactly

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I getting really bored of smashing my keyboard. lol. will try to respec to mage and see how it goes. Ughhh staff prof. Groannn...

blah blah blah blah blah

Honestly, I can't even make out if you are a mage or a melee char?
Stats are pretty much meh compared with everything else. Your stats vary at most by 5 points. It really has not that much of an impact on your build overall.
Now if we were talking about 50 points, that's a whole different fucking talk. Just keep your stats ROUGHLY balanced.

Seriously, what kind of advice can someone give you with so little info?
Post pics of your stats page, ability page, equip page, training. Post links to your equip.
I can have the best stats in the world and yet get wtfpwned by cake monsters for having shitty ass equip and retarded ability point placing habits.

Honestly, I can't even make out if you are a mage or a melee char?
Stats are pretty much meh compared with everything else. Your stats vary at most by 5 points. It really has not that much of an impact on your build overall.
Now if we were talking about 50 points, that's a whole different fucking talk. Just keep your stats ROUGHLY balanced.

Sorry for being unclear, I'm not entirelly sure what & how to ask at the moment.. (If I'd ask every question which I gained over the last 2 years this forum would explode (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) ). - so I tried to keep the first post a minimum of information :/.

But I indeed like the "simplicity"/not having to use so much micromanagement of melee.. So I prefer that role!

Seriously, what kind of advice can someone give you with so little info?
Post pics of your stats page, ability page, equip page, training. Post links to your equip.
I can have the best stats in the world and yet get wtfpwned by cake monsters for having shitty ass equip and retarded ability point placing habits.

Well I don't own any noteworthy equipment yet (mostly with stats hovering between 1-2 in everything, simetimes a thing like "15 holy mitigation"). I've indeed been wondering a lot about equipment (is that weapon with 4 times as much bleeding -21 vs 82- wound damage better than that weapon with 20 more attack accuracy and ~2 damage mitigation?). Has burden/inference any noticeable effect?
Those questions have haunted me ever since equipment was added.

anyways here is the equipment I've current "on":
Fine iron longsword of balance
Average leather helmet of protection
Fair chainmail hauberk of the thunder-child (wielded for excellent electric mitigation)
Average silk gloves of warding
Fair silk pants of warding
Fair gossamer shoes of the priestess (wielded for extra curative proficiency - alternative)
equip. overview
[img713.imageshack.us] http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7679/th...se130107044.png

stats overview
[img25.imageshack.us] http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3873/theh...se130107054.png

ability overview
[img855.imageshack.us] http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/858/the...se130107048.png
I'm reluncant to put abilities on more spells, as I found from experience I won't use those.. Ever (is this bad, should I slow, posion and weaken mini bosses?).. Only spell I use is cure.

training overview
[img291.imageshack.us] imageshack thumb not allowed ><


I've done all efford of 20-25 to actually make my stats almost equal. Now I'm wondering: was this a smart move? - Or should I neglect 1,2 stats? - I dislike doing "cake grinds" as the rewards are so low nowadays.

I hope I gave enough information to give you a bit of insight?

PS: like to add something: 2 years ago (before equipment etc) I managed to do the vas number of arenas in "hell" mode and the like.. Nowadays I'm happy if I beat anything in nightmare).

This post has been edited by paul23: Mar 25 2011, 20:12

Sorry for being unclear, I'm not entirelly sure what & how to ask at the moment.. (If I'd ask every question which I gained over the last 2 years this forum would explode (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) ). - so I tried to keep the first post a minimum of information :/.

