[X] My Assistant

useless test:
...
test samples before 194.7% are small so the chance have no specific meanings, they just means: can be evaded
and the samples after 194.7% are large enough that I think monsters can no longer evade you spells if you have over 194.8% macc.
strange number. wiki says 200%, before the test I thought it would be 195% because of my battle data when I first became mage
maybe someone can test the physical evaded chance as well

since my DW stats happen to perfectly in the range, I test the physical evaded data too

CODE

pAcc    |hit     |evaded    
--------|--------|-------
194.7%  |2606    |2
194.8%  |10850   |0

not detial like the magical evaded test but seem enough to say that
the 194.8% magic number that monster can no longer evaded you attack is the same in physical and magical.

as the evaded chance in test result seems to "suddently" become 0, seems there is a stupid theory can explain it

the effective evade chance resolution is 0.1%, if the effective evade chance lower than 0.1% then it become 0.

threoretically the evade chance for monsters is:

CODE

effective_evade_chance = round(counting_evade_chance)
counting_evade_chance = raw_evade_chance * player_counter_evade = Evasion_level * 0.5% * player_counter_evade
player_counter_evade = max(200% - player_hit_chance, 0)

when the monster have max Evasion chaos forged it has 10% raw_evade_chance

if the hv system use the half rounding method, then to lower than 0.1% effective_evade_chance, the counting_evade_chance need to lower than 0.05%, equals to need 195%+ player_hit_chance

using the 194.7%~194.8% player_hit_chance in test result, the counting_evade_chance is 0.052%~0.053%

so the test result may because:
1) the test samples are too small, they can still evade until you have 195% acc
2) the rounding method used by hv system round 0.052x% to 0

since there is 0 evaded count in over 100k+ hit samples, I would assume the reason 2 is the truth



the counting stats above are incorrect, check stats by BlueWaterSplash here

I realized that you forgot about this monster stats formula:

Evade = 1 - (1 - min(10 , (AGI / 100) , (AGI - Level) / 75) / 100) * (1 - chaos_evasion_rank * 0.5%)

Nearly all monsters have a natural evade of 10%, this combines with the 10% from chaos, to a total of exactly 19% evade.

When the player has 194.7%~194.8% hit chance, this monster's evade is 19% * 0.052 = 0.988% ~ 1.007% so your test is basically correct. This means that when effective evade drops below exactly 1%, it suddenly becomes 0%.

effective_evade_chance = round_down(counting_evade_chance)

...

This post has been edited by what_is_name: Jul 5 2021, 03:49

Rather than it being your reason 2) I think a more likely explanation is that the game rounds twice somewhere, as many other tiny aspects of this game have a similar phenomena.

Anyway, I didn't realize that having 194.8% accuracy is enough to perfectly prevent evasion, thanks! So it's not 200% after all.

This also means that if your goal is to get just enough accuracy as needed and not waste credits on upgrades, then it will be "harder" to prevent yourself to rise above 200% accuracy (now 194.8% accuracy). My level 397 persistent 1H character already has 194.1% accuracy and I guess will probably reach over-accuracy soon.

I have wondered for a long time how the resist-lowering math of the shock shield works. Is it plainly subtractive, or instead working like anti-evade and anti-resist? Maybe you know?

I realized that you forgot about this monster stats formula:

Evade = 1 - (1 - min(10 , (AGI / 100) , (AGI - Level) / 75) / 100) * (1 - chaos_evasion_rank * 0.5%)

Nearly all monsters have a natural evade of 10%, this combines with the 10% from chaos, to a total of exactly 19% evade.

When the player has 194.7%~194.8% hit chance, this monster's evade is 19% * 0.052 = 0.988% ~ 1.007% so your test is basically correct. This means that when effective evade drops below exactly 1%, it suddenly becomes 0%.

effective_evade_chance = round_down(counting_evade_chance)

Note that in reality you experienced effective evade about 0.1% and not 1% around here. This is because most monsters have a natural evade a little below 10% ignoring chaos, because most monsters don't quite have enough AGI.

scaled_stats = int(0.01 * base_stat * monster_level + (monster_level ^ 1.076675) * 0.3325)

AGI is level scaled AGI. In order to reach (AGI / 100) = 10 the monster needs 1000 AGI. At level 500 this means 146.45 base AGI, which every PL 2250 monster will have. Some monsters at a lower level and PL may not reach 10% natural evade.

