[X] My Assistant

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What are you spending the mana on? Constant curing?

My stats:
Str 172
Dex 150
Agl 151
End 172
Int 172
Wis 188

HP 5268
MP 656
SP 365

Physical Attack
1303 attack base damage

Fighting Style
One-Handed (void)
10 % Overwhelming Strikes on hit
34 % Counter-Attack on block/parry

Vitals
70 % HP Boost
60 % MP Boost

Defense
47.2 % physical mitigation
48.3 % magical mitigation
11.3 % evade chance
34.4 % block chance
8.4 % parry chance
22 % resist chance

Equipment proficiency
One-handed 2.96
Two-handed 130.51
Dual wielding 0.00
Staff 6.41
Cloth armor 133.87
Light armor 2.82
Heavy armor 41.12

Magic proficiency
Elemental 68.62
Divine 3.79
Forbidden 2.09
Deprecating 69.57
Supportive 136.75

Base vitals
Health regen 67.3
Magic regen 14.5
Spirit regen 3.2


Equipment
Exquisite Ethereal Axe of Slaughter (still can't find a Ethereal Rapier of Slaughter in WTS but not sure if it would make a huge difference here)
Exquisite Force Shield of Protection
Superior Cotton Cap of the Elementalist
Exquisite Jade Power Armor of Warding (Alternatively I use Superior Cotton Robe of Warding but this actually gets me Cloak'd real quick nowadays, big drain on my spirit power)
Superior Plate Gauntlets of Stoneskin (Alternatively, Superior Cotton Gloves of the Elementalist, but again, higher risk of Cloak of the Fallen)
Exquisite Cotton Pants of the Earth-walker
Exquisite Frugal Cotton Shoes of Warding

I'm spending my magic on Spark of Life, Protection, Haste, Regen, and Shadows.

Oh, I forgot the offensive spells I sometimes need to use: the elemental spells, imperil, silence, weaken.

This post has been edited by jacquelope: Aug 18 2015, 23:05

Holy/Dark strike is good for anyone - there's certainly a point, it is something to be considered. The obvious problem is the cost to get it - you have to look at the equip's stats, and consider the cost/benefit of forging more vs cost/benefit of holy/dark strike vs doing nothing at all. And getting Holy/Dark strike in addition to mostly good potencies is extraordinarily costly.

I remember doing IW for someone who wanted Overpower 4 or 5 + Holy or Dark strike, and even after 200 shards it never came up. Lost so much money

To avoid that, I always use Hallowed or Demonic. The interference and burden is well worth not having to spend millions to get the increased damage from Holy/Dark strike. I think the only exception would be for someone with Peerless who's also done most of the useful forging - otherwise, avoid Ethereal (unless there are no Hallowed or Demonic available).

yes, i know it. but i mean - look at [hvlist.niblseed.com] jenga's monster database: pretty much all the mobs we can find at our levels are resistant to any element. let's take for example Tsukiko: as a sprite it should be weak to Dark, but its resistance is 37, which we will say it's a medium-high resistance for a fresh mob; same goes for Cracker Jim (a mechanoid) with Elec; Kudou Yuki, an arthropod, should be weak to Cold but its resistance is 50 (which is very high). the first mob actually weak to something is a sprite by ichy (PL1173) - we may also say that at our levels we barely see (if any) mobs with resistances at least comparable to original ones.

in these conditions and without considering mobs with fixed resistances (red: system's ones), is one strike really better than another one?

1h will work with anything (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)
but light armor + 1h is just too much defense even for gf

God, so much defense.

Comparing my shade gear (mostly pre-patch) to the ranges on the wiki, it seems uniformly low on ADB. Was shade ADB buffed recently?

