[X] My Assistant

I would only consider turning in rare-tier trophies at low levels if you need to complement your credit gain. Most of these will yield junk, and when you're strapped for money, an extra 250-500 credits is pretty welcome. I still turn them in daily; I can count the number of Phase pieces I've gotten from them on one hand so I don't really regret not saving them up. I can understand hording Noodly Appendages, however.

Well, now the arena clear bonuses are much nicer, so it's probably easier to get more credits at lower levels. Anyway, yeah, it's a personal choice. I'd say it just depends on how urgently you need credits.

No gap.
And Cloak of the Fallen won't let you die on the same turn SoL triggers, so technically you're immortal.

Correction: Spark of Life doesn't re-trigger when your MP is lower than 25%. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Could you elaborate on this? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

I'm kinda suspect that DW might take longer overall (and more cumbersome to play) than 2H mainly because you had to hit all the shit mobs first... I didn't think that an eth club would take longer than vanilla mace though, so I'm kinda surprise and curious.

I wanna try it myself for quite some time, but I lack the equipment to do it... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) So any input about this is appreciated. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

K I know its a few pages back, but oh well.

To elaborate, on normal difficulty (since those stupid girls take WAY too long on anything higher) and I am only doing it for trophies. I tried to use both my Mace: Exquisite Mace of Slaughter and compared it to my Dual-Wield Set: MH:Fine Ethereal Club of Slaughter OH:Average Rapier of Slaughter

When using the mace rounds 1-49 went by like nothing, but rounds 50-100 took longer because two of the four girls are strong against crushing damage, and the one that is weak against it the bonus damage only takes my damage the same it would be if I was using void. Not much damage is taken though at the start of the round because in my first few swings, everything is stunned or dead.

Stats when 2H and Shade Armor
2106.4 base damage
94.2 % hit chance
34.3 % crit chance

In comparison when I used my Eth Slaughter Club and Slaughter Rapier (wish it was eth) my single target damage is pretty ridiculous. Some of the crits put out are 14k+. The only downside is the start of each round can hurt when mobs use their skills right off, because I have to single target who I am attacking, and all the rounds take awhile. This increase of time on the single targeting phase before I start bashing the Schoolgirls is offset by how much more damage, and thus how much faster the Schoolgirls themselves go down.

Stats with Dual Wield and Shade Armor
2029.1 base damage
95.1 % hit chance
37.7 % crit chance

All in all, the time spent in the Schoolgirl Arenas is about the same for me when I am using DW or 2H with my current set up. On the Schoolgirls I usually cast weaken only so my damage is increased against them. I found it was a good investment and saved me quite a bit on healing. I have Innate Arcana running Haste and Spirit Shield, and try to keep Heartseeker up as much as possible (channeling permitting)

Does that answer all you were asking Buktore?

Since the Equpiment Advice thread seems to have disappeared, I'll ask this here.

Any opinions on which one is better, especially in terms of actual damage dealt after all the modifiers and bonuses are applied? Did Tenb ever post the forumla?
Exquisite Ebony Staff of Destruction
Fine Ebony Staff of Destruction

I don't mean to sound condescending at all, but the Exquisite is clearly the better of the two.

Overall, the exquisite is definitely better, but what about just in terms of magic damage, after MDM and the various EDBs are factored in? Is the exquisite still much better?

Are you trolling? Cause the Equisite looks better in EVERY way, including but not limited to, Magic Damage, EDB, Prof, and Int

He's asking about the amount of magic damage each staff would do. I don't know if anyone has managed to figure out the formula for that, but why not just try both out in battle and compare them?

I can't tell for sure since I'm above level 251, but I'm guessing that the fine staff actually has *higher* base MDM than the exquisite. Hence why Gayeah asked the question to begin with.

I should think the significantly-better Proficiency bonuses far outweigh the straight damage bonuses, which aren't all that different anyway. The Exquisite has about twice the Elemental Proficiency bonus of the Fine.

