Pure Dex vs. "Purer" Dex

DeliaLotus - Lost City

Hi!

I'm level 32 right now, and I've got 20 strength with 15 attribute points unspent, everything else on dex of course. And I'm debating whether those points would be more worthwhile on strength or dexterity:

With 35 Strength
(Pure Dex: 1 Str every level: just enough strength to equip light armor of your level)
- Can wear light armor

With 20 Strength
("Purer" Dex: just enough strength to hold the best weapon)
- More dex, can still hold best weapon

I know everyone swears by the pure dex build, and that makes sense for the armor. But has anyone tried sacrificing a few levels of armor to put more points on dexterity? And would it be a viable course of action? I'm surviving reasonably against standard monsters now (with level 3 armor where I could have level 4), but I was wondering if a higher level can weigh in?

Thanks!

rugal

You need the armor. Even if you kill faster than pure dex archers, youll eventually miss,be unable to kill before theyl one shot you. Or monsters can suddenly spawn next to you and double on you. It'll be too stressful to play like that.

BloodCountes - Heavens Tear

Purer dex archer - sounds good. b:laugh

mogwai

nice thought - if you do it, let us know how it pans out.

If it dosen't work so well, then you can always fix it within a few levels

i been wondering how i could take advantage of reputation armors ( they have NO requirements, other than the rep to buy them ) ))

DeliaLotus - Lost City

rugal wrote: »

You need the armor. Even if you kill faster than pure dex archers, youll eventually miss,be unable to kill before theyl one shot you. Or monsters can suddenly spawn next to you and double on you. It'll be too stressful to play like that.

But to me at least, that's what playing an archer means in any case - little tolerance for taking damage.

mogwai wrote: »

i been wondering how i could take advantage of reputation armors ( they have NO requirements, other than the rep to buy them ) ))

Great! I was wondering what those armors were like! I'll try putting those points on dex with the special armor and see how it goes.

Hitsuu - Lost City

when i get high enough for hh90 weapon i wanna +8 and put g8 stones in it, then change my build to just enough str for weapon even if i cant wear armor, see the dmg difference. Who knows. I wont keep it that way deffinetly, but just to see.

DeliaLotus - Lost City

Neat! Please say how it goes!

I'm loving the rank armor so far... and I can put extra points on dex

Torinchibi - Lost City

Works at lower lvls, but when you are 90 and you need 95 or something to wear your 90 hh set, it will suck balls.

gilgamesj

I'm using your "purer" build and I have to say, it IS more stressful. But it's way more fun to see me doing way more damage than someone like 5 lvls higher
As for the higher levels... hadn't thought about it yet, but we'll see how things go. If it gets to be a little too close for comfort, I might add some points into str, just enough to wear the armor BELOW the actual armor for my lvl. Right now I compensate my loss of str with whatever bonus I can find.
I currently have 41 str (+7 from equips) and... I dunno like 240 dex or something at level 50. And I love it~

PS: You can also always try making 3 star armor with 4 sockets in it and use the sockets to pump hp or def or something... might help XD

Miugre - Heavens Tear

Put as much str as you feel like at your current level, but know that you'll have less and less use for str as you get higher leveled. :P

Basically at your level, you're leaving the "I need a fist weapon for when melee monsters reach me" stage and entering the "melee monster? frost arrow + stun arrow + knockback arrow + aim low + wingspan = ...wait, it's dead now? okay." stage. XD

DeliaLotus - Lost City

Thanks for all the responses .

I'm sticking with the purer build for now, if it gets to be a problem with holy hall aromor or something later I can restat with one advanced reset stone, so it should be alright.

I'm still surviving off of level 30 rank armor at level 38 now, and since rank II armor is only equipable and level 60 it might be that way for a while. So I'll have to work a little harder at solutions once I get further from level 30, probably wearing light armor some levels below me.

You're right, it *is* more stressful - there are lots of close calls still when a knockback arrow misses.

But yes, the extra damage is great! Winged shell is also a regularly used skill, so that any damage I take is directed into that rather than my weak HP and defense. This also keeps MP up

Also, although this isn't the smartest thing to do, relying on taking little damage means that once I've got the fighting strategy down for a monster I can often live fighting them safely at around half-health, healing and meditating less frequently (but for a longer time for meditation).

