Wednesday, February 23, 2011

5.0 Economy

As i am sure you are all aware, 5.0 has brought with it shiny crystals and all the pain and benefits they hold. Well before I dive into the current situation, lets quickly look at the concept behind them. They are an item only able to belooted in low lvl non cash shop areas, namely mobs under lvl 100. They are now required in almost all craftingg, can be used in most npc shops for low lvl gear and can also be used as very cheap sockets. The basic concept was they would replace the vis used in crafting items, like the ele jewels to craft archangel heart and those sort of things, and instead of the vis being consumed(removed from the economy) it would instead go to low lvl players who make their vis from farming shiny crystals.

Ok, now the problems for our version. Compared to kGE and sGE our player base ins very small furthermore as i know from trolling sGE they have alot more lower geared players, and in general more people suited to farming hsiny crystals(ofc there are the bots who mass farm them, but lets pretend they don't exist). From this alone a basic economic knowledge dictates they have a much stronger supply for shiny crystals, and in my personal opinion, comparativly less demand for their consumption.

As the situation stands on orpesia they are 200k each, however when compared to the old reciepes they should be valued around 50k at most. As a direct result of this DHr prices have plummeted as the cost and difficulty to craft them is now beyond ALOT of players.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

PvP opinons

With the coming of 5.0, the pvp environment has changed drastically. The overdone and stupid wiz nar/wiz ele team appears to have been abandoned in favour of a peltast fig and some sort of ranged support. Peltast seems to be a rather overpowered stance with skills spec to leather, it 1hkos ELN scouts with ease while providing very good defence.

Calyce has mad a very prominent return with her expert stance, as a good bow is now a basically garenteed 1 shot, 1kill... no exceptions. Personally I did 70-80k on a peltast fig. I haven't been able to think of a counter to a dual caly team for a 1v1, as you can easily go double invis to shadow dawn and take out either all their combat ability or their rezzor and the more dangerous combatant, then its a easy either double eagle, and refresh one--> shadow dawn again/ heartbreak to spacebar while kiting the melee.

Catherine is as expected very good, but again peltast fig can hit her very hard and easily 1hko, but she gives very good terrain control with her great kd aoe ability death stun/cut and vet stance's girandol... I have found she has difficulty fighting multiple rezzor teams, as although she does hit proposterously hard and her debuffs, her finishers have long action time thus making her a very easy target.

Reckless is in all honesty not so great for 1v1 but is fearsome in mass pvp. Her aoe capability is great, but she has trouble killing people with great stats. Obviously this can be circumvented with debuffs, but that is risky. I have had moderate success using gabiquake to pagical piercing then 3rd ele, but its a lot of work. For mass pvp, 2 reckless and scout is required to garentee kills, obviously this team has a multitude of weakness's, but peltast is basically helpless vs it, so it is quite easy to use.

Lorch isn't used by many, but after playing with him, well... i am making me a shotgun. his traps are incredible, the corrosion debuff doubles dmg to target, and the entangle debuff leaves you open mo moving skilling potting for a good period of time, so if someon gets entangled basically they are dead :3. and his perma invis is quite formidable against a ill prepared opponent.

5.0(quick review and some opinions)

Well, as i am sure some of my readers are aware, 5.0 has FINALLY been released by G1. Finally my lvl100 Scout Adrian can stop standing in auch for dasy on end, as i got to accomplish something constructive.


Raiding

Castilla


Castilla and its related raids have added a whole host of instanced raiding glory with potential epic loots, but in reality, a tremendous source of 84e to the Sword2 experience. Castilla mine is quiet spammable in a small group, and its a great source of chips and with the bonus chance of(don't raid just for this, you will be let down time and time again) DHr. Castilla relic is similar but also has chances at ELB, ELBr, made 32ar weapons and LNs, and the still sought after DHr. Castilla tower, well once i get a squad going i will update on it.