In order to also reach (AGI - Level) / 75 = 10 is more complicated but at level 500 requires 1250 AGI, or 196.45 base AGI, which a few monster species cannot reach even at PL 2250. But they can still get close to 10% natural evade.

As your player level increases to 500, and as the overall monster population rises in average PL, you will likely experience many more evades around 194.7% but it should still drop to no evades at 194.8%, nice find.

That's because of your level. When you'll be higher with higher defenses (say, above 350-400) the situation will reverse.

Not just reverse, now I do complete overhaul and change my style from DW to 1H (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Now I am using Rapier+Kite Shield (don't have any decent Buckler).....
Still wearing Light Armor instead of Heavy Armor, though

This post has been edited by Adhinferno Bloodmoon: Jul 5 2021, 03:08

I realized that you forgot about this monster stats formula:

Evade = 1 - (1 - min(10 , (AGI / 100) , (AGI - Level) / 75) / 100) * (1 - chaos_evasion_rank * 0.5%)

Nearly all monsters have a natural evade of 10%, this combines with the 10% from chaos, to a total of exactly 19% evade.

When the player has 194.7%~194.8% hit chance, this monster's evade is 19% * 0.052 = 0.988% ~ 1.007% so your test is basically correct. This means that when effective evade drops below exactly 1%, it suddenly becomes 0%.

effective_evade_chance = round_down(counting_evade_chance)

...

WoW nice catch, this perfactly explain it, and I wrong count the decimal point too (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I have wondered for a long time how the resist-lowering math of the shock shield works. Is it plainly subtractive, or instead working like anti-evade and anti-resist? Maybe you know?

No, I have no idea how it work too.

Not just reverse, now I do complete overhaul and change my style from DW to 1H (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Now I am using Rapier+Kite Shield (don't have any decent Buckler).....
Still wearing Light Armor instead of Heavy Armor, though

It's Ok, if you don't have Power pieces it's probably better to use Light then Heavy; especially now that you still are below L.250.

At 250 you'll unlock the 1H-block ability, then going Heavy will probably be a better choice even if only some pieces will be Power. imho.

Forge/Upgrade Materials

While developing the script, I found something more concise about this.

[docs.google.com] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gpJ...g#gid=480170546

The material list consists of 13 groups
- 5x [6 Low-Grade Materials]
- 7x [5 Low-Grade Materials] and [1 Mid-Grade Material]
- 8x [4 Low-Grade Materials] and [2 Mid-Grade Materials]
- 7x [3 Low-Grade Materials] and [3 Mid-Grade Materials]
- 8x [2 Low-Grade Materials] and [4 Mid-Grade Materials]
- 7x [1 Low-Grade Material] and [5 Mid-Grade Materials]
- 13x [6 Mid-Grade Materials]
- 7x [5 Mid-Grade Materials] and [1 High-Grade Material]
- 8x [4 Mid-Grade Materials] and [2 High-Grade Materials]
- 7x [3 Mid-Grade Materials] and [3 High-Grade Materials]
- 8x [2 Mid-Grade Materials] and [4 High-Grade Materials]
- 7x [1 Mid-Grade Materials] and [5 High-Grade Materials]
- 58x [6 High-Grade Materials]

The amount required varies based on the equipment's pxp, not the quality in the equipment's name.
- Equipment with pxp 313 or less are from index 1
- Equipment with pxp between 313 and 335 are from index 16
- Equipment with pxp between 335 and 348 from index 31
- Equipment with pxp 348 or higher are from index 51

This post has been edited by sssss2: Jul 28 2021, 00:40

I ended up reforging my rapier and going for B5 O4. I'm pretty sure Overpower is worth considerably more than Fatality, even with Overwhelming Strikes.

Overpower

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%.

The added overcharge granted by overpower is worth extra, however it's roughly already accounted for. Because even if 1H misses an attack, it will usually perform a counter attack and keep overcharge at a constant level for that turn.

For non-imperil rapier spread style only, added hits from overpower have the valuable effect of preventing previously stacked PA from wearing off. I estimate this effect is worth 0.68 * 0.68 * 0.66 = 0.3 hits, meaning overpower becomes 1.3x better with this viewpoint.

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 1H 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.