Miugre - Heavens Tear

when a knockback arrow misses.

...thanks for reminding me of the fact that this happens ALL the bloody time for me. Well done, you've given me nightmares now. XD Hope you're proud of yourself.

You'll want to ditch the Rank armor in a few levels, though... get a squad for Chin the Mausoleum Watchman, that quest gives you a nice light armor plate (with Dex on it... at least mine had Dex).

Ppjenga - Heavens Tear

*tries not to **** up his first post*
While waiting for the client to update, I decided to browse the forums for the first time. I've been playing the game without guidance up to this point, which is the time I got curious about whether or not I was correctly building. I played with all-around stats pre-my first fb, but afterward I started allocating all of my points to Dex based on the assumption that the archer should deal as much weapon damage as possible without exhausting mp. I'm sitting at about 20/20/20/90 right now, and must say that it's a little bit of a pain to fight mobs alone, but the armor sacrifice isn't too bad when plume shield and knockback arrows are at disposal.
Howeverrrrrrr... I'll admit I'm not too clear on every fact, stat, probability, etc. but I would have to say that purer Dex is just plain awesome compared to a pure Dex archer that wears (or feels he should be wearing) leveled armor.

Pyreon - Heavens Tear

At level 80 or 90, would it possible, since you will have that set of armor for a while, to try to get every piece of your armor with -10% requirement, enabling you to only stat min STR for your weapon? I haven't bothered doing the ut math, but in the odd chance you were able to get this armor, how low could you take the STR requirement?

Either way, it would require you to refine your armor, to make up for the physical defense difference....LOL what am i talking about, we already don't have any physical defense.

interesting, but honestly, pure build does enough damage. I personally leveled up past 50 with about 1 VIT per level, just to have a bit of an easier time with magic mobs, but then restated back to pure dex, which is still, almost too much damage.

Good luck with your purer dex build.

Djkinetic - Heavens Tear

I thought about going pure pure dex with statting only the min str req to equip my weap....there's a problem tho...even though you might do more damage...u greatly sacrifice defense...and while it might work great on mobs to use knockback....in a PVP/PK situation...your toast...especially if ganked...which I often find myself the target of...btw knockback does not work against players and ur stunning arrow only buys u 3 secs...Basically in a PVP situation @ lvl 80+ you wont be killing many people except lowbies and squishy mages...thats if the mages dont 1 shot u first..

Divine_Demon - Heavens Tear

Miugre - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Put as much str as you feel like at your current level, but know that you'll have less and less use for str as you get higher leveled. :P

Basically at your level, you're leaving the "I need a fist weapon for when melee monsters reach me" stage and entering the "melee monster? frost arrow + stun arrow + knockback arrow + aim low + wingspan = ...wait, it's dead now? okay." stage. XD

wait.. what is stun arrow im lvl 36 and i dont have it i need to get my cult quest i still didn t do fb 29 yet i have 250 rep where do i go what do i do where do i get cult quest and when do i get fb quest man i dont now what to to b:cryb:cryb:sadb:surrender

Ppjenga - Heavens Tear

Djkinetic - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I thought about going pure pure dex with statting only the min str req to equip my weap....there's a problem tho...even though you might do more damage...u greatly sacrifice defense...and while it might work great on mobs to use knockback....in a PVP/PK situation...your toast...especially if ganked...which I often find myself the target of...btw knockback does not work against players and ur stunning arrow only buys u 3 secs...Basically in a PVP situation @ lvl 80+ you wont be killing many people except lowbies and squishy mages...thats if the mages dont 1 shot u first..

Understandable theory... so I'm assuming you're saying that the archer becomes prime target in squad PK situations?

