[X] My Assistant

Basically, you want him to almost permanently increase credit drops from mobs by 50% and player damage by 25%. That seems reasonable. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I play at Great all the time, so yeah, pretty much. It limits the number of rounds I can go in GF, for instance, but that was gonna be true regardless (no awesome equips).

Basically, you want him to almost permanently increase credit drops from mobs by 50% and player damage by 25%. That seems reasonable. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

1) Permanent Great status was possible in Crysfest before it was removed. I know because I used to maintain permanent Great when I maged in Normal Crysfest.

2) Staying permanently on Great stamina on the higher difficulty settings is still possible now. It's only impossible on Normal difficulty because you clear more rounds and Great stamina wears off long before you die.

Given that it has been possible in the past on all difficulty settings, and is still possible on higher difficulty settings, then yes, I'd say it does seem reasonable.

Besides, if he doesn't want to change the stamina burn I did offer an alternative suggestions that you conveniently ignored:

If you don't want to do that you you could reduce the chance of getting Energy Drinks from artefacts. With max Archaeologist and Scavenger you get way more than you need.

Edit: I just notice you're level 24. Why are you even bothering to post when it's clear you don't have a clue? If I'd noticed your level I wouldn't have even wasted my time replying (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Anyway, my general point point is that Energy Drinks are useless because you can no longer maintain permanent Great status as you could in Normal Crysfest, and you can no longer sell them because few people buy them. They need to either be given a purpose or the chance of getting one from an artefact needs to be reduced.

This post has been edited by TheTornPrince: Mar 16 2013, 05:19

They serve a purpose with me. I use several a day in order to clear my arenas with great stamina. Not to mention I use them for item world so I can clear it faster. I never have enough e-drinks. Very few people have max scavenger and max arch.

Introduce some kind of battle mode that uses a lot more Stamina for better drop rates or something. Just enough so that it's only good for people who play only a bit each day and not too much to make it attractive to more frequent players.

And my final question, if you think holy/dark has so many advantages, why haven't you changed? Is it because they costs too much? And still dish out inferior damage to your elemental set?

Holy/Dark is the rich/high level players thing.
I hope you realize unless they are really lucky with drops a normal player will never have the Credits needed. And even if he manages to get some good pieces, how should he upgrade it when the Reforge Costs are too high?

And no playing 10 hours a day is not normal (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Anyway, my general point point is that Energy Drinks are useless because you can no longer maintain permanent Great status as you could in Normal Crysfest, and you can no longer sell them because few people buy them. They need to either be given a purpose or the chance of getting one from an artefact needs to be reduced.

How about letting stamina go over 100 if you use ED? of course, stamina will not regenerate when >99.

They serve a purpose with me. I use several a day in order to clear my arenas with great stamina. Not to mention I use them for item world so I can clear it faster. I never have enough e-drinks. Very few people have max scavenger and max arch.

I've got too many (about 1250). That would have been 22.5million worth when they used to sell for 18K, but now I probably couldn't sell them I tried (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

How about letting stamina go over 100 if you use ED? of course, stamina will not regenerate when >99.

I agree completely, but this idea has been suggested before and Tenboro doesn't like it (not sure why).

Edit: I just notice you're level 24. Why are you even bothering to post when it's clear you don't have a clue? If I'd noticed your level I wouldn't have even wasted my time replying (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Because I'm not a dumb fuck like you. Also, this shit isn't hard to figure out.

Suppose someone wants to do all of the non-boss slog arenas. That's 1073 rounds or 53.65 great stamina. If that person wants to do them all at great stamina, they have to use 2 Energy Drinks. Under your change, they'd use a total of 10.73 stamina and get the 50% increase in credit drops and 25% increase in damage throughout the whole thing without having to expend anything. That's a straight credit boost to that person and since Tenboro has consistently nerfed credit gains, that goes against his style.

Also, even if they are useless, they are a lot better to get from an artifact than 100 crystals. At a 3000c bazaar sale price, you can sell them and buy more crystals than you get as a reward.

