[X] My Assistant

-snip-

BlueWaterSplash, could you put the description of the game method before each result list? The way you write it gets confusing.

About what you described from the results, I have the same comment made by Sapo84. I have no recent practical results, but I know all my times have gone down after I stopped using Haste and Shadow Veil.

But apparently, Haste seems to help in specific cases (like yours). I also discovered another one with use for Haste: Ring of Bood. For the last two weeks I've been playing RoB FSM, with and without Haste, for both Rapier and Shortsword. These were the best results I got:

Rapier without Haste (Holy + Elec Infusion)(Holy Day): 62 turns
Rapier with Haste (Holy + Elec Infusion)(Elec Day): 49 turns

Shortsword without Haste (Elec + Holy Infusion)(Elec Day): 72 turns
Shortsword with Haste (Elec + Dark Infusion)(Dark Day): 64 turns

Note:
(1) Since I don't use scripts, the turn count was based on the number of turns of Spark of Life. My first action is to cast Spark of Life, see the initial duration, and at the end see how much is left. The difference is the number of turns of the round. It's not ideal, but it's the best I can do. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)
(2) With Rapier, I focus all attacks on FSM until it is defeated (normal attacks + Vital Strike), and then I eliminate the rest (normal attacks + OFC). With Shortsword I use the spreading method, using Vital Strike over the FSM until he gets weak, and finishing with OFC. Individual target does not work with Shortsword and, in this specific case, spreading does not work with Rapier (the results were 10 to 20 more turns).
(3) My Rapier is full forge (ADB 12769), while my Shortsword is forge level 50 (ADB 13053).

Apparently Haste is good against extremely tough monsters.

Note:
(1) Since I don't use scripts, the turn count was based on the number of turns of Spark of Life. My first action is to cast Spark of Life, see the initial duration, and at the end see how much is left. The difference is the number of turns of the round. It's not ideal, but it's the best I can do. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

FYI, the turn count on any buff will be relative to the game speed... you cannot measure turn count using this, if you use two different attack speeds.

Oh yeah, lestion is right! Good catch, and good thing you responded first!

Regardless, megawife also reported that Haste performs better in School Girl arenas. I do not have plans to test those because there are so many different ways to play them.

Haste should be best for very large mobs and maybe also very small mobs of monsters. The biggest mob arenas 60, 65, and 80 performed well with Haste for me. And if the mob is very small like 1~3 monsters, then as long as Haste doesn't cause you to run out of Spirit Stance before you finish, the number of counter attacks is low.

However the majority of arenas have mob sizes like arena 55 and 90, which Haste does worst in. So if you test over all arenas, Haste will be worse. If you want to see competitive Haste results I recommend only doing arena 60, 65, and 80. And maybe School Girl arenas; if it's not on IA then you can start casting Haste when SchoolGirls appear like megawife recommended.

The best result with Haste so far is Fudo's Grindfest. I don't do Grindfest but IW should be similar. I'm considering to test IW100 but I don't have anything I really want to IW100 at the moment. Also I think I'm still too low level so if I play IW100 correctly I probably still need to target monsters individually once it gets tough, which defeats the point of that Haste test.

How do you spread without script?

I'm not a statistically minded person, but just to throw my experience in, I recently started using haste in DwD. Initially this was by mistake, I was trying out a 1h light armour build, and just swapped gear rather than set up a 3rd persona, and threw haste onto IA, but forgot to take it off again when I went back to heavy.

Initially, my turn count was roughly the same as always. I wasn't burning through mana as quick with it on, but as you said the initial rounds were horrendous for staying in Spirit Stance. I struggle to keep permanent spirit stance on the first rounds anyway, but it went worse with haste. It was easier playing though, not needing to mind mana as much. After trying it a handful times, sometimes I got more or less the same as without haste, sometimes it added almost 100 turns onto my time, but not really managed to improve my time yet. Maybe a different attack strategy is needed with haste or something.

