[X] My Assistant

- snip -

Haste worsened turns by 9.4% in Imperil style and 9.7% in non-Imperil style. Apparently Imperil is not as incompatible with Haste as I thought. My new explanation: although casting Imperil causes Haste-enhanced Overwhelming Strikes to wear off, it does the same for non-Haste players to a lesser degree. Meanwhile, Imperil greatly increases the elemental strike damage of the main attack, which favors a player who uses Haste.

What I see here that I don't understand, is that in the three with Imperil, using Haste makes him use less Regen and Cure (and this is expected). : but it also seems to consume more Mana Potions, which I wouldn't expect at all; I would have thought that the Mana consumption from Haste would be more or less fully compensated by the savings in Regen+Cure.

Edit: and there are no data on Draughts; he uses them, does he ?

This post has been edited by mundomuñeca: Apr 30 2020, 15:54

What I see here that I don't understand, is that in the three with Imperil, using Haste makes him use less Regen and Cure (and this is expected). : but it also seems to consume more Mana Potions, which I wouldn't expect at all; I would have thought that the Mana consumption from Haste would be more or less fully compensated by the savings in Regen+Cure.

Edit: and there are no data on Draughts; he uses them, does he ?

The amounts of cures and regens are fairly low (and we can see from comparing imperil/non-imperil that imperil is where all the mana consumption happens anyway). But that aside: I'm not actually sure why haste costs more mana potions on average than non-haste - perhaps it could be related to IA consumption in the increased number of turns required? Though it'd be odd for IA to be consuming mana based on actual turns and not game ticks. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

If I had to guess, I would imagine that when using haste, the less counters means you have worse OC generation. If it's enough to drop out of spirit stance more, the cost of all magic goes up, resulting in more mana draughts/potions being needed

Pope Killdragon says he does use draughts but discounted their usage, as they are cheap. So we can't take his potion count as necessarily reflecting his mana usage. Also, using Haste made his draughts recharge too slow, so the balance shifted towards more potions.

Dropping out of spirit stance was a factor as well: he reports an average of 28 reactivations with Haste, and 17 without Haste. I'm guessing this is with Imperil, since that is the data you guys questioned. He affirmed he doesn't use OFC at all with Imperil.

He focuses on a profit/turn analysis which is pretty close between each playing method. His method of calculating can probably be questioned, especially since Imperil style costs are player market driven (draughts, aether shards, etc). What I extrapolated from it is that non-Imperil Rapier style could be the most profitable.

So non-Imperil Rapier style shouldn't be looked down upon despite being allegedly slower than Imperil Rapier style. I actually planned to study this next and have already begun gathering data. I'm not directly concerned with cost but will instead measure the performance of varying amounts of Imperil usage. Because rapiers do not need full Imperil as shortswords do.

I know from experience that the single Imperil style I promoted will never drop out of Spirit Stance with or without Haste (unless dealing with very small mobs) making that method even more attractive. I have long used Imperil whenever I have excess mana in order to keep my proficiency up, just never in tests or reported runs.

He focuses on a profit/turn analysis which is pretty close between each playing method. His method of calculating can probably be questioned, especially since Imperil style costs are player market driven (draughts, aether shards, etc). What I extrapolated from it is that non-Imperil Rapier style could be the most profitable.

Note that it's worth losing small amounts of average consistent profit for more chances at loot generation. Those rare legendaries or peerlesses could be valuable!

As if 2 Aether Shards over an entire PFFEST meant jack shit...

According to him a tool is used which analyzes Monsterbation's log and includes the market value of the actual equipment drops. That being said, trainings would affect this analysis, and the tiny chances of dropping something great (which ultimately could be a large part of expected profit) would likely not have been taken account for.

I might instead only look at credit losses (including draughts) and leave equipment out of it, acknowledging that a strong player who grinds heavily may make costs back with speed of play. Meanwhile, a player who only does a set amount of play per day, such as all arenas (thus not needing energy drinks) drops the same equipment either way and is more likely to be concerned with whether or not a few minutes of their time is worth that much small credits of savings. (I was not even convinced infusions were worth it from this point of view).

According to him a tool is used which analyzes Monsterbation's log and includes the market value of the actual equipment drops. That being said, trainings would affect this analysis, and the tiny chances of dropping something great (which ultimately could be a large part of expected profit) would likely not have been taken account for.

I might instead only look at credit losses (including draughts) and leave equipment out of it, acknowledging that a strong player who grinds heavily may make costs back with speed of play. Meanwhile, a player who only does a set amount of play per day, such as all arenas (thus not needing energy drinks) drops the same equipment either way and is more likely to be concerned with whether or not a few minutes of their time is worth that much small credits of savings. (I was not even convinced infusions were worth it from this point of view).

At the end of the day player comfort is another valuable metric too; generally, playing the game faster (and getting rewards faster) feels better and more fun. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

At least that's worth more than ~150c per infusion. But maybe 25,000 per gum/vase pack (which is massively unsustainable without another income source like H@H) is too far, even if it's way more fun to blow through DWD in sub-500 turns (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Butcher

I've copied some of sssss2 peerless warrior stats. A peerless rapier has pxp0 = 377, so 277 / 25 * 0.0854 ≈ 0.9462 adb part can't be forged. True base is 51.33 - 0.95 = 50.38 adb, most endgame legendary rapiers have 49~50. Each level of butcher adds 0.98~1 which forged and scaled to level 500 is 1.667 * 31 ≈ 50.6~51.7 damage.

A full peerless slaughter set ends with 15000 damage with shortsword and 14378 damage with rapier, depending on your distribution of stats, or 15400 damage and 14778 damage with 600 proficiency. A strong legendary warrior could be expected to lose 1 adb per piece, so 6 * 51.7 ≈ 310 damage. Including str and dex loss, most players can strive to reach 15000 damage with shortsword and 14400 with rapier.

Not wearing a power of slaughter loses 25.73 - 18.05 = 7.68 adb or 397 damage on the helmet, let's call it 400. Approximate damage increases of Butcher 5 are as follows.