The percentage of time enemies are stunned affects overpower the most. When I wrote that, I assumed that haste usage would not affect how often enemies are stunned. That should theoretically be the case, but because of discretization issues I later discovered the following:

Once any enemy recovers from stun, it no longer matters whether you have haste or not in terms of the number of counter attacks you perform (except for increasing the stun duration from 4 to 6~7 turns, which is the biggest effect on loss of counters).

This is because ~95% of all enemies we encounter are chaosed enough to have over 25% attack speed bonus (more than half chaosed, so 10+ levels to attack speed). Combined with the 25% attack speed bonus of PFUDOR difficulty this means that whether we have haste or not, most monsters will attack 1H players twice every time they recover from Stun.

And if we approximate that 1H style deals 3 counter attacks and 2 stuns every turn, then this creates a perpetual loop. Because in many turns, 2 monsters will recover from stun, and those 2 monsters will attack 4 times, for an average of 3 counter attacks (75% chance) and once again 2 stuns (70%+ chance of stun with a counter attack).

New data on how often enemies are stunned is badly needed, as sssss2 used haste for his test many years ago. Without haste, enemies ought to be stunned much less often, and overpower would drastically improve.

Butcher

Rapier + 5 Power of Slaughter: 5 * 51 / (14400 - 5 * 51) = 1.803%

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

Butcher is the only weapon potency that improves counter attacks, so calculated derating factors = 2.4 / (2.4 + 0.75 * counters) for Fatality and Overpower are:

CODE

stage         spell usage   difficulty   counters/attack   derating factor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 mob arena    haste          pfudor         0.85              0.74
5 mob arena    haste          pfudor         0.95              0.72
4 mob arena    none           pfudor         1.17              0.67
5 mob arena    none           pfudor         1.30              0.65
item world     haste          pfudor         1.25              0.66
item world     none           pfudor         1.75              0.58
item world     imperil        pfudor         2.33              0.51

Fatality

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 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).

Taking ~1 counter/attack, the derating factor is 0.70 so Fatality 5 increases overall damage by 2.382% * 0.70 = 1.667%.

Butcher and Fatality have always been pretty close, so O5 B4 could be best. However arenas have bigger average mobs with the current game version, so Butcher is improved these days (a derating factor of 0.51~0.60 may be generally applicable now).

Tried to compare B5F4 with B5O4 yesterday with my Protection set in 12 runs of 100 rounds PFUDOR IW...
With 8,096/8,085 adb and DD1...

Legendary Demonic Shortsword of Slaughter (B5F4)

CODE

1st run 1,782 turns, 1 Riddlemaster
2nd run 1,765 turns, 2 Riddlemaster
3rd run 1,770 turns, 2 Riddlemasters
4th run 1,785 turns, 1 Riddlemaster
5th run 1,769 turns, 1 Riddlemaster
6th run 1,765 turns, 2 Riddlemasters
avg ~1,772 turns

Legendary Shocking Shortsword of Slaughter (B5O4)

CODE

1st run 1,728 turns, 1 Riddlemaster
2nd run 1,744 turns, 1 Riddlemaster
3rd run 1,778 turns
4th run 1,749 turns, 2 Riddlemasters
5th run 1,781 turns, 2 Riddlemasters
6th run 1,728 turns, 2 Riddlemasters
avg ~1,751 turns

B5O4 have lower turns on average compared to B5F4, but only marginally at ~20 turns difference...
This is the same with what Nezu said a few weeks ago...
So I think gear lv basically have no difference in this case...

This post has been edited by Greshnik: Sep 27 2021, 13:16

If that result is accurate that is actually a big difference. That's about a 1% improvement in turns, and keep in mind that B5 is only a 2% improvement in adb as compared to having nothing.

I assume you infused the two weapons accordingly to match element, but it's still possible that one of those shortswords is better than the other. Also in general, fatality should be improving with higher level and peerless gear (but I would not expect it to improve enough to overcome the superior overpower result you demonstrated).

If overpower is truly as good as your demonstration, then O5 B4 is still looking good.

If that result is accurate that is actually a big difference. That's about a 1% improvement in turns, and keep in mind that B5 is only a 2% improvement in adb as compared to having nothing.

I assume you infused the two weapons accordingly to match element, but it's still possible that one of those shortswords is better than the other. Also in general, fatality should be improving with higher level and peerless gear (but I would not expect it to improve enough to overcome the superior overpower result you demonstrated).