Bounty Hunters Guild


Some more spammable raids, this place has roulettes for low tiered accessories/their recs vet tokens(used to buy stuff like CS items and other handy things) and the usual 84e crap. It has several different lvls, and each has strict lvl requirements, obviously the lower the lvl the worse the drops. Very worth the time doing, though the mob kill quests are tedious, so go in a squad and butcher them.

Stances

Just a few quick opinions. Madness is nice, but without some very serious weapons for pvp you won't be killing many people unless you use 2 reckless's, however for pve, she is a monstrousity, she hits very hard due to her decent pene and is incredibly good at mob control, aswell as a good mental dmg dpser.

Catherin Torsche and Death Chopping, very good as expected, killing ELN users with relative ease thanks to her devastating debuffs. Death Stunt in particular is very good with the special effect vs metal armour(see previous posts for details) and the hold time it has, allowing you to set up a appropriate kill shot when they get up.

Calypso and Shadow Sting. Put simply the stance is so good, libra is selling at the same price as aqua, her dps is greater than outrage or flint on most targets, devastating for pvp and very very good for pvp, and now she bearly runs out of skills to spam. Thanks to this stance, caly is now my most used charactor.

Lorch and Dual Blaster, surprisingly annoying in PvP, however for active raiding and stuff like that, kinda lame. decent for afking though as the pene helps him hit harder. In PvP his traps are devastation, one wrong move or one miss timed detection leads to certain death.

Vincent Rio and Prelude, a very powerful stance, however suffers from no stance penetration. Using a trump lute, my master vince has a shocking 2.5k atk unbuffed. Taking into account differences in modifers and what not, his AoE is just as strong as spell bead, and the buffs are incredible for both pvp and pve.

Other stances coming soon....

Saturday, February 12, 2011

5.0 stance experience

With the ongoing wait for 5.0 I have taken to trolling sGE for useful information, so behold my impressions of shadow sting, and death chopping.

Death Chopping(all debuffs last full duration even after death)

AutoAttack: 4hit cycle each hit slightly less than arnis, but in total does more dmg than arnis. arnis has a modifier of 150% but is 3hit, death chopping has a modifier of 125% but is 4hit, 450 by arnis vs 500 by death chopping. and cath has better stats than any arnis user, so just way better.

Death Cut: fairly low dmg skill, lvl12 debuff is very effective in draining HP, however you can pot. It has great potential for knockdown spam, and slightly longer range than volition. This plus the stat reduction gives this skill enormous potential, and a great set up to killing those pesky scouts and CON based tanks. even effective on crusaders if you can get past their block. hits 3targets in a small area, so great for closely knit opponents. Lvl 12 debuff reduces DR, def, max hp and mspd

Death Stunt: slightly less dmg that death cut, drains SP around 100 or so per second, possibly scaled according to max sp so potentially alot more(i had only 500sp), 15second CD makes it not as effective as death cut in knockdown spam, however has much better range and much larger AoE. Has a special effect of dealing same damage to BOTH leather and metal, not sure how the mechanic works but has been tested. Obvious counter to flyers, gives great map control in 1v1 pvp, and decent crowd control in group pvp. lvl12 debuff reduces DR, max hp, max sp, mspd aswell as the already discussed sp drain, ALSO increases casting time, so generally awesome vs casters. if they don't have alot of SP the sp drain and the reduction will lock out almost ALL skills.

Present: Preposterously overpowered summons. Potential max ar/dr of 70, hit me for 20k per shot. still does great damage on masters, if fighting cath and you have aoe's take em out. for raids, if they can survive with their low hp, a good boost to her already awesome dps. Even so they are VERY effective, even on elb users, and particularly on soft armour users.
*Update: IF used when invisible(personal skill) invisibility doesn't dissappear, however when summoning, you will have a aura of light from the animation that reveals your location. You can summon all 4 lloyds while invisible, then skill to hit someone.

Dance of Death: Decent skill, debuff is similar at lvl11 and lvl12 and the aditional skill lvl only boosts total skill multiplyer be 90%, making this the skill of choice not to max. Stops potting, skilling, reduces immunity and mspd. Highly effective on elb/eln users with high immunity, aka scouts and romina's. Finisher on people with not super armour. Still decent on metal.

