Immaculate Garnet or Incomparable Ruby?

poisonoaks

Ok, so heres my question. I'm currently gathering together materials to make myself a Soulsmasher. At the same time, I'm also looking into getting a really nice shard for it, something that I won't ever have to replace. Currently, my main two options are the Immaculate Garnet Shard (32 P. atk) or Incomparable Ruby Shard (100 Fire atk).

The Ruby shard is primarily an option because of cheap perfect ruby shards in the AH.

So anyways, which should I go with? If it helps, I've got some interval gear (Blood Moon) and do use regular attacks normally, but I'm also planning on doing Gammas with this bow. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Konariraiden - Heavens Tear

Garnet. No contest.

poisonoaks

Care to elaborate on why there is no contest?

Konariraiden - Heavens Tear

There's a reason why you can't get Rubies from Corals.

b:mischievous

Garnets > Rubies

Fire attack? Pssh, that's nothing compared to the boost you'll get from the garnet.

poisonoaks

While it is true that Garnets > Rubys, an incomparable ruby has roughly the same boost as 3 immaculate garnets. The fire boost doesn't affect skills (I don't think anyways) but it does affect regular attacks...I'd love it if you'd back your reasoning up with something.

(BTW, your coral argument makes no sense)

truekossy

Always, always, ALWAYS go garnet.

For one thing, monsters have a greater mdef than phys def in general, so your ruby shard will be less effective and, if fighting a fie element or fire immune monster, can be practically worthless. On top of that, garnets will add to weapon attack in the same manner as phys rings do. This means the garnet will become exponentially more useful than just the small +32 phys attack it shows. As if that weren't enough, you already have blazing arrow as an archer... which adds fire damage based on weapon attack... which would be increased by having garnets but unaffected by rubies.

There's a reason why elemental shards are never used for serious weapons by any class, after all.

Konariraiden - Heavens Tear

^ So, um...does that count as "backing up my reasoning"?

b:question

poisonoaks

on your part? no.

On their part? yes.

Konariraiden - Heavens Tear

poisonoaks wrote: »

on your part? no.

On their part? yes.

b:pleased

I'll still take some of the winning pie. OMNOMNOM.

Only thing Rubies, Aquamarines, and all the other elemental gems are good for is Crazy Stone.

LloydAsplund - Sanctuary

Ummm mp shards? I got 4 common turq gems in my TT90 pants. and a flawless one in my weapon. Awesomeness.

Konariraiden - Heavens Tear

LloydAsplund - Sanctuary wrote: »

Ummm mp shards? I got 4 common turq gems in my TT90 pants. and a flawless one in my weapon. Awesomeness.

*bows*

b:surrender

poisonoaks

Ok, so how would these gems compare when being considered for a fist / claw?

Olba - Sanctuary

poisonoaks wrote: »

Ok, so how would these gems compare when being considered for a fist / claw?

Same thing still applies.

Really, don't you think that we would already know if there was something better than what we are already doing? Considering the thoroughness of some of the regulars in here, I'd say that it's just about impossible that you would come up with something that they have missed.

Really, the elemental gems are only good for Crazy Stone and highly specialized mob grinding.

poisonoaks

As far as I know, fist / claw damage is unaffected by blazing arrow, bow mastery, or dex. And since skills can't be used along with it, just primarily normal attacks, wouldn't the boost be greater from an elemental gem?

Olba - Sanctuary

poisonoaks wrote: »

As far as I know, fist / claw damage is unaffected by blazing arrow, bow mastery, or dex. And since skills can't be used along with it, just primarily normal attacks, wouldn't the boost be greater from an elemental gem?

To use Fists efficiently on an Archer, you need pretty high str. The elemental gems don't get boosted by anything at all, whereas the garnets gets boosted by str or dex and masteries.

Brigid - Harshlands

poisonoaks wrote: »

As far as I know, fist / claw damage is unaffected by blazing arrow, bow mastery, or dex. And since skills can't be used along with it, just primarily normal attacks, wouldn't the boost be greater from an elemental gem?

It actually is affected by Blazing Arrow, but none of the rest.

Personally I use an elemental shard in my fists, but I'm pure dex and only use the fists for chi gaining or if I'm messing around.

KageYingZi - Heavens Tear

Element shards shld nvr go on any weapon,regardless whether you're a Archer,Sin,BM or w/e.The bonus atk from the Garnet is more than the Ruby.If u have the coins,u can go try it out urself and see

Brigid - Harshlands

KageYingZi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Element shards shld nvr go on any weapon,regardless whether you're a Archer,Sin,BM or w/e.The bonus atk from the Garnet is more than the Ruby.If u have the coins,u can go try it out urself and see

A Flawless Garnet shard gives +25 Physical attack. A Flawless elemental shard gives +50 elemental attack.