If overpower is truly as good as your demonstration, then O5 B4 is still looking good.

Yep...
Lightning infusion for Demonic Shortsword and Dark infusion for Shocking Shortsword, on Sunday (Holy day)...
Plus featherweight on all eq., and voidseeker for weapon because at the time my acc still <200%...
And I consider those two are close enough in stats to start the comparison, though I'm sure a peerless one will gives more accurate result...

thanks (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Magnificent * Rapier
Legendary * Rapier

Magnificent * Wakizashi
Legendary * Wakizashi

Magnificent * Buckler of the Barrier
Legendary * Buckler of the Barrier

Magnificent * Shade * of the Shadowdancer
Legendary * Shade * of the Shadowdancer

Magnificent * Shade * of the Fleet
Legendary * Shade * of the Fleet
Please MM or PM to me.

Looking at his request list, this is identical to what I used in isekai season 1. I already knew from way back then that some players had similar ideas to me. Isekai is no longer as competitive (just reach floor 50 to get pabs) so when I have time I want to discuss various things, as the isekai Tower provides a better tangible way for us to measure survivability and what can matter.

For my part, I do not play and advance enough for true survivability to matter, but the Tower still helps me to try things and makes theorizing easier. For season 2, I had to use a Force shield for the first time ever (semi-regularly) because it was all I could drop: a high rolled mag force shield was just too much better than low rolled exquisite buckler of barrier. (I dropped a similar mag force shield at the start of season 3 and gave it away).

So there are a number of old melee debates that should be revisited. Is force shield better than buckler of the barrier? How does 1H Light compare to 1H Heavy (which could be plate or power, and/or feathered) both on offense and defense? When is spirit shield worth it, or can I just go without it and spark a lot?

Most players feel that they have obvious answers to these questions, but I don't think popular thought has ever been absolutely correct, in a perfectly strict sense. Popular thought may be correct for nearly all situations and builds, but the reality is that Player level affects a lot of these things as well as Difficulty level, and behavior of monsters. At certain odd/rarely/never encountered ranges of player level and difficulty level (this could include theoretical difficulties, or theoretical alterations to monster behavior that do not actually exist) there can be different results.

And not everything is about 1H (fusrodah is rightfully disabled in isekai). Practically speaking, DW can easily clear the Tower floors I'd ever get to. Though once monsters get tough to the point where they can't all be blown away by Frenzy Blows (which was past Floor 100 in season 1, but probably much lower in season 2) then DW is in trouble.

2H Mace should be another competitor, especially if you target carefully. And I've never completely given up on the unorthodox idea of DW Club with spread stun targeting. (In theory monster behavior and population could theoretically be altered to screw 1H by making all monsters magical, drastically reducing counter attacks and stuns).

Another interesting thing I think I noticed in isekai is that Stun probability upon a successful counter attack seems to increase with player level or stats. When I transition from DW to 1H every season and first reach 30% overwhelming and 75% counter attack, my stun rate is still pretty bad. I can beatdown schoolgirls without ever stunning them. This might be due to having pathetic block/parry stats but I don't feel that explains it, as I see the counters happening.

Is force shield better than buckler of the barrier?

You said some time ago that force shield decrease chance of resist(or messing with resist in some other bad way). So assuming this, i think that for 1h light buckler better because light armor have a lot of resist - you have much to lose if you choose force shield, and from my experience with 1h heavy - most of noticeable damage comes from magic spells(all those holly/void spells, you know), so resist seems useful. Especially for shade of negation and arcanist buckler is preferable in this regard.

While 1h heavy have low resist and you lose not so much choosing force shield, also it is trade off: resist for block, and block blocks both magic and melee damage and also stun and counterattack(geez 1h such an OP...), so probably for 1h heavy you lose nothing in the end.

This post has been edited by Mud attheBaseofLotus: Dec 23 2021, 22:51

2H Mace should be another competitor, especially if you target carefully. And I've never completely given up on the unorthodox idea of DW Club with spread stun targeting. (In theory monster behavior and population could theoretically be altered to screw 1H by making all monsters magical, drastically reducing counter attacks and stuns).

Unfortunately neither of these are good enough for high tower - DW club slightly moreso, but 2H is fucked. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I played it to floor 50 last season. It was worse than expected, sadly, and I already thought it was pretty bad. Not doing that again any time soon.

