[X] My Assistant

The answer is always PF-GF. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)
Yep. Otherwise, Power-Slaughters would have been "Fully-Broken". (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)
I know a few "real" female players here. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)
He did, once: here. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)
Oops! I totally forgot that it was the cap from stats. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
Btw, then what's the final cap? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)
And why is that? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)
Evade for Heavy users? Nice idea. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)
So you are a panda, and I am a duck! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)
LMAO (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)
There was one, but I've forgotten where it is now. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)
WHOA! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) Such Info! Much Good! Many Thanks! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Your question can be answered with another question: Why do Giants have so much more HP than Sprites? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)
What's your current Attack Speed? I'm curious.

37ish, leather

is increasing the ability flame shield past level 1 useless outside of fire resist?

just keep it at 1 point for the 10% damage debuff and invest points elsewhere? 5k an ability point is draining my funds quickly.

37ish, leather

I thought you use Shade? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

I thought you use Shade? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

32ish with shade. I just want cheap speed with leg-grade pabs. I feel that sharded leather set is better than negation.

Twinpost

This post has been edited by Dead-ed: Feb 1 2015, 13:30

Is there a point where additional levels of Capacitor would only provide very marginal gains?

I have enough mana (or sufficiently high mana usage) that a Heroic Mana Potion will pretty much never cause my mana to overflow.

Similarly, I'm not sure whether additional levels of Juggernaut are really useful, since they don't really provide a multiplier over an entire battle series, as compared to mitigations (*proof).

What do you think?

Having higher levels of juggernaut gives you a larger margin of error before you die. While you only get a minor benefit per level, compare that to a mitigation:

Maybe 1/10? of attacks are elemental special attacks, there are 6 elements. So you could potentially divide the effectiveness by 60, or even more since all the strong monsters are pretty much only giants and owned by one person.

While juggernaut isn't super powerful, it is easily the best potency.

For capacitor, once you can use a potion without waste and without IA dropping off, that is pretty much all you need. But I would personally still prefer capacitor over a mitigation.

Should be He AFAIK.
Some people use he/she depended on the avatar. So I should be IT. And 10b is also IT. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

i wasn't referring to avatar. i'm sure i read somewhere he is a she. not that i care so much though, if you go in the adult chat there's plenty of women telling they reach 15 orgasms per day. or males that read on some forums that girls can orgasm 15 times per day and repeat it, as you prefer (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Yes, according to http://ehwiki.org/wiki/damage#Damage_Reduction.

oh, that page (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) it was even written (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Howdy all.

I'm just getting into the game and trying to set myself up with a playstyle that I can keep using into the 200s, 300s, 400s, etc. I'm 76 now and pulverizing things between Hell and Battletoads depending on the target.

Initially I thought I'd take 2h with light armor and ultimately trade between 2h and DW when I capped my skill so that I could transition to Niten at high levels. Having done a little reading, it sounds like that really isn't a viable strategy.

I read back about a dozen pages and tried to make sense of the flow of conversation, and got the general sense that rapier + shield is better than 2h for the final arena battles due to increased defenses and the penetration proc making a massive difference in damage dealt. Based on everything I've read 1h works best with heavy armor, so it seems I'd be best served to abandon my 2h/light setup and start accumulating mastery and equipment for a 1h/heavy setup now.

Does that sound correct? I'll miss using Domino Strike to hand out 3-round stuns to groups, but if I'm just going to end up frustrated and ineffective later I'd rather make the change early and avoid the annoyance. If I do need to make this switch, how do I compensate for the extra interference of heavy armor + shield and the loss of my mp bonus from Light HP/MP? The number of rounds I can go is already limited entirely by the number of mana pots I can carry, and that'll only get worse in heavy armor, right?

at this point you can still go on with mace + leather, but when you approach lv200 you'd better switch to rapier + shield + power armors, which also has some nice AoE. you can compensate ITR by feathering gears, adding some pack rat/capacitor levels, raising mana potions ability... but mainly by casting spells in spirit stance. overall it isn't so bad as it seems, but heartseeker will still cost 370 MP or so

are any exquis light armors worth selling with 4 PAB?