Chopping: Where to start, the skill it self hurts like nobodies business, it has ALOT of hits, so ele atk on your daggers will help, not that you need it. Drains HP like, well, i couldn't pot faster than it could drain.
*Update: debuff adds 200 defence to target, also increases all res by 50. obviously an attempt to balance the insane HP drain. Furthermore you can't move, skill OR attack, so basically you are useless, and dead.





Shadow sting

Autoattack: 2hit cycle, each hit does more dmg than Saggita, when unbuffed(so not considering the additional pene from hawkseye) each cycle does exactly 2.5times more than Saggita. Easy to crit and aspd cap, probably enough to kill most softies with spacebar in a few seconds, even if they try to pot.

Eagle eye: pretty basic buff, gives AR(lvl11 or higher) and % boost to pene, very nice skill, doesn't last very long though.

HeartBreaker: possibly one of the scarier skills of the stance, does low inital damage, BUT has 100% chance to cast drain, drains hp according to max hp and skill lvl, cannot pot while debuffed, aka without valeria's awesome hp regen skills, ur dead. Cannot kill directly(will drain to 1hp but not kill), but still *quite* effective. Debuff lasts 10seconds regardless of lvl, and at lvl9 drains FULL hp in 9seconds.

Stepback Inferno: slightly smaller radius that its sister skill bust shot, but it hits harder and ignores defence. Can be considered a finisher on most people in avg gear.

Bolt Sequence: High dmg AoE, doesn't KD, can be considered a finisher, with caly's pene and its innate ignore defence it is much more effective than submachine, AND it has a higher multiplier.

Shadow Dawn: 3hits VERY powerful, super effective on metal, and if you cast it while invisible(invis now stays even if you change stance), numbers will be purple, and does additonal dmg according to skill lvl of invis. 50% more at lvl10 silent move. A good bow should pretty much 1hko anything, even ELN scouts.


I will update with videos when i work out how to sensor my friends name, and edit.

update: http://www.2shared.com/video/TOr06IBU/compression_try_2.html

raw video, still editing. Don't Pm him for any reason. Thanks

Clans continued

So I was in STH for a fairly long time, but after a while beef got started with Phalanx and her sister clan Schiavona. A few things happened, and me being a strongly opinioned individual got kicked for disrespecting other players. I don't regret what i said, but perhaps i shouldn't have said it. That being said, I joined What clan composed of a few players who left STH for some reason or another and people the Clan Leader Azr thought were good material to recruit.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Holy Water Chamber issues

Like every other day, today i went to HWC with my partners Amalielle and Day3741. Fairly uneventful first half. Despite my ele dying in the trap room due to me trying out fraps, was a basic run. That was until, we got the final boss down to 50%.

Ok wind back abit. HWC is a raid that has 3stages. They are the dios split, orgeta and jorgen the final boss. The dios split occurs after the squad poses( minimum requirement 3 players to pose). The squad is split into 2 and in the first part, each side faces a dios lanterm. After they both kill dios, they will recieve a code which the other team needs to enter into a tombstone. Then comes the blade room, basically a very simple maze of blades. after that each team takes turns killing a dios inorder to save the other side from being killed by blades.

Orgeta. For this section you need a vincent to pose, this removes a buff which basically makes orgeta regenerate at a insane rate. Everyone else kills orgeta. Oh and by the way, mobs try to kill vince, so if the vince user doesn't have a capable team, he will need guards. Orgeta drops a few chips and some LoD keys.

Jorgen. This is the final boss, and again the squad needs to split up. jorgen routinely spawns a colony which again gives that insane hp regen buff. he has a few aoe's one wich buffs him like 10 ar dr(need whole cancellation or dispell magic to remove), a few dmging ones and one which makes your chars unable to move for 20seconds, can be removed with jarring tune by vince. HOWEVER once he gets down to 50% he spawns zealots(mobs), hitting them gives you a debuff that lasts 1 hours that reduces your ar by 50%, to remove this you need to have a lorch potion(acquire from lorch). Then the rest is a walk in the park, don't use the pot before killing ALL the zealots or you will need to use another one to remove the buff again.

