[X] My Assistant

After seeing how much Teeda's Estoc sold for, I'd be curious how much this would be worth. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)
Any rough estimates?

at least 5kk. mb over 7-8.
upd: and here just no good estoc in WTS. I'm tried to buy estoc about mounth. This was my third try.

This post has been edited by irvin123455: Nov 23 2012, 14:03

at least 5kk. mb over 7-8.
upd: and here just no good estoc in WTS. I'm tried to buy estoc about mounth. This was my third try.

I think its silly to give up all the damage & speed from slaughter to use battlecaster or Illithid weapons.

5m credits for something like that? Damn just get any old high damage estoc and use the credits to upgrade it.

I think its silly to give up all the damage & speed from slaughter to use battlecaster or Illithid weapons.

5m credits for something like that? Damn just get any old high damage estoc and use the credits to upgrade it.

Oh you silly damage wankers... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) I'm pretty much satisfied with my battlecaster estoc, mana saving is much more important than weapon damage.

Oh you silly damage wankers... (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) I'm pretty much satisfied with my battlecaster estoc, mana saving is much more important than weapon damage.

maybe you are doing something wrong to be using so much mana, even when not using shards.

maybe you are doing something wrong to be using so much mana, even when not using shards.

I don't like shards, because they're time-limited. Plus it's always good to have more mana and less mana consumption. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I don't like shards, because they're time-limited. Plus it's always good to have more mana and less mana consumption. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

more turns per round = more mana used & more times you need to recast spells.

most people have 13 slots, its not going to kill ya to use a few potions so you can take less time clearing something. Less time sent doing something is always more important then a few mana pots

its always good to have higher mana regen so you gain mana every turn, then it is to just have less mana consumption but still burn mana every turn in upkeep.

at least 5kk. mb over 7-8.
upd: and here just no good estoc in WTS. I'm tried to buy estoc about mounth. This was my third try.

Damn, that's a lot, thanks.
Even if it's less for people like 4EverLost, 600k was still a really good deal then, lol.

maybe you are doing something wrong to be using so much mana, even when not using shards.

Well, Hath Perks probably pay a huge role in that, too. With IA5, Rainbow Aura, Goldstar and a ton of WIS plain upkeep will become most likely a non-issue.
Just did To Kill a God on IWBTH (accidentially of course <.<) ended up using 3 greater, 1 superior and 1 godly mana potion, I'm curious how much that'd have been without the Illithid weapon.

Damn, that's a lot, thanks.
Even if it's less for people like 4EverLost, 600k was still a really good deal then, lol.
Well, Hath Perks probably pay a huge role in that, too. With IA5, Rainbow Aura, Goldstar and a ton of WIS plain upkeep will become most likely a non-issue.
Just did To Kill a God on IWBTH (accidentially of course <.<) ended up using 3 greater, 1 superior and 1 godly mana potion, I'm curious how much that'd have been without the Illithid weapon.

would it break your bank if you used 5 godly mana pots? It would take 3 turns maybe to get the credits to buy new ones if you didn't find 20 new ones in that run.

What you should also look at is how many turns did each round take. If you can cut 5-10 turns/round or even more, that could save you a lot more mana then the few points you get from one monster using Illithid.

If mana is a real problem then using a Illithid weapon for schoolgirls may be something to try but wouldn't just using focus fill recover your mana faster.

my upkeep when using heavy is 4.22 MP/round without shards (4 IA slots) and magic regen is 41.8, So I only shard stuff when doing schoolgirls or CF/IW. Having more IA slots is nice bu I only had 2 IA for years and it worked just fine. I only got the others because its kind of a pain to cast so many spells at the start of a run.

When I do runs of +1000 rounds I only take in 5 godly mana pots, the rest are spirit & an ED. Once you get your magic regen to cover the cost of IA and still gain some magic each turn you can go a very long time before you even need to use your first potion. You can do that by IA slots and keeping 1-2 of them empty, high WIS and auras.

@Temchy, i think i used 6-7 godlies when i did it w/ eth slaughter estoc, but that's cuz i already knew it wouldnt take me anywhere near all my potions, so didn't really bother to be conservative. Also used a spirit potion, but that's cuz i never know what my base spirit is.

wouldn't a forged to heck ithilid weapon be useful for over-long crysfest runs? Since shards are timed, the effects wouldn't last if you park and sleep and come back later to continue, etc, etc. I remember seeing the ithilid scythe frith was using, w/ more weapon damage than my exq slaughter scythe (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

This post has been edited by etothex: Nov 23 2012, 18:18

would it break your bank if you used 5 godly mana pots? It would take 3 turns maybe to get the credits to buy new ones if you didn't find 20 new ones in that run.

What you should also look at is how many turns did each round take. If you can cut 5-10 turns/round or even more, that could save you a lot more mana then the few points you get from one monster using Illithid.

