[X] My Assistant

just to confirm...

you can only use equipment up to 50 levels above your current level right?
with soul-fuse of course.

i am seeing people buying equipment which are in the level 450~480 region when they are still 20 to 30 levels away from being able to soul-fuse and equip them.

as guarantee if they (i) don't find any upgrade when levelling up. As long as those are cheap & reselable though.

D'oh, i've been socialized too much that multi-accounting is risky. I regret. ;__;

This post has been edited by Dead-ed: Jul 11 2015, 17:48

while it's true that every monster is weak to one or more elements when created, it's also true that those mitigations can be upgraded, [hvlist.niblseed.com] to the point that you cannot say 'that monster is weak to an element' anymore.

therefore, a certain element is useful only when facing monsters with fixed mitigations (SGs, gods, dragons etc) and there is no need to worry too much about the second elemental strike/prefix, as long as there is for a surplus damage, correct?

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Jul 11 2015, 19:07

Q1
The wiki says that "Battles Won" does not count when "Deaths to a player's own monsters", but what about the following situations?
1-1
Assumed that Player is not the trainer of Monster A and Monster B.
Player encounters Monsters A and Monster B -> Player kills Monster A -> Player is defeated by Monster B -> Will the "Battles Won" stat of Monster A increase by 1?
1-2
Assumed that Player is not the trainer of Monster A, but is the trainer of Monster B.
Player encounters Monsters A and Monster B -> Player kills Monster A -> Player is defeated by Monster B -> Will the "Battles Won" stat of Monster A increase by 1?
1-3
Assumed that Player is the trainer of Monster A, but is not the trainer of Monster B.
Player encounters Monsters A and Monster B -> Player kills Monster A -> Player is defeated by Monster B -> Will the "Battles Won" stat of Monster A increase by 1?

When monsters win, it counts as a win for all of the monsters in that round, right? Except for the unusual situation where the defeated player owns one of the monsters, in which case that one monster would not receive the win. So

1-1: Yes
1-2: Yes
1-3: No

Q2
Is there any difference when a monster wins a battle with and without a killing blow? Does a killing blow increase the chance of a monster bringing a gift?

Q3
Is it possible that a monster fights with more than one player at the same time?

2: Many have said there is no difference, it's just for bragging rights.

3: Most definitely.

Q5
Credits are never enough when it comes to training monsters.
When your budget is tight, which traning strategy do you think is better and why?

Strategy A: Maximize [en.wikipedia.org] Precision
Focus on increasing the chance of "when your monster is picked in battle, it will win the battle."

Strategy B: Maximize [en.wikipedia.org] Recall
Focus on increasing the chance of "your monster will be picked in battle as many times as possible."

The best strategy would definitely be a combination of both, though it also depends on how many chaos tokens and crystals you're willing/able to spend on an individual monster (or on all your monsters in general). Roughly, wins = (battles fought) * (chance of winning), so neither must be too neglected, given your resources and ability to affect those variables.

I don't think the individual monster has much of an effect on the chance of a winning battle. The difference is between (1 of the 7? monsters has no chaos investment) and (1 of the 7? monsters has high chaos investment). I'm making up numbers here, but it might be the difference between 0.03% and 0.04%. Given increasing chaos costs, the most effective chaos strategy for a certain set of your monsters is likely something similar to only very lightly upgrading the important upgrades on each. Your monsters won't be surprising players by doing a ton of damage, or by being able to tank a whole lot of hits, but even and light chaos upgrades across all monsters will maximize overall damage done and overall damage that can be absorbed, which I would think would be the most efficient way of increasing your chances of a win per chaos token spent. Your monsters probably won't get many killing blows, but that's OK.

Q6
Rumor has it that when picking monsters to fight with a player, the battle system tends to choose monsters with the same class.
For example, if a player encounters 10 monsters, the chance of seeing:
Giant, Avion, Giant, Giant, Celestial, Giant, Avion, Celestial, Celestial, Giant
is higher than seeing:
Mechanoid, Dragonkin, Reptilian, Sprite, Giant, Avion, Beast, Celestial, Undead, Daimon

I was under the impression that it was impossible to see more than 4 types at once. Not just "less likely", but "impossible".

