[X] My Assistant

Hello, I have a question on supportive spells. It feels redundant to use protection, shadow veil and haste all at the same time. I don't won't to wast too much mana but I was thinking maybe just using one or a combination of any 2.

The only thing I have to go on is duration and mana cost. If I'm only going to use one, I think it should be shadow veil since that lasts the longest. For using 2, I might put protection in there so that when I do get hit, at least its not as hard and it costs less magic.

advice?

Was thinking about trading the ability points from whatever I probably won't use but it might be nice to have the buff for a legendary. I'll just keep training ability points

last edit, just wondering if you could proc ether theft by hitting the critter without Coalesced Mana already being on them.
I tried hitting them in the grindfest with my staff that has 30 something percent chance to proc but never got it. But then again, my staff proffiency is barely even there. (started grindfest with 0.99 profiency in staffs).

Personally, I use Protection. I use a heavy armor set though, so it gives me some nice defensive bonuses, and regardless of what some say I do notice a large difference in the amount of damage I take (particularly when fighting large numbers of enemies), although I suppose Shadow Veil may be better, as it has a 20% chance of negating all damage, where Protection just boosts your armor's mitigations by 25%.

I do know light armor and cloth armor users almost always use Shadow Veil.

This post has been edited by Spartan0021: Oct 14 2011, 03:54

Hello, I have a question on supportive spells. It feels redundant to use protection, shadow veil and haste all at the same time. I don't won't to wast too much mana but I was thinking maybe just using one or a combination of any 2.

The only thing I have to go on is duration and mana cost. If I'm only going to use one, I think it should be shadow veil since that lasts the longest. For using 2, I might put protection in there so that when I do get hit, at least its not as hard and it costs less magic.

advice?

Was thinking about trading the ability points from whatever I probably won't use but it might be nice to have the buff for a legendary. I'll just keep training ability points

last edit, just wondering if you could proc ether theft by hitting the critter without Coalesced Mana already being on them.
I tried hitting them in the grindfest with my staff that has 30 something percent chance to proc but never got it. But then again, my staff proffiency is barely even there. (started grindfest with 0.99 profiency in staffs).

You can't proc Ether Theft without Coalesced Mana on the target first.

I don't think most mages bother with Protection. I don't bother with it personally. At the very least, you'll want to keep Haste and Shadow Veil up at all times, since being able to act faster and evade attacks completely is much more helpful than a 25% boost to your cloth equipment's physical and magical defenses. Remember that you can maintain your buffs by refreshing them whenever you proc Channeling, which really helps keep the Mana cost down; you might even be able to squeeze all three spells in.

This post has been edited by n125: Oct 14 2011, 10:26

Thanks. Guess I really need to downsize my strength since attacking something with coalesced mana usually ends up dying. The channeling is useful but even for melee fighters. if you cure or use some of those buffs, you proc it sometimes and I like the idea of a free buff. (definetly wouldn't use it on curing though).

I thought protection was 50%? I can see why it wouldn't be useful on cloth armor but I noticed somewhat of a difference (it was worth its mana in cures basically) when I had heavier armor on.

I don't like having both shadow veil and haste on at the same time because with haste the critters only get a chance to attack half as often. So shadow veil is half wasted there. As a melee fighter, I would choose haste over shadow veil because of this. (critters don't get a chance to attack for half your turns verses they can hit you 80 percent of the time for all your turns.)

I'm not sure if haste works the same with magic (IE they only get a chance to attack half the time). Will have to try that out. If they don't get that chance, I'm sticking with haste. If not, I can see why mages would choose shadow veil.

edit, also noticed that strength seems superior in harder difficulties, unless you have a godly amount of mana. wondering if switching over is a good idea. I mean I could be a semi magic user. Throw an area spell on the next monster when the previous one I was attacking is just about dead anyway. I don't know. I figure I'm at a low enough level where I can still experiment and not decide to go all the way on some stats.

last edit, going to bed. It seems the lower level area spells do have similarities with haste and attacking. I only have snow storm and meteor though. (of course I know meteor is a higher level). I only have those 2 because I lack ability points and well, casting cold after fire yeilds explosive damage.

anyway, casting snowstorm several times in a row showed in multiple rounds of grindfest that the critters attack only half the time with haste on. Now with meteor, they just kept attacking. (didn't keep track if they all did or not, rather if any of them did at all). I might trade in meteor for the smaller fire magic then. Yea, its not as powerful but I like the idea of not getting attacked. Plus because its not as strong, I might be able to finally activate ether theft.