Equipment
Exquisite Ethereal Axe of Slaughter (still can't find a Ethereal Rapier of Slaughter in WTS but not sure if it would make a huge difference here)
Exquisite Force Shield of Protection
Superior Cotton Cap of the Elementalist
Exquisite Jade Power Armor of Warding (Alternatively I use Superior Cotton Robe of Warding but this actually gets me Cloak'd real quick nowadays, big drain on my spirit power)
Superior Plate Gauntlets of Stoneskin (Alternatively, Superior Cotton Gloves of the Elementalist, but again, higher risk of Cloak of the Fallen)
Exquisite Cotton Pants of the Earth-walker
Exquisite Frugal Cotton Shoes of Warding

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) There's your problem

Only ever use one type of armor, such as all cloth, or all light, or all heavy. Otherwise, you cannot gain any of the bonuses from proficiency, and lose out on a ton of stats, including quite a lot of defense. It renders all the points you put into armor abilities useless.

Cloth armor has no purpose for melee, so you can rule that out. Pick either light or heavy, and then wear all light armor, or all heavy armor.

Avoid casting Shadow Veil if you're 1h, because it means less counter-attacks, less Overcharge, less Spirit Stance, and less damage. SV is probably only an OK choice in late Grindfest.

Don't worry about finding an Ethereal rapier, the interference/burden isn't much of an issue. (Assuming, of course, that a player hasn't completely crippled themselves already with armor choices (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif))

Intel is 99% useless for melee. Only upgrade it when it costs like 1/100th of your important stats.

Don't use any depreciating spells, you don't need them (especially if you have a rapier) and they eat up your mana too quickly. Especially don't use any offensive spells like Fiery Blast etc, only mages can do damage with them.

This post has been edited by Superlatanium: Aug 18 2015, 23:34

My stats:
Dex 150
Int 172
Wis 188

Equipment
Superior Cotton Cap of the Elementalist
Alternatively I use Superior Cotton Robe of Warding but this actually gets me Cloak'd real quick nowadays, big drain on my spirit power
Alternatively, Superior Cotton Gloves of the Elementalist, but again, higher risk of Cloak of the Fallen
Exquisite Cotton Pants of the Earth-walker
Exquisite Frugal Cotton Shoes of Warding

I'm spending my magic on Spark of Life, Protection, Haste, Regen, and Shadows.

Oh, I forgot the offensive spells I sometimes need to use: the elemental spells, imperil, silence, weaken.

you're basically going battlecaster route, which isn't very effective - rather, it's quite penalizing.

assuming you're going 1H (which is the best choice at your level, and will be even better at lv200), i quoted those what i think are your biggest mistakes:

- DEX is too low: it will affect your ADB, crit chance, parry, accuracy... it should be at least as high as STR and END
- INT is waaaaay too high. at your level you can surely put it ~100, since it doesn't anything useful for a melee except affecting SP Tank
- keep WIS as high as END

- don't mix armor types, and most of all don't use cloth with 1H: since it's a style which relies on block/parry or mitigations, it needs armors which can support it - like heavy or power. switch to a full power of protection/warding set (post 0.82 preferable) and you'll see the difference. also, you will have access to heavy armor's abilities, and you will see a big boost in your HP Tank

- it's quite useless to regularly cast shadow veil once you have enough defense, but still can be used in high difficulties or against strong mobs. rather, use heartseeker as soon as it becomes available, but cast it only via channelling

- a heavy melee user doesn't really need elemental spells since they aren't boosted by anything and only eat mana - if you want to use them, go through the mage route. imperil, silence and weaken may be useful against very powerful mobs, but not against regular ones; at most, you can identify those will kill/cloaks you more frequently and silence those ones, but still...
finally, cast spells on spirit stance as much as possible, which will be easily kept on almost all time by 1H style

yes, i know it. but i mean - look at [hvlist.niblseed.com] jenga's monster database: pretty much all the mobs we can find at our levels are resistant to any element. let's take for example Tsukiko: as a sprite it should be weak to Dark, but its resistance is 37, which we will say it's a medium-high resistance for a fresh mob; same goes for Cracker Jim (a mechanoid) with Elec; Kudou Yuki, an arthropod, should be weak to Cold but its resistance is 50 (which is very high). the first mob actually weak to something is a sprite by ichy (PL1173) - we may also say that at our levels we barely see (if any) mobs with resistances at least comparable to original ones.

in these conditions and without considering mobs with fixed resistances (red: system's ones), is one strike really better than another one?