Is there even a market for light armor at all or is everyone rocking the rapier + heavy meta game?

some shade maybe, especially if shadowdancer and/or savage. but apart from that i'd say no

The answer is always PF-GF. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

alright, so if i'm not interested in PF-GF answer is no, thanks (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I know a few "real" female players here. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

now i'm curious (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

So you are a panda, and I am a duck! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

and i'm 3 girls at once (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

WHOA! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) Such Info! Much Good! Many Thanks! (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

just FYI, 'astral' weapons dealt soul damage, and 'shielding aura' provided soul mitigation

is increasing the ability flame shield past level 1 useless outside of fire resist?

just keep it at 1 point for the 10% damage debuff and invest points elsewhere? 5k an ability point is draining my funds quickly.

yes, it only has that effect. but dragonkins are quite strong, so you may find it useful in the end

Hello, how do you really know the stats, like Mmax and so?
Especially i´m curios, if this one is really better
http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=1b6d30aa81

than my current one:
http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=7c81aea899

Much easier with this:
https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?showt...p;#entry3568505

32ish with shade. I just want cheap speed with leg-grade pabs. I feel that sharded leather set is better than negation.

Hmm. A different type of approach. I'll give it a try sometime later. Thanks for sharing. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

alright, so if i'm not interested in PF-GF answer is no, thanks (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Well, there is also the Last Arena. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

and i'm 3 girls at once (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Such Variety. Much Quality. Many Confusion. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/duck.gif)

just FYI, 'astral' weapons dealt soul damage, and 'shielding aura' provided soul mitigation
yes, it only has that effect. but dragonkins are quite strong, so you may find it useful in the end

I knew about the Shielding Aura, but didn't know that Astral Prefix had Soul Strike. Thanks for the info. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I knew about the Shielding Aura, but didn't know that Astral Prefix had Soul Strike. Thanks for the info. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

so it was. now that soul damage/mitigation has been removed, shielding aura armors apparently do nothing while soul damage weapons have now either holy or dark damage, but i don't know why one weapon has one kind or the other. i guess it was randomly chosen by the system

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Feb 1 2015, 14:40

Soul was a proto-void damage type. Most things had no initial resistance nor weakness to it; off the top of my head, elementals and celestials were weak to it, while mechanoids were resistant. Crystals of Quintessence could be used to increase Soul resistance. Several system monsters were also weak or resistant to it, but I don't remember which ones.

Ethereal weapons (and then later, Astral) used to deal soul damage. There was also a suite of four Soul spells. They used to be based on Forbidden proficiency, but later were moved to the now-defunct Spiritual proficiency, which was solely determined by averaging the player's Divine and Forbidden proficiencies. Soul Reaper was single-target and Soul Harvest was multi-target. Both would proc Ripened Soul, which would restore some SP when monsters with it were struck by a staff. Soul Fire was a single-target spell which would inflict a DoT proc of the same name. Soul Burst was a multi-target spell, which would cause the Soul Fire proc to explode and often deal 6-digit damage.

Thanks. It surely takes a veteran to know all this history. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Having higher levels of juggernaut gives you a larger margin of error before you die. While you only get a minor benefit per level, compare that to a mitigation:

Maybe 1/10? of attacks are elemental special attacks, there are 6 elements. So you could potentially divide the effectiveness by 60, or even more since all the strong monsters are pretty much only giants and owned by one person.

While juggernaut isn't super powerful, it is easily the best potency.

For capacitor, once you can use a potion without waste and without IA dropping off, that is pretty much all you need. But I would personally still prefer capacitor over a mitigation.

Hmm... Ok, so I have enough capacitor (at least when maging).

As for juggernaut, do you spend most of the time at 100% HP (or thereabout), or take the trouble to get back to 100% at the end of a round before the next round begins? Those are the situations where I'd see the "larger margin of error before you die" being greatest.

Maybe the difference would be more discernable if I had 25 levels of juggernaut to provide a large buffer. I seem to spend most of my time between 35% (where I start to heal myself) up to ~80% (where my heal takes me). I don't shift everything up and heal at 55% so that I can take advantage of those times where I get a lucky HP gem. Does the strategy need changing? Or, does this mean that I don't have enough PMI/MMI and I need to forge those?

It's absolutely true that magical mitigations are diluted by the number of elements. But for what its worth, the damage reduction is effective for all magical attacks of that element over the entire battle series, which (I'd guess) to be several times of my HP amount. So that's why I'm entertaining the thought that mitigations may be useful. With 5 armour pieces x 10 potency slots x 4% each, that could be 33% specific mitigation per element.

Has anyone tried to contrast/calculate the effectiveness in a systematic kind of way instead of reasoning things through via intuition? Maybe I should start to collect statistics on how much damage I take, categorised by physical, magical (of the various elements) and physical/magical void.

By the way, I have a few questions related to the table in in http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Monster_Lab#Skill_Editor?

1 what does the "Power" column mean? Some kind of damage multiplier? The amount of MP/SP required?

2 what is a Basic damage type? Do we have specific mitigation against it? If not, it's like a free Void attack?!

