QUOTE(Melni @ Oct 13 2011, 01:08)

Sorry to butt in with my question.
I returned to playing after quite some time and I'd like to ask you guys for general advices in fighting. Both in arena and in grindfest. Basing on your experience, what equipment is the most suitable for it and what to use together with it, like do you keep some spells always up, e.g. constant barrier/haste/shadow veil?. Anything else what is important?
So far I'm grinding in full heavy armor with 2h bleeder with barrier always up. I use the gems the way I can get the most benefits out of em, but usually I end in like 30th~35th round on normal diff. Results with my evade cloths with either 1h or 2h wasnt really better. So what can I do to last longer? Except for using pots, I dont feel like doin it.
For arena I used my evade stuff with high block kite shield and shortsword or club.
Thanks in advance.
In this latest edition, maces/clubs with stun is totally superior.
It does more damage than penetrated armor (since +50% damage to a stunned monster means higher damage on most monsters than halving their physical damage mitigation) and bleed is nowhere as good now that the damage done by both players and monsters have increased substantially while bleed damage is still the same.
In version 0.6... the whole system was changed quite a bit, and instead of attack rating, magic rating, shield rating and barrier rating we got another system where it displayed damage directly and instead gave physical and magical mitigation.
So damage values has been a bit screwy ever since, damage increased a lot from magic and melee hits, but bleeds and heals and such are still the same as they were.
As for choice in weapons, fighting styles and armor, my personal opinion and advice is to go with light armor.
Use either Shade for evasion, or kevlar for physical mitigation. Meaning either try to avoid the hit or soak them up as good as you can.
Kevlar is really good, and is almost as good in physical mitigation as heavy armor, but while still having evasion, resistance and not having nowhere near the burden/interference that heavy armor has.
Shade is more demanding, it needs high evasion otherwise it just doesn't match up. Halfway decent kevlar is still good on the other hand.
For heavy armor, the only one really worth it IMO is the shield armor, which is there to increase block, which only works when you are using 1-H style.
And since 2-H is superior, the best thing is to get a good mace and either a shade or kevlar set, depending on what you wanna go for.
Personally I go with kevlar, I like the fact that the damage is spread out more evenly, instead of coming in fewer but harder hits like with a shade set. But maybe that will change when I get the spirit shield spell.
As for spells, most play with either protection or haste up at all times. At later levels, you'll want to have heartseeker up all the time too, and probably spirit shield, but those come at lvl 170 and 190, so not a concern yet.
Barrier no longer exist, so I assume you mean protection. Protection makes hits against you do less damage, haste makes you act faster, so in comparison monsters act slower and get fewer attacks, which decreases damage that way.
It also makes debuffs on them last longer, comparatively.
I used haste before, but have switched over to protection, might be because I go with kevlar, and it augments that equipment better while haste is more effective for shade.
But the quick advice is, concentrate on one thing, while proficiency can be grinded up good equipment is expensive so you want to concentrate on buying some good stuff for that. Use the WTS forum and check through the shops, don't bother with auctions, most stuff there are too good for you, and higher level players will bid higher than you. There are plenty of good stuff in the shops, for very low prices, less than what you find for worse gear when looking at the bazaar.
Either use heavy shield armor, and go with 1-H for block, or use light armor, either shade or kevlar, and go with 2-H.
I'd suggest the latter.
Mage is also another way to go, but I lack experience in that part of the game, so I can't give any advice there, but many seem to recommend it, at least for the higher levels.
QUOTE(Bealz @ Oct 13 2011, 05:25)

What effect does wisdom have on monster lab stuff ? Do they start with more mana or regen it faster? What about int on non-elementals?
Widom increases their magical mitigation, and makes them tougher vs mages.