If i confused you which i am sure i did watch this video by BlackWhisper of ShakeTheHeavens doing it. Here

Ok back to what happened, Day3741 forgot his lorch pot, which meant i had the pleasure of trying to solo dps jorgen with my squishy team of STF ele vince. Obviously that didn't go so well, i had more than enough dps, thats for sure, but surviving was... impossible, as soon as he got that ar,dr buff, he skills, I am dead. I did manage to take out 30% of his hp in a period where he didn't skill for about 10-15mins, but then I sorta got raped.

12/2/11 Shennanigans

Ok, alittle break from all that history, atm i am lvling stances on my mboma in skele AA, because unfortunatly Holy Vespolan Soldiers give next to no stance exp. my chioce of plvling chars is not the usual flint user/ grace on gigablaster, but Caly.




Her dmg is similar to gigablaster, uses 1 ammo per cycle, and with racials 1hko's everything, unlike grace in gigablaster(also with racials). In short she lasts longer, and plvl's faster.

I am lvling mboma mostly for lulz, and until i get Reckless Emilia when we eventually get the 5.0 patch, i want a destructor who is useful in pvp, and isn't funny looking *cues male wiz*

Some more GK(in detail)

At the time he introduced me to GK, thio was one of the leading dps on it with his near perfect constellation golem 1h. I would help by buffing Flare, Shining Ballad and dpsing with my romina.
As time moved on my team filled out to be 2 Soho the Fighters and romina. Originally as i had more time than Thio, i used his constellation 1h, but eventually i acquired my own by trading +7 const 1h and 300mill for +7 const 1h with awesome golem mods. The person i traded wasn't particularly interested in golem mods and was kind enough to let me have it for cheap. He chipped the 1h i gave him for atk hum 1ar, and obviously was extremely pleased. Around this time i was using a 40atk 2ar 50 golem +7 lvl100 dagger, and a 39atk 21aspd 1ar +6 100e dagger. At that time i was the best dps, and me a thio drove out all the competetion, as Phalnx insisted on FFAing GK we beat them into the ground. Despite this things were still quite friendly between us. deLaras eventually upgraded his gear, but by then i was pulling in over 1billion a day in loot by farming both AA and SA GK's. as by then my STF obsession was already in full flight i started crafting constellation daggers. On my quest to get golem i ended up with a full set of racials. Once i gained my first golem dagger GK was undisputably mine again. Eventually deLaras got so desperate he blew all his wealth to make constellation gear for GK, 2 1h's and a soho. His soho uses a 3x 9x 100e golem dagger and i presume his romina uses a similar const 1h and his second romina uses a similar 100e 1h. He grew so desperate as to use triumph fillers, Boost potions, Sedatives and even buche de noels in his quest to defeat me. Then i chipped my second golem constelation dagger. and all his efforts were for nothing. Soho has the advantage of a fast reloading finisher, which is optimally used when GK skills and at the end to try and lock out ur opponent/reserver his last hp for you to boost your total damage, something very important to winning competitive DPS. Now that i am happy with my weapons i have stopped GKing as it is both incredibly time consuming and just a hassle. deLaras continues despite all this. One further thing to note, GK is squad based DPS, so basically when ever i show up and camp i get the pleasure of his whole clan coming. On the other hand, if you want to go GK, bring friends, and shoot me a pm and i can give u a bunch of in detailed tips to get started.

Basics are:

240+ defence with boost boost pot and logistics on
EVERY AR makes a difference, up to 1k dmg per cycle
HG and heavy stances based on skill dps are LESS effective.
Enhanced Tactics is a must, ET and principal rings are highly recommended.
minimum 96e for leather, 92e for metal obviously DRed. wiz and eles are useless without ELN, musks are difficult as well as they have ALOT of trouble hitting 240 defence with logistics on.