3 How do I distinguish whether a particular monster's attack that dealt Void damage was physical or magical? Is it when the battle log says "uses/casts"?

4 Physical attacks usually deal slashing/crushing/piercing damage, but can also deal elemental damage types, right? Eg, the wiki says Daimon T3 attack is physical and does Dark/Void damage

5 I've seen cases where monster casts something, and dealt piercing damage. Can magical attacks deal physical damage types? I've always assumed that magical attacks always dealt elemental damage.

This post has been edited by mozilla browser: Feb 1 2015, 15:23

so it was. now that soul damage/mitigation has been removed, shielding aura armors apparently do nothing while soul damage weapons have now either holy or dark damage, but i don't know why one weapon has one kind or the other. i guess it was randomly chosen by the system

Another nice piece of info. Thanks.

-snip-

Are you asking about Mage or Melee? Usefulness of Armor Potencies are different for each other, except for Juggernaut. Be it a Melee or Mage, Juggernaut is always better than the rest. As for Capacitor, for melee it's very good, but for mages, it's not that useful.

Even for Mages, Mitigation Potencies are somewhat better than Capacitor. They are useful against Elemental based Basic/MP attacks (If you're playing Mage, and getting hit by SP attacks, you're doing something very very wrong!). For PFUDOR, these Mitigation potencies are especially good, since there are many high level Elememtals with strong Basic/MP Attack, as well as numerous Dragons/Celestials lurking around with MP Attacks! A few points of Mana won't help you much in this kind of situation.

1 what does the "Power" column mean? Some kind of damage multiplier? The amount of MP/SP required?

The amount of MP/SP required for MP/SP attacks.

2 what is a Basic damage type? Do we have specific mitigation against it? If not, it's like a free Void attack?!

It depends on the Monster type. For example, a Giant's "Basic" attack is always "Crushing", while a Mechanoid's "Basic" Attack is "Slashing". Basic attack is NOT "Void" Attack.

3 How do I distinguish whether a particular monster's attack that dealt Void damage was physical or magical? Is it when the battle log says "uses/casts"?

Unfortunately, there is no technical way to distinguish the Type of Void Attacks as of now.

4 Physical attacks usually deal slashing/crushing/piercing damage, but can also deal elemental damage types, right? Eg, the wiki says Daimon T3 attack is physical and does Dark/Void damage

Yes. For Example, Elemental's attacks are always Magical, while Humanoid can choose whether their elemental attacks will be Physical or Magical.

5 I've seen cases where monster casts something, and dealt piercing damage. Can magical attacks deal physical damage types? I've always assumed that magical attacks always dealt elemental damage.

Some monsters can choose the category of their MP/SP attacks (Physical/Magical), as well as different type of attacks (Piercing/Slashing/Crushing or Fire/Cold/Wind/Elec/).
Example:
1. Physical + Fire (the damage will go through your PMI + Fire mitigation + Resist)
2. Magical + Crushing (the damage will go through your MMI + Crushing mitigation, but won't touch your Resist)

Similarly, I'm not sure whether additional levels of Juggernaut are really useful, since they don't really provide a multiplier over an entire battle series, as compared to mitigations (*proof).

I'd get as much Juggernaut as possible. It gives you more time for Regen to heal you before you have to use Cure. It also means you take less spirit damage (not only due to more actual HP damage taken, but because max HP is higher).

Still, once at level 300+ with 1h, those factors probably aren't all that important unless you're running a long difficult battle series like 80+ IW or 20x DWD or GF, since everything else is a cakewalk even with only basic equipment.

is increasing the ability flame shield past level 1 useless outside of fire resist?

just keep it at 1 point for the 10% damage debuff and invest points elsewhere? 5k an ability point is draining my funds quickly.

Having more (fire) mitigation is nice, but you don't have to go out of your way to increase it if you don't have enough AP and your funds are limited. The first slot is enough.

As for juggernaut, do you spend most of the time at 100% HP (or thereabout), or take the trouble to get back to 100% at the end of a round before the next round begins? Those are the situations where I'd see the "larger margin of error before you die" being greatest.

Maybe the difference would be more discernable if I had 25 levels of juggernaut to provide a large buffer. I seem to spend most of my time between 35% (where I start to heal myself) up to ~80% (where my heal takes me). I don't shift everything up and heal at 55% so that I can take advantage of those times where I get a lucky HP gem. Does the strategy need changing? Or, does this mean that I don't have enough PMI/MMI and I need to forge those?

I'd think about healing at 41%, since at 35%-40%, taking only 2 spirit attacks could force Spark to activate.