So what do you think about this training strategy:
Instead of training one PL1499 Giant with good chaos upgrades, train 5+ PL1000 Giants who only have Scavenger maxed.
(The rationale is that other Giant teammates are generally strong, so the chance of a player being defeated is already not low.)

You also have to consider that the amount of Giant competition is significantly higher than other monster classes. Chances of winning might be a bit higher, but chances of appearing in a battle is notably lower. I would be tempted to train monsters of a less popular class (but not of a generally ineffective class like Humanoid).

And you believe that 0.83 will be any better? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

Yes. Right now, there is a pretty good chance of significant rebalancing changes occurring in the not too distant future. But after 0.83 comes out, and after the initial couple weeks or so of the patch have passed for kinks to be worked out, I think there is a high likelihood of things staying mostly static for quite a while, like they had been for a long time up until 0.82.

Right now, significant investments in a particular style are somewhat risky, since they may be "rebalanced" and become substandard. Holy may become the new Fire, for instance.

After the patch, investments will be less risky, because significant style changes will not be likely to take place any time soon after 0.83. Probably.

while it's true that every monster is weak to one or more elements when created, it's also true that those mitigations can be upgraded, [hvlist.niblseed.com] to the point that you cannot say 'that monster is weak to an element' anymore.

therefore, a certain element is useful only when facing monsters with fixed mitigations (SGs, gods, dragons etc) and there is no need to worry too much about the second elemental strike/prefix, as long as there is for a surplus damage, correct?

No way.

At high PL, it's not that monsters are weak to particular elements (mitigations are way positive), but they are still notably weaker to certain elements. That's one of the reasons Holy works so well right now - even though monsters have high mitigation, they (generally) have even higher wind/fire etc mitigation, so if you don't use Imperil to mess with the mitigation values, Holy (and Dark) have an edge in that respect.

I think having Holy/Dark strike is useful (compared to elements). The difference in damage is not large, but if someone is at the point where the next damage upgrade would cost 180k in forge costs and would only increase weapon damage by .8% (overall damage by .1%), for instance, they would certainly be right to worry about having Dark/Holy strike, which might increase overall damage by a couple of percentage points or so against the average monster.

No way.

At high PL, it's not that monsters are weak to particular elements (mitigations are way positive), but they are still notably weaker to certain elements. That's one of the reasons Holy works so well right now - even though monsters have high mitigation, they (generally) have even higher wind/fire etc mitigation, so if you don't use Imperil to mess with the mitigation values, Holy (and Dark) have an edge in that respect.

I think having Holy/Dark strike is useful (compared to elements). The difference in damage is not large, but if someone is at the point where the next damage upgrade would cost 180k in forge costs and would only increase weapon damage by .8% (overall damage by .1%), for instance, they would certainly be right to worry about having Dark/Holy strike, which might increase overall damage by a couple of percentage points or so against the average monster.

i was speaking from a melee's point of view, so no imperil (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

also, what are good potencies for an ethereal estoc to use with shade armors? i guess fatality, swift and butcher, but seeing that jenga's estoc also has overpower makes me think it's actually useful in some way...

i was speaking from a melee's point of view, so no imperil (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

also, what are good potencies for an ethereal estoc to use with shade armors? i guess fatality, swift and butcher, but seeing that jenga's estoc also has overpower makes me think it's actually useful in some way...

I heard that Overpower was one of most desired potencies for 2h since they can't counter-parry otherwise. Better to avoid parries that eliminate your damage completely than to have slightly higher damage with Butcher/Fatality.

I'm doubtful about the usefulness of Swift Strike. With faster action speed, Regen will also occur more slowly. It'll only reduce damage taken through monsters dying a fraction of action units less, though it'll still take the same number of turns to kill - so I think Butcher/Fatality would be better than SS, since they would directly reduce number of turns needed to kill. Butcher probably has the edge due to high weapon damage, but that's a wild guess.

I heard that Overpower was one of most desired potencies for 2h since they can't counter-parry otherwise. Better to avoid parries that eliminate your damage completely than to have slightly higher damage with Butcher/Fatality.