Thiodosius, some server history and GK

Anyways it was in STH i met and befriended the player who would eventually elevate me to the high lvled tier of the server. Thiodosius, currently on hiatus took me under his arm one day when i chipped a, well, very nice 96e golem 1h. At that point forward i became his apprentice and sidekick for what was undoubtably the most profitable area boss at that time outside of the elb and eln droppers, which were fiercely disputed over by the now tyranical top clan Phalanx*.

*Aegis fell apart after iss leader, the server changing Roley quit. Shortly after the leader quit they moved to a more selfish outlook warring and crushing the competition at both Lightening gate and Novia tower(Ice Gate) the 2 predominant ELN dropping raids. this promptly led to a crusade where they were utterly destroyed and left with "only one colony". This turned out to be the final straw, and they disbanded, only to reform as Phalanx. After a mass recruiting drive of countless noobies who eventually would be aoe fodder in the colony wars, they once again conquered the map now outnumbering their opposition 2 to 1. Anywho more on that later

Right anyways, Thiodosius introduced me to Heaven Giant Keeper, who is directly responsible for 17 of my constellation weapons. he has a spawning window of 8-10 hours, and when killed will drop 2 Magic spelled amethyst, 2 Liquid Gas, 2-3 lvl100 items, 2 lvl96 enchantment chips, 1 veteran glove OR boot. These are his garenteed drops. Furthermore he has the chance to drop any of the 12 symbols (50%), Dragon Heart reciepe(2%), enhansed or cut necklace reciepes(% unknown), 96e armour reciepes.

Clans

After probably a month or so being clanless, i joined S.T.A.R.S clan. This was a nice clan witha supportive leader. Eventually we even progressed to doing CW, which was at that time locked down by the then power clan Aegis, reminants of the once great Citadel. shortly afterwards, S.T.A.R.S merged with ShakeTheHeavens and perhaps a month after that the once leader of S.T.A.R.S Veronican quit due to boredom. At that time i only had a handful of experts and 92e gear, must have been 6months ago now, probably more. Only 2 of the elites of S.T.A.R.S still play, Rmans and Hoput, however due to them taking extended hiatus's, I have surpassed them in gear and lvl.

It was in ShakeTheHeavens that i found my new home. They were a high lvl clan, and from what i gather, now one of the few remaining clans established when Orpesia was first created. Led by |Justice| it is probably one of the few high lvl clans who have the decency to share raids to anyone who has the capability to show up. Dispite what eventually happened, i hold both |Justice| and the clan as a whole in high regard, both for the unspoken code of honor, and their respect to other players regardless of lvl or clan.

In STH when i first joined, i found it alot less group orientated, but now that i am more experienced, i understand this was because as you get better, groups are rendered obsolete for most things. STH has many notable members, |Justice| his vices TheHidden, Silvite and Garmar, BlackWhisper who records both clan accomplishments and in chat lulz. Probably should stop there, as i might need permission to say anything more.

First Post

I guess i will start with a summary of my current achievements, and who i am. I am the Maoster family of Orpesia, currently in What clan which is a small friendly clan for players who generally can handle themselves. If i remember correctly i started on the 1st of January 2010. My current constellation weapon count is 7daggers, 1 tonfa, 1 gaiter, 1 staff, 1 sword, 1cannon, 3 bows, total constellation weapons 15, originally crafted 18 however due to the dreaded 1% fail rate going +5 i lost my greatsword, i sold 2 constellation daggers, both human modded, and traded 2 more constellation daggers for 1 fairly well modded one.

My current barracks total is 63/63 of which 21 are masters, 8 are experts 9 are vet. My current masters are: 2 Soho the Fighters, 2 Calypso, 2 Romina(str), 2 Grace, Musk, Ania, Elementalist, Vincent Rio, Andre, Mia, Adelina the Pirate, Tibraun, Ramiro, Claire, Fighter, Wizard and Gracelio. Experts are: 2 Claire, Emilia, Helena, Scout, Lorch, Lisa and Combria Trooper.