This post has been edited by smilejb: Oct 14 2011, 07:58

That's what I do. I usually cast one or two of the support spells depending on the battle and wait for Channelling to add more/refresh them. <3 Mystic Gems

Im using Dual-Wielding atm and want to buy new weapon but im not so sure which weapon effect is the best, because there are so many of them:

1.Stunned 2.Bleeding Wound 3.Penetrate Armor 4.Siphon Magic/Health.

Im not sure but i think i would prefer Stunned but im not sure.

This post has been edited by Bonebuster: Oct 14 2011, 13:37

Im using Dual-Wielding atm and want to buy new weapon but im not so sure which weapon effect is the best, because there are so many of them:

1.Stunned 2.Bleeding Wound 3.Penetrate Armor 4.Siphon Magic/Health.

Im not sure but i think i would prefer Stunned but im not sure.

Mainhand: stun
Offhand: PA

well then my thoughts were right, thx

I don't know dude. I would say bleeding wound and then stun. We are at low enough levels where penetrated armor doesn't really seem to matter. In fact, I tried it, and did less armor with pa active than before. Of course this is because of the random rolls in strength and stuff but still, its effect (or affect?) doesn't seem worth it.

I say bleeding wound because we are close in levels. And since we are both melee (well I'm trying to be a mage, its a process), than you can probably one shot most of them critters. So for the ones that don't die on the first hit, you can use your turn to attack another one (or cure), while it bleeds out.

I haven't really worked with clubs but based on the pa analysis, I would still prefer it.

Oh and you can have siphone health/mana with any of those other three procs. I have a superior axe of the vampire that does bleeding wound for 2 turns at 90 damage, and siphon health for 24.4 health.

Thanks.
I have changed to an ethereal mace recently, but the stun chance is quite low as you can see. Fortunately my crit chance sort of compensates this.

Back to this question.
This is a theory only: no guarantee it actually works like that.

Defining the following inputs
1. hit chance = a%
2. crit chance = b%
3. weapon proc chance = c%

Working:
1. You need to score a hit.
2. The system should then determine if you crits. 100% proc chance if it crits.
3. If it doesn't crit, then weapon's proc chance is applied.

Then for two-handed, the following formula should apply
effective proc chance=a*(b+( 1-b )*c)

However, if you need to compare the effective proc chance for two equipments, then I would say you'll need an item comparison machine. Probably there's something like that, or I will need to write a stupid excel (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

God damn it, why b+) would become (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)!?

This post has been edited by varst: Oct 14 2011, 17:52

Siphon Health/Mana are not mutually exclusive with the other procs you mentioned.

Personally, if you want to grind for cash andvloot, I'm going to recommend a Mace with good stun chance. Bonus points for Lifesteal/Manadrain.

Domino Strikes can proc weapon effects as well, so a good stun chance will have you stunning 2, 3, maybe even 5 monsters when you land a Domino. Every monster stunned is a monster not attacking you. Combine with a good action speed (Haste) and some lifesteal, and you'll have a very sustainable farming setup.

I kept my 30% stun/24% lifesteal mace for this exact reason, despite it being about 30 levels old.

Thx for the answers, u helped me a lot but i have 3 more questions:

1.Is it somehow possible to increase the chance to get a Health/Mana Gem during a battle?

2.Whats more efficient to level up or to increase proficiency, playing on a higher(highest possible maybe?) or on a lower difficulty??

3.Is it only me or are the selfmade monster stronger than the normal one( green slime and so on)???

This post has been edited by Bonebuster: Oct 14 2011, 20:27

@ varst

You forget crit bonus from HS. And there's lies the problem : No one have a clue how it work... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

This is the in-battle description of HS...

You are able to see the flow of life in all living beings, increasing your attack damage by 25%, accuracy by 50% and crit chance by 10%.

There's 3 possibility on how this work. (that I could think of...)

Assumes 60% crit chance in the character page.

1. Add straight into the base crit chance : (60 + 10) = 70% ... This is very unlikely, but I really don't know...
2. Increase base crit chance by 10% : (60 x 1.10) = 66% ... This is the same way how HS increase base damage.
3. Increase by multiplicative fashion : 60 + [(1 - 0.6) x 10] = 64% ... This is the same as how SV works.