I imagine I'd get better results with fully forged gear, but I've been holding off on upgrading too much until recently in the hope of finding a good strategy without upgrades effecting my turn count, so I don't know for sure. I'll be interested to read what some others experienced with haste.

Using Short Sword + imperil, heavy power of protection (2) and warding (3) (1 savage).

On the note of permanent spirit stance, with the exception of it depleting because of vital strike (so in a case where I didn't use skills but just attacked normally inc. imperil), all rounds with at least 1 sg is enough to stay in spirit stance permanently. Without imperil I'd probably stay in permanent spirit stance in the first rounds, but the decreased damage wouldn't be worth it. I can still go a fair few rounds before I have to build it up again though.

Haste isn't supposed to help Imperil styles, at least not according to my current ideas. Although level should matter, I'm not sure gear matters much for Haste tests. However having better slaughter gear with upgrades will help you to power through the early rounds with few monsters before your spirit stance runs out.

Although there appears to be some potential for Haste to improve non-Imperil clear times in large arenas, Item World, and Grindfest, for the most part it should still be considered to worsen clear times by a moderate 2.5% (with infusion) or 5% (without infusion). However this is much less worsening than some people previously believed, as people only explained it via the drop in counter attacks, without fully realizing all the benefits of Haste.

If the worsening in clear time is 2.5% or less then in my opinion avoiding Haste is pointless; most people who meet the playstyle conditions should use it.

People haven't commented yet upon my latest test suggesting that infusions only improve 1H (without Haste) by a pathetic 3~5%. That's pretty small, why bother with it?

People complain about Haste making them slower due to drop in counter attacks; maybe they should also complain that infusions barely matter if you get decent damage from counter attacks. In my tests I was sometimes faster without infusions, though I considered those exceptionally lucky cases and threw the data out.

People haven't commented yet upon my latest test suggesting that infusions only improve 1H (without Haste) by a pathetic 3~5%. That's pretty small, why bother with it?

Even if you consider 3% and you subtract ~5s for casting (with HVUtil you would be even faster but let's take 5s as baseline), if you play HV for 1 hour a day it stills means you're saving 10.5 hours worth of play every year.
Are 2920 infusions worth more than 10.5 hours?
I'd say no.

The best result with Haste so far is Fudo's Grindfest. I don't do Grindfest but IW should be similar. I'm considering to test IW100 but I don't have anything I really want to IW100 at the moment. Also I think I'm still too low level so if I play IW100 correctly I probably still need to target monsters individually once it gets tough, which defeats the point of that Haste test.

Not really, Fests are much tougher.
You can somewhat compare IWTBHFest with IW100, PFUDORFest is on another level entirely.

FYI, the turn count on any buff will be relative to the game speed... you cannot measure turn count using this, if you use two different attack speeds.

I didn't even think about that. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif) Unfortunately I will have to wait for Tenboro to add an official turn counter.

How do you spread without script?

As there are only 4 monsters I just need to press keys 1 to 4 in sequence to try to keep everyone under the effect of Bleeding Wound. And since it's just a single round, I don't have to worry about the time, just the amount of turns.

People haven't commented yet upon my latest test suggesting that infusions only improve 1H (without Haste) by a pathetic 3~5%. That's pretty small, why bother with it?

People complain about Haste making them slower due to drop in counter attacks; maybe they should also complain that infusions barely matter if you get decent damage from counter attacks. In my tests I was sometimes faster without infusions, though I considered those exceptionally lucky cases and threw the data out.

Because it is a basic thought: if it improves then it is used; if it gets worse then it is not used.

It's pretty much the same thing about getting the highest DD levels (6-9) or doing the last 20 or 30 upgrade levels (ADB). The gain is minimal, but everyone still wants to have it. After all, what else can be done, in a simple way, to improve the performance?

I think it depends on your level of wealth and your current power. Most players can't dream of DD6~9 and max forged Slaughter until way past level 500. With infusions, anyone can afford it in a short term, but if you add up the cost to continually use it, how rich should you have to be for it to be worth the cost?

Are 2920 infusions worth more than 10.5 hours?