This post has been edited by traficantj: Mar 16 2013, 07:31

Holy/Dark is the rich/high level players thing.
I hope you realize unless they are really lucky with drops a normal player will never have the Credits needed. And even if he manages to get some good pieces, how should he upgrade it when the Reforge Costs are too high?

And no playing 10 hours a day is not normal (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

So wait.

You want elemental mages to deal close to the damage holy/dark deals but be 5-10x cheaper?

Pick a choice. Pay 10x for more damage or stick to elemental maging.

Plus, it's not like entry-level holy/dark gear is terribly expensive. With enough determination you can gather a decent set for ~2M credits, more than attainable by pretty much anyone.

I still don't see why elemental mages should get special treatment over holy/dark.

T1 reducing mana consumption: False past roughly level 120 or so?(what PK said on stragglers) After that you'd need very strong and forged gear - you'd reach the point where t2 with aether and econ5 gives you nigh-infinite mana before, which makes it moot. I'd like to remind you, Chosen, that you yourselfonly recently managed to get enough damage to start ohkoing Celestia consistently with t3s and that T1s do half the damage of T3s.

Now imagine if every mob of that PL class save one or two was Celestia. Yeah, t1s aren't gonna work.

Also, holy/dark costing 10x of equivalent elemental phase: Well, this reminds me of longswords....The market determines that price. There wouldn't be such price difference it the elements weren't so different. If all elements were more equivalent holy dark wouldn't be so expensive either due falling prices due suddenly not every mage who can gather more than 1kk trying for holy/dark.

After all, even with 0.1x the value, take a minutes to try to list five mainstay elemental mages who participate in the forums.

It's like with your staff, you have invested in it far too much. Which kinda moots the cost.

This post has been edited by Lement: Mar 16 2013, 09:39

Well, then show me a legendary phase robe of some elemental suffix that costs 15M? Or a legendary ebony/redwood staff that costs 20M? The priciest elemental items I've seen costs 1/10th that. So if you have 10M burning in the bank, you'll go much, much further buying elemental items compared to holy/dark. With 10M, you can probably get a full set of legendary phase + a legendary staff with some digging, and even forge it a little. Holy/dark? Forget it. The best you can get is a legendary oak + superior phases, and maybe one or two legendary gossamers. Forget forging. Don't believe me? Look in WTS.

You seem to be missing part of the point there. If Elemental was as effective as Holy/Dark, it would cost as much as Holy/Dark. The Phase is just as rare, it costs much less because it doesn't work as well (Katalox on the other hand actually is far rarer than Ebony/Redwood). The forging materials cost the same whether you're working with Niflheim or Fenrir, which is why my Phase remains unforged. I give you a 20 million Credit Ebony Staff, from a time when there was far less money floating around.

T1 massively reduces your mana consumption, especially in the first 300 or so rounds of grindfest.

And you seem to have a misconception about holy/dark maging. Both holy/dark needs to imperil a lot, as well. I personally have a list of more than 10 mobs that I will have to imperil or they fuck me sideways. Same is true for dark.

At your level, some mobs are getting into the whole stupid accelerating returns on MMI thing as they close in on 80%+ MMI and the EHP just gets absurd. With any luck, post-MMI patch, that list will pretty much be a list of Chaosed up mobs that just happen to fuck Holy.

I'd argue from the perspective of game design that Tenboro designed maging so that there's a natural progression towards holy/dark maging. How the ability tree is structured, then to how the monsters are designed with much higher base resistance.

The thing there, is that Elemental and Holy/Dark were roughly equal before Monster Lab and 0.6.1 making Exquisite+ stuff actually drop showed up. Part of that was the ratings bug, of course, which made everything melt face. Now, well, yeah. . .

And my final question, if you think holy/dark has so many advantages, why haven't you changed? Is it because they costs too much? And still dish out inferior damage to your elemental set?