But I indeed like the "simplicity"/not having to use so much micromanagement of melee.. So I prefer that role!
Well I don't own any noteworthy equipment yet (mostly with stats hovering between 1-2 in everything, simetimes a thing like "15 holy mitigation"). I've indeed been wondering a lot about equipment (is that weapon with 4 times as much bleeding -21 vs 82- wound damage better than that weapon with 20 more attack accuracy and ~2 damage mitigation?). Has burden/inference any noticeable effect?
Those questions have haunted me ever since equipment was added.

anyways here is the equipment I've current "on":
Fine iron longsword of balance
Average leather helmet of protection
Fair chainmail hauberk of the thunder-child (wielded for excellent electric mitigation)
Average silk gloves of warding
Fair silk pants of warding
Fair gossamer shoes of the priestess (wielded for extra curative proficiency - alternative)
I've done all efford of 20-25 to actually make my stats almost equal. Now I'm wondering: was this a smart move? - Or should I neglect 1,2 stats? - I dislike doing "cake grinds" as the rewards are so low nowadays.

I hope I gave enough information to give you a bit of insight?

PS: like to add something: 2 years ago (before equipment etc) I managed to do the vas number of arenas in "hell" mode and the like.. Nowadays I'm happy if I beat anything in nightmare).

Ok let's break it down:

1. Melee is fine for the first 100 levels or so. Keep at it. But eventually (if you are planning on playing HV that long, you are gonna have to switch to mage).
2. Even if you don't own anything "noteworthy", as you put it, equipment is important. And in fact, you can have great equips but fuck up your build by mismatching heavy with evade gear, for example.
3. Burden has an impact if it's above 20 points, any interference (even 0.1) has an impact. For more info:
http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Interference
http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Action_Speed
It may not be noticeable if you simply have 40+ burden (let's ignore interference for now since you use melee) and never had any less. Simply put, the more interference - the more frequently mobs attack you. Eventually you can get to a point where during every single attack from you, every monster can hit you 2-3 times.
4. Leather, chainmail, silk and gossamer. Remember the mismatching remark I made?
Pick one. Heavy armor has high burden, but if you get a "of Protection" suffix, the increased physical absorb will take most of the dmg and you will live longer. Silk (of The Fleet) gives you evasion and low burden. That means you move faster, take less hits and even dodge some of those hits (i.e. no damage). Gossamer is for mages. Leather is for pussies (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) , no but seriously, unless you get a good piece of kevlar, chuck all light armor into the bazaar.
With armor, focus on specific attributes. Like this piece for example:
Exquisite Silk Pants of Protection
Remember that if an equip has a higher level than yours, you can still wear it, but the stats scale down to your level (the numbers in the brackets apply to you). The downside is that interference/burden does not scale. But with 4.13 burden, who gives a fuck?
I use this piece because A) it has high physical absorption compared to the rest of my silk set (twice as high as my other pieces). So it makes up for some lost defense. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) The evade, while not that high for pants, is still quite good. C) the agility and dexterity boosts are also significant.

Keep that in mind. I usually check physical absorption and evasion right off the bat. If you need any more reference, here's my silk set (for evasion):
Fine Silk Cap of the Fleet
Fine Silk Robe of the Raccoon
Fine Silk Gloves of the Fleet
Exquisite Silk Pants of Protection
Superior Silk Shoes of the Fleet
And here's my heavy set (for defense):
Average Diamond Plate Helmet of Protection
Fine Prism Plate Cuirass of Protection
Fine Plate Gauntlets of Protection
Average Prism Plate Greaves of Protection
Exquisite Prism Plate Sabatons of Protection


P.s. For the love of cookies, PLEASE post links to pics, not [ img ] [/ img ]

This post has been edited by (Cheater) KamuiSeph: Mar 25 2011, 19:37

If I only want to raise supportive prof, which spell should I put in IA? Haste, SV, AF or other buffs?

Haven't pick IA yet...But if it can raise suppportive prof, perhaps I should pick one. Can I pick 2 or 3 IA to rise more prof?

If I only want to raise supportive prof, which spell should I put in IA? Haste, SV, AF or other buffs?

Haven't pick IA yet...But if it can raise suppportive prof, perhaps I should pick one. Can I pick 2 or 3 IA to rise more prof?

Shield (it makes sense the cheaper being the faster at raising prof)
More slots occupied = more spells running =more prof.

Thanks for the reply (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).