Rapier + 0 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (12400 - 5 * 51) = 2.100%
Rapier + 1 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (12800 - 5 * 51) = 2.033%
Rapier + 2 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (13200 - 5 * 51) = 1.970% (compare with 2.312% in Research for 1H)
Rapier + 3 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (13600 - 5 * 51) = 1.911%
Rapier + 4 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (14000 - 5 * 51) = 1.855%
Rapier + 5 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (14400 - 5 * 51) = 1.803%

Shortsword + 0 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 1.2 * 51 / (13000 - 6 * 51) = 2.411%
Shortsword + 5 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 1.2 * 51 / (15000 - 6 * 51) = 2.082%

If you have weak proficiency, which could be expected on players near level 499 (as well as before the proficiency patch) you might subtract 400 damage from your total and move yourself one tier. These Butcher results can be expected to hold for a wide range of levels, since the relevant stats will scale down linearly together. Research for 1H may have utilized a disproportionately forged rapier.

Counter Attacks

Butcher is the only weapon potency that improves counter attacks. The Haste tests provided counter attack data for a variety of playing styles and situations, which can be used to calculate optionally applicable derating factors = 2.4 / (2.4 + 0.75 * counters) for Fatality and Overpower.

CODE

stage         spell usage   difficulty   counters/attack   derating factor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 mob arena    haste          pfudor         0.85              0.79
5 mob arena    haste          pfudor         0.95              0.77
4 mob arena    none           pfudor         1.17              0.73
5 mob arena    none           pfudor         1.30              0.71
item world     haste           iwbth         1.18              0.73
item world     none            iwbth         1.65              0.66
item world     haste          pfudor         1.25              0.72
item world     none           pfudor         1.75              0.65
item world     imperil        pfudor         2.33              0.58

Fatality

Crit damage does not scale with level. Without savage armors or fatality, peerless crit damage is 50% + 1.36% + 1.61% + 1.24% + 1.49% + 1.11% = 56.81% at best, and 56.1% at worst. I'll copy Research for 1H and assume +60% crit damage without fatality, presumably from a savage piece or two.

Fatality gets better at high level because crit chance increases. The peerless full slaughter warrior has 53.2% crit chance. With Heartseeker it becomes 57.88% crit chance to do +75% crit damage. The base multiplier of the main hit is now up to 2.434 which becomes 2.49198 with Fatality 5, an improvement of 2.49198 / 2.434 - 1 = 2.382% (compare with 2.45373 / 2.4 - 1 = 2.239% in Research for 1H).

The old result is still useful since most players are not peerless. Note that fatality is even better without infusion (2.655% peerless, 2.499% old) or with skills (4.043% peerless, 3.838% old). The attractive damage boost with skills may be partially wasted because the damage is often overkill. Plus it's around twice this much damage boost when it crits and nothing when it doesn't, so it's not consistent.

In order to come to the opinion that Butcher is better than Fatality it is necessary to be slightly biased and insist on including counter attacks. Taking 1 counter/attack, the derating factor is 0.76 so Fatality 5 increases damage by 2.239% * 0.76 = 1.706%, or 1.821% if using the new peerless numbers.

Balance Armor

In conclusion, Butcher vs Fatality may still be a very close contest for 1H. Plus if butcher is overrated then slaughter may be as well, and a mix of balance and slaughter could be best for non-imperil rapier. Using less slaughter will help butcher as noted previously, but if those are balance pieces fatality will improve slightly more.

Balance Armor

In conclusion, Butcher vs Fatality may still be a very close contest for 1H. Plus if butcher is overrated then slaughter may be as well, and a mix of balance and slaughter could be best for non-imperil rapier. Using less slaughter will help butcher as noted previously, but if those are balance pieces fatality will improve slightly more.

It is not; I have an extensive spreadsheet which calculates a 'heart score' (same concept as arcane score for mages) which puts full savage balance below full savage slaughter quite definitively.

Fatality works out slightly better than butcher for straight damage, regardless of your setup. But it's not MUCH better. Butcher is close enough to outweigh it through counterattacks alone. I also believe overpower to be stronger than either, but the math for that is a little more plain.

Average monsters have somewhere around 20% parry, I believe (should be roughly comparable to resist - in which case it's slightly higher, even more in favour of overpower). If you imagine your unparried damage to be 100%, you lose 20% of it to parries, on average. Therefore, with 20% counter-parry, you gain 4% of it back - a 5% increase (0.84/0.8).

This is significantly higher than butcher or fatality. Consider this heart score table (numbers given for a max-forged level 500 player with 550 proficiency, rapier and force shield with strength & dex present):

CODE

|Gear              |   B0F0 |     B5 |     F5 |  B5/F4 |  F5/B4 |
|------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
|S.Slaughter 100%  |  26231 |  26735 |  27221 |  27542 |  27635 |
|------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
|S.Slaughter 0%    |  22291 |  22698 |  23103 |  23359 |  23436 |
|------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
|S.Balance 100%    |  24379 |  24923 |  25441 |  25792 |  25891 |
|------------------|--------|--------|--------|--------|--------|
|S.Balance 0%      |  19877 |  20315 |  20719 |  21004 |  21081 |

The greatest gain is F5/B4 on the peerless savage slaughter row, gaining 5.3% combined.

This all applies to non-savage gear as well, and I cannot see a reason why it would not apply to a mix - crit chance does not layer well.

edit: the tl;dr takeaway from this for people who don't care: B5 is still preferable for 1H 99% of the time, Op4 would be ideal in fests where you're facing monsters with higher average parry, B5/F4 is probably still ideal for schoolgirl arenas

This post has been edited by lestion: May 4 2020, 21:34

Here's some counter attack data when enemies are killed one-by-one. I divide counters by 2 when calculating these derating factors because they don't benefit from Penetrated Armor in this case.

