[X] My Assistant

After a few days of testing my good elemental mage set against my meh 1h set on PF, it seems that mage is only about 20% faster in arenas - and that's when I'm trying to go as fast as possible with mage, which is quite dangerous due to their fragility (one mistake and I'm dead). It seems I'm doing something seriously wrong (or the many people who said that mage was 2x or 3x as fast as melee were lying). I'd use Spellspam, but mana conservation is still a serious issue, so I always want manual control over whether to use T1-T3.

Add in the ~doubled repair costs for mage gear, and it doesn't seem worth it. Seems I would be better off sticking to 1h. Perhaps if I forge everything to 20, the mage gear would eventually start to seem a little better, but that's many many millions of credits away (and I'm skeptical about much Phase scale improvment over Power Slaughter).

Perhaps mage would be relatively faster in GF due to more average number of monsters per round, but I'm not sure.

I have the option of going down to IWBTH or BT, but I want as much experience as possible before the equipment-killing patch comes.

I still need to IW mage gear to 5 Juggernaut, but due to the fixed Cure amount, I doubt that having 2.75 HP multiplier will really make much of a difference over having 2.25. Eco 5 instead of Eco 2 will also help some, but not enough.

its not so big difference with pf and mostly 1.5 times and lower. Maybe with epic gear a bit more. Its only big difference in speed with lower diff (specially hell) and could be even 5x faster. However, that doesnt mean in 5 times better. As you said its dangerous, it has very high mana cost, higher repair price and so on. It works perfect for low diff arenas (easy to kill, easy to survive). But not so good even for low diff fest, because fest gives more much with long run than many shorts. Much more profitable with good set (good gear, some forge, iw, perks).

I'd use Spellspam, but mana conservation is still a serious issue, so I always want manual control over whether to use T1-T3.

Personally, I find that Spellspam and Hovermelee and such should be banned. Using them isn't much different from botting.

I'm almost rank 130. Why am I still getting crushed on Hell random encounters regularly?

(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/HyD6lrE.png)

(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/CACdN1z.png)

Gear:

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=b0029d8e51

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=4e6baff6e2

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=6f7efe2e9a

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=86ae5bf21f

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=83a98a16a5

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=7d48a95f53

Seems like pretty good stuff: Exquisite Mace of Slaughter, Exquisite light armor all around. Just wondering what is the best way to increase my strength relative to the monsters at this point. From what I've heard they actually start getting even stronger relative to you as the game progresses.

Personally, I find that Spellspam and Hovermelee and such should be banned. Using them isn't much different from botting.

I think the automatic spell rotation is OK, since it's completely rote, for those who don't have to be careful about mana - but it does seem a bit cheap with conditionals and automatic stops and reminders (eg "if screen is colored red, press q to heal" and you'll almost always be fine).

I'm almost rank 130. Why am I still getting crushed on Hell random encounters regularly?

Seems like pretty good stuff: Exquisite Mace of Slaughter, Exquisite light armor all around. Just wondering what is the best way to increase my strength relative to the monsters at this point. From what I've heard they actually start getting even stronger relative to you as the game progresses.

Actual armor stats are significantly more important than prefixes. In your case, 4 of your 5 lack Endurance - that means that your total HP pool and the amount of HP that Cure heals is only around 2/3 of what it could be. That's quite a big hit to your survivability.

Your breastplate and helmet could also stand to have at least one more point in base physical mitigation to get to Smax, but that's significantly more optional.

Mace has no dexterity or agility (and the strength that it does have is far from smax). It's also not prefixed, which means something like 1/3 less damage than it could do otherwise. Since IW is probably too hard, and since 2h adds a good amount of burden and interference, I suggest 3 PAB Ethereal of Slaughter.

This post has been edited by Superlatanium: Mar 22 2015, 02:14

Thanks. So basically I'd be better off with merely "Superior" gear if it's got bonuses in all 4 of the stats I'm concerned with (Str, Dex, Agi, End)? This whole time I was just thinking it's all about the title, and never thought to check out gear that boosted my End.

I'm almost rank 130. Why am I still getting crushed on Hell random encounters regularly?

I suspect your spell casting succession is the problem. Do you fail to buff properly before started hitting? Have you tried using health pot early on?

Faster Drain also decreases the cast time of Drain, but that's a pretty useless feature since casting Drain when you're surrounded by monsters isn't a good idea.

i do that all the time on grindfest. I left one tough-looking monster un-imperiled and drain that one, so that I gain the full benefit of mana theft by the time im done with other mobs. If I can survive through the preliminary T3, drain is not that risky

This post has been edited by holy_demon: Mar 22 2015, 02:52

Thanks. So basically I'd be better off with merely "Superior" gear if it's got bonuses in all 4 of the stats I'm concerned with (Str, Dex, Agi, End)? This whole time I was just thinking it's all about the title, and never thought to check out gear that boosted my End.

