[X] My Assistant

niten ichiryu. i'm grinding for money

one hand

for now, I guess I can use any fighting style except One hand...
The one hand fighting style is just wasting of time...

Two-hands weapon with a nice estoc or scythe~

two-hand for clearing normal arena
duel for IWBTH

MAgical in Staff!!!

still a newbie.

DW since level 50
wonder if it's to late to switch to two-handed yet

Using all styles.
Mainly go for 1-h, but use 2-h to blast through item world and leveling up DW to try some Niten Ichiryu.
And staff for the long runs due to mana issues.
Never would've been able to do the last arena on Battle Toads difficulty as a melee.

DW since level 50
wonder if it's to late to switch to two-handed yet

Never too late if you are willing to grind it out.

dual mace for STUN!!! lv71

1-h, but I see a lot of negativity on the 1h. Is it that bad?

Arbitrarily 1h for the longest time, now I have a bunch of wasted prof in it.

DW and 2h with heavy right now.

Dualwielding

1-h, but I see a lot of negativity on the 1h. Is it that bad?

depend on how fast you can refresh HV

thinking of getting staff. is being a mage good if you want to grind for credits?

Mage...AoE + elemental explosion (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

1-h, but I see a lot of negativity on the 1h. Is it that bad?

I've tried all styles, and 1-h is quite good at higher levels if you got good gear.
Remember that the number of counterattacks you can do is dependant on your proficiency, you need to get to 200 prof in oder to be able to do 3 counters per turn.
And then you have to have high block in order to get a chance to counter, which requires a good shield (I switched to trying 1-h because I found an awesome shield) and good shield armor. All "of the barrier" of course.

Then the trick is being in spirit stance.
The 1-h skills kinda suck, since they have to be chained on the same target and the last skill requires the monster to be in a certain HP range after that, to be of full use.
But you get a small amount of overcharge from a counter, so with enough enemies and just hitting normally, you gain OC by hitting them (and 1-h got good accuracy, especially from the overwhelming strikes proc, which last 3 turns and got a 25% chance to proc, so you got it on you quite often) and you gain OC by countering them.
So you can stay in spirit stance for far longer than any other fighting style.

But it's still pretty slow, so your greatest enemy is not the monsters, but mana drain from your spells.
Because with haste and protection up, and with regen II running, you are very hard to take down.
Unfortunately, it's also very hard for you to take monsters down, but since they can't heal, it just takes a little longer.

And against a full room of monsters, your damage output is theoretically (possibly) higher than DW.
Since you get one basic attack per round, and up to 3 counters, while DW get one basic attack and up to one off-hand attack (admittedly, DW got higher base damage and much higher chance of getting off that off-hand, since counters rely on first blocking/parrying and then that counter chance).

Which makes it kinda annoying that counters proc stun, since you don't need to stun the monsters to decrease their damage output.
Stunning them is actually bad, since it means they attack you less, giving you less chances for counter-attacks.
I wish counters instead proced your weapons proc, so you could switch it dependant on what you wanted to apply to them.

I personally use a ethereal rapier, just for the PA and void damage, since that means it negates physical mitigation and also damage-specific mitigation, so full damage against everything.
Another good one might be a bleed-weapon, and apply it evenly to all enemies, since it takes some time to take them all down anyways, and bleed might actually do some damage, since you have to hit them one by one.
But personally, that's just too much work, making sure it's applied evenly to everyone, I just focus them down one by one by holding down the number keys.

depend on how fast you can refresh HV

For maximum 1-h power I use a separate browser just for HV (Maxthon, without any add-ons).
And yes, refresh speed is very important, since 1-h is pretty safe due to high blocking, so you there is little chance of anyone taking you down quick just because you happened to hold down a number key a bit too long.
Ample reaction time to things going sour.

thinking of getting staff. is being a mage good if you want to grind for credits?

Mages excel in damage output, and especially AoE damage output, since their spells hit ALL monsters, and for full damage (and double on the main target), unlike 2-h, where chance and damage decreases the further you get from the target you directed your attack against.

Get good gear and prof and you can essentially clear a room on lower difficulty with a single AoE spell (providing you got some luck with hit rolls) and on all but the highest difficulty with two spells.
With a possible third for clean-up for those that got lucky on their resist roll.

^Thanks for the information, it's really useful!

Didn't know you could attack with your number pad. (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/happy.gif)

Mages excel in damage output, and especially AoE damage output, since their spells hit ALL monsters, and for full damage (and double on the main target), unlike 2-h, where chance and damage decreases the further you get from the target you directed your attack against.

Get good gear and prof and you can essentially clear a room on lower difficulty with a single AoE spell (providing you got some luck with hit rolls) and on all but the highest difficulty with two spells.
With a possible third for clean-up for those that got lucky on their resist roll.

until you reached real high level(290 around, maybe), you can not do 2 spell clear to mobs at IWBTH. but you can do 1 spell clear at x1/normal continously of course.

Mage...AoE + elemental explosion (IMG:[invalid] style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

nighmere will come to you when you reach lv.200

This post has been edited by eqwer: Nov 21 2012, 01:58

until you reached real high level(290 around, maybe), you can not do 2 spell clear to mobs at IWBTH. but you can do 1 spell clear at x1/normal continously of course.
nighmere will come to you when you reach lv.200

"on all but the highest difficulty with two spells."

2h and dw
prepare for niten~