I guess that's very roughly 600k credits. I dunno, to me that's a lot of money. For nearly all my life I only made 10k per day in arenas. Nowdays I can make more, I don't know how much, but maybe 60k per hour? DwD takes me over half an hour.

So to play for 10 hours I will only make 600k. It's equal to this 600k infusions cost. So doesn't matter one way or the other. Doesn't it suck to be a slow 1H player? ;)

DD1 is roughly 8 million credits, but it increases damage more so that would be equivalent to 2.7 million credits scaled down. But DD1 lasts forever; if you played for 5 years then infusing would be more expensive than DD1.

People do a lot in this game for a 2-3% increase. Increasing stuff by small increments is pretty much the goal for many since the game has no real ending.
Also you didn't add experience gain in the 10 hours comparison - even if let's say infusions don't give you a credits gain, you'll end up with more experience. Not a large difference but then again, small increments, etc.

And hitting stuff for more damage and with more strikes is just cool. That's enough of a reason tbh.

I guess that's very roughly 600k credits. I dunno, to me that's a lot of money. For nearly all my life I only made 10k per day in arenas. Nowdays I can make more, I don't know how much, but maybe 60k per hour? DwD takes me over half an hour.

So to play for 10 hours I will only make 600k. It's equal to this 600k infusions cost. So doesn't matter one way or the other. Doesn't it suck to be a slow 1H player? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

DD1 is roughly 8 million credits, but it increases damage more so that would be equivalent to 2.7 million credits scaled down. But DD1 lasts forever; if you played for 5 years then infusing would be more expensive than DD1.

600k is too much, flames/cold/lightning are worth no more than 120C/piece so we are talking about 300-350k or 30k/hour.
I also assumed you were testing with 2 infusions, but on hindsight 3% seems too low, if it was 3% for each infusion then you can halve the number of infusions to 1460, for a yearly expense of ~160k.
For DwD you would want a dark or holy infusion which would speed up things well above 3% (dark/holy strike do more damage than void against 3 schoolgirls out of 4) so it would need another test entirely.

All in all unless 1H players have very bad clearing speed (very low level, weak equipments, low t/s) infusions are still worth the cost.

The comparison with DD1 is pretty strange, it's apple vs orange, you can pay infusions as you go and they repay themselves immediately, DD1 requires an upfront cost that you may not have available and needs months/years to pay for itself.

Typical monsters at level 500 have between 70%~75% PMit and reaching 80% with chaos upgrades; we might assume they likewise have a similarly high amount of MMit. So I was wondering, how are non-Imperil holy and dark mages viable? Aren't they supposed to be faster than Imperil holy and dark mages, or Imperil elemental mages?

How do mages get through that humongous MMit without Imperil? Prof factor only affects elemental mitigation right?

1H Comparison: Elemental prefix / Featherweight / Ethereal / Haste and Shadow Veil

Equipment
- Peerless Shocking Rapier of Slaughter (Setup A and B)
- Peerless Ethereal Rapier of Slaughter (Setup C and D)
- Peerless Force Shield and Power Slaughters

Key point
- Setup A vs Setup B: No burden (Ethereal or Featherweight Shard) increases an evade chance. Is this a big penalty for 1H?
- Setup B vs Setup C: Elec Strike on Saturday vs Dark Strike on Monday
- Setup C vs Setup D: Haste and Shadow Veil decrease counter-blocks. How much is the effect?

