[X] My Assistant

So I've finally hit level 100 (woo!), and need to start grinding my soul prof so I can take on RL.
Are there any tips for doing this efficiently, or should I use spam soul AoE for every round?

There are three strategies that I can think of:

1) Clear your early arenas by just spamming Soul Harvest. If you feel durable, spam with Soul Reaper instead--it will take more turns to clear each round this way, but this is ideally what you want when raising any proficiency. You can even increase the difficulty so that it takes more turns to defeat enemies, but this can be risky.

2) Kill the Rare at the end of Endgame with Soul Harvest. Do this against all of the Rares and Legendaries at the end of each subsequent arena. Rares and Legendaries (except Konata) aren't resistant to Soul, but they aren't weak to it either, unless the wiki is outdated. I prefer using Dark for this because Rares are actually resistant to it and there are more of them, but whatever works. And with the above strategy, Soul Reaper will prolong the number of turns it takes to finish the round, but you have to be prepared to deal with taking more damage.

3) Wait until 150 and clear arenas with Holy and Dark.

Honestly though, I first cleared Real Life when my Forbidden proficiency was only 60-something, and while wearing a crappy Demon-fiend suit scrapped from the bottom of the Bazaar. So it doesn't really require a very high Forbidden proficiency. I was above 150 though, so I had access to spells like Silence, Arcane Meditation, and Nerf.

Not sure how I feel about putting any more points into Endurance.

I'm not really sure myself, too... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

My END are actually below my lv. right now... By quite a lot, in fact. And if not for the fact that its cost was so cheap relatively to other stats, I hardly ever felt like I need to put points into it.

After the rewrite, the whole character's primary attributes thing feels so fucked up somehow... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

I have a good number of questions this time....

1. For some reason, I've been pretty focused on just creating a Niflheim set. Is this reasonable or do people use a bunch of different type of spells? I understand that its normal to use fire spells to complement...

2. For mages, exactly how important is it to raise intelligence or wisdom? Do you keep them the same? How does that compare to things like dexterity or agility?

3. I've obtained a Niflheim staff but noticed that it had pretty low mdm compared to staffs of destruction. Should I be going for a high mdm staff of destruction instead?

4. Do people use arcane focus or is it generally deemed too costly?

5. I've been obtaining specific element gear....should I be going for something more like elementalist gear?

6. Is spirit at all useful for a mage? Does the overcharge benefit magic damage?

7. Does the rainbow aura help with quicker magic/health/spirit generation outside of battle?

8. How does gossamer compare to phase? Are there any salient differences?

9. How do different elements compare in terms of damage? Are they the same at the first level?

10. How many different elements do people normally use?

11. Any other reccomendations you can make for melee turning mage at 1vl.150?

-Vakuen

I have a good number of questions this time....

-Vakuen

1. One main spell and one complement spell. If you're using Niflheim, then wind would be your complement spell. Pick lv.1/lv.2 wind AOE.
Mages also keep the max tier of different spells, just for killing legends/bosses.

2. I would say it should be okay to keep it about 10% higher than your level. May not have great effect, but it looks stupid to to keep STR/DEX at your level. I would say 90% is enough.
Any left EXP should then be used to raise AGI/END. Mildly important.

3. Destruction staff is generally better for its power output and its balancing effect among those damage factors. Niflheim staff is still good for IW/CF though.
It all depends on how strong your staff is.

4. We all use arcane focus. Mages cast so many spells that it's almost impossible to play through 20 rounds and doesn't get any channelling chance.

5. Better for EDB gear when you advance in level. It is generally more powerful, and gives a better balancing of damage factors.

6. Spirit's useful for everyone after lv.190, when there's spirit shield. Overcharge gives no benefit to magic damage, however.

7. Yes.

8. Refer answer 5.

9. They should have the same damage output, assuming your equipments don't give any preferential EDB.

10. Depends on your level. Normally it's 2-3 for element users, 2 for holy/dark. Before 250 you need different spells for different bosses, but after 250 you just harvest their soul (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

11. Proficiency.

varst has pretty much nailed it, I'll just chip in a bit:

2. For mages, exactly how important is it to raise intelligence or wisdom? Do you keep them the same? How does that compare to things like dexterity or agility?

STR & DEX have zero priority, AGI & END I used to keep equal to my level (below level 200). Dump everything else into INT/WIS. 1 INT = 1.25 base magic damage & 1 WIS = 0.75 base magic damage, so I keep INT at 1.66x WIS's EXP cost.

11. Any other reccomendations you can make for melee turning mage at 1vl.150?

A few levels in Assimilator couldn't hurt, IIRC I had about 5 levels at level 200. Make sure you have a lotta mana potions for prof grinding.

Before 250 you need different spells for different bosses, but after 250 you just harvest their soul (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

I've been thinking about doing holy/dark maging. Should I just wait for 250 and use those two spells since they are the same prof and explode on each other? Or is that massively inefficient ?

This post has been edited by Bealz: Oct 18 2011, 23:04

Soul Burst is nice, but nothing to write home about.
And it costs a lot of mana (almost twice the cost of Ragnarok).

I do (a lot) more damage with Pestilence and a Fenrir set than with Soul Burst and a Demon-fiend set.