From my viewpoint, the MDB of the Fine is only slightly higher than the Exquisite, which would be offset my the far better proficiencies and bonuses in the Exquisite.

This post has been edited by DragonRanger: Oct 10 2011, 23:07

172 1 You unleash Macrosse Massacre on Flying Spaghetti Monster for 100663 soul damage.

Holy shit. What exactly is the max hit of spirit attacks again? Because I could have taken out like 1/4 of his health with that instead of saving it for the last 1/20th...

Or what if I just brought in 4-5 Superior Spirit Pots? Recharge OC in like 15-20 turns, kill it in only 80 turns/four-five spirits?

Edit: Also, 5th Noodle (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).

This post has been edited by Spartan0021: Oct 11 2011, 04:46

Correction: Spark of Life doesn't re-trigger when your MP is lower than 25%. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Sounds like a bug (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Sounds like a bug (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Sounds like it doesn't meet the requirements to be "recast" according to how innate arcana works

A question to high level light-armor melee users: What's your Interference (and while you're here, Burden as well) at the moment?

I ask this because I was a bit excited about getting Spirit Shield soon... only to just now realize that it has the same cost and duration of Protection. Which is to say that it's gonna be a pain to keep it AND Regen up since it doesn't last long and it lasts even less time due to the fact that my Interference is just so high (a whopping 48.9) that my magic proficiencies are much lower than I'd like them to be.

The fact that my Interference is so high is probably due to my lack of extremely good armor... and my lack of Ethereal weapons. My Shadowdancer Leggings has no Burden and seems to have a pretty high Attack Damage Bonus, but it has a 10.56 Interference, which is pretty big consider three of my other 5 armor pieces (all Fleet) have less than between 5 and 7 Burden each. I just thought I could compare my crappy Interference to much "better" Interferences.

As a semi-related set of questions to the same people: Do you always keep Spirit up, or only when the number of enemies per round is much higher? If so, how many Godly Mana Potions do you go through, and at what difficulty? (Though I suppose most of you have Innate Arcana to reduce the costs of keeping spells up constantly, so you'd always keep it up until you have less than 10% of your MP and that means you'd be spending much less potions as well at that level...)

Sounds like a bug (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

Nah, just a misunderstanding.
Spark of life will still trigger and prevent you being killed and makes you unkillable until it is your turn again, and give you the cloak of the fallen buff.

But if in a auto-cast slot, the spell will not be recasted after triggering, if your mana isn't high enough.

A question to high level light-armor melee users: What's your Interference (and while you're here, Burden as well) at the moment?

I ask this because I was a bit excited about getting Spirit Shield soon... only to just now realize that it has the same cost and duration of Protection. Which is to say that it's gonna be a pain to keep it AND Regen up since it doesn't last long and it lasts even less time due to the fact that my Interference is just so high (a whopping 48.9) that my magic proficiencies are much lower than I'd like them to be.

The fact that my Interference is so high is probably due to my lack of extremely good armor... and my lack of Ethereal weapons. My Shadowdancer Leggings has no Burden and seems to have a pretty high Attack Damage Bonus, but it has a 10.56 Interference, which is pretty big consider three of my other 5 armor pieces (all Fleet) have less than between 5 and 7 Burden each. I just thought I could compare my crappy Interference to much "better" Interferences.

As a semi-related set of questions to the same people: Do you always keep Spirit up, or only when the number of enemies per round is much higher? If so, how many Godly Mana Potions do you go through, and at what difficulty? (Though I suppose most of you have Innate Arcana to reduce the costs of keeping spells up constantly, so you'd always keep it up until you have less than 10% of your MP and that means you'd be spending much less potions as well at that level...)

Spirit shield doesn't cost the same as protection.
It has the same base cost and duration, but you can put 5 ability points into it, doubling its duration and making it one of the cheapest spell in mana/turn of all the supportive spells, beaten only by the elemental spikes spells.