Mosz - Heavens Tear

usually cleric is prime target then archers and wizards and venos

Ppjenga - Heavens Tear

Oh... I see. Well to bring it back to topic... considering the attention that archers get in PVP, would a pure dex vs. purer dex build even matter if archers are second on the hit list? I mean, if you're getting 'ganked' either way... what's to keep you from doing the most damage you can before you die? (keep in mind I know next to nothing about PKing on this particular mmo)

Kiyoshi - Heavens Tear

Ppjenga - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Oh... I see. Well to bring it back to topic... considering the attention that archers get in PVP, would a pure dex vs. purer dex build even matter if archers are second on the hit list? I mean, if you're getting 'ganked' either way... what's to keep you from doing the most damage you can before you die? (keep in mind I know next to nothing about PKing on this particular mmo)

Doing high dmg is great and all. But there is just one small problem. You have to stay alive long enough to do the dmg.

mogwai

i've now begun a "purer dex archer" (takes me just a few sessions to get to lv 40 on any character), which is now about 7 days old...here's what i did:

currently lv 43
vit: 3 (HP 1,462)
str: 28
mag:3 (6 with equipment) (MP 1,195)
dex: 196 (224 with equipment) got lucky on some b:laugh

around lv 20 i got a re-set card to make stats 3 for 4 more dex,
the extra HP comes from putting HP gems into all sockets, & the lil bit of extra MP comes from the lv 41 arcane helm.

wearing: lv 24 Bracers of Dawn, lv 18 Ring Boots, & lv 30 rank armor
special items: X-mas blessing, & 1% crit on bow as well

the best part is that this character is at 14% crit rate & i love it, mobs hardly ever get near me, & if several do, then it's Dew of Revival Protection

im currently grinding for a bit more rep to wear lv 40 rank armor, which will be fitted the same way, possibly investing in it to add more sockets

im looking forward to lv 50 rank ring & finding a not-so expensive Barbaric Warriors Ring or mold, both of which add 1% crit

so all-in-all, it's working gr8 for me

Annor - Heavens Tear

The core ideas with this build was something i briefly experimented with when i had the level 30 rank gear... effectively putting my strength on hold once wearing it, to level purely dex for several levels, but its not something i would recommend later in the game.

Later on, not only will the areas of play you involve yourself in diversify, you will find it harder to avoid taking damage and you will be punished more harshly for deaths... at some stages of the game, finding yourself grinding for over an hour to recover that lost xp.


Wearing armor of a significantly lower level than your own prevents you from:

Pvp'ing effectively: forget it, you will not be able to pvp effectively, your added attack strength will not offer anywhere near as much as your greatly reduced defensive strength will take away. You will lose basically every fair fight that presents itself.

Tanking effectively: sounds silly for an archer discussion, but yes, later on you may well want to tank lower level FBs, or help out with bosses for your friends... obviously low level armor is not good for this.

Staying upright in some boss encounters as DD: From your 30s you'll begin to see bosses that AOE... this is not something that stops... it becomes more frequent as the game goes on, and those AOEs hit harder.

Grinding and Questing Safely/Efficiently: later on in the game, more and more of the mobs become magic and ranged, hitting you before you are able to take them down, using lower level armor you will be more likely to find yourself taking unreasonably high amounts of damage (to be recovered by potions or charms, both costing $$) or being killed when things go wrong (lag? misses? mob crits? aggro spawns? etc etc).


If it works, or is working for you now... cool... but it definately would not be my own recommendation for any 55+ archer. If you actually sit down and crunch some numbers, I doubt you'll find these builds offer considerably more damage than a 4-1 pure anyway.


P.S. there is no Lv40 rank gear (with the exception of the badge ring)... sorry to disappoint.

MorgulLord - Sanctuary

I cant say much about PvP/PK so I will not comment on that aspect.

But with PVE, I see loads of trouble with this build. Later on, you'll be expected to kill mini-bosses quite often for quests. These bosses are "generally" soloable, so you are expected to do it on your own. Being a pure dex build, I have run into tight spots soloing these bosses. I cannot think how a purer dex would even come close to killing them.

And I completely agree with Annor about AOE bosses. It is something which you cannot avoid.. no matter what you do. Starting from FB39 ... to TT... to Frostland... bosses love doing AOE. I think this build will need a cleric exclusively to ress the archer.

Its good to see people trying un-conventional builds. Good luck to everyone trying this build. I hope it works for you.

~Morgul

Annor - Heavens Tear

I decided to punch some numbers myself... and heres what i got:
Firstly, ranged weapons require at least half a str point allocated per level, so assume a 1str, 9dex per 2 levels build. An archer built in this way... will be able to use light armor only HALF of its level, and will do only ~10% more damage than a 'pure' 4-1 build (assuming the same damage bonuses from equipment, which is a stretch, as higher level armor offer more stat points).