I've never really tried it so I don't know exactly what happens with 2H Mace. Can't you just stun everybody (like 5~7 guys) with one ordinary attack, or does it not work that way? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

The main issue with force shields is interference (which arguably works better with heavy armor since that already has more interference to start with, and can also be reduced by feathering). I don't think force shields interact with resist in any way, but I could be wrong. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

I've never really tried it so I don't know exactly what happens with 2H Mace. Can't you just stun everybody (like 5~7 guys) with one ordinary attack, or does it not work that way? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

The main issue with force shields is interference (which arguably works better with heavy armor since that already has more interference to start with, and can also be reduced by feathering). I don't think force shields interact with resist in any way, but I could be wrong. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/unsure.gif)

They all attack at once when the stun expires (and stun can't be refreshed), so even if you did get some amazing domino strike stuns, you're still in danger. The biggest reason 2H is weak in tower is specifically because of domino strike, honestly - even if you attack from the bottom, you're still gonna wake up a considerable amount of sleeping monsters.

I think force shields can add slightly more avoidance than they cost in burden, with feather, so a force shield would be slightly better in general, and for 1H, mana costs are not that much of a concern so I don't think the interference is a problem either.

However on isekai... force shields take DMMs to upgrade, bucklers don't. If you could get a good mag reinforced buckler of the barrier, you could upgrade that really easily and have a better time with it than a lowly-forged legendary of any kind.

Force shields have better defenses than bucklers of barrier. They have 1% more block (which equates to 1.66% more block after level scaled and forged). Actually it's effectively much more than that because of multiplicative block stacking. A peerless force shield provides 64.04% actual block, which means that an extra 1.66% additive block is truthfully an extra 4.4% multiplicative block, and truthfully a 4.4% reduction in damage taken compared to peerless buckler of barrier.

Force shields also have about 1% more physical and magical mitigation than bucklers of barrier. This equates to about an extra 1.66% reduction in damage taken after level scaled and forged (the multiplicative argument used for block does not apply significantly here because the total amount of provided mitigation is low to begin with).

Force shields also have the suffix which provides additional mitigation of 2.1% for protection or 4.62% for warding, which is about 3.5% for protection or 7.7% for warding after scaled and forged.

Peerless reinforced bucklers add about 3.2% mitigation for crushing/slashing/piercing which we can arguably be considered almost as useful as protection, but could also be argued to be useless. That would be equivalent to 4.25% after forging (level scaling does not apply). Peerless agile bucklers instead add 3.62% attack speed which for pure damage reduction purposes is just as good as block, though it could be unwanted for the loss in offense.

Force shields have an elemental prefix which is quite nice with heavy armor builds, but arguably useless. Peerless provides 26.1% elemental mitigation, or 34.71% after forging. Let's divide this by 6 elements to get a fair estimate of its value, that's 5.79% per element.

Peerless force shields have the same burden as peerless bucklers.

Force shields have minimum 28 interference compared to the minimum 1.4 interference of peerless bucklers. This means force shields cause a naked wielder to use 14% more mana (7% if feathered). A peerless warrior has 87.5 interference from power armors, so in reality a force shield uses 9.21% more mana than a buckler, or 5.74% if fully feathered (4.36% if you just feather the shield).

It is arguable whether or not interference actually means anything in practice. I leave this topic for a post in the near future. However, things are looking favorable for force shield. Even if we say a buckler's 5.74% mana savings somehow translates to 5.74% more survivability (in certain extreme or theoretical survival situations), a force shield reduces damage taken by an extra 4.4% plus 1.66% = 6% (multiplicative stacking) compared to a buckler of barrier.

That 6% damage reduction could theoretically result in 6% less mana used, which means that most optimically a feathered force shield uses the same mana as a buckler. In reality, the damage reduction typically has no effect on mana, because most of the mana expenditure is from keeping buffs and debuffs active. However in extreme survival situations, where cure and even useless spells (this cheats cooldown) are continuously cast, mana reduction with force shields could happen.

Truth be told, Isekai is just so different anyway.

I've made the observation that rolling with exquisite instead of mag is actually not that bad, as you can upgrade that MUCH easier. Obviously all depends on the rolls. This season I got myself a very high block mag Kite shield. All things considered, it'll do.