...

My bet is on 2, but 3 is very likely to be the correct answer as well... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

As I've heard, all stats that function on percentages, like Accuracy and Mitigation, are factored in the following way:

New Percentage = Base + (Bonus * (1 - Base))

In other words, bonuses to percentage-based statistics reduce the remainder.

So if you have 50% crit chance, getting a 25% bonus chance to crit means having the chance to not crit (50%) reduced by 25% (12.5%), so your new crit chance will be 62.5%.

As I've heard, all stats that function on percentages, like Accuracy and Mitigation, are factored in the following way:

New Percentage = Base + (Bonus * (1 - Base))

In other words, bonuses to percentage-based statistics reduce the remainder.

So if you have 50% crit chance, getting a 25% bonus chance to crit means having the chance to not crit (50%) reduced by 25% (12.5%), so your new crit chance will be 62.5%.

Yes. It's called multiplicative stacking because basically the way it's actually calculated in the game is you take each source of crit and multiply them after subtracting 1 from each of them. And then subtract the result from 1.

1 - (1 - crit_1) * (1 - crit_2) * (1 - crit_3) * (1 - crit_4)....

So if you had like 10% crit from Dexterity, 5% from agility, 5% from base crit, and 10% from your weapon's crit chance your crit chance would be

1 - (1 - 0.10) * (1 - 0.05) * (1 - 0.05) * (1 - 0.10) = 0.268975

So ~26.9% crit chance.

Thx for the answers, u helped me a lot but i have 3 more questions:

1.Is it somehow possible to increase the chance to get a Health/Mana Gem during a battle?

2.Whats more efficient to level up or to increase proficiency, playing on a higher(highest possible maybe?) or on a lower difficulty??

3.Is it only me or are the selfmade monster stronger than the normal one( green slime and so on)???

1) Nope.

2) Levelling is easier with higher difficulties since it saves on stamina and it gives big multipliers. As long as you can survive it and have enough potions to complete IWs/Arenas then go with that. Proficiencies are best levelling naturally, don't try to force them at your level.

3) They should be seeing as how normal ones have no stat upgrades.

High difficulty settings are advantageous toward levelling, for the above reasons.

Low difficulty settings are likely better for grinding your proficiencies out, however. Each attack/defend action has the same chance of raising your proficiency, regardless of the enemy's power level, and the same increment range of 0.01 to 0.03. In the end, fighting lots of weak monsters will probably benefit you more than a few strong ones, as for an about-equal number of strikes it will cost you far less in terms of mana and health, especially if you have a Vampiric weapon (in which case, if on Easy and wearing good defensive gear, you can probably easily reach Grindfest/Crysfest level 100).

@Buktore
Pretty much everything that is multiplicative and % has diminishing returns, so it is going to be just like SV, so option 3 (you can think of it as 10% less hits then you saw before which is counter intuitive...)

Just switched to heroic after reading these posts. My stamina is lowering too fast, even if I'm yet to answer incorrectly a riddlemaster's puzzle. Thanks for the information, guys.

EDIT: Also, for a question. I've just obtained focused aura and used it to upgrade the Yellow/Agility aura. However, it seems when I equip it, I lose base power (from 63 to 59). Is it supposed to work that way?

This post has been edited by Bulleta: Oct 15 2011, 05:26

Stamina usage is based on which battle mode you use. Stick with IW and Arenas over GF if you can.
http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Stamina#Stamina_Usage

You gain power with the first rank of every aura, maybe you turned one off?

http://ehwiki.org/wiki/Auras#Primary_Auras

Thank you very much for the information.

About the auras, I've been deactivating them and testing various combinations, by refreshing this page and checking my base power, and it seems very strange and random (I'm getting 52, 56, 59 and 63 depending on the combinations/deactivations).

With no auras, I get 56 base power. With one aura, I get... 52 base power. With two auras, I get 56 again. With three auras, I get 59. I'm not being able to get 63 again. I'm sorry if I'm doing something dumb that I am not noticing. I guess I'll wait until tomorrow to see if it normalizes.

EDIT: After imbuing karma, it went back to 63, even with all three auras activated. It was probably just me not understanding how the system works. It's all fine now, thanks again.

This post has been edited by Bulleta: Oct 15 2011, 07:30