If your HP bonus is low enough that healing at 41% often results in Regen overflowing HP at 100% the next turn or two (a bit of wasted mana) then you'll definitely appreciate another 10% or 20% max HP from potencies.

At the last turn of a round, I'd heal to 95-100% as long as there isn't much HP wasted. Still, monsters start with lowish MP and SP levels - even on PFUDOR, they start being dangerous after 4 or 5 turns, so if you enter a round with lower HP it's probably not a huge problem immediately.

Powerups are uncommon enough that you don't have to feel compelled to use them immediately. I'd prefer healing just before starting a new round so I'd feel safer during the most dangerous time. If the first/second/third monster I kill drops a health gem, I'm sure I'll have low enough HP to use it in only a few turns anyway. (at the end of the round or a couple turns into the next round)

It's absolutely true that magical mitigations are diluted by the number of elements. But for what its worth, the damage reduction is effective for all magical attacks of that element over the entire battle series, which (I'd guess) to be several times of my HP amount. So that's why I'm entertaining the thought that mitigations may be useful. With 5 armour pieces x 10 potency slots x 4% each, that could be 33% specific mitigation per element.

Has anyone tried to contrast/calculate the effectiveness in a systematic kind of way instead of reasoning things through via intuition? Maybe I should start to collect statistics on how much damage I take, categorised by physical, magical (of the various elements) and physical/magical void.

The vast majority of damage taken is from Physical/Crushing or Piercing. For heavy armor, Crushing hurts more. I added the numbers up a couple times - Void, Holy, and other magic attacks do usually hurt a lot when they're cast, but physical attacks are taken much more regularly. I remember taking ~2000 spirit damage from Crushing alone, maybe 400 spirit damage from Void, 250? from Holy, and 0-200 from the other elements.

Additional max HP will help a lot more than specific magic mitigation, although one or two Holyproof equips in addition to Juggernaut would be nice.

Something else to consider is that getting more than one specific potency on gear can be very expensive in terms of amnesia shards. If you have just one desired potency, you have a 1/8 chance of getting it before you spend a shard to reset: if you want 2 specific potencies you have a 2/56 chance of getting them, and often you'll be spending 2 or 3 shards instead of 1 if you get a desired potency first, get a level or two, and then get a bad additional one. So unless you're rich or are very lucky, you may have to content yourself with just a single one, almost certainly Juggernaut.

1 what does the "Power" column mean? Some kind of damage multiplier? The amount of MP/SP required?

The amount of MP/SP required for MP/SP attacks.

This is incorrect. "Power" refers to a damage multiplier. You know how heavy armor users often have the most trouble with Sprites and Celestials? That's because their SP attacks have 150 and 120 power, and their MP attacks have 100 and 80 power, compared to the usual power of 100 for SP and 50 for MP (second attack).

SP attacks always require 100 SP, and MP attacks always require 50 MP, no matter what - they are not variables. If Sprites SP attacks required 150% SP then they'd never use them (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

2 what is a Basic damage type? Do we have specific mitigation against it? If not, it's like a free Void attack?!

It's the damage type you choose when you create the monster. Eg for Celestials you can choose between Crushing and Slashing for the basic attack, and the first MP attack also has that same damage type.

Hey guys. What does "Mmax EDB" mean?

Hey guys. What does "Mmax EDB" mean?

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Acronyms

The maximum possible elemental damage bonus on a Magnificent piece

Are you asking about Mage or Melee? Usefulness of Armor Potencies are different for each other, except for Juggernaut. Be it a Melee or Mage, Juggernaut is always better than the rest. As for Capacitor, for melee it's very good, but for mages, it's not that useful.

Even for Mages, Mitigation Potencies are somewhat better than Capacitor. They are useful against Elemental based Basic/MP attacks (If you're playing Mage, and getting hit by SP attacks, you're doing something very very wrong!). For PFUDOR, these Mitigation potencies are especially good, since there are many high level Elememtals with strong Basic/MP Attack, as well as numerous Dragons/Celestials lurking around with MP Attacks! A few points of Mana won't help you much in this kind of situation.

Thanks! I was asking about both. If I understand your recommendations, item world armour priority for Melee is:
1. Juggernaut, as much as possible
2. Capacitor
Last. Mitigation Potencies

And for Mage:
1. Juggernaut, as much as possible
2. Mitigation Potencies
3. Capacitor (only as needed to avoid mana overflow)

Do you have any thoughts on how Juggernaut helps, aside from 'larger margin of error'?
[Edit: I just saw Superlatanium's comments on how Juggernaut
* gives Regen more time to work before entering dangerous levels
* reduces spirit damage
Hmm, true. Funny how I erroneously thought in reverse that having more HP means more of the damage would be taken as HP and less as SP, and as a Dark mage I can efficiently Drain to recover SP]

My mage does get hit by SP attacks and spends a lot of time procing spirit shield and dying if not for SoL (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/happy.gif) Could you take a look and see if something's wrong?