If mana is a real problem then using a Illithid weapon for schoolgirls may be something to try but wouldn't just using focus fill recover your mana faster.

my upkeep when using heavy is 4.22 MP/round without shards (4 IA slots) and magic regen is 41.8, So I only shard stuff when doing schoolgirls or CF/IW. Having more IA slots is nice bu I only had 2 IA for years and it worked just fine. I only got the others because its kind of a pain to cast so many spells at the start of a run.

When I do runs of +1000 rounds I only take in 5 godly mana pots, the rest are spirit & an ED. Once you get your magic regen to cover the cost of IA and still gain some magic each turn you can go a very long time before you even need to use your first potion. You can do that by IA slots and keeping 1-2 of them empty, high WIS and auras.

I agree for the most part.
Using more mana pots won't hurt my wallet, however, affording an ~equivalent slaughter estoc probably will, on top of finding someone actually selling one. This was my old estoc, so the illithid one was clearly an upgrade.

For the normal arenas slaughter will surely always be better (although, the first time, with level ~230 i think?, I went into kill a god I ran out of pots) so it all comes down to the schoolgirls, I won't be trying them before 300 though, so I can't say anything about those yet.

The upkeep<=mana regn part is important, I'm at 3.4/round without shards and got 23.7 mana regen, so still ways off. And I don't think I'll be fine with less than those three (haste, prot, ss).

edit: also, forging and the rest of the gear isn't unimportant, too. The higher the AD forge, the higher the difference, currently slaughter would be ~450 or so damage higher, at forge100 it'd be 900, quite a difference, but unaffordable for me.
Not to mention that you have one of (if not the) best melee sets around and mine is above average, if even.

This post has been edited by Temchy: Nov 23 2012, 18:26

4everlost: You are indeed correct in your reasoning, but for those who cannot wield six pieces of slaughter, wearing an Illthid/BC weapon tends to be a better option than switching a piece for plate. As well as those who don't have the magic regen auras.

etothex: Yes, but you want to mage crysfest anyway. It's also a question of depth.

Anomtai: Make it flash to another color maybe once in a second, not once in 0.1 second at least. It's garish.

This post has been edited by Lement: Nov 23 2012, 18:22

@Temchy, i think i used 6-7 godlies when i did it w/ eth slaughter estoc, but that's cuz i already knew it wouldnt take me anywhere near all my potions, so didn't really bother to be conservative. Also used a spirit potion, but that's cuz i never know what my base spirit is.

wouldn't a forged to heck ithilid weapon be useful for over-long crysfest runs? Since shards are timed, the effects wouldn't last if you park and sleep and come back later to continue, etc, etc. I remember seeing the ithilid scythe frith was using, w/ more weapon damage than my exq slaughter scythe (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

How long do you sleep? 15 feather shards only cost about 10k and that would last 12 hours for each piece of armor. You could sell 1 artifact or some gems to cover the cost of that.

One of the reasons why I was testing different things in CF as melee was to help him. He is renting the scythe and he now wants a high damage weapon so he can clear rounds faster. The more turns it takes per round the more time monsters have to use their special attacks. I am able to do a lot more rounds using high phy mit + estoc then he is using shield + ithilid scythe on normal. The one time I tried it I did 3688 rounds, if I did it again I should be able to get 4500-5000 but I won't because I get more crystals doing BT-IWBTH.

If he is able to get a really good weapon & change his gear a little he should be able to get more crystals in less time.

Lement:
I use all slaughter for IW & Arenas but when I do CF I use a mix of slaughter, turtle, protection.

A weapon is the best way to get higher damage, to lose all the damage from slaughter to use ithilid or something just isn't the best thing if you can make it up someplace else. Changing a piece of Power/Slaughter for Power/Protection or Plate/Protection to gain phy mit so you take less damage and need to cast cure less is a better way to conserve your magic points.

Here I just tested something, Using a Exquisite Ethereal Scythe of the Illithid it has Siphon Magic: 23% chance - 7.1 points

19 1 You drain 7.1 MP from Elizabeth

10 1 You drain 7.1 MP from Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen

once I drained Eila I targeted Elizabeth, and it took 9 turns before it worked. I used focus and Recovered 44 points of magic (-25 OC) it took 3-4 attacks to get back to 280% So at the best you could use Illithid and get a few points every 4 turns or use focus and get a ton more every 4 turns. If you need to recover magic points then Focus > Illithid + all the damage you lose by using it.

@ my level that scythe has 1253 damage, a good slaughter scythe will have about 2000 damage and if its upgraded the higher base damage will push it to the 3500-4000 range. That is a lot of damage/killing speed to give up when focus does the job better.

Assuming full Superior max stats, you sacrifice more damage by switching hemlet of slaugther to plate of protection than by switching to illthid, and that's ignoring crit chance and accuracy boost.