To use higher level armor, you will be reducing your 10% margin even furthur. With a 9-1 build, your crit at level 81 will be only 2% higher than a 4-1.

NOTE: 10% calculation ignores dex added by equipment, which actually brings the two builds even closer together.

Djkinetic - Heavens Tear

Sadly for me whenever im in squad im the first one targeted even b4 the cleric in my group....HT Pvpers dont like me =P I hurt heheeheeb:chuckle

Chaotiic - Lost City

Djkinetic - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sadly for me whenever im in squad im the first one targeted even b4 the cleric in my group....HT Pvpers dont like me =P I hurt heheeheeb:chuckle

LOL same mostly i get focus-fire like craz from the other group. People will always target u probably second after ep so having bad defenses is a plain stupid idea,

Mitsukaix - Heavens Tear

Chaotiic - Lost City wrote: »

LOL same mostly i get focus-fire like craz from the other group. People will always target u probably second after ep so having bad defenses is a plain stupid idea,

Just gotta say hahahahaha

thanduril

Annor - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Tanking effectively: sounds silly for an archer discussion, but yes, later on you may well want to tank lower level FBs, or help out with bosses for your friends... obviously low level armor is not good for this.
P.S. there is no Lv40 rank gear (with the exception of the badge ring)... sorry to disappoint.

if you think archers are only glass cannons..then thats just your char.
i can tank mantavip and every other quest boss outside a dungeon instance(except krimson) with a couple healers, me being an archer and all.

i dont favour the idea of going stingy on allocating str points just to buff up the damage/crits. as for one you cant use the level specific molds/TT armour equips, that leaves you very underbalanced higher up at lvl 8x+.
and having abnormally high dex means your bound to pull aggro from tank with all those crazy crits and die, get hit by AOE and die, get 1-hit Knockouts from sacrificial assault mobs at your level and downright die if you get jumped by more than 1 mob, even while hp charmed.
and it would just be worse during PK or DT(1-hit KO from tempest, sparked-zerk and a few spells which wouldnt usually 1-Hit KO an archer at lvl 8x+ with lvl required equips)

DeliaLotus - Lost City

Thanks for all the input!

I'm still trying this build for now (but if/when it gets to be a problem I will use a reset note.


Annor:
I'm still not sure how the attack gets put through defense, and it could end up as more than 10% damage per hit. But I'm not sure.

Also, rank equipment is usable without any strength. And I do know rank becomes increasingly difficult to achieve, but I think it's safe to assume that by level 80 rank 4 (5000 rep) is altogether doable, which would leave one with level 60 (rather than level 40) chest and shin armor, and the level 40 limitation would only apply to wristguards and boots.


I'm level 46 right now and here's my character info (sorry I don't have enough inventory slots to unequip everything):
Dex: 208 without gear / 215 with gear
Physical Attack: 1021-1814
Critical Hit: 12%
HP: 1294 / 1574 (gear)
Phys. Def 564 (gear)
Elemental Def: 900 range (gear)
Accuracy: 1720 (gear)
Evasion: 1826 (gear and buffed with Wings of Protection).

If anyone else wants to post their stats (with gear is fine), I'd like to see them .

Annor - Heavens Tear

to thanduril:
If you are arguing against me with that post, you must be a poor reader.

And Delia, I did not realize rank equipment was without a STR requirement, still not at all practical for PVP, but intriguing for PVE .
I don't believe armor would affect my 10% estimation, armor should be a flat percentage reduction, thus proportions and relations should be unchanged.
I.E.
11 is 10% higher than 10
apply 50% reduction:
5.5 is 10% higher than 5

thanduril

Annor - Heavens Tear wrote: »

to thanduril:
If you are arguing against me with that post, you must be a poor reader.

And Delia, I did not realize rank equipment was without a STR requirement, still not at all practical for PVP, but intriguing for PVE .
I don't believe armor would affect my 10% estimation, armor should be a flat percentage reduction, thus proportions and relations should be unchanged.
I.E.
11 is 10% higher than 10
apply 50% reduction:
5.5 is 10% higher than 5

if you missed out the part of your post that i quoted and replied to, then your reading disability far exceeds mine.
i was just replying to that line of tanking sounding silly to an archer discussion.