CODE

stage         spell usage   targeting   counters/attack   derating factor
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 mob arena    haste       individual       0.70              0.90
5 mob arena    haste       individual       0.75              0.90
4 mob arena    none        individual       0.94              0.87
5 mob arena    none        individual       1.06              0.86

Overpower

The monster parry formula is min(10, (dex / 100), (dex - level) / 75)). All monsters have 10% parry (19% at pfudor) except arthropod/celestial/dragon below PL 1056 (dex below 1000) or below PL 2250 at level 500 (dex below 1250). As well as elemental below PL 1953 at level 500, and mechanoid/undead below PL 1287 at level 500, and avion/giant below PL 945 at level 500.

Some arthropod, celestial, dragon, and elemental are clumsy enough to have below max parry. Research for 1H was performed below level 500 so some mechanoid and undead also had reduced parry. Average monster parry is slightly higher at level 500 and chaosing up to 27.1% has become more common, so new experimental data is needed.

In the meantime we can do theoretical calculations. If average monster parry is 20% then Overpower 5 grants (1 - 0.2 * 0.8) / (1 - 0.2) = 5% more hits. In Research for 1H monsters were stunned 62% of the time, this changes the above calculation to (1 - 0.2 * 0.38 * 0.8) / (1 - 0.2 * 0.38) = 1.645% more hits.

The player also gets Overwhelming Strikes in 1H style, which I'll estimate to provide 20% counter-parry on average without haste, and 60% counter-parry with haste. Stacked additively with Overpower 5 the above calculation becomes (1 - 0.2 * 0.38 * 0.6) / (1 - 0.2 * 0.38 * 0.8) = 1.618% without haste and (1 - 0.2 * 0.38 * 0.2) / (1 - 0.2 * 0.38 * 0.4) = 1.568% with haste.

There are times when Overwhelming Strikes grants 100% counter-parry which is not uncommon with haste. In these instances overpower does nothing. Haste was used when performing Research for 1H which some might consider a flaw. The experimental result was that Overpower 5 increased the hit rate by 1.3075%.

At that time, sssss2 had 66.7% block and 65.4% parry. The peerless warrior has 69.3% block and 73.6% parry. At 600 proficiency this will exceed 70% block. If we assume stuns are proportional to how often you block or parry, then (1 - 0.3 * 0.264) / (1 - 0.333 * 0.346) = 4% more stuns than what sssss2 measured are possible, which would worsen overpower.

The experimental stun rate of 62% used grindfest. Stun rate would be independent of mob size in the long run, but at the beginning of each round all monsters are unstunned and the player is temporarily swarmed with attacks, hitting the counters limit of 3 for the first few turns. In arenas the 1H stun rate may thus be slightly higher, worsening overpower.

Overcharge

There is a valid argument that the overcharge granted by overpower is worth extra, however the amount is difficult to determine and likely small. Some Haste tests earlier suggested that usage of OFC is discretized thus not usually affecting haste comparisons, and likewise may lend zero benefit to overpower. Vital Strike benefits but whether or not it helps a maxed out player is debated.

Penetrated Armor

Increased hits from overpower create more chances for Penetrated Armor. It's difficult to quantify how much an application of PA is worth but I like to think each is worth an extra hit with non-imperil style. Sometimes it's worth nothing, other times it's worth multiple future hits. There's up to a 1 - (1 - 57.88%) * (1 - 25%) ≈ 68% chance to apply PA.

Yet there is a logical error in thinking that more hits = more damage + PA. Missing only delays the chance to apply PA a turn. Overpower grants extra hits; butcher and fatality grant extra damage. The better question to ask is whether or not butcher and fatality decrease turns proportionately to the damage granted. For small increases it seems they do; thus PA can be ignored.

For non-imperil rapier spread style only, added hits from overpower have the valuable effect of preventing previously stacked PA from wearing off. I do think it's correct to add this effect. It wouldn't exist if PA didn't have a duration limit. What happens here is that more hits saves more than the same number of turns.

I estimate this effect is worth 0.68 * 0.68 * 0.66 = 0.3 hits, meaning overpower becomes 1.3x better with this viewpoint. The two 0.68 are the chances that PA previously existed, and that another PA is inflicted to refresh it. The 0.66 is because the first time an enemy is hit he can't have PA yet, and I estimate enemies to die in 3 hits.

Overpower = Fatality (1H non-imperil rapier spread style only)

Let's suppose the average monster parry rate today is 22%, then Overpower 5 without haste improves hits by (1 - 0.22 * 0.38 * 0.6) / (1 - 0.22 * 0.38 * 0.8) = 1.792% and may improve turns by 1.792% * 1.3 = 2.330% which is equal to Fatality 5. Keep in mind the math is fuzzy and PA wearing off applies less in arenas with small mobs.

For other styles the numbers suggest overpower is somewhere between 0.5x to 1x as beneficial as fatality. Even assuming 25% average monster parry, overpower can't give more than (1 - 0.25 * 0.36 * 0.6) / (1 - 0.25 * 0.36 * 0.8) = 1.940% more hits.

Future Tests

I don't have the proper weapons or resources to test overpower, but things I would like to see are:

1) Test overpower under today's monster population both with and without haste
2) Gather data not just for hits saved, but also for turns saved
3) Very brief test to check if 1H stun rate is the same in arena and grindfest

This post has been edited by BlueWaterSplash: May 6 2020, 09:10

Swift Strike

This potency effectively sacrifices offense (e.g. butcher ≈ 1 adb ≈ 0.4% of total damage) for 1.925% defense. In comparison a power helmet provides a choice of 7.68 adb with slaughter, 3.32% physical defense with protection, or 5.57% magical defense with warding. This is a good trade, the main problem is that high level 1H players eventually no longer have any use for defense.

The Best Offense is a Good Defense

Investigation has shown that even after it's no longer difficult to survive, defense continues to speed the player up on offense. Turns remain similar; rather this manifests as a turns/second boost each time a cure is prevented. If you cure once every 1~2 turns, expect a defense spell such as Haste, Protection, or Shadow Veil to improve clear time by ~10%. Scaled to swift strike, this is equivalent offense to butcher.