Also, sidenote for the previous post. I don't think mana is an issue for 1h warrior with a force shield. I have 126.8 interference and get twice the draughts I use. Never use any potions or elixirs. Early on, the interference can hit hard though (as in, in Isekai), but that's mostly a "you take what you get" thing anyway.
---

Regardless, my personal melee adventures in persistent will also soon check out light armor. My 1h melee is in a spot now, where I can easily pfudor IW with using less cures than you can count with one hand. It's not even all that great and/or upgraded. Level does that.. and my newly acquired 10% damage hath perk. (doing way more than what I thought, making me regret not getting it earlier) Plus, the game gave me quite a lot of light armor drops. So.. I figured I might as well. I have that luxury now.

I understand why everyone is saying "go 1h". As someone having restarted to play this at around lvl200 I can definitely agree how good 1h is, especially with relatively quickly being able to clear high difficulties. It took a while (heck, my isekai build was superior to my persistent build quite a bit), but once you have a decent rapier and shield, it only gets better. Still, looking at numbers and light armor, I feel like if you can assemble a decent collection, it could be working faster. 2h for non school girl, DW for school girl.
So, here's where I'd like to try out something, mostly from drops and as such only okay gear. I'm really curious how this'll work, at first completely without forge upgrades and only the weapon IWed.

My current plan for now is using: A Legendary Ethereal Mace of Slaughter (currently IWing it) and
-Legendary Jade Shade Helmet of the Fleet (replaced by Legendary Agile Shade Helmet of the Fleet if things work, as it's currently 5 levels too high for me)
-Peerless Savage Shade Breastplate of Negation
-Magnificent Agile Shade Leggings of the Shadowdancer or Legendary Savage Shade Leggings of the Fleet
-Legendary Agile Shade Gauntlets of the Fleet
-Legendary Agile Shade Boots of the Fleet

Obviously relatively messy gear, but I'm curious. Some people swear on their DW, and I'm curious to see how 2h works. Mostly in terms of lazyness + speed compared to a very typical 1h build.

This post has been edited by killi890: Dec 28 2021, 01:32

Still, looking at numbers and light armor, I feel like if you can assemble a decent collection, it could be working faster. 2h for non school girl, DW for school girl.

---

Obviously relatively messy gear, but I'm curious. Some people swear on their DW, and I'm curious to see how 2h works. Mostly in terms of lazyness + speed compared to a very typical 1h build.

The difference in ADB between light and heavy kinda negates any fighting style advantage DW, 2H or Niten could have, especially since 1H can perma-stance, those others cannot.

You can check out the Battle Records thread for a little reference - heavy DW only comes out very slightly ahead of 1H against schoolgirls. I haven't recorded DW IW/fest yet this way because it's just... a lot more dangerous, and a little slower so far. Light would be significantly slower and leave 1H clearly dominant.

Niten can get away with heavy in arenas, too (although I'm not sure how well it'll fare in SPL). 2H isn't really so lucky, and that is a significant impediment. lololo16 told me before that niten plays fastest in the non-SG arenas, while DW is fastest against SGs.

It's also worth noting that I don't think my DW clears would have been faster than 1H without Manehattan Project. In that case, 1H would have beaten it quite cleanly. Vital Strike is really, really good, combined with perma-stance, and while Frenzied Blows is also fantastic, it's not quite as strong a precision tool, so it's much more RNG-dependent in terms of SG positioning.

I started off as a DW player on persistent and played that up til level 450, and then returned to it at level 500. In season 1 of isekai, I played dual wield using light armors up til floor 90, where I switched to 1H light. It's better than people think, and it can go faster than you'd expect too, but it does take some effort. It's not even remotely close to 1H light in terms of survival, and 1H heavy is still comfortably ahead, but it's still a strong competitor and certainly the closest to it.

I played 2H light on isekai season 2 up til floor 50 in the Tower, which should be roughly comparable to part way through a pfest. It's not pleasant at all, and much weaker than I expected - and I already expected it to be weak. On persistent, you can leverage FRD with a longsword for a little more damage and safety than you can get with just a mace on its own. The lack of avoidance is a killer.

2H, DW and Niten all take significantly more attention than 1H if you want even remotely comparable results. They're not often comfortable and they're certainly not lazy.

This post has been edited by Nezu: Dec 28 2021, 02:07