I'll focus on getting 1 type of equipment in a set now. I think cloth armour would be the way to go - I'm not effectivelly planning for it, but I might eventually pass the "lv 100 endgame" barrier so might as well prepare.

With armor, focus on specific attributes. Like this piece for example:

You mean that it is better to have "1 high stat (ie absorption)" than average (decent evade, mitigation & absorption)?

Well this brought me actually to another question I had:
I have (body) equipment with the suffixes "wind walker, thrice blessed and thunder child" - all having 1 specific type of (magical) mitigation.. However the chance that a monster does this specific type of damage is pretty low, isn't it? Is it worth looking out for armour which has a specific type mitigation?

Well this brought me actually to another question I had:
I have (body) equipment with the suffixes "wind walker, thrice blessed and thunder child" - all having 1 specific type of (magical) mitigation.. However the chance that a monster does this specific type of damage is pretty low, isn't it? Is it worth looking out for armour which has a specific type mitigation?

about the only mitigation equipment that can be useful are your thrice blessed and spirit-ward ones... and then only in certain instances (God battling)...
In general use (Arenas/IW/Grindfest) the %mitigation tends to be next to useless, and these equips are really only used if the other stats on the piece are better than anything else you currently have...

You mean that it is better to have "1 high stat (ie absorption)" than average (decent evade, mitigation & absorption)?

What I mean is get ALL high stat equip. What I mean more specifically, is pay attention to the suffixes ("of The Fleet"; "of Protection"; etc). Having specifically high evade or physical absorption, means that the damage you get will be reduced significantly more than having average stats. Besides, even the specific suffix type equips usually don't neglect the other stats too much, so what you end up is with average stats + 1 very high stat = Win.

And ditto at Koshinator
In fact, don't even worry about thrice blessed/spirit ward. You're not gonna need it for a looong time.

hmm makes sense I guess (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif).

Are people actually "hybriding" (doing both magic damage as well as melee dmg with 1 set).. So are people using weaponry with the suffix "of the battlecaster"?

Also I'm a bit ashamed to ask this: but what is nowadays a decent way to gain credits (and crystal?).. - I gain like 4-5 credits every round on an average cake-grind (till round 50) - and hardly ever get crystals and such (like 2 every 50 rounds). Yet I see people buying/selling hundreds of them at once, are those just lots and lots of cakegrinds, or are there better methods to make profit?

Well, that vase + gum + channeling combo worked like a charm.....

I quickly threw together a curse weaver set (well, sorta - just what i could scrounge from the bazaar and what i already had), and it gave me a total of about 220 deprecating prof... and with channeling gave me 196 rounds of poison damage of 2192, enough to kill it outright with no more help from me (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

374 18 You gain 101029 Credits!
374 17 You gain 18001.31 EXP!
374 16 Your HP and MP have been fully restored!
374 15 Arena Token Bonus! [Token of Healing]
374 14 Arena Clear Bonus! [Average Dagger of the Raccoon]
374 13 Invisible Pink Unicorn dropped [Unicorn Horn]
374 12 You are Victorious!
374 11 The effect Coalesced Mana on Invisible Pink Unicorn has expired.
374 10 The effect Ripened Soul on Invisible Pink Unicorn has expired.
374 9 The effect Weakened on Invisible Pink Unicorn has expired.
374 8 The effect Slowed on Invisible Pink Unicorn has expired.
374 7 Invisible Pink Unicorn has been defeated.
374 6 Spreading Poison hits Invisible Pink Unicorn for 2192 damage.
374 5 Invisible Pink Unicorn hits you for 317 holy damage.
374 4 Invisible Pink Unicorn gains the effect Coalesced Mana.
374 3 Soul Harvest hits Invisible Pink Unicorn for 147 soul damage.
374 2 You cast Soul Harvest.

spark only triggered once (perplexing paradox), and the rest of it was ET, Soul Harvest and keeping up the buffs, damn sight easier than my previous try...

Ta muchly for the tips (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)