CODE

==============================================================================
                  |      Setup A |      Setup B |      Setup C |      Setup D
==============================================================================
           Rapier |     Shocking |     Shocking |     Ethereal |     Ethereal
           Burden |         61.6 |         55.3 |         55.3 |         55.3
     Evade Chance |        5.7 % |        8.2 % |        8.2 % |        8.2 %
                  |              |     Feather- |              |    Haste and
                  |              |       weight |              |  Shadow Veil
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Day |     Saturday |     Saturday |       Monday |       Monday
         Strike 1 |  Elec Strike |  Elec Strike |  Dark Strike |  Dark Strike
     Spike Shield |        Flame |        Flame |        Flame |        Flame
         Strike 2 |  Cold Strike |  Cold Strike |  Cold Strike |  Cold Strike
==============================================================================
            Kills |        8,349 |        8,336 |        8,336 |        8,362
            Turns |       17,400 |       17,349 |       17,358 |       18,679
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Attacks |       15,664 |       15,595 |       15,608 |       17,181
  Parried Attacks |          349 |          403 |          369 |          258
              OFC |          318 |          321 |          317 |          329
   Spirit Engaged |          304 |          306 |          303 |          335
  Spirit Disabled |          107 |          121 |          119 |           93
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Cure |           54 |           30 |           40 |           21
        Full-Cure |            4 |            1 |            3 |            -
            Regen |          103 |          101 |          107 |           78
      Heartseeker |           35 |           34 |           31 |           28
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Health Draught |          328 |          328 |          328 |          240
     Mana Draught |           24 |           23 |           28 |           24
   Spirit Draught |           54 |           49 |           50 |           36
    Health Potion |            - |            1 |            - |            -
      Mana Potion |            - |            - |            - |            -
    Spirit Potion |            1 |            1 |            - |            -
       Health Gem |           12 |           14 |           13 |           15
         Mana Gem |           14 |           11 |            9 |            7
       Spirit Gem |           10 |            8 |           22 |           15
       Mystic Gem |           19 |            2 |           11 |           19
==============================================================================
  Counter-attacks |       29,278 |       29,013 |       28,991 |       20,745
==============================================================================
  Monster Attacks |       52,290 |       52,795 |       52,630 |       40,875
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Evade |        2,303 |        3,437 |        3,485 |       10,558
                  |     (4.40 %) |     (6.51 %) |     (6.62 %) |    (25.83 %)
            Block |       29,189 |       29,040 |       28,739 |       18,044
                  |    (55.82 %) |    (55.01 %) |    (54.61 %) |    (44.14 %)
            Parry |       12,760 |       12,499 |       12,442 |        7,556
                  |    (24.40 %) |    (23.67 %) |    (23.64 %) |    (18.49 %)
              Hit |        8,038 |        7,819 |        7,964 |        4,717
                  |    (15.37 %) |    (14.81 %) |    (15.13 %) |    (11.54 %)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Monster Skills |       12,924 |       12,692 |       12,917 |        9,889
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Evade |          548 |          859 |          831 |        2,605
                  |     (4.24 %) |     (6.77 %) |     (6.43 %) |    (26.34 %)
            Block |        7,274 |        6,993 |        7,159 |        4,289
                  |    (56.28 %) |    (55.10 %) |    (55.42 %) |    (43.37 %)
            Parry |        3,169 |        3,044 |        3,062 |        1,822
                  |    (24.52 %) |    (23.98 %) |    (23.71 %) |    (18.42 %)
              Hit |        1,933 |        1,796 |        1,865 |        1,173
                  |    (14.96 %) |    (14.15 %) |    (14.44 %) |    (11.86 %)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Monster Spells |        2,670 |        2,810 |        2,678 |        2,226
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
            Evade |          105 |          173 |          165 |          562
                  |     (3.93 %) |     (6.16 %) |     (6.16 %) |    (25.25 %)
            Block |        1,471 |        1,578 |        1,502 |          967
                  |    (55.09 %) |    (56.16 %) |    (56.09 %) |    (43.44 %)
            Parry |            - |            - |            - |            -
              Hit |        1,094 |        1,059 |        1,011 |          697
                  |    (40.97 %) |    (37.69 %) |    (37.75 %) |    (31.31 %)
==============================================================================

1. Cold Strike (NOT Arctic) is the best for grindfest, IW and normal Arenas
1-1. It is because Flame spike shield (damage reduction) is the best. Frost (speed reduction) and Storm (miss chance increase) reduce the counter-attacks. Shock (evade and Resist reduction) does nothing.
1-2. Holy and Dark Strikes are the best against School Girls.