I'm doubtful about the usefulness of Swift Strike. With faster action speed, Regen will also occur more slowly. It'll only reduce damage taken through monsters dying a fraction of action units less, though it'll still take the same number of turns to kill - so I think Butcher/Fatality would be better than SS, since they would directly reduce number of turns needed to kill. Butcher probably has the edge due to high weapon damage, but that's a wild guess.

basically, overpower > butcher ≥ fatality >> swift

Yep. Max is 4 classes. Overall chance is very close (and i think its exact) to amount of mobs. If overall giants is 17% of population than we gonna deal with same ratio.

But it also looks like additional chance to get similar class. Like potency staff. I mean for example first mob is Avion. Its not popular class and its more like 2-3% of all. But here is few examples of rounds with it:

Avion, Celestial, Celestial, Avion, Sprite, Sprite, Sprite, Avion, Elemental. Its 3 in one round. Sure we gonna deal with only 4 classes, but celestial is much more popular and its only 2 mobs.
Next example.
Daimon, Avion, Avion, Daimon, Beast, Daimon, Avion, Beast, Avion. 4 in one round. Or maybe this one is more interesting. Dragonkin x6, Avion, Avion, Dragonkin. Its not even limit, because avion was second class, but next one was exact same.

Im not sure about correct chances, because its quite time consuming and has no profit, but it looks quite high to get similar instead new one. It has no big advantage, because even if we play mage, than chance to get someone tanky is anyway high. Giant+Undead+Dragonkin+Arthropod is more than 44% and to get at least 1 that mob is very common. Even 1 is enough to increase our turns/round.

This post has been edited by nec1986: Jul 12 2015, 00:50

I'm thinking about trying to do some Mage style fighting but I'm not sure what equipment and Abilities would be best to use. Anyone have any tips? Also what spells are best to use. Thanks

This post has been edited by High Rolla: Jul 12 2015, 01:27

Thanks to everyone who answered my previous questions.

You also have to consider that the amount of Giant competition is significantly higher than other monster classes. Chances of winning might be a bit higher, but chances of appearing in a battle is notably lower. I would be tempted to train monsters of a less popular class (but not of a generally ineffective class like Humanoid).

I had been tempted to train monsters of a less popular class, too, before I had a deeper thinking.
There are five problems one will have to think about when training an unpopular monster.

Problem 1: Unpopular due to being weak in the first place.
The main reason that popular monsters are popular is because they tend to be strong in critical stats, and unpopular monsters are unpopular because they are not as strong as popular monsters.

Problem 2: Weak teammates.
Empirical evidence has shown that a player can face at most 4 types of monsters in one battle round, which means a monster will has 0 ~ 6 "teammates" (monsters of the same class).
Since unpopular monsters are generally weak, the chance of an unpopular monsters having weak teammates is higher than a popular monster.
IMO having good teammates is the most critical factor to win a battle.

Problem 3. Unpopular doesn't mean that the class will appears in battle more often.
There are way more Giants than Avions in any PL ranges; however, there is no statistical evidence showing that the class "Giant" appears more often than the class "Avion" on average in one battle round. (the "class", not #monsters in that class)

Problem 4. What PL range is the most profitable for an unpopular monster?
A popular monster like Giant does well whether PL=250 or PL=1499, due to high HP an high damage.
But to an unpopular monster, it might only work well in a narrower PL range, to players with certain type. (ex: heavy armor)
Finding out the correct PL range is the hard part, and the PL range is subject to change. (when a patch comes or when popular play styles change.)

Problem 5. What unpopular class is the best? And how many to train?
Even if one decides to train a monster of an unpopular class, what class is the best and why? And #monsters to train?
Reptilian, Avion, Sprite, or Beast? They have diverse profiles, and making a profitibility model for just one class already gives me headache.
Jenga's monster database helps to a certain extent, but I need more data such as Battles Won, chaos upgrades, etc, which I won't be able to get unless revealed by players.


This post has been edited by djackallstar: Jul 12 2015, 01:49

I'm thinking about trying to do some Mage style fighting but I'm not sure what equipment and Abilities would be best to use. Anyone have any tips? Also what spells are best to use. Thanks

Staff with prefix type matching staff type, and suffix matching one of EDB/MDB/Proficiency for that element. Then, 3 Phase of that element, and 2 proficiency cotton for that element. Forge proficiency to 20 or whatever you can afford, but don't forge Phase yet because it's too expensive. IW staff to 5 Eco and forge important stats to 5, maybe to 10 or more if you have the funds. Then spellspam your way to profit.