This benefit can be temporarily kept, at least in difficult challenges such as item world, by trading defense for offense in other areas (e.g. wear more slaughter, turn haste off, increase burden, or reduce agility). High turns/second or slow reactions (my cure is on a mouse button) can also prolong this status. Defense doesn't end when survival is achieved, but continues to help with gradually diminishing importance until invincibility is reached.

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

When I was level 250 it was suggested to me by a level 500 player that using power instead of plate would help me survive by killing off enemies faster. I tried and felt it was wrong. Back then power could cause death, especially with lower quality equipment. Even if you survive it can be a struggle of constant potion drinking which is ultimately not worth it.

That advice gains some truth at higher level with solid defense and very strong offense. In this realm offense begins to reflect on defense, although it no longer needs help by this point. At level 350 with some forging and DD5, I cleared enemies fast enough to live off gems. There is a relationship between offense and defense, and it can be possible to benefit from swift strike past level 400 depending on this balance.

Side-Effects on Offense

Assuming impregnable defense, the 1.925% attack speed from swift strike has numerous, complex side-effects on a 1H player's offense. They are easiest to determine by studying Haste and scaling its effects down. The primary contributor is loss in counters, which represents an overall loss of (2.4 + 1.5 * 0.75) / (2.4 + 0.75) = 12% damage assuming 1.5 counters/turn without haste.

More specifically, the loss in counters is (2.4 + 1.2 * 0.75) / (2.4 + 0.8 * 0.75) = 10% damage in arenas, and (2.4 + 1.75 * 0.75) / (2.4 + 1.17 * 0.75) ≈ 13% in item world or grindfest. This is approximately equal to a negative butcher per swift strike, and also applies to evade on a point-for-point basis.

Fortunately both action speed and 1H are weird, and there are secondary side-effects to counteract this. Here are the previous experiments gathered into a table. Interpretive liberties are taken for greater simplicity. Haste (+50% action speed) clear time results are extrapolated to Swift Strike 5 (+10% attack speed) by simple division.

CODE

stage          difficulty     1H substyle   infusion   haste (turns)   haste (time)   swift strike
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 mob arena      pfudor      spread rapier     no         -5.4%           -4.0%          -0.80%  
5 mob arena      pfudor      spread rapier     no         -5.0%           +0.2%          +0.04%
4 mob arena      pfudor      spread rapier     yes        -2.8%           -1.8%          -0.36%
5 mob arena      pfudor      spread rapier     yes        -2.0%           +5.4%          +1.08%
4 mob arena      pfudor    targeting rapier    yes        -5.0%           +0.0%          +0.00%
5 mob arena      pfudor    targeting rapier    yes        -5.0%           +0.0%          +0.00%
item world        iwbth      spread rapier     yes        -8.0%           +0.0%          +0.00%
item world       pfudor      spread rapier     yes        -4.0%           +4.0%          +0.80%
item world       pfudor    spread shortsword   yes        -9.7%            ???           -1.94%
item world       pfudor   imperil shortsword   yes        -9.4%            ???           -1.88%

This data is for players below level 390 and applies when player defense is impregnable. Clear time is what counts, but the amount of turns/second boost is controversial. Part comes from casting spells, which depends on the player and can reduce to near nothing at level 500. Another part comes from targeting issues, which depends on the player's vision and connection speed.

The turns performance of haste is expected to improve on high level players for various reasons. Data from a couple high level players suggest grindfest turn loss could be as little as 0.5% to 2%. If so then clear time would likely improve with haste even with perfect defense, but it's unknown by how much.

Recent discoveries suggest that blood wound is surprisingly almost as good as penetrated armor when spreading. In that style, action speed would slow down blood wound just as it does counters, so haste and swift strike are expected to be terrible with shortswords. The provided data is not nearly as bad as I would expect though.

Butcher ≈ Fatality ≥ Overpower > Swift Strike ≈ 0 (offensively)

From an offensive standpoint this is where 1H conservatively stands for now. Overpower might be 0.5x of butcher/fatality at worst. Swift strike is all over the place, providing competitive offense while player defense matters, and perhaps even in some cases when defense is no longer relevant.

It seems likely that swift strike is offensively neutral at worst for rapiers, or minimally negative enough to not matter. Therefore it can be considered as equivalent to a combined protection+warding suffix, or the protection spell scaled down. Players who appreciate defense, or those who pay a premium for a good parry weapon or shield, might be happy with swift strike even if it's useless at high level.

Agility / Burden Manipulation

CODE

burden     attack speed     evade
---------------------------------
  75           41.4%         0.0%
  70           53.5%         9.8%
  55           83.6%        37.2%
  40          100.0%        61.1%

Non-mithril peerless equipment with ethereal weapon has 55.3 burden. Action speed is diluted according to ((burden - 40) * 0.02) ^ 1.5 while evade is diluted according to (burden * 4/3%) ^ 1.5

The standard 1H approach is to aim for 70 burden. If you have high burden you can also increase agility for a tiny bit more PMit if desired. Most importantly your evade will be low, which will improve offense. A 1H player may have over 20% evade if unburdened. Any attack speed will be half wasted but its tiny reflection to offense will also be halved.

Another option is to aim for low burden (or use feathers) then also reduce agility to 0 to get rid of unwanted evade. If you trade evade with swift strike point-for-point, you effectively transform your swift strike into a positive butcher! This comes at the cost of having forfeited swift strike's defense boost. You are also limited in how much you can do this once you hit zero agility.

Eliminating agility causes PMit to be lost. Reducing the peerless warrior's agility to 0 drops his body PMit from 62.1% to 59%, and his total PMit from 82.9% to 81.5% (equipment PMit is 54.8%) which is still greater than his 80.8% MMit thus arguably superfluous. Meanwhile, doing so eliminates 14.7% unburdened evade.

Do Feathers/Haste make Swift Strike useless?