As for burden and interference, going in full kevlar I got 46,1 interference and 43,9 burden.
But then my mace has 23,36 burden and 12,45 interference by itself.....
The highest burden on any of my kevlar pieces is 4,77 and highest interference is 9,00.
Then add in my title for -3% to each compromise.

This post has been edited by Randommember: Oct 11 2011, 07:23

A question to high level light-armor melee users: What's your Interference (and while you're here, Burden as well) at the moment?

I ask this because I was a bit excited about getting Spirit Shield soon... only to just now realize that it has the same cost and duration of Protection. Which is to say that it's gonna be a pain to keep it AND Regen up since it doesn't last long and it lasts even less time due to the fact that my Interference is just so high (a whopping 48.9) that my magic proficiencies are much lower than I'd like them to be.

The fact that my Interference is so high is probably due to my lack of extremely good armor... and my lack of Ethereal weapons. My Shadowdancer Leggings has no Burden and seems to have a pretty high Attack Damage Bonus, but it has a 10.56 Interference, which is pretty big consider three of my other 5 armor pieces (all Fleet) have less than between 5 and 7 Burden each. I just thought I could compare my crappy Interference to much "better" Interferences.

As a semi-related set of questions to the same people: Do you always keep Spirit up, or only when the number of enemies per round is much higher? If so, how many Godly Mana Potions do you go through, and at what difficulty? (Though I suppose most of you have Innate Arcana to reduce the costs of keeping spells up constantly, so you'd always keep it up until you have less than 10% of your MP and that means you'd be spending much less potions as well at that level...)

Am I qualified to answer you? lol
FYI my interference is 44.8 with my mace and I am not using an ethereal (well, I have a crappy one). I don't think protection is necessary to keep it up constantly, but spirit shield and haste are the ones you must do. SD armors give more crits and they make your life safer because of stun.

I don't have IA though. To be safe, bring one spirit potion if you feel like it. But I never found myself running of out spirit in a battle because you get those gems.

This post has been edited by MidNightPass: Oct 11 2011, 07:26

My interference is 34, my burden is 16.9. Wearing Ethereal Weapon (so no interference/burden there), three Kevlar Protections, one Arcanist, one Fleet. Besides the Arcanist which is rather good the rest of the equipment is pretty average. The Arcanist piece lowers my interference by about 4, but the real drop obviously comes from the Ethereal weapon.

I haven't bothered looking for better or even to check if anything I have is better because I've found that with my extremely high Agility + haste + Mace, I take virtually no damage even on Battletoads because everyone is stunned 95% of the time.

Now I have Innate Arcana III and always have Haste + Spirit Shield in auto-cast and it's a null upkeep more or less, but for most of my lvl 190-240 I only auto-cast Haste and only cast Spirit Shield for Bosses and such (did Heroic mostly). Also every once in a while did a higher difficulty something, but it would generally eat up every single Godly Mana Potion I could carry.

My interference is 34, my burden is 16.9. Wearing Ethereal Weapon (so no interference/burden there), three Kevlar Protections, one Arcanist, one Fleet. Besides the Arcanist which is rather good the rest of the equipment is pretty average. The Arcanist piece lowers my interference by about 4, but the real drop obviously comes from the Ethereal weapon.

Shake hands (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

With an ethereal mace, my interference and burden are 37.3 and 1.9 respectively.

Spirit shield doesn't cost the same as protection.
It has the same base cost and duration, but you can put 5 ability points into it, doubling its duration and making it one of the cheapest spell in mana/turn of all the supportive spells, beaten only by the elemental spikes spells.

Right... Forgot that the 5 ability points increasing the duration... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) Well, now I'm much less worried about that.

And as for Haste, having used it several times, I can see why it's good, but I've never really gotten into the habit of keeping it up since it just costs so much and is probably one of my most short lived spells (Yes, I have 5 AP in it). Should I get into the habit of keeping it up once I hit level 200 because of the absurdly overpowered monsters? Cause maintaining Spirit Shield, Haste and Regen seems like a bit much since I go through plenty of Godly Mana Potions on Hard/Heroic as it is through Regen and Cure casts.