Quick Combat Questions

Farrah

Exelethril said:

Darn, INT pretty important then, I wanted to go Troll. Why does Xoran have to have the best stats, don't want to be a lizard

I doubt the 1 int point makes or breaks you, and the fact that most mana attacks are percent based makes int less important. 

Blademaster makes clot %-based too with impaleslash afaik, though I think Alchemist sanguine inundate is bleed based on a % of your max health, not max mana, which hurts you there (if you ever even fight alchies who use sanguine).

There's nothing wrong with lizards.

Dunn

maybe I don't fight enough alchemists, but I feel like most use sanguine. 

Finkle

After locking and removing his levitation/cloak.

Happy Birthday to the Ground, @Kasa

https://ada-young.appspot.com/pastebin/31b73673

Alastyn

      

Raizen

Does anyone know if I'll need a level 2 longsword to reach 1.9 speed or will level 1 suffice?

Also.. what's the dsl speed for unartied scimitars versus two level 1s?

Nylian

Raizen said:

Does anyone know if I'll need a level 2 longsword to reach 1.9 speed or will level 1 suffice?

Also.. what's the dsl speed for unartied scimitars versus two level 1s?

l2 longsword with buckler is cap.
I hear that l3 with SoA is also cap, but haven't seen anything difnitive.

Unsure about dsl speeds

Antonius

There's a definite difference between SoA and buckler even with a level 3 longsword in my experience.

Sena

Slice/smash with L3 longsword and buckler is 1.926s, L2 longsword and buckler is 1.989s (from here). I think those numbers are still accurate. At the very least, there's never been an explicit cap, L3 longsword will always be faster than L2.

Dunn

Hmmmmm time to upgrade to a level 2...

Farrah

SoA combinations seemed way faster to me with level 3. I couldn't really notice a big difference between SoA and buckler, unlike with level 2. But .06 secs faster with buckler seems believable.

Ahmet

@Sena do you have the garrote speed formula?

Not sure if upgrading my boots or lash will be more helpful at this point. Have lvl 1 of both, full dex spec.

Makarios

There is no hard cap on snb combos - an artefact upgrade will always be faster.

Lucianus

Raizen said:

Does anyone know if I'll need a level 2 longsword to reach 1.9 speed or will level 1 suffice?

Also.. what's the dsl speed for unartied scimitars versus two level 1s?

2.0 seconds with level 1's.

1.85 seconds with level 2's.

Then you got 1.7 seconds with Level 3's.

Cooper

Level 3 Scims = 1.83
Level 2 Scims = 1.92
Level 1 Scims = 1.99

Test server tested.

Austere

Cooper said:

Level 3 Scims = 1.83
Level 2 Scims = 1.92
Level 1 Scims = 1.99

Test server tested.

Why does that sound so. ..Meh.  

Dunn

Because it costs 3200 credits. 

Cooper

It's kind of strange that people haven't said more about it, but there has been a steady decline in the power/boost artefacts give you ever since diminishing returns were put in. Battlerage reduced the effectiveness of (non pendant) damage bashing artefacts significantly, artefact weapons give you much less of a boost than they used to, diminishing returns on stats, reduced health gain past 100, etc.

Penwize

Cooper said:

It's kind of strange that people haven't said more about it, but there has been a steady decline in the power/boost artefacts give you ever since diminishing returns were put in. Battlerage reduced the effectiveness of (non pendant) damage bashing artefacts significantly, artefact weapons give you much less of a boost than they used to, diminishing returns on stats, reduced health gain past 100, etc.

I feel like people don't talk about it much because every time it gets mentioned, the topic gets driven into the ground by all the artie hate that gets unleashed.  That said, I do agree.  The effectiveness of artefacts relative to baseline has been pretty substantially diminished over the years.  A lot of this was done to keep unartefacted players competitive, which is a good thing, but it really came at the cost of real character advancement.  I'm not sure why the average player would grind to get the credits required to upgrade from an L2 to an L3 these days, for example.

Dunn

I cap all of my Arties at level 2 because the gain beyond that is not worth it to me. Unless its strength and I'm in a knight mood. The scaling of DSB makes it worth it, but not much else scales in such a way to justify 800+ credits between 2 and 3. 

Armali

I think the feeling is that the average player wouldn't, and the average player will have a wealth of other options to improve themselves.

The L3s would be for the min-maxers with a lot of time/money who want to push themselves to their limits.

Austere

Penwize said:

Cooper said:

It's kind of strange that people haven't said more about it, but there has been a steady decline in the power/boost artefacts give you ever since diminishing returns were put in. Battlerage reduced the effectiveness of (non pendant) damage bashing artefacts significantly, artefact weapons give you much less of a boost than they used to, diminishing returns on stats, reduced health gain past 100, etc.

I feel like people don't talk about it much because every time it gets mentioned, the topic gets driven into the ground by all the artie hate that gets unleashed.  That said, I do agree.  The effectiveness of artefacts relative to baseline has been pretty substantially diminished over the years.  A lot of this was done to keep unartefacted players competitive, which is a good thing, but it really came at the cost of real character advancement.  I'm not sure why the average player would grind to get the credits required to upgrade from an L2 to an L3 these days, for example.