Despite its potential uses, swift strike may be a wasted slot because anyone can mimic its effect by using feathers or haste only in desired challenges. (The evade temporarily gained by using feathers is assumed needed for defense here, thus the issue of evade not being as good as action speed is dwarfed by their comparable applicability for defense).

I think that argument is partly true. Certainly feathers and haste are more flexible. On the other hand, swift strike does tack on after using feathers and/or haste. We've seen that boosting defense helps offense not in an absolute yes/no sense, but on a gradual scale that ends when you become a tank. If you want feathers or haste to start with, chances are you'll still benefit from swift strike afterwards.

I plan to use haste in arenas until past level 400. I prefer it to spirit shield and am not ready to use neither and live dangerously. There may come a time when haste is turned off; swift strike may still be helpful for another 30 levels. After that it will still be helpful in item world, maybe only with haste turned off.

Swift strike is stuck on permanently but at least it's close to offensively neutral. Feathers might stop being useful in item world and grindfest slightly before haste because of evade penalizing first half performance. You can reforge your weapon after swift strike stops being useful, change to a new one, or go mage.

Some of the things I wrote in my original post testing action speed are wrong. For now, it seems to me like all ailments inflicted on the first turn are likely to give you an extra turn, but only if you have nonzero action speed. Having haste and 0% attack speed meets this requirement, as does 1.7% attack speed without haste. Getting parried or doing some other action on your first turn will lose this opportunity.

So the start of rounds may not be randomly jittered like I originally thought. This might be abuseable if someone could figure out the exact rules. Maybe 1% or 0.1% attack speed would also provide this marginal head start. I wasn't able to confirm when the second time you can get an extra turn of ailments would be, which is a problem.

Another discovery: attack speed doesn't work like casting speed and haste. Attack speed bonus was already known to stack multiplicatively, but I had thought it applied like haste afterwards. Haste gives +50% action speed, lowering enemy attacks to 1/1.5 = 66% of normal, so a 33% reduction. Penetrated Armor increases from 7 turns to 10~11 turns, roughly half the time each.

On my Dual Wield persona with 29.5% attack speed bonus and haste off, my Penetrated Armor lasts for 10~11 turns as well, more often 10. It will be 11 if inflicted on the first attack of the round and can also be 11 in undetermined later rounds. The "turns remaining" counter goes from 7 to 0 only when the duration is 11 turns.

That's too much increase so attack speed must apply in the denominator, which would be consistent with the fact that attack speeds stack with each other multiplicatively, just like mitigations. The game tries to prevent you from reaching 100% attack speed, because that results in an invincible character.

Even so, 29.5% or even 30% attack speed should not be enough to reach 11 turns. It's equivalent to lowering enemy attacks to 70% of normal = 1/1.42857, and 1.42857 * 7 turns = 10 turns exactly. The wiki does vaguely mention that the game menu may display the attack speed bonus incorrectly. My body has 16.6%, my rapier has 1.925% from swift strike, and my waki has 12.10% attack speed. Agility from weapons also adds speed.

Finally, I checked how 29.5% (?) attack speed stacks with 50% (or 33% in the denominator) haste. They seem to stack well, it's multiplicative once again. Penetrated Armor increased to 15~17 turns, which is strange because it's the first time we see a semi-random variance of more than a turn. The counter goes from 6 to 0 if its 15 turns, and 7 to 0 otherwise.

I found most of the pattern, and it is a problem. An example, let's assume attack speed +2.0% then we'd expect Penetrated Armor lasts 7 * 1.02 = 7.14 turns, or more precisely maybe 7 * 1 / (1 - 0.02) = 7.142857 turns. Rounds unfortunately start at almost the worst possible timing, so after a good first turn we wait a really long time for the turns when we get enhanced ailments to come back.

It takes 7 * (1 - 0.02) = 6.86 ticks to sneak in our 7 attacks, so we need to displace ourself from game ticks by 0.14 to get back to the good times. We start out at the wrong end though, thus have to travel 0.86 to get there. This takes 0.86 / 0.02 = 43 turns.

This means on the 44th turn we will once again inflict Penetrated Armor for 8 turns. And we shall actually continue to do so from turns 44 through 51! This is undesirable performance but also contains the potential for limited abuse. This is summarized in more detail below.

CODE

  turn   Penetrated Armor   "turns remaining" counter   Overwhelming Strikes   "turns remaining" counter
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   01         8 turns               7 to 0                     5 turns                 4 to 0
   02         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   03         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   04         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   05         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   06         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   07         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   08         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   09         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   10         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   11         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   12         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   ...
   43         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   44         8 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   45         8 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   46         8 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   47         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   48         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   49         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   50         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   51         8 turns               7 to 0                     5 turns                 4 to 0
   52         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   ...
   repeat

What this unfortunately means is that in practice swift strike doesn't do what it is supposed to. If we don't reach the turns where ailments grant extended duration then swift strike is equivalent to a negative butcher again, or maybe half a negative butcher if you believe in turns/second boost.

Performing something of different action speed can be used to move up the good turns. If I cast cure then 8 turn PA instead occurs on turns 14~21 with my 1.7% attack speed. It is easily worth it to trade a few counters to change Penetrated Armor to 8 and Overwhelming Strikes to 5 every turn, if something close to that could be achieved.

If you have more swift strike the cluster of good turns also moves up accordingly. Here is an example with attack speed +3.0%, the early turns have the same pattern as before. Reaching the good turns normally results in being offensively neutral like haste. Casting spells to change the timing can potentially surpass it.