My stats are distributed evenly because I'm also playing the melee style atm.
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/uEfi14m.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/JpNAe96.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/wAwsgyb.png)
(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/MUoj5I8.png)

Staff Cap Robe Gloves Pants Shoes

Basically, I'd cast Imperil 3x at start, followed by Ragnarok/Disintegrate/Corruption in rotation. Specific problems:

- Casting Imperil helps to make sure that the spells do reasonably nice dmg, but by the time I'm done with 3 x Imperil and a T3 Ragnarok, some of the monsters are hitting me with MP attacks and shortly followed by SP attacks.

- Far too often, several monsters attack and hit at the same time. Even with their basic attacks doing < 20% damage, 3-4 monsters hitting at the same time is enough to proc SoL.

- When SP is low, I'd Drain the monster with highest HP and try not to kill him too quickly, but AOE spells means that's pretty difficult except for the schoolgirl arenas.

Thanks!

This post has been edited by mozilla browser: Feb 1 2015, 18:29

Hey guys. What does "Mmax EDB" mean?

EDB is elemental damage bonus. For example, my gloves http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=a5e2324bf3 - if you mouseover the Dark spell damage, it has a base of 13.63. This is compared against the wiki's equipment range list http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Equipment_Ranges_Cl...loves+of+Fenrir which says that Magnificient phase gloves are projected to have a maximum value of 13.66. So I'm just 0.03 off, and this is apparently still considered Mmax.

Thank you for the replies. Let me see if I have this right:

[i.share.pho.to] Character Page/Stats

Superior Ethereal Mace of the Vampire

Exquisite Ruby Power Helmet of Protection

Exquisite Power Armor of Protection

Exquisite Power Gauntlets of Protection

Exquisite Amber Power Leggings of Protection

Superior Power Boots of Protection

This is the set-up I'm playing with now. As you can see, most of my effort went into 2H and Heavy armour. I last actively played more than a year ago, so I'm not quite sure what my thinking was when I went and bought all these.

I have a personal grudge against rapiers; what is considered the next best weapon choice? I am partial to Stun procs since those translate to a few "breather" turns, though I'm curious about how much the Wakizashi affects Attack Speed.

What kind of shield should I aim for, given I jump ship from 2H to 1H+Shield? I'm inclined towards a Buckler of the Battlecaster for the Mana Conservation.

People have called me a "hipster" before. If the meta is inclined towards Slaughter-flavoured Rapier+Shield+Power, I would elect to deviate from that. From what I recall, such items are more expensive than their less popular counterparts. I am perfectly content playing a "sub-optimal" character if it's closer to my ideal.

I have a personal grudge against rapiers; what is considered the next best weapon choice? I am partial to Stun procs since those translate to a few "breather" turns, though I'm curious about how much the Wakizashi affects Attack Speed.

Rapiers don't become extremely useful until it takes 7+ turns to kill a single average monster - Penetrated Armor won't start having a big effect until around then. If you aren't intent on PFUDOR you can get by on a different weapon, of Slaughter, most likely an axe (ethereal) for significantly more base damage.

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Equipment

With 1h you have 1, 2, or 3 potential stuns per turn anyway, each of which are significantly more likely to proc on being attacked than a club's is on hit - don't worry about a Stun weapon, since most monsters will be stunned most of the time anyway.

Since heavy armor has lots of burden, your bonus attack speed is significantly reduced, eventually down to 0. Wakizashi also has very low weapon damage, so it's not a good choice.

What kind of shield should I aim for, given I jump ship from 2H to 1H+Shield? I'm inclined towards a Buckler of the Battlecaster for the Mana Conservation.

For 1h, block is everything: when you block, you have a good chance of counter-attack, which guarantees a stun for a few turns. The equipment with the highest block is Force Shield by a significant margin, so for 1h, a force shield is necessary for effective play. Suffix isn't incredibly important but I'd prefer Protection because physical attacks are the vast majority.

People have called me a "hipster" before. If the meta is inclined towards Slaughter-flavoured Rapier+Shield+Power, I would elect to deviate from that. From what I recall, such items are more expensive than their less popular counterparts. I am perfectly content playing a "sub-optimal" character if it's closer to my ideal.

If you want to be different simply for the sake of being different, then why are you asking for advice from "Ask the Experts" on how to be effective? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)