Holy, dark, and wind are generally expensive, so you're probably best looking for one of the other elements.

Staff with prefix type matching staff type, and suffix matching one of EDB/MDB/Proficiency for that element. Then, 3 Phase of that element, and 2 proficiency cotton for that element. Forge proficiency to 20 or whatever you can afford, but don't forge Phase yet because it's too expensive. IW staff to 5 Eco and forge important stats to 5, maybe to 10 or more if you have the funds. Then spellspam your way to profit.

Holy, dark, and wind are generally expensive, so you're probably best looking for one of the other elements.

Thanks for the Tips I appreciate it

Patch came out. 25m staff I bought (won) before with sub-L EDB turned into mostly trash, given high-end potential. Elemental's strength in lower difficulty GF due to low mana costs almost disappeared, now that tapping is unnecessary and potions are unlimited and still relatively cheap. I'm tempted, but knowing my luck, if I try to get more good stuff, it'll be "rebalanced" into the ground a couple weeks later, and if I soulfuse, I won't even be able to trade it away, even at a loss.

As far as I can tell, we are seeing more Leg cotton/phase with L+/P primary stats. And not so much for staffs, rapiers, etc. Is an L or sub-L EDB on a staff so trash? (I'm getting buyer's remorse)

I don't think the individual monster has much of an effect on the chance of a winning battle. The difference is between (1 of the 7? monsters has no chaos investment) and (1 of the 7? monsters has high chaos investment). I'm making up numbers here, but it might be the difference between 0.03% and 0.04%. Given increasing chaos costs, the most effective chaos strategy for a certain set of your monsters is likely something similar to only very lightly upgrading the important upgrades on each. Your monsters won't be surprising players by doing a ton of damage, or by being able to tank a whole lot of hits, but even and light chaos upgrades across all monsters will maximize overall damage done and overall damage that can be absorbed, which I would think would be the most efficient way of increasing your chances of a win per chaos token spent. Your monsters probably won't get many killing blows, but that's OK.

Besides, it'd hurt less when you come across your own monster and it kills you.

Problem 3. Unpopular doesn't mean that the class will appears in battle more often.
There are way more Giants than Avions in any PL ranges; however, there is no statistical evidence showing that the class "Giant" appears more often than the class "Avion" on average in one battle round. (the "class", not #monsters in that class)

I don't understand this (which probably doesn't mean much in the context of the other problems)

If there are way more Giants than Avions, and they appear similarly often in battles, it should be the case that your Avion has a higher chance of appearing than your Giant, right?

Problem 4. What PL range is the most profitable for an unpopular monster?
A popular monster like Giant does well whether PL=250 or PL=1499, due to high HP an high damage.
But to an unpopular monster, it might only work well in a narrower PL range, to players with certain type. (ex: heavy armor)
Finding out the correct PL range is the hard part, and the PL range is subject to change. (when a patch comes or when popular play styles change.)

Popular monster may also be subject to change, eg. in the rumored mitigation balancing patch.

Well, if we speak about high pl than main source of wins is flee. I dont remember when last time monster killed me. Even as mage. And specially we can clearly see it after patch, because with better sustain monsters got huge win drop.

Sure some type can affect it. So if i play mage in fest and its the only way for monsters to win than i flee mostly because have low sp. Its mp attacks and if we look at mp attacks than someone like giant is quite bad. He has 2 mp attacks and both is average. Even sprite can hit almost in 1.5x harder with powerful one. But weak side here is giant has higher chance to hit. Actually i dont rly think we should rly focus on it, because if its remain mobs than i anyway kill it and flee only in next round. So you can see its quite hard to say who is rly better and sometimes its just random, because i flee next round against em. Sometimes its just second half of mobs, because they remain and i had to flee. Someone just clear until specific round or something similar.

So here random is very high part. And rest part can easy be even equal, because almost all have some advantage (maybe except someone like avion, but almost no one has it). Weak class very often has resist and huge power. Actually daimon has much stronger base damage than arthropod. In late rounds base damage can be dangerous also. In this case few daimons can damage more than few arthropods. The only way to check is get data from top monster handlers like 2250 pl with fullchaos upgrade.