2. Elemental prefix (burden 6.3) vs Ethereal (burden 0, or featherweight charm)
2-1. The evasion difference (1100) between Setup A (2300~) and B/C (3400~) is noticeable.
2-2. But the number is small compared to the total number of attacks (52000~), blocks, parries and
2-3. And Counter-attacks (29000~) too. This is because the number of Counter-Attacks is limited to 3 per a turn.
2-4. As a result, there is no difference in the total number of turns.

3. Turn off Haste and Shadow Veil if you are strong enough.

4. Analysis of Strikes
- NOT ENTIRE ATTACKS: Attacks with 3 strikes only
- Strikes don't 'crit' now, so I treated 'strike hits' after 'You crit' as 'strike crits'.
- Focus on the average hit damage.

CODE

- Dark Strike (Monday) and Cold Strike (Flame spike)
=======================================================================================================================
            - |   total |       damage |  average ||    hit |  average ||   crit |  average |  crit rate |  crit bonus
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          You |  12,027 |  315,848,858 |   26,262 ||  5,538 |   19,361 ||  6,489 |   32,151 |    53.95 % |    166.06 %
  Dark Strike |  12,027 |   62,400,600 |    5,188 ||  5,538 |    5,396 ||  6,489 |    5,011 |    53.95 % |     92.86 %
  Cold Strike |  12,027 |   55,748,816 |    4,635 ||  5,538 |    4,817 ||  6,489 |    4,480 |    53.95 % |     93.00 %
  Void Strike |  12,027 |  111,966,181 |    9,310 ||  5,538 |    9,665 ||  6,489 |    9,006 |    53.95 % |     93.18 %
=======================================================================================================================

- Elec Strike (Saturday) and Cold Strike (Flame spike)
=======================================================================================================================
            - |   total |       damage |  average ||    hit |  average ||   crit |  average |  crit rate |  crit bonus
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          You |  11,979 |  315,356,105 |   26,326 ||  5,415 |   19,006 ||  6,564 |   32,364 |    54.80 % |    170.28 %
  Elec Strike |  11,979 |   55,752,039 |    4,654 ||  5,415 |    4,783 ||  6,564 |    4,548 |    54.80 % |     95.10 %
  Cold Strike |  11,979 |   55,113,393 |    4,601 ||  5,415 |    4,701 ||  6,564 |    4,518 |    54.80 % |     96.10 %
  Void Strike |  11,979 |  110,848,085 |    9,254 ||  5,415 |    9,511 ||  6,564 |    9,041 |    54.80 % |     95.06 %
=======================================================================================================================

- Dark Strike and Cold Strike (Wednesday)
=======================================================================================================================
            - |   total |       damage |  average ||    hit |  average ||   crit |  average |  crit rate |  crit bonus
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          You |  12,118 |  321,884,265 |   26,562 ||  5,523 |   19,157 ||  6,595 |   32,764 |    54.42 % |    171.03 %
  Dark Strike |  12,118 |   51,088,053 |    4,216 ||  5,523 |    4,342 ||  6,595 |    4,110 |    54.42 % |     94.67 %
  Cold Strike |  12,118 |   60,016,869 |    4,953 ||  5,523 |    5,097 ||  6,595 |    4,832 |    54.42 % |     94.80 %
  Void Strike |  12,118 |  113,398,205 |    9,358 ||  5,523 |    9,612 ||  6,595 |    9,145 |    54.42 % |     95.13 %
=======================================================================================================================


- Main Attack: 19,006 - 19,361
- Void Strike: almost 50 % (9,511 - 9,665)
- Dark Strike (day bonus): 27.87 % (5,396 / 19,361)
- Cold Strike (day bonus): 26.61 % (5,097 / 19,157)
- Elec Strike (day bonus): 25.17 % (4,783 / 19,006)
- Cold Strike (spike shield): 24.73 % (4,701 / 19,006), 24.88 % (4,817 / 19,361)
- Dark Strike               : 22.67 % (4,342 / 19,157)

This post has been edited by sssss2: Oct 28 2019, 02:07

I think Cold Strike is best against normal enemies but it's not fully proven. I found a mistake in your original Research for 1H elemental comparison. So it needs to be proved again for today's monster population. The answer does not depend on player level but it depends on average encountered monster PL.