Because I'm a stubborn bastard, mainly. And my Elemental prof is 90% of level while my Divine/Forbidden profs suck hard, so yes, right now I do hit rather harder with Fimbulvetr than Pestilence. Between prof and gear, I do about twice as much damage before resist with Cold, which will overcome a helluva lot of inherent advantages as far as actually killing things goes (Cold Score ~13889, Dark Score ~6885, hand calculated. Dark Score would be about 11400 if profs were equalized).

That said, even with my terribad profs and very meh Fenrir set, they both kill schoolgirls at about the same rate.

Because I'm not a dumb fuck like you. Also, this shit isn't hard to figure out.

Suppose someone wants to do all of the non-boss slog arenas. That's 1073 rounds or 53.65 great stamina. If that person wants to do them all at great stamina, they have to use 2 Energy Drinks. Under your change, they'd use a total of 10.73 stamina and get the 50% increase in credit drops and 25% increase in damage throughout the whole thing without having to expend anything. That's a straight credit boost to that person and since Tenboro has consistently nerfed credit gains, that goes against his style.

Also, even if they are useless, they are a lot better to get from an artifact than 100 crystals. At a 3000c bazaar sale price, you can sell them and buy more crystals than you get as a reward.

Pretty sure that Frith gets more than 100 Crystals from Artifacts. Crystarium 3. This shit isn't hard to figure out. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by PK678353: Mar 16 2013, 10:55

So wait.

You want elemental mages to deal close to the damage holy/dark deals but be 5-10x cheaper?

Pick a choice. Pay 10x for more damage or stick to elemental maging.

Plus, it's not like entry-level holy/dark gear is terribly expensive. With enough determination you can gather a decent set for ~2M credits, more than attainable by pretty much anyone.

I still don't see why elemental mages should get special treatment over holy/dark.

So elemental mages should remain forever inferior to holy/dark mages because they don't spend as much on their gear? But elemental mages spend less on their gear because elemental magic was never buffed to stay competitive. I just don't see the rationale behind using reactionary player-driven market values of items as an argument against something being improved. Unless my memory is completely faulty, two or three years ago today, a good Mjolnir phase suit would have required a small fortune to build because lightning/fire was the combination to use, but despite that, lightning/fire eventually fell to the wayside in favor of holy/dark.

With 10M, you can probably get a full set of legendary phase + a legendary staff with some digging, and even forge it a little.

I spent 20M assembling my legendary Freyr suit, and I haven't even bothered forging it beyond the materials that my shitty monsters have accumulated over the years. The price would have actually been between 20-30M had I not gotten lucky deals for a couple of pieces. Every phase piece has legendary-max EDB, and had I had a higher standard for INT and WIS PABs, I probably would have ended up spending even more, but then I probably would have ended up waiting years for pieces of that caliber to come along.

T1 massively reduces your mana consumption, especially in the first 300 or so rounds of grindfest.

Okay, but is going thousands of rounds into a Grindfest for drops and shit not an end-game activity in HV? If the massive reduction in MP consumption conferred by elemental T1 spells is so advantageous, you would see top-tier mages switching to elemental damage types -- but you don't; hito is the only person I can name, and even then, I think he used a mix of wind/holy phase. Part of the reason is because they invested tens to hundreds of millions into their holy/dark suits and thus don't want to put that effort to waste by switching to something else (I don't blame them), but also because elemental magic doesn't offer enough to persuade them to do so.

T1 spells are also useless on higher difficulties. On BT and IWBTH, I almost exclusively use T3s to deal the bulk of my damage. And on Normal, I usually can't one-shot rounds with T1 spells; it usually takes 1-3 casts (not including resists). Seeing Cyclone deal less than 10000 damage is a regular occurrence. Dumping 80 more Destruction Bindings on my staff (which I will do eventually) might solve that problem, but I don't think it's a realistic solution for most people, and it certainly doesn't make elemental magic more appealing if the investment bar is set that high.