If we were talking about gear that might become expensive, I'd agree - but this is leather, which you can very easily find Legendary and Magnificent (of Protection) for very cheap (or free, via Freeshop). You can find 4PAB leather Exquisites nearly for free, sometimes Magnificents and Legendaries in bazaar, and sometimes in player shops for just a bit more.

Also - experienced players - I know 1h + heavy is commonly recommended for those approaching the steep PL incline 150 - 200+. But what do you guys think about 1h + leather until ~250 or so, when survivability starts to cease being an issue, and when a player can start making heavy investments into Power Slaughter instead of half-assing it with Power non-Slaughter or with Plate until they work up the toughness from level scaling and abilities and can start using more than one or two Power Slaughter?

After all, it seems like the main benefit of using heavy armor is the ability to use Power Slaughter to increase clearing speed, but that's more useful only for those who are high enough that they don't have to worry about the mitigation hit taken when using Power. Heavy armor also has shortcomings - it's weak against Sprites/Celestials, which is a huge problem for players before Spirit Shield at level 200, and interference causes high mana costs (and lower players already have problems due to low buff durations). Leather doesn't have those problems. It's true that for the 150-250 player, it'll take them longer to clear with 1h and no armor with ADB, but given survivability issues, I don't think it's a bad trade off. It's also a lot easier for someone with the income of a level 250 player to buy a new gear set and level up new proficiency from 0 than it is for someone with the income of a level 150 player. (it's also a lot easier to change one style at a time than it is changing both weapon and armor type at once).

300+ players recommend 1h + PS, perhaps more because that's what they've used for ages, than because heavy armor is truthfully the better choice for those under 250. I wish I could go back to 200 for a day and test it out. Perhaps I'm projecting my own bad experience with Shade from 150-250 too much.

After a few days of testing my good elemental mage set against my meh 1h set on PF, it seems that mage is only about 20% faster in arenas - and that's when I'm trying to go as fast as possible with mage, which is quite dangerous due to their fragility (one mistake and I'm dead). It seems I'm doing something seriously wrong (or the many people who said that mage was 2x or 3x as fast as melee were lying). I'd use Spellspam, but mana conservation is still a serious issue, so I always want manual control over whether to use T1-T3.

Add in the ~doubled repair costs for mage gear, and it doesn't seem worth it. Seems I would be better off sticking to 1h. Perhaps if I forge everything to 20, the mage gear would eventually start to seem a little better, but that's many many millions of credits away (and I'm skeptical about much Phase scale improvment over Power Slaughter).

Perhaps mage would be relatively faster in GF due to more average number of monsters per round, but I'm not sure.

I have the option of going down to IWBTH or BT, but I want as much experience as possible before the equipment-killing patch comes.

I still need to IW mage gear to 5 Juggernaut, but due to the fixed Cure amount, I doubt that having 2.75 HP multiplier will really make much of a difference over having 2.25. Eco 5 instead of Eco 2 will also help some, but not enough.

Which element and what's your proficiency ratio BTW?
For the clearing speed, it is highly depended on T3, so level 400-450 player find holy much faster than elemental.

Which element and what's your proficiency ratio BTW?
For the clearing speed, it is highly depended on T3, so level 400-450 player find holy much faster than elemental.

5 phase. Elec and 1.16, with magic score 12.5k. 50% resist is very common. With 20 forge, I'll get to 1.19 prof. With EE, I'll get to 1.31. If I had used a Redwood with similar scaled stats instead of (my Willow with 8 CR) I'd have 1.38 after all those (less deprec prof though). Since I'm planning to always use Imperil, I went for Willow.

That reminds me, Penetrator 4 will also help a lot (if I ever get that lucky after Economizer). Unfortunately I can't spare the many hundred thousand credits worth of shards it would probably require.

I geared based on this post:

5+0
Arguably the most popular build among Lv.400+ mages.
You will inevitably see more resists from monsters compared with 3+2, but that doesn't matter too much if your magic score is extremely high.
If your goal is to do x15+ GF, 5+0 is probably better than 4+1 and 3+2, especially if you use a willow/oak staff which has built-in cr, or you've got Lv.4 penetrator on a destruction staff.
The effective proficiency is usually 1.3 ~ 1.4 times of the level.
Notable Lv.400+ mages using this build: danixxx (wind/dark/...), gc00018 (dark/elec), VriskaSerket (dark/...), wannaf (cold), treesloth (holy/dark/wind/fire), hitokiri84 (wind), n125 (wind), e-Stark (wind), holy_demon (holy/wind), frankmelody (wind), qinkin1979 (wind), december08 (holy), Kyoko Hori (wind), 千石撫子 (cold), MidNightPass (holy), Maribel Hearn (fire), ...

True, my level is still somewhat low (few months of playing: "low" (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)), so some of what I'm seeing is due to that. I'm fine with waiting, maybe I should just be patient and play with 1h until level is higher. Getting Eco 5 and all Jug 5 will hopefully let me do 100 round arena while always using T3 when it's up.