CODE

  turn   Penetrated Armor   "turns remaining" counter   Overwhelming Strikes   "turns remaining" counter
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   26         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   27         8 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   28         8 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   29         8 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0
   30         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   31         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   32         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   33         8 turns               6 to 0                     5 turns                 3 to 0
   34         8 turns               7 to 0                     5 turns                 4 to 0
   35         7 turns               6 to 0                     4 turns                 3 to 0

This post has been edited by BlueWaterSplash: May 27 2020, 19:14

CODE

  turn   Penetrated Armor   "turns remaining" counter   Overwhelming Strikes   "turns remaining" counter
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   01        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   02        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   03        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   04        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   05        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   06        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   07        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   08        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   09        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   ...
   97        11 turns               7 to 0
   98        10 turns               6 to 0
   99        10 turns               6 to 0
   100       11 turns               6 to 0
   101       11 turns               7 to 0
   102       10 turns               6 to 0

This is the pattern with haste and no attack speed bonus. We'd expect haste to increase the duration of Penetrated Armor to 7 * 1.5 = 10.5 turns and Overwhelming Strikes to 4 * 1.5 = 6 turns. Due to discretization issues with timing, Penetrated Armor actually increases to 10.66 turns and Overwhelming Strikes to 6.33 turns.

There is a hiccup in the pattern near turn 100 and by turn 300 a full one turn of PA will have been lost. This proves that haste makes your character's attacks take exactly 0.67 ticks in battle. It turns out that time is quantized with the smallest unit being 0.01 ticks. Thus haste is actually a 1 / 0.67 - 1 = 49.254% boost to attack speed in the numerator or 33% boost interpreted in the denominator.

When a round ends your character resets to the beginning of a tick. So any buff durations that carry into the next round can gain fractional time. In particular the final 6 Overwhelming Strikes at the end of each round together gain approximately 6 * 1/3 = 2 turns. A more careful study of all possible ending cases resulted in the same 2 turns (removing the last). This is insignificant for haste but matters for swift strike.

CODE

  turn   Overwhelming Strikes   "turns remaining" counter
  -------------------------------------------------------
   -6           4 turns                 3 to 0
   -5           4 turns                 3 to 0
   -4           5 turns                 3 to 0
   -3           5 turns                 3 to 0
   -2           5 turns                 3 to 0
   -1           5 turns                 3 to 0
   01           5 turns                 4 to 0
   02           4 turns                 3 to 0

For swift strike without haste, the easiest way to think about it is to imagine the previous turn always ends with the full cluster of enhanced Overwhelming Strikes. Unfortunately because you cannot inflict Overwhelming Strikes when your main hit kills an enemy, most of this bonus is wasted. It still helps so swift strike is no longer a negative butcher.

Out of the 4 bonus Overwhelmings the last one almost always won't count, and of the 3 remaining I'll guess only 1 counts for a sweeping player near the end of a round. At least the Overwhelming from turn 01 is guaranteed to count so that's 2 turns total. For scaling and comparing to haste, we'd increase this to 2 * 3/2 = 3 turns to account for roughly 1/3 of hits being killing blows in the general case.

This reset trick also determines how much swift strike increases the durations of long buffs such as Heartseeker or Regen. They should be multiplied according to your amount of attack speed bonus, but in reality 1 turn is simply added to their duration at the start of every round regardless of how much you have. If you kill enemies instantly your buffs theoretically last forever.

Because time is quantized at 0.01 ticks it is only possible to have attack speed bonus of 1.0%, 2.0%, 3.0%, etc in battle. Prior to battle the game retains and calculates your precise attack speed: anything from 0.50% to 1.50% will round to 1%. Be warned that if your stat screen says you have 0.5% it could be 0.48% or 0.52% and doesn't ensure what it will be in battle.

CODE

  turn   Penetrated Armor   "turns remaining" counter   Overwhelming Strikes   "turns remaining" counter
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   01        12 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   02        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   03        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   04        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   05        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   06        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   07        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   08        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   09        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   10        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   11        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   ...
   41        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   42        12 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   43        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   44        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   45        12 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   46        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   47        11 turns               6 to 0                     7 turns                 3 to 0
   48        12 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   49        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   50        11 turns               6 to 0                     7 turns                 3 to 0
   51        12 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   52        11 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0
   53        11 turns               7 to 0                     7 turns                 4 to 0
   54        10 turns               6 to 0                     6 turns                 3 to 0

This is the pattern with haste and 1.5% attack speed bonus. Due to 0.01 tick quantization it is only possible to have attack speed bonus of 67/66 = 1.515%, 3.077%, 4.688%, etc in battle. Haste stacks multiplicatively with your unrounded attack speed bonus and is a factor of exactly 0.67 in this calculation as well, not 0.6666 like might be expected.

The lower bound for the 1.5% attack speed tier is 1 - 66.5 / 67 = 0.746% and the upper bound is 1 - 65.5 / 67 = 2.239%. The next boundary is 3.731% so Swift Strike Lv.2 can utilize burden to choose from 3 hasted speeds while Swift Strike Lv.1 is stuck at 1.5% attack speed with haste on.

Haste splits all timings into groups of 3 and also shortens the duration to reaching the first cluster of enhanced ailments by 3 times. Swift strike quickly normalizes with less timing issues, but the two lowest speed tiers still have them. It's partially coincidence that the 1.5% hasted speed tier repeats at the same 50 turn intervals as the 2% non-haste speed tier.

Attack speed grants the beginning of each round an extra 1.66 turns of Penetrated Armor and 0.33 turns of Overwhelming Strikes. The full cluster of ailments grants 7.66 turns and 2.33 turns, respectively. If at the end, tabulating cases and removing the last turn still yields 2 turns of Overwhelming, with 1/3 of those expected to hit surviving enemies. Adding the opening gives 1 turn, scaled to 1.5 for future comparison.

 action_speed_test_logs.txt ( 21.79k ) Number of downloads: 9


This post has been edited by BlueWaterSplash: May 26 2020, 22:10

Up until now I've ignored 1H stun duration because I used to think it was synced to monsters' timelines, but now I realize it works similarly to your other ailments. Stuns inflicted by 1H counters are set to have 1 less duration than those inflicted by a club. Spike shield ailments have the same base duration of 3 turns as 1H stuns. Here is the performance of stun with haste.