I'd argue from the perspective of game design that Tenboro designed maging so that there's a natural progression towards holy/dark maging. How the ability tree is structured, then to how the monsters are designed with much higher base resistance.

I have a hard time believing that back when ability tiers were introduced in 2009 or whenever, and we were fighting Ancient Green Slimes on gallery index pages, Tenboro had already decided that in 2013, elemental mages would be boot-fucked by oppressive resistances. Hell, according to the revamp thread, he didn't even imagine monsters becoming as powerful as they are now. I actually think elemental damage types were still competitive back when the Monster Lab was first introduced, but over time, especially with the introduction of Crystarium and Chaos Upgrades, they started falling behind.

Nobody is calling for holy/dark to be nerfed into oblivion; I'm actually fine with holy/dark remaining superior, but I don't think it would hurt making elemental magic more competitive. I think every mage being funneled into one of two damage types is fucking boring.

Holy/dark is not that superior to elemental except for the last arenas. It's more a matter of how much you invested in your gear and your perks. You could find staves almost on par with hito's one before it got merged into redwood

Really?
I have never seen a staff match hito's staff base rolls in, say, both prof and damage.
If there truly are staves that are so close to hito's I'd certainly be happy because it means I could still improve a lot upon my current.

Also, such staves would be above any possible katalox of course.

why not just make elementals only have high res corresponding to its chosen ele attack then? Would make more sense than the way it is now. Though I imagine this has already been suggested before and either knocked back or ignored.

Really?
I have never seen a staff match hito's staff base rolls in, say, both prof and damage.
If there truly are staves that are so close to hito's I'd certainly be happy because it means I could still improve a lot upon my current.

Also, such staves would be above any possible katalox of course.

A legendary ebony staff of the elementalist with the prefix of your choice of course it depends on your gear, forging and maybe level.

So elemental mages should remain forever inferior to holy/dark mages because they don't spend as much on their gear?

Absolutely! If you can't afford to spend money forging your shit, don't complain that it's weak.
Until recently when Hito stopped giving a shit about HV, as a wind mage he was at the forefront of HV.

I spent 20M assembling my legendary Freyr suit, and I haven't even bothered forging it beyond the materials that my shitty monsters have accumulated over the years. The price would have actually been between 20-30M had I not gotten lucky deals for a couple of pieces. Every phase piece has legendary-max EDB, and had I had a higher standard for INT and WIS PABs, I probably would have ended up spending even more, but then I probably would have ended up waiting years for pieces of that caliber to come along.

There in lies your problem. You don't forge. Have you tried holy maging without forging? Or dark maging without forging?

I spent just as much on 3 pieces of holy gear, and probably a lot more credits for forging to be where I am today. I'm certain that if hito is still around he won't be complaining about anything else other than resist. Maybe he might complain that he has to take 25 mins for IWBTH DwD now...

Okay, but is going thousands of rounds into a Grindfest for drops and shit not an end-game activity in HV? If the massive reduction in MP consumption conferred by elemental T1 spells is so advantageous, you would see top-tier mages switching to elemental damage types -- but you don't; hito is the only person I can name, and even then, I think he used a mix of wind/holy phase. Part of the reason is because they invested tens to hundreds of millions into their holy/dark suits and thus don't want to put that effort to waste by switching to something else (I don't blame them), but also because elemental magic doesn't offer enough to persuade them to do so.

Hito use pure wind for everything other than IWBTH FSM IIRC. And he was able to clear rounds with t1 until roughly 800 rounds into normfests. And you say that t1 is not advantageous?

T1 spells are also useless on higher difficulties. On BT and IWBTH, I almost exclusively use T3s to deal the bulk of my damage. And on Normal, I usually can't one-shot rounds with T1 spells; it usually takes 1-3 casts (not including resists). Seeing Cyclone deal less than 10000 damage is a regular occurrence. Dumping 80 more Destruction Bindings on my staff (which I will do eventually) might solve that problem, but I don't think it's a realistic solution for most people, and it certainly doesn't make elemental magic more appealing if the investment bar is set that high.