There is relatively less resistance to Holy/Dark, which is what makes it worth pursuing - if there is a choice to be made, definitely prefer Holy/Dark. (For similar reasons, 2h often wants Overpower on weapon, despite the fact that many monsters have counter-parry chaos upgrades. Monsters may have resistance to something, but there still exists an ideal choice, which may well be to get something that monsters can counter to some extent)

The overall multiplier on damage is small, true, but that's how it is for everything. (One Binding of Slaughter may only increase overall ADB by a small fraction of 1%, right?)

in these conditions and without considering mobs with fixed resistances (red: system's ones), is one strike really better than another one?

I figured that holy/dark were preferred mainly because of the schoolgirls?

I figured that holy/dark were preferred mainly because of the schoolgirls?

That, and monsters also have significantly less resistance to Holy/Dark, regardless of PL.

Base resistance to the other elements is usually 25, with an occasional exception. Base resistance to Holy/Dark is usually 0, with an occasional exception.

Comparing my shade gear (mostly pre-patch) to the ranges on the wiki, it seems uniformly low on ADB. Was shade ADB buffed recently?

0.82, ADB for non-Slaughter was buffed, see patch notes

This post has been edited by Superlatanium: Aug 18 2015, 23:31

Comparing my shade gear (mostly pre-patch) to the ranges on the wiki, it seems uniformly low on ADB. Was shade ADB buffed recently?

yup. as it was pretty much everything. check wiki ranges to be sure.
maybe ADB on power armors of slaughter was nerfed, but too lazy to check (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

There is relatively less resistance to Holy/Dark, which is what makes it worth pursuing - if there is a choice to be made, definitely prefer Holy/Dark. (For similar reasons, 2h often wants Overpower on weapon, despite the fact that many monsters have counter-parry chaos upgrades. Monsters may have resistance to something, but there still exists an ideal choice, which may well be to get something that monsters can counter to some extent)

The overall multiplier on damage is small, true, but that's how it is for everything. (One Binding of Slaughter may only increase overall ADB by a small fraction of 1%, right?)

uhu. as i thought. so, better little than nothing...

I figured that holy/dark were preferred mainly because of the schoolgirls?

yup. so it is if you do many marathons. if you don't do them or do only in difficulties low enough for even 2H to be effective, then the above matter applies

God, so much defense.

Comparing my shade gear (mostly pre-patch) to the ranges on the wiki, it seems uniformly low on ADB. Was shade ADB buffed recently?

DW has some decent defense too.

(IMG:[i60.tinypic.com] http://i60.tinypic.com/8xlm40.jpg)

DW has some decent defense too.

(IMG:[i60.tinypic.com] http://i60.tinypic.com/8xlm40.jpg)

dat ADB, speed and ACC... all 0.82 armors? also, do you mind posting your gears?

This post has been edited by Scremaz: Aug 19 2015, 00:36

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) There's your problem

Only ever use one type of armor, such as all cloth, or all light, or all heavy. Otherwise, you cannot gain any of the bonuses from proficiency, and lose out on a ton of stats, including quite a lot of defense. It renders all the points you put into armor abilities useless.

But that tactic was killing me recently with all cloth.

Cloth armor has no purpose for melee, so you can rule that out. Pick either light or heavy, and then wear all light armor, or all heavy armor.

I'm migrating toward all heavy armor as it is.
Well then, as the money comes in, I'm probably going to go for heavy, because of the attack damage enhancements that I've seen while browsing (and experienced). It seems obvious that I'm going to have to choose between spellcasting reserves and surviving hits and this force shield would make a big difference for me with heavy armor.

Avoid casting Shadow Veil if you're 1h, because it means less counter-attacks, less Overcharge, less Spirit Stance, and less damage. SV is probably only an OK choice in late Grindfest.

How do I make up for the loss in increased evade?

Don't worry about finding an Ethereal rapier, the interference/burden isn't much of an issue. (Assuming, of course, that a player hasn't completely crippled themselves already with armor choices (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif))

Yeah, all cloth was getting me killed, and I don't have the armor that I need to go all heavy or all light.

Assuming an all heavy armor build what would you suggest?

Don't use any depreciating spells, you don't need them (especially if you have a rapier) and they eat up your mana too quickly. Especially don't use any offensive spells like Fiery Blast etc, only mages can do damage with them.