CODE

  turn   Stun or Burn   "turns remaining" counter
  -----------------------------------------------
   01      5 turns               3 to 0
   02      4 turns               2 to 0
   03      5 turns               2 to 0
   04      5 turns               3 to 0
   05      4 turns               2 to 0
   06      5 turns               2 to 0

Haste increases stun duration to 4.66 turns following the same pattern as PA. Next comes stun with haste and 1.5% attack speed bonus. It likewise follows a similar pattern.

CODE

  turn   Stun or Burn   "turns remaining" counter
  -----------------------------------------------
   01      6 turns               3 to 0
   02      5 turns               2 to 0
   03      5 turns               3 to 0
   04      4 turns               2 to 0
   05      5 turns               2 to 0
   06      5 turns               3 to 0
   ...
   43      4 turns               2 to 0
   44      5 turns               2 to 0
   45      5 turns               3 to 0
   46      4 turns               2 to 0
   47      5 turns               2 to 0
   48      6 turns               3 to 0
   49      5 turns               2 to 0
   50      5 turns               2 to 0
   51      6 turns               3 to 0
   52      5 turns               2 to 0
   53      5 turns               3 to 0

I recently realized evade is not nearly as hurtful as I previously thought. This is because when an enemy evades an attack he can't get stunned, so he soon attacks again and the counter that was lost will quickly be made back. Haste is the same as before because it increases the length of stuns.

Low amounts of attack speed are decoupled from the increase in stun duration, so we now need to consider them separately. This new viewpoint can also be applied to haste. The drop in counters is only 1/4 due to action speed itself, while the remaining 3/4 is due to the increase in stun duration. This is because monsters don't move for 3 turns after being countered and stunned.

Let's break down haste more carefully. In arenas, the blame for (2.4 + 1.17 * 0.75) / (2.4 + 0.85 * 0.75) ≈ 8% loss in damage due to counters is reassigned: 2% for the +50% action speed, and 6% for increasing stun duration. In grindfest, the blame for (2.4 + 1.75 * 0.75) / (2.4 + 1.25 * 0.75) ≈ 11% damage loss is reassigned to 2.75% from speed and 8.25% from stun.

Simplifying my haste comparison table, let's say haste loses 3% turns and makes back 3% in turns/second boost, for zero loss in arenas. Of the 5% turn gains, I'll approximate that 1.66% comes from more reliable Overwhelming Strikes damage boost, 1.66% from Overwhelming Strikes counter-parry, and 1.66% from better Penetrated Armor duration.

In pfudor grindfest, let's say haste loses 6% turns and makes back 6% in turns/second boost, for zero loss. I've tweaked the numbers to be more skeptical of haste than my personal results. Of the 5% turn gains, I'll again guess that 1.66% comes from Overwhelming Strikes damage, 1.66% from Overwhelming Strikes counter-parry, and 1.66% from Penetrated Armor.

Stun also has positive effects because stunned enemies can't parry. Assuming a 6% parry rate overall, 1 turn of added stun is worth 2.4 * 0.06 ≈ 0.15 more damage, yet also loses 0.75 * 1/5 = 0.15 damage from counters. The chance you target that stunned enemy is divided by the number of enemies though, so the damage loss from counters is much greater.

This positive effect of stun doesn't enter the haste breakdown for spread styles because unless you target enemies intelligently, increased action speed causes you to hit unstunned enemies more often, too. It could play a minor role for swift strike since its stun durations increase via timing glitches rather than your attack speed.

This post has been edited by BlueWaterSplash: Jun 3 2020, 21:40

Monsters are getting stronger and stronger.
- Players are feeding their monsters crystals (and chaos tokens), and thus the average power level of monsters in battle is increasing.
https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=5614254

And they are also giving more and more experience.
- This is because the monster's power level (and stats) affects the amount of experience.
https://ehwiki.org/wiki/Experience_Points#Monsters


The table below shows the experience of PFUDOR grindfest that I have recorded for four years.
- base_exp is the exp for which star bonus and cookie bonus are removed: base_exp = average_exp / (1 + star_bonus) / (1 + 20% * cookies)
- Other conditions are the same: PFUDOR difficulty, no stamina bonus, maxed out Adept Learner training and hath perks, forum posting bonus, no toplist bonus
* I found that 5th cookie, Different Chocolate Chip Cookie, had not given any exp bonus in 2018.

- The current base_exp is 20% higher than four years ago. (985m > 1184m)
- The overall exp that now I gain is more than four times as much as four years ago. (1379m > 5685m)