And yea. Monsters has equal chance to come out. No matter class. Only pl. The higher pl the closer to max possibly and lower competition.

As far as I can tell, we are seeing more Leg cotton/phase with L+/P primary stats. And not so much for staffs, rapiers, etc. Is an L or sub-L EDB on a staff so trash? (I'm getting buyer's remorse)

On destruction staff, it's okay, on edb or prof staff, it's kinda bad. However, if it's cheap, the cost efficiency will be good.

As far as I can tell, we are seeing more Leg cotton/phase with L+/P primary stats. And not so much for staffs, rapiers, etc. Is an L or sub-L EDB on a staff so trash? (I'm getting buyer's remorse)

...What do you regret buying?

Staff with prefix type matching staff type, and suffix matching one of EDB/MDB/Proficiency for that element. Then, 3 Phase of that element, and 2 proficiency cotton for that element.

I think proficiency cotton is more useful when you spellspam through lower difficulties. Playing on PFUDOR means most of the time the monster you're casting on is going to be under Imperil in which case extra mitigation might not be as good as pure raw damage although the counter-resist can be handy.

As far as I can tell, we are seeing more Leg cotton/phase with L+/P primary stats. And not so much for staffs, rapiers, etc. Is an L or sub-L EDB on a staff so trash? (I'm getting buyer's remorse)

I don't know how it is at the higher levels but I don't damage as that much of importance. Stuff dies in a spell or two under imperil anyway and no matter how much you minmax I don't see stuff dying without imperil, what makes me panic is usually when a debuff is resisted hence why I understand the high demand for charged prefixed phase gear.

Well, if we speak about high pl than main source of wins is flee. I dont remember when last time monster killed me. Even as mage. And specially we can clearly see it after patch, because with better sustain monsters got huge win drop.

Yeah ever since getting spark I don't see how you can die outside of missclicks. Spark proc should really count as a win. I think most high level PL monster wins are from people grinding proficiencies and fleeing right before the last round.

I don't know how it is at the higher levels but I don't damage as that much of importance. Stuff dies in a spell or two under imperil anyway and no matter how much you minmax I don't see stuff dying without imperil, what makes me panic is usually when a debuff is resisted hence why I understand the high demand for charged prefixed phase gear.

Imperil might be removed next patch. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

If you salvage a soul bound item, do you get any soul fragments back?

As far as I can tell, we are seeing more Leg cotton/phase with L+/P primary stats. And not so much for staffs, rapiers, etc. Is an L or sub-L EDB on a staff so trash? (I'm getting buyer's remorse)

Well, for something I was going to forge to 50+, and given that there now exist staffs with P+2 or more EDB, for instance, it's not great. And one of the biggest reasons I decided to gamble on it pre-patch was that it had M-L tier PABs and damage and EDB and proficiency, which was completely unheard of before 0.82, but is now so common for Legendary. (Except Power Slaughter)

It's not that what I have is bad, but that it's no longer anywhere close to optimal for something to forge/IW/use for a long time for someone at my level and income.

And then there's more elemental "rebalancing" on the horizon. So I'm going to try to avoid any significant purchases so I don't get screwed over again.

I think proficiency cotton is more useful when you spellspam through lower difficulties. Playing on PFUDOR means most of the time the monster you're casting on is going to be under Imperil in which case extra mitigation might not be as good as pure raw damage although the counter-resist can ibe handy.

I think it's better to play without Imperil no matter what, due to the sheer speed increase and ability to play without concentrating or really looking at monsters - even on PF. Playing with Imperil can be more turn-efficient, but playing without (and having a high prof_factor; some cotton instead of phase) is more time-efficient. Even if you have to drop to IWBTH or Nintendo due to damage taken, it's probably worth it.

I don't know how it is at the higher levels but I don't damage as that much of importance. Stuff dies in a spell or two under imperil anyway and no matter how much you minmax I don't see stuff dying without imperil, what makes me panic is usually when a debuff is resisted hence why I understand the high demand for charged prefixed phase gear.

No imperil is great for low difficulty. Even many high level mages often play just on Hell in GF.

If you salvage a soul bound item, do you get any soul fragments back?

No