As I've said above, if you're not willing to invest until end-game like some of us do then you shouldn't complain that you lack damage, because you haven't tried out the alternative.

And forging costs are roughly the same between elemental and holy/dark mage gear.

I have a hard time believing that back when ability tiers were introduced in 2009 or whenever, and we were fighting Ancient Green Slimes on gallery index pages, Tenboro had already decided that in 2013, elemental mages would be boot-fucked by oppressive resistances. Hell, according to the revamp thread, he didn't even imagine monsters becoming as powerful as they are now. I actually think elemental damage types were still competitive back when the Monster Lab was first introduced, but over time, especially with the introduction of Crystarium and Chaos Upgrades, they started falling behind.

No, of course not. However, in the initial design of the ability tiers, there's a clear "progression" towards holy/dark magic.

In addition to that, if you look at how the monster lab's initial resistance table is set up, there's a clear indication that there's a progression to maging: elemental -> holy -> dark.

A legendary ebony staff of the elementalist with the prefix of your choice of course it depends on your gear, forging and maybe level.

Nah. No way. Hito's staff has the rolls of a prefix on EDB+several suffixes. When speaking of legendary ebony stats just before their retiring.

Absolutely! If you can't afford to spend money forging your shit, don't complain that it's weak.
Until recently when Hito stopped giving a shit about HV, as a wind mage he was at the forefront of HV.
There in lies your problem. You don't forge. Have you tried holy maging without forging? Or dark maging without forging?

Hito. . .

I spent just as much on 3 pieces of holy gear, and probably a lot more credits for forging to be where I am today. I'm certain that if hito is still around he won't be complaining about anything else other than resist. Maybe he might complain that he has to take 25 mins for IWBTH DwD now...

Hito. . .

Hito use pure wind for everything other than IWBTH FSM IIRC. And he was able to clear rounds with t1 until roughly 800 rounds into normfests. And you say that t1 is not advantageous?

Hito. . .

As I've said above, if you're not willing to invest until end-game like some of us do then you shouldn't complain that you lack damage, because you haven't tried out the alternative.
And forging costs are roughly the same between elemental and holy/dark mage gear.

Wait, I thought we had lower costs? Like 10x lower? And while I know you were talking to n125 there, for me, how many level <250 mages do you see with heavily forged gear?

No, of course not. However, in the initial design of the ability tiers, there's a clear "progression" towards holy/dark magic.

In addition to that, if you look at how the monster lab's initial resistance table is set up, there's a clear indication that there's a progression to maging: elemental -> holy -> dark.

Yeah, they have that progression, which then goes to Soul. So clearly, by design, Soul should be the ultimate build, rather than headed for the trash head as soon as Tenboro figures out how to deal with the loose ends.

Nah. No way. Hito's staff has the rolls of a prefix on EDB+several suffixes. When speaking of legendary ebony stats just before their retiring.

It's a little closer than you'd think. Leg Tempestuous Ebony Elementalist would be about what, 25-30% higher prof and a hair more EDB, but Hito's would be something like 50% higher MDB. It's still far and away better than anything we can get our hands on, still basically a Legendary Ebony Staff of Destruction and the Elementalist.

This post has been edited by PK678353: Mar 16 2013, 13:11

Hito. . .

Hito. . .

Hito. . .

Wait, I thought we had lower costs? Like 10x lower? And while I know you were talking to n125 there, for me, how many level <250 mages do you see with heavily forged gear?
Yeah, they have that progression, which then goes to Soul. So clearly, by design, Soul should be the ultimate build, rather than headed for the trash head as soon as Tenboro figures out how to deal with the loose ends.

Mmkay. Why can't I mention hito? Is it because he breaks all of your arguments?

Also, the reason soul sucks is because there's no EDB for it. Plus, the mana cost is horrendous.

This post has been edited by ChosenUno: Mar 16 2013, 13:10