A pure Dex archer will only have strength equal to their level + 4. For the sake of simplicity in constructing my argument, I'll assume a strength of 100. That gives a physical attack value of double the weapon damage, if we disregard rings and any other +phys attack modifiers on ornaments. Blazing Arrow adds 40% of weapon attack in fire damage to fist weapons as well. Thus, we have a total attack value of (Base * 2) physical and (Base * 0.4) fire.

If we add a Flawless Garnet, we increase Base by 25, for a total increase of 50 physical and 10 fire damage. If we instead use a Flawless Ruby shard, we have a flat increase of 50 fire damage. Because pure Dex archers have such a low strength, and therefore a low strength modifier to fist weapon damage, an elemental shard is nearly as effective as a physical attack shard of the same grade.

Now, consider the cost difference between elemental and physical shards. Flawless Garnet shards currently cost between 150k and 200k, depending on the seller and token prices. Flawless Elemental shards, on the other hand, are generally considered worthless and can occasionally be had for less than 10k each. For the same price as a Flawless Garnet, I can obtain an Immaculate (+64) or perhaps even Perfect (+80) elemental shard.

In short, for primary weapons, there's no reason to use an elemental shard over a Garnet or a Sapphire (depending on class). However, for secondary weapons like say, fists for a pure dex archer, elemental shards can actually be more cost-effective.

Illyana - Dreamweaver

The only conceivable route for putting an elemental shard in a claw or a fist is to put in a metal one, but even then this is a pretty stupid idea as a fist/claw archer relies on continual sparks for DPS. As Olba correctly stated, the spark does not modify elemental damage. Same thing for blazing arrow-- blazing arrow takes a percentage of your weapon damage and adds it in, but does not calculate for elemental damage.

As for what Olba said with regard to str/dex in a fist/claw build, it is inaccurate. The crit gained from dex is about the same efficiency as a str-heavy fist/claw build.

Brigid - Harshlands

Ah yeah if you plan on being useful with your fists/claws, then you'll want to shard it with garnets, and you'll have to have more strength in order to wield fists/claws that are actually good.

I just have a pair of -requirement 3-star Instant Strike Fists that I use for messing around or letting the tank build aggro rather than actually using them for full-time DD. For that, I'd rather spend 10k on a flawless elemental shard than 160k or so for a flawless garnet.

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear

Below builds have a +4 Crimson Horn: Soulsmasher w/ 2 Shards. If there are any other multipliers I missed, it would most likely either apply to both cases, or just favor the Garnet. As mentioned previously, Spark bonuses (and Heaven's Wrath, and others) will multiply the Garnet's bonuses, but not the Ruby's bonuses.


Incomparable Ruby - http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=93686bfb302152c4

Phys Dam: 3331-5690 (Does NOT include Blazing Arrow nor Ruby Damage)
Avg Phys DPH: 4510.5

Weapon Damage is 817-1388.
Blazing Arrow buff adds 40%, so an additional damage of 326.8-555.2, which averages to 441 extra Fire damage per hit.

Each Incomparable Ruby adds +100, so that's +200 Fire damage per hit.

Avg Phys DPH: 4510.5
Avg Fire DPH: 441 + 200
Total Avg DPH: 5151.5


Immaculate Garnet - http://pwcalc.ru/pwi/?char=d65c282c5adaed02

Phys Dam: 3540-5898 (Does NOT include Blazing Arrow)
Avg Dam: 4719

Weapon Damage is 881-1452.
Blazing Arrow buff adds 40%, so an additional damage of 352.4-580.8, which averages to 466.6 extra Fire damage per hit.

Avg Phys DPH: 4719
Avg Fire DPH: 466.6
Total Avg DPH: 5185.6


This thread fills me with sadness.

Legerity - Sanctuary

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

...

This thread fills me with sadness.

Especially when we've strived to document everything.

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver

Brigid - Harshlands wrote: »

In short, for primary weapons, there's no reason to use an elemental shard over a Garnet or a Sapphire (depending on class). However, for secondary weapons like say, fists for a pure dex archer, elemental shards can actually be more cost-effective.

You miss 1 point in this, and that is that in magic weapons, the ONLY think you can add is saphire. Elemental shards have no effect on skils, and with a magic weapon you only use skils. So might want to take saphires out here completly

truekossy

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You miss 1 point in this, and that is that in magic weapons, the ONLY think you can add is saphire. Elemental shards have no effect on skils, and with a magic weapon you only use skils. So might want to take saphires out here completly

Pardon me while I point out LA venos in fox form.

Though Heavy/Robe ones are better off sharding garnets than elemental shards thanks to their higher str.

Relakss - Harshlands

i would go for garnets but would try out +metal attack ones because of the skill wich decreases metal resistance especially for bosses.

but in all other cases garnetsb:victory

Relakss - Harshlands

and i would never use +fire att shards because some mobs or bosses are fire ones so it will not have any effect on them wich is the same with other elemental shards so you better just use garnets because that will always take affect.