On the flip side, with you having one of the best slaughter estocs in the game with MP regen>mp drain of course illthid is useless to you, similarly to how wind magic is generally accepted to be inferior to holy/dark magic, yet hitokiri still uses it due his awesome staff.

Also, everything can focus. I'd wager the time taken to use slaughter and focus is greater(with the OC you sacrifice) than with using plain illthid.

This post has been edited by Lement: Nov 23 2012, 20:13

most advice 4ever has when it comes to gameplay is good. he's one of the best in HV when it comes to experimenting and actually playing. there are very few players that has as great a "feel" for meleeing as he does.

as for shard usage. i'm personally a strong advocate of "profit/time maximization"
most players are strong advocates of "cost minimization". it's differing mentalities but there is no doubt the "profit/time maximization" gives you more money/gives you the best bang for your time on HV (i've actually hinted/mentioned this many times in the Ask the Experts thread).

@temchy you can ask for offers on the estoc if you want. i wouldn't bother auctioning it. too much volatility

This post has been edited by Slobber: Nov 23 2012, 21:02

@4everlost nice to know.
Since i'm in the slaughter camp, I've used focus, but since i have a grasp of what I'm capable of, haven't approached a situation where I'd run out of mana. Also haven't tried maintaining a crysfest run for 5 days straight or anything.

With focus, I usually just randomly pull it off once before killing the last mob, but sometimes, generally when mana is running low, will try to pull off a bunch in succession. That seems to not work very well. It means you're exchanging turns + OC for mana, when turns also = mana consumption. So unless you're doing it when you've lost all your buffs, might end up wasting what gains you can make. I consider keeping OC high a priority as well (on BT & IWBTH) to spirit stance/skill at need.

I think that a lot of people wouldn't bother with focus until they needed the mana, which means late game where more buffs needed, low on potions, which is more likely to cause inefficiency (losing too much mana, focusing too much oc, casting out of spirit stance) and regen2 just doesn't last as many rounds on IWBTH, since it takes more turns to kill stuff.

I think the story would be a lot different with 3+IA slots. w/ haste/protect/s.shield on IA, i would just wait for regen2 to run out, kill enough stuff to not bother me, and then focus. Heartseeker's duration is so long it's not a consideration.

with no IA, or only 1, when doing later rounds of IW, when even slimes hit like tanks, having to juggle casting buffs--and if the difficulty's high enough scrolls as well, and prioritizing OC for spirit mode/skills to kill stuff as fast as possible to avoid damage; really couldn't find the time / spare OC to focus much in the 170+ rounds. This was in my 220s~230s. I've got IA2 now, so might work out better.

I think that if working the random 1 focus every now and then, or maybe learn to use it in a regular pattern, is good early, and it might save mana potions for the later rounds, but won't work as well in later rounds, and needs to be a mindset you set youself to. Maybe ithilid just allows you to be lazy? Constant trickle of mana doesn't sound bad if so. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

When melee I never bother with Focus. Just drink a godly mana pot and keep on killing.
You get more pots than you use anyways.

This post has been edited by Ichy: Nov 24 2012, 00:48

When melee I never bother with Focus. Just drink a godly mana pot and keep on killing.
You get more pots than you use anyways.

yep, its like when i use to mage schoolgirls a few patches ago. If i had a few mana pots leftover at the end of a run i used ET too much or need to play on a higher setting.

etothex: Hm, that's another reason why focus is a non-argument against illthid.

4verelost, Ichy: Well played, too bad that "use more mana pots" is not always possible. Also, anecdotal evidence: Player A tests casting spells on eila and it takes 10 turns before lands a buff, therefore spells suck. Missing the point, 4everlost, if you want illthid to get back the mana of focus nobody would ever run out of mana.

This post has been edited by Lement: Nov 24 2012, 01:24

After the time I've spent on HV, I think too that your consumption of mana pots clearly give you the lvl of difficulty you can play. If at the end of a run you still have half of your pots, it's time to move up on difficulty.

And while meleeing, it's clear that the "best" way to prevent using pots is to kill quickly and efficiently to not spend too much mana. At my lvl, if I do an arena with some consequent runes (let's say 50) on normal mode, I can do 3/4 of it without thinking about a pot. It's enough to ressuply all my life and I can spend some turns after it's finished to regain enough mana (+ the mana gem of course).

Then, there's the way to attain such an efficient state. Most people would go for Slaughter to do lots of damages. Personnaly I go with a mix of Slaughter and Balance, because I like to play with the dices :3.

After the time I've spent on HV, I think too that your consumption of mana pots clearly give you the lvl of difficulty you can play. If at the end of a run you still have half of your pots, it's time to move up on difficulty.

Wait so I need to start doing trio and the tree on IWBTH++ so that I might actually use one mana pot? (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

And on the other hand, trying to lvl my legendary estoc on nintendo when sharded takes about twice as long as trying it on hell.

This post has been edited by rawrpies: Nov 24 2012, 01:40