CODE

================================================================
          |    average_exp |  stars |  cookies |       base_exp
================================================================
  2016_07 |  LEVEL 500 WITHOUT A STAR
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2016_08 |  1,379,660,490 |        |        2 |    985,471,778
  2016_09 |  1,384,525,069 |        |        2 |    988,946,478
  2016_10 |  1,397,139,877 |        |        2 |    997,957,055
  2016_11 |  1,408,365,646 |        |        2 |  1,005,975,461
  2016_12 |  1,416,848,652 |        |        2 |  1,012,034,752
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2017_01 |  1,627,002,021 |        |        3 |  1,016,876,263
  2017_02 |  1,634,430,681 |        |        3 |  1,021,519,176
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2017_02 |  GOT A GOLDSTAR AND ONE MORE COOKIE
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2017_02 |  3,686,392,872 |      1 |        4 |  1,023,998,020
  2017_03 |  3,692,923,641 |      1 |        4 |  1,025,812,123
  2017_04 |  3,703,871,332 |      1 |        4 |  1,028,853,148
  2017_05 |  3,717,243,971 |      1 |        4 |  1,032,567,770
  2017_06 |  3,739,391,365 |      1 |        4 |  1,038,719,824
  2017_07 |  3,775,338,647 |      1 |        4 |  1,048,705,180
  2017_08 |  3,795,221,950 |      1 |        4 |  1,054,228,319
  2017_09 |  3,814,906,013 |      1 |        4 |  1,059,696,115
  2017_10 |  3,831,057,441 |      1 |        4 |  1,064,182,622
  2017_11 |  3,861,367,307 |      1 |        4 |  1,072,602,030
  2017_12 |  3,880,677,376 |      1 |        4 |  1,077,965,938
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2018_01 |  5TH COOKIE HAD NOT GIVEN EXP BONUS IN 2018
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2018_01 |  3,913,920,971 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,087,200,270
  2018_02 |  3,921,225,680 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,089,229,356
  2018_03 |  3,934,943,612 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,093,039,892
  2018_04 |  3,955,456,544 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,098,737,929
  2018_05 |  3,974,427,712 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,104,007,698
  2018_06 |  3,987,403,332 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,107,612,037
  2018_07 |  3,989,709,727 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,108,252,702
  2018_08 |  3,987,794,706 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,107,720,752
  2018_09 |  3,992,777,858 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,109,104,961
  2018_10 |  4,003,081,334 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,111,967,037
  2018_11 |  4,008,024,387 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,113,340,108
  2018_12 |  4,019,531,469 |      1 |      * 4 |  1,116,536,519
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2019_01 |  4,908,824,976 |      1 |        6 |  1,115,642,040
  2019_02 |  4,927,276,997 |      1 |        6 |  1,119,835,681
  2019_03 |  4,954,923,268 |      1 |        6 |  1,126,118,925
  2019_04 |  4,968,082,933 |      1 |        6 |  1,129,109,758
  2019_05 |  4,974,514,483 |      1 |        6 |  1,130,571,473
  2019_06 |  4,984,790,876 |      1 |        6 |  1,132,907,017
  2019_07 |  5,002,526,553 |      1 |        6 |  1,136,937,853
  2019_08 |  5,005,667,782 |      1 |        6 |  1,137,651,769
  2019_09 |  5,009,355,425 |      1 |        6 |  1,138,489,869
  2019_10 |  5,015,413,716 |      1 |        6 |  1,139,866,754
  2019_11 |  5,036,449,820 |      1 |        6 |  1,144,647,686
  2019_12 |  5,056,036,591 |      1 |        6 |  1,149,099,225
----------------------------------------------------------------
  2020_01 |  5,533,755,376 |      1 |        7 |  1,152,865,703
  2020_02 |  5,580,294,887 |      1 |        7 |  1,162,561,435
  2020_03 |  5,610,535,723 |      1 |        7 |  1,168,861,609
  2020_04 |  5,658,872,609 |      1 |        7 |  1,178,931,794
  2020_05 |  5,685,646,936 |      1 |        7 |  1,184,509,778
================================================================

This post has been edited by sssss2: Jun 1 2020, 17:46

...

Was the 2018 cookie fixed in 2019?

Monsters are getting stronger and stronger.
- Players are feeding their monsters crystals (and chaos tokens), and thus the average power level of monsters in battle is increasing.
https://forums.e-hentai.org/index.php?s=&am...t&p=5614254

And they are also giving more and more experience.
- This is because the monster's power level (and stats) affects the amount of experience.
https://ehwiki.org/wiki/Experience_Points#Monsters
The table below shows the experience of PFUDOR grindfest that I have recorded for four years.
- base_exp is the exp for which star bonus and cookie bonus are removed: base_exp = average_exp / (1 + star_bonus) / (1 + 20% * cookies)
- Other conditions are the same: PFUDOR difficulty, no stamina bonus, maxed out Adept Learner training and hath perks, forum posting bonus, no toplist bonus
* I found that 5th cookie, Different Chocolate Chip Cookie, had not given any exp bonus in 2018.

- The current base_exp is 20% higher than four years ago. (985m > 1184m)
- The overall exp that now I gain is more than four times as much as four years ago. (1379m > 5685m)

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) So it is not just my idea, I am really taking longer to finish certain arenas despite the fact that I am continually improving my equipment.

I think it already shows too much the fact that the Monsters are not balanced, because it has happened to me sometimes that a common monster needs more attacks to be defeated than one of the school girls, which is already ridiculous, , that they shouldn't are those monsters on a higher level than I am currently??

I don't know how it works for those who are at level 500, but for those who are still below level 400-410, having to spend millions on better equipment to face monsters that already feel too unbalanced is a bit unfair. Not that I'm complaining; But I wonder how will those who have not had the luck to earn 20 million credits thanks to a drop be overcoming the situation?

This post has been edited by Arkoniusx: Jun 2 2020, 12:02

(IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/huh.gif) So it is not just my idea, I am really taking longer to finish certain arenas despite the fact that I am continually improving my equipment.

I think it already shows too much the fact that the Monsters are not balanced, because it has happened to me sometimes that a common monster needs more attacks to be defeated than one of the school girls, which is already ridiculous, , that they shouldn't are those monsters on a higher level than I am currently??

I don't know how it works for those who are at level 500, but for those who are still below level 400-410, having to spend millions on better equipment to face monsters that already feel too unbalanced is a bit unfair. Not that I'm complaining; But I wonder how will those who have not had the luck to earn 20 million credits thanks to a drop be overcoming the situation?

What you are observing is probably nothing to do with chaos tokens and monster PL, which is a very long term, slow effect (on the scale of years for any noticeable effect). In your case, it's just because you're levelling up, and monsters get increasingly sized health pools. The game slows down as you level, and level 500 players feel it the worst.

However, it's not really that expensive to forge melee gear over time... almost nobody gets that one lucky drop that funds a huge upgrade for them. Income for arena-only melee players right now is relatively high compared to expenses; trophy prices are high, scrolls are sellable, as are most consumables, gum & vase & amnesia shards are sellable... etc. 20m is not a very large sum of money anymore.

Also - your weird build insisting on shitty weapons probably doesn't help you at all. As long as you're still having fun, it's okay, but... most people don't realise how much better the game can feel, and burn out trying to be special. I wonder how many players switched to mage - geared and forged enough to be worth it, of course - and then switched back to melee? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by lestion: Jun 2 2020, 12:09