At the time of Research for 1H your result was that Cold Strike and Dark Strike are almost exactly equal, after I tried to fix your method. Today, Cold Strike should be better. But if a lot of new players make weak PL monsters, then Dark Strike could become better again.

Since you have new rapiers now, a Shocking and an Ethereal one, you can repeat the old test without the mistake. The mistake is that when your script gathers the average damage of each element, it artificially favors the First Element. So if you gather data with your Shocking rapier, your result is biased and wrong towards Shocking.

If you gather data with your Ethereal rapier and use 2 infusions, the result will be biased towards the element you infuse first. The bias comes from the order in which the strikes hit the enemy in the battle log.

CODE

==============================================================================
                  |      Setup A |      Setup B |      Setup C |      Setup D
==============================================================================
           Rapier |     Shocking |     Shocking |     Ethereal |     Ethereal
           Burden |         61.6 |         55.3 |         55.3 |         55.3
     Evade Chance |        5.7 % |        8.2 % |        8.2 % |        8.2 %
                  |              |     Feather- |              |    Haste and
                  |              |       weight |              |  Shadow Veil
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Day |     Saturday |     Saturday |       Monday |       Monday
         Strike 1 |  Elec Strike |  Elec Strike |  Dark Strike |  Dark Strike
     Spike Shield |        Flame |        Flame |        Flame |        Flame
         Strike 2 |  Cold Strike |  Cold Strike |  Cold Strike |  Cold Strike
==============================================================================
            Kills |        8,349 |        8,336 |        8,336 |        8,362
            Turns |       17,400 |       17,349 |       17,358 |       18,679
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Comparing Setup B and C, this suggests that Elec Strike is better than Dark Strike. I predict the Dark Strike grindfest should be 1% faster. I guess it could be very bad luck? Perhaps OFC created randomness.

We can estimate the theoretical loss in turns due to the 25% Evade of Shadow Veil. Using some of your old Research for 1H typical data, the loss is 25%*0.75/(0.75+2.4) ≈ 6%. Another way to calculate it is [2.4+0.75/(100%-25%)]/[2.4+0.75] ≈ 1.08 = 8%. For your test today I believe the 6% number is appropriate.

Your Setup D used Haste and Shadow Veil. The turn difference is 18679 / 17358 = 7.6% this means about 6% comes from Shadow Veil and 1.6% comes from Haste.

You proved that 2.5% Evade is not noticeable to your turns. This is pretty easy to believe. This is 1/10 of Shadow Veil so the difference to turns should be 0.6% you should not notice it.

In general, Haste is much better than Shadow Veil, Wind Shield, or Cold Shield for a 1H player. Turn off Shadow Veil first if you are strong enough. As I tested recently, Haste is very good on 1H. I believe Haste is better than Spirit Shield below level 400.

Typical monsters at level 500 have between 70%~75% PMit and reaching 80% with chaos upgrades; we might assume they likewise have a similarly high amount of MMit. So I was wondering, how are non-Imperil holy and dark mages viable? Aren't they supposed to be faster than Imperil holy and dark mages, or Imperil elemental mages?

How do mages get through that humongous MMit without Imperil? Prof factor only affects elemental mitigation right?

brute force. Holy has 'breached defence' which helps a bit. But dark, it's just not optimal and brute force through all that MMit is all we have. It just saves casting imperil all the time, that's all.

Mind you, in arena's brute force rocks. Only in PFFEST does dark mage suck without imperil. Rich bored players just throw in a couple of gums at the end and that's how it's viable.

I'm thinking that Breached Defense will help way more than one might expect at level 500, because when monsters have 80% MMit (albeit most will have lower) then a 10% Mitigation Reduction actually results in a whopping 1.4x damage improvement.