Good point, I used to do phenomenal damage with elemental spells. Not anymore. Less than a week ago I was able to barely get by using it in Nintendo mode. Now those badass monsters you warned me about are coming at me with forks and knives in hand in NIGHTMARE mode.

Are mages ever at an advantage? With weaker pots and the cost of spells going up per level, it seems this game has it in for mages.

Yep, all of them are 0.82 gears. Chest and Boots will definitely be replaced once I get something better, and Leggings too some day.

Legendary Fiery Rapier of the Nimble

Legendary Ethereal Wakizashi of the Nimble

Legendary Ruby Shade Helmet of the Fleet

Magnificent Savage Breastplate of the Fleet

Legendary Amber Shade Gauntlets of the Shadowdancer

Legendary Ruby Shade Leggings of Negation

Legendary Cobalt Shade Boots of Negation


With this and FusRoDah I can get to about ~800 rounds of PFUDOR grindfest, but my 1H set is needed to do the full ~1000 rounds.

This post has been edited by Madprank: Aug 19 2015, 00:52

DW has some decent defense too.

(IMG:[i60.tinypic.com] http://i60.tinypic.com/8xlm40.jpg)

nice (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

why not use rapier of slaughter since you have high parry stats already (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

Another thing worthy of note:

I am giving up about 500 attack base damage by switching from my Exquisite Ethereal Longsword of Slaughter to that Exquisite Ethereal Axe of Slaughter.

Now I like that power shield but DAMN. 1326 vs 1874 ADB really, really hurts.

Mainly price. Also, when I started building this set Slaughter was still insanely expensive and recently it has started to come down in price so I will be getting that in a few weeks. Plus, I can reuse this as offhand if I use club or axe.

This post has been edited by Madprank: Aug 19 2015, 01:20

Another thing worthy of note:

I am giving up about 500 attack base damage by switching from my Exquisite Ethereal Longsword of Slaughter to that Exquisite Ethereal Axe of Slaughter.

Now I like that power shield but DAMN. 1326 vs 1874 ADB really, really hurts.

you will need very great light/heavy gears to survive PFUDOR with 2H later on (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

you will kill monsters fast enough when you reach very high ADB with 1H (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

Mainly price. Also, when I started building this set Slaughter was still insanely expensive and recently it has started to come down in price so I will be getting that in a few weeks.

well , I still use 4mag+1exq with my slaughter set for my 1H set with 10k+ ADB (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/cry.gif)

I don't have enough cash to buy that very expensive leg power slaughter (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/anime_cry.gif)


while snowflake keep bring me power of protection/warding drop , not slaughter (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

This post has been edited by nobody_xxx: Aug 19 2015, 01:23

you will need very great light/heavy gears to survive PFUDOR with 2H later on (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

you will kill monsters fast enough when you reach very high ADB with 1H (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

The main draw for 1h for me is that it has no parried attacks thanks to Overwhelming strikes. It also generates OC really fast so you can use orbital cannon every second round which means you increase your clear speed by 30-40percent. So I use 1h for everything besides the schoolgirls. For schoolgirls DW really shines because with spirit stance and DW skills i can pretty much one shot any schoolgirl with one full bar of OC on PFUDOR which gives me about 1.5 hour clear time for DwD.

This post has been edited by Madprank: Aug 19 2015, 01:38

The main draw for 1h for me is that it has no parried attacks thanks to Overwhelming strikes. It also generates OC really fast so you can use orbital cannon every second round which means you increase your clear speed by 30-40percent. So I use 1h for everything besides the schoolgirls. For schoolgirls DW really shines because with spirit stance and DW skills i can pretty much one shot any schoolgirl with one full bar of OC.

well , I usually kill 1 SG with SB > VS skill chain (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
my Vital strike usually hit around 1.2 ~ 1.4M damage with crit hit (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)
usually SG died from bleed effect if they are not died with that vital strike (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

for 3 SG in DwD , usually their are dead with 1 OFC in turns 50+ (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)



(IMG:[i58.tinypic.com] http://i58.tinypic.com/sm9klg.png)

that my poor set , I have DD perk too (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)