If you have enough mana to complete a longer Arena using only Soul Fire/Burst and without Ether Thefting every single round, then my hat goes off to you. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Edit: Actually, scratch the part about Pestilence. I need to do a few more tests. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Edit²: Scratch the part about the scratching, Pestilence does ~2 times the damage for me.

This post has been edited by (Cheater) Tiap: Oct 19 2011, 00:19

How could I beat "End of Days' arena (lv 220)? I play it as a mage and always run out of mana before made it to final stage because I keep spamming Holy2 to those legendary monsters

How could I beat "End of Days' arena (lv 220)? I play it as a mage and always run out of mana before made it to final stage because I keep spamming Holy2 to those legendary monsters

Ether Theft would be my guess, but I'm not sure. I'm interested in the answer too since I was planning on asking this question in about 30 levels. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by n125: Oct 19 2011, 04:34

n125 has the right idea: use the legendaries as mana batteries. Debuff them until they aren't a threat and MM/ET at your leisure.

If you have good staff proficiency and a good ether theft staff it's actually very easy to gain mana from a single powerful monster. Remember that if you ever get too low you can cast Magic Missile to proc Coalesced Mana for free.

n125 has the right idea: use the legendaries as mana batteries. Debuff them until they aren't a threat and MM/ET at your leisure.

What is a good debuff combination for doing that? Weaken/Blind, Weaken/Bewilder? Or something involving Silence, Slow, Nerf, or Poison?

i go with weaken/blind

Today i felt a bit daring and used something like 10 legendary droppings. The Shrine was nice to me and gave me a superior ethereal mace of the ox.

So my question now is is ethereal stats really better than normal weapons? Comparing my two maces which would be better?

http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=f95c957206
http://hentaiverse.org/pages/showequip.php...;key=780cea1b95

Also which is better haste or absorb? What are their mana costs at max and duration? I have some ability points to spare. I'm thinking of haste but donno if the duration and additional speed is worth using it. What is haste's boost a plus 5 or so?

This post has been edited by 545454: Oct 19 2011, 05:30

Ethereal weapons are often worse than comparable-quality non-ethereal weapons, to my knowledge. The benefit to them is that they deal Void damage, which ignores Physical damage mitigation (but is still subject to Physical damage TYPE mitigation, ie. Crushing/Slashing/Piercing).

Ethereal weapons are often worse than comparable-quality non-ethereal weapons, to my knowledge. The benefit to them is that they deal Void damage, which ignores Physical damage mitigation (but is still subject to Physical damage TYPE mitigation, ie. Crushing/Slashing/Piercing).

Other way around. They ignore Crushing/Slashing/Piercing mitigation, but are still subject to physical mitigation from their endurance, etc.

And IIRC Tenboro stated ethereal items have somewhat decreased damage in general, but it's usually worth it to ignore the enemy's crushing resistance, otherwise giants, dragons, and such take forever to kill. (Also they don't have any burden or interference which is real nice).

As for which of those weapons you should use, I can only suggest test them yourself. Though I think the Ethereal mace might just have too low weapon damage to be worth using.

Absorb is useless. Don't bother with it.

Edit: for duration and cost see this page:
http://ehwiki.org/wiki/spells

This post has been edited by mkonji: Oct 19 2011, 05:40

My goodness. Kudos to whomever improved the Spells page on the wiki.

I've been thinking about doing holy/dark maging. Should I just wait for 250 and use those two spells since they are the same prof and explode on each other? Or is that massively inefficient ?

You don't need to wait till 250. The only problem currently is to collect those fenrir phases. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
I can't say whether it's more efficient or not though.
I can beat all arenas in Hell difficulty at around lv.250, but then my equipments seems to be better than average.

Soul Burst is nice, but nothing to write home about.
And it costs a lot of mana (almost twice the cost of Ragnarok).

What I mean is: use soul burst in the last round only, against bosses.
With a destruction staff it should deal way more damage with the same mana usage.
You can test it by observing how many rounds you need to kill the bosses with their weakness, then use soul burst to see how much it improves things.
Soul burst is also good for konata, a good idea from Ballistic9.

How could I beat "End of Days' arena (lv 220)? I play it as a mage and always run out of mana before made it to final stage because I keep spamming Holy2 to those legendary monsters

Ether Theft would be my guess, but I'm not sure. I'm interested in the answer too since I was planning on asking this question in about 30 levels. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

What is a good debuff combination for doing that? Weaken/Blind, Weaken/Bewilder? Or something involving Silence, Slow, Nerf, or Poison?

ET should be your choice if you run out of mana. You may need an hour if you don't have heimdall phases though.
As for debuff, Nerf itself should be the best choice for anyone. Even better than weaken combination or anything else. At least that's how I play it.
I will explain my logic if anyone's interested.

This post has been edited by varst: Oct 19 2011, 06:29

Thanks for advices, everyone. Looks like it's gonna be a long fight. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

As for debuff, Nerf itself should be the best choice for anyone. Even better than weaken combination or anything else. At least that's how I play it.
I will explain my logic if anyone's interested.

I'm interested. Please

Thanks in advance.

Soul Burst makes Trio so much faster (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

I only need to ET on the Dance With Dragons arena on the double/triple legendary rounds. I have Weaken+Slow+Magnet+Nerf up for those, for a safety net and to keep an ET+CM going on all 3. With single legendaries you should only need Weaken+Nerf up (Slow/Magnet slows down mana regen too much, only use if your Staff ET% is too low).