I'm having a hard time envisioning how brute force can be faster. Wouldn't it only take like 3~6 turns to Imperil all the monsters? And in exchange you can cut their MMit from 80% to 40% which is basically doing 3x damage. The numbers are a bit simplified and exaggerated but that's how I'm currently calculating it.

I guess it won't matter if Holy mage just blows everyone away in a few turns but I have no idea what maging looks like yet. The damage of the Holy and Dark spells seem roughly the same as elemental spells. I think the holy and dark staffs happen to be better, though I'm not sure by how much.

If most monsters really have 70% MMit (no chaos) then the MMit halving from Imperil only results in 2x damage. Brute forcing seems more viable under this comparison. Still, this analysis might suggest that if Tenboro increased the maximum player level, or increased the stats of monsters, that elemental mages could become better than Holy and Dark.

This post has been edited by BlueWaterSplash: Oct 22 2019, 12:38

I'm thinking that Breached Defense will help way more than one might expect at level 500, because when monsters have 80% MMit (albeit most will have lower) then a 10% Mitigation Reduction actually results in a whopping 1.4x damage improvement.

I'm having a hard time envisioning how brute force can be faster. Wouldn't it only take like 3~6 turns to Imperil all the monsters? And in exchange you can cut their MMit from 80% to 40% which is basically doing 3x damage. The numbers are a bit simplified and exaggerated but that's how I'm currently calculating it.

I guess it won't matter if Holy mage just blows everyone away in a few turns but I have no idea what maging looks like yet. The damage of the Holy and Dark spells seem roughly the same as elemental spells. I think the holy and dark staffs happen to be better, though I'm not sure by how much.

If most monsters really have 70% MMit (no chaos) then the MMit halving from Imperil only results in 2x damage. Brute forcing seems more viable under this comparison. Still, this analysis might suggest that if Tenboro increased the maximum player level, or increased the stats of monsters, that elemental mages could become better than Holy and Dark.

So part of the reason non-imperil can work compared is that mages have lots and lots of damage. Imperiled monsters are 1shot by the T3 in almost all cases - possibly excluding max-level giants, and when they get a 50% resist. This means that beyond the threshold required to reach that sort of damage - relatively low! - there are few turn savings from things like peerless-level EDB, radiant phases, DD levels, etc. You do still gain a few turns here and there against pesky giants (see sssss2's numbers - for comparison, as a lower geared but still fully forged elec mage with a very nice redwood staff - I do a similar number of T3s, but more T2s and T1s - maybe 200 of each more).

Non-imperil, however, can make the full use of that raw damage on every round. But it may also be faster in real-time because it avoids the tedium of casting imperil (though it's also more dangerous and will require more healing, because of spell time modifiers).

Elemental is about as good as dark, if not marginally better, for non-imperil. The dark debuff is not that good. Some of the problems faced by dark players include not being able to reach 1.0 prof factor as 4+1 unless you're using a Katalox staff rather than Willow, and slower natural spell cast speeds on their damaging spells making them take more attacks.

In contrast, elemental mages do the same amount of damage, but with arguably better debuffs (elec for raw damage, cold and wind both have excellent survival increases) and can reach 1.0 using more common elemental redwoods (staff distribution is equal across types, but elemental prefixes are 15% each rather than holy/dark's 10%, and while Katalox has 1 fewer suffix it has even distribution across them, while Redwood is weighted towards Destruction). Elemental mages also use less mana! for what little that matters (both as a dark mage and elec mage I have been comfortable grinding fests without using mana elixirs at all, nor ever using coalesced mana).

I cannot comment on how holy actually plays in non-imperil, because I have neither experience nor data. But likely it is still slightly faster than optimal imperil setups, while also requiring less input to actually play.

This post has been edited by lestion: Oct 22 2019, 13:06

Thanks for that detailed reply. Despite never seeing maging, I think am getting a decent idea of what it might be like. Everything you say makes sense, and what scares me is that by now I think I can almost understand everything you say haha.