My eventual goal is to be able to do a few hundred rounds of of PF GF, but credits to repay debt are more important ATM, so I do arena. If I start doing GF, I will probably see mage do comparatively better than 1h due to T3 hitting 8 monsters on average instead of 5.

"Eventually" I'll also probably get perks for elemental prof, (DD, mage-melee neutral), RR (+1/3 mana pot over 100 rounds, maybe not worth it unless GF), and deprec prof, which will speed things up some, but that's a very long way from now.

Maybe I just need to wait until I have enough to forge staff to 10 and IW to 9, and then try again and compare.

5 phase. Elec and 1.16, with magic score 12.5k. 50% resist is very common. With 20 forge, I'll get to 1.19 prof. With EE, I'll get to 1.31. If I had used a Redwood with similar scaled stats instead of (my Willow with 8 CR) I'd have 1.38 after all those (less deprec prof though). Since I'm planning to always use Imperil, I went for Willow.

That reminds me, Penetrator 4 will also help a lot (if I ever get that lucky after Economizer). Unfortunately I can't spare the many hundred thousand credits worth of shards it would probably require.

Make your elemental prof to 1.6+ is important for fast run. Try using two cotton of elementlist and see. No need to use high quality cotton. I always use some random mag for proficiency as well. Even my holy set consist of a random mag holy prof pants.

If you can reach round 60 in PF GF, it should also be fine in arena.

This post has been edited by Colman: Mar 22 2015, 09:36

Just voicing my thoughts as queries:

djackallstar said a 5-phase build will inevitably see more resist than a proficiency build, but this is ok if your magic score is extremely high. (emphasis mine)

If you're going to overkill a monster in 2 spells, 50% resist might mean that it still dies in the same two spells. Or it might mean 3 spells, which isn't so bad since the proficiency build might that to spend that extra turn anyway.

So, the raison d'etre of the mage may be to kill within 2-3 spells. And we just need to play at the difficult where that can be done.

Are repair costs so horrible for mages? I've always thought repair was pretty negligible.

Just voicing my thoughts as queries:

djackallstar said a 5-phase build will inevitably see more resist than a proficiency build, but this is ok if your magic score is extremely high. (emphasis mine)

If you're going to overkill a monster in 2 spells, 50% resist might mean that it still dies in the same two spells. Or it might mean 3 spells, which isn't so bad since the proficiency build might that to spend that extra turn anyway.

So, the raison d'etre of the mage may be to kill within 2-3 spells. And we just need to play at the difficult where that can be done.

Are repair costs so horrible for mages? I've always thought repair was pretty negligible.

imo, it also depends on your budget. personally for me, i don't have the $$$ to buy/forge "good" phase yet. so I've chosen the 200% holy prof route (ie 2 cotton + 3 phase) with ~8000 magic score. i only need to forge my Staff + lightly forge my 2 cottons. it's still faster @hell and IWTBH (no imperil) for non-SG than my cold set on BOTH turns/s & total time for all arena except the last one. though, the last SG@hell is still a challenge for me & i pretty much need more damage from phase. (ie 1+4)

cold set 1 = ~150% prof (1 + 4) with ~11,600 magic score.
cold set 2 = ~120% prof (full phase) with ~13,000 magic score. which is great for IWTBH/PF with Imperil.

lastly, when some mages play a few thousand grindfest rounds, the repair cost do add up very fast. especially, with Legendary+ stuff where you need Regular+ cata & a shitload of scraps. also, phase has very low condition (<300) compared to cotton (800+)

ps. i'll probably move towards (1+4) later when i start forging my staff prof & find better cotton.

This post has been edited by malkatmp: Mar 22 2015, 15:12

When I did the calculations, replacing boots with proficiency cotton is pretty much always the best choice. Whether you replace two or not, depends on your other gear and if you are using imperil or not.

Some advanced grindfest players are replying a gear with a holy edb gear instead of proficiency and having better mana savings that way.

Just to ask, how can I get catalysts outside of bazaar/shops? They are required for repairs but I don't think I've seen monsters dropping them

Just to ask, how can I get catalysts outside of bazaar/shops? They are required for repairs but I don't think I've seen monsters dropping them

No one drop catalysts. You can only get them from shops.

Some advanced grindfest players are replying a gear with a holy edb gear instead of proficiency and having better mana savings that way.

Interesting. How about this instead of holy phase. Would it be viable?

Interesting. How about this instead of holy phase. Would it be viable?

Those kinds of staves had value for a while. Not sure if people are still buying them. Theoretically having enough holy edb can save a lot of mana.

This post has been edited by EsotericSatire: Mar 23 2015, 00:21

hello expert.

I need advice (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

my prof stats are bad,

should I train my prof first then level up. or just level up, then train later ?

(IMG:[i.imgur.com] http://i.imgur.com/NjrN5S2.png)