That .07 seconds really makes a huge difference, though, and opens up so many new strats. Can't wait to sink my 3200 credits into dwc. Then, I can start saving for level 3 str so my dsl does 38 more damage (dsb excluded in this mockery)

Dunn

1 strength is an entire fuck your life of damage worth added to DSB, man. 

Penwize

Armali said:

I think the feeling is that the average player wouldn't, and the average player will have a wealth of other options to improve themselves.

The L3s would be for the min-maxers with a lot of time/money who want to push themselves to their limits.

I sort of disagree that they have a wealth of other options to improve themselves.  Getting credits for arties IS how you improve a character, and if the effectiveness of arties is diminished, then the potential to improve and progress a character is also diminished.

Kiet

You improve a character by gitting gud first tho. That's why Terra Ayoxele and such existed

Armali

Penwize said:

Armali said:

I think the feeling is that the average player wouldn't, and the average player will have a wealth of other options to improve themselves.

The L3s would be for the min-maxers with a lot of time/money who want to push themselves to their limits.

I sort of disagree that they have a wealth of other options to improve themselves.  Getting credits for arties IS how you improve a character, and if the effectiveness of arties is diminished, then the potential to improve and progress a character is also diminished.

As an alchemist, I could buy l2 int, l2 con, l2 collar, diadem (okay, that's a bit extreme), l2 sip, greaves, spurs, a fancy arti mount, trans all my skills, a bow, illusion stick, lyre, rof, and an SoA, all before starting to contemplate things like the l3s or other stuff with high costs but marginal returns. That's most just combat stuff -- for PvE, I could get the crown pebble, warp stick, crit pendants, those new battlerage arties, a ship, etc.

All of that is around, what, 10,000 cr at least? If we consider the 'average player' as someone who buys their no-brainer stuff, pays for a membership, and buys cr when they can with gold, then you're still looking at somewhere along the lines of 1-2 years before they can scrape together all the cr (150 [not really, but we'll assume] x 12 + 10 [we'll say someone casually buys 10 cr a day] x 365 + 1 x 365 [Iron Membership lessons equivalent] = 5815 + 600 (no brainer stuff/equivalent)

Maybe you make a lot more gold than I do (and even 90k a day for 10cr is /really/ generous for someone like me), but two years worth of potential improvement is a 'wealth of other options' for me.

Sena

Ahmet said:

@Sena do you have the garrote speed formula?

Not sure if upgrading my boots or lash will be more helpful at this point. Have lvl 1 of both, full dex spec.

Standard weapon speed formula (7-Speed/50 at trans subterfuge) reduced by 6% per point of dex above 12, as far as I know.

A lash upgrade would give more speed than +1 dex would, on top of more damage and being 300 credits cheaper.

Anedhel

I'm actually super happy with artefact weapons. A L3 bastard sword is all sorts of stupid, I was hitting Atalkez for 19% with hew (19 str) at 2.3-2.4s in speed, so I'm over the moon about that.

The L3 scimitars give me a DSL of ~1.8s, which is more'n fast enough to set up Damnation consistently, the DWC boost to limb damage is super great, and at 19 str, I can more or less murderate anyone without great resistances/under 4.5k health easily if they don't spam shields. 

SnB was always a bit meh on offence as far as I was concerned (even without counting the longsword/SoA thing) compared to the other specs, but until you've played a Knight with great resistances to start with AND watch stuff not hurt you, you'll never appreciate how awesome it is to have an SoA. Specially if you're guard bashing in raids or are first target a lot, it really boosts your survivability. 

I have no idea about flails/morningstars, but the knight weapons give you a pretty crazy edge at L3, from what I've seen. I wouldn't categorically state that they're worth the 800cr (or 1600 in the case of scimitars) over L2's, but if you're in the position to make the purchase and want to be ridiculous, I don't think anyone'd regret it, if they fight enough to make it worth it. 

Knight strong. 

Ahmet

Thanks @Sena, though it looks a bit closer to 7% than 6%. Garrote speed sexy af.

Aerek

Artefacts' effects just varies pretty widely by class. DWC's and S&B's artefact weapon options are fairly underwhelming, but 2H's and DWB's are all kinds of overwhelming. Monks' Armband, Knuckles, and Telepathy trinkets might not be life changing, but some of the EQ classes with/without Diadem is like playing 2 different games. I won't argue that artefacts seem to "matter" less than in the past, but I'd say that's both natural and probably for the best, because in the past, frankly speaking, Achaea was not balanced at all. Coupled with the fact that artefacts are much more prolific now, it's a natural progression to the point that we have to make sure that owning the right ones doesn't unlock God Mode. Ultimately though, it just comes down to the fact that each class has different balance concerns that have to be addressed, and there's no way to make sure they all benefit "equally" from artefacts in general without removing the things that make them unique and different, which would make for a bland landscape.

Anedhel

RE: DWC- I think they're fine for L3's. Having to pay for twice as much for them is a wrench, if they were 1600cr (or even 2400cr, I'd be willing to say), there'd be no reason not to get them, and they'd be a terrific investment. The only problem with them is they're out of line with SnB/2h costs!