Maging is still very far off for me but I'm starting to think about it and keep an eye on interesting items that might appear. Sometimes the mechanics of maging and melee can be slightly related; for example lately people have debated the merits of Imperil in melee and this brings up similar ideas in maging. I'm not decided on what element I would use, but I've also considered nearly all the ideas you brought up. Maybe I would use whatever I found on the ground from monsters.

Or if monsters gave me nothing but 500m credits fell out of the sky into my pocket that would be great, too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

Thanks for that detailed reply. Despite never seeing maging, I think am getting a decent idea of what it might be like. Everything you say makes sense, and what scares me is that by now I think I can almost understand everything you say haha.

Maging is still very far off for me but I'm starting to think about it and keep an eye on interesting items that might appear. Sometimes the mechanics of maging and melee can be slightly related; for example lately people have debated the merits of Imperil in melee and this brings up similar ideas in maging. I'm not decided on what element I would use, but I've also considered nearly all the ideas you brought up. Maybe I would use whatever I found on the ground from monsters.

Or if monsters gave me nothing but 500m credits fell out of the sky into my pocket that would be great, too. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/heh.gif)

I agree with Lestion - however don't underestimate the sheer power of dark. It does a lot of damage. That means that in arena's they all die in the same time it would take me to imperil the lot. So non-imperil is a lot faster in arena's. And, bear in mind that we do play imperil against SG's. All mages. There is no non-imperil play against SG.

So basically, with my 0.958 prof factor 4+1 set, I can breeze through 500 rounds of PFFEST, and then it gets dangerous. But proficiency is still not at max, and it will improve further. We'll see how 'bad' non-imperil dark is when I'm at 600 base prof, and at DD VII.

By the way - elemental spell damage is not the same as dark. T1 and T2 are a tiny bit less powerful.
https://ehwiki.org/wiki/Spell_Damage

Tiny bits are important in HV

This post has been edited by DJNoni: Oct 22 2019, 14:57

By the way - elemental spell damage is not the same as dark. T1 and T2 are a tiny bit less powerful.
https://ehwiki.org/wiki/Spell_Damage

Tiny bits are important in HV

Dark Willow of Destruction is also significantly more powerful than any *element* Redwood of Destruction.
0 MDB difference
+ 4.82 EDB - 2.14 prof (they even each other out)
+0.9 WIS - 1.50 INT (minor difference, well below 0.5% damage in favor of Redwood)
+13.59 CR (at least 3% damage in PFUDOR)

(Katalox is crap, lower EDB and no CR, prof alone can't compensate that)

Dark also has DoT in the form of Ripened Soul, which adds a low but still visible amount of damage.

Dark Willow of Destruction is also significantly more powerful than any *element* Redwood of Destruction.
0 MDB difference
+ 4.82 EDB - 2.14 prof (they even each other out)
+0.9 WIS - 1.50 INT (minor difference, well below 0.5% damage in favor of Redwood)
+13.59 CR (at least 3% damage in PFUDOR)

(Katalox is crap, lower EDB and no CR, prof alone can't compensate that)

Dark also has DoT in the form of Ripened Soul, which adds a low but still visible amount of damage.

Redwood and Katalox are essentially analogous: the EDB rolls are the same, the MDB rolls are the same, and the lack of CR is obviously the same. Even disregarding the prof difference (though it does make a difference), Redwood/Katalox should beat out Willow for non-imperil, and I will show you the numbers for this in a subsequent post. (Note: actually it's not! See the tables for proof.)

The DoT is basically negligible in all my time playing dark (it added up to something like 0.06% damage) but that is for imperil play. For non-imperil play, it may be slightly more significant (though whether this actually adds up to a turn saved in real play, I strongly doubt).

If any of my numbers are wrong regarding the differences between Katalox and Redwood, please do tell me. I do not have conclusive game evidence of this - only wiki formulas and peerless redwoods to compare against.

This post has been edited by lestion: Nov 1 2019, 00:36