vit stones vs. defense stones

Starflair - Dreamweaver

Based on your experiences, have you found vit add ons over defense add ons better, or vice versa? I've never used add ons but now that I'm hitting end game, I oughta.

If it matters, I will mainly pve

T_i_m - Dreamweaver

Jades in Nirvy/R9 armor, vit stones in the rest. I'm full vit and wish I'd put Jades in my nirvy armor, not worth it to reshard now.

Starflair - Dreamweaver

Eh, I'll never afford/invest enough into r9 or nirvana..

Well, maybe nirvana, but not likely.

I guess I really didn't mean the stones per se, but any general hp boost (citrine, etc) compared to defense boost.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

A few basic rules:

JoSD in G13 or better instead of vit stones.
Get your hp from refines instead of shards.
Vit stones are still decent in pvp since JoSD then are used more to cancel out opponents attack levels rather than reduce dmg.

Think of it this way: What's 2% of 10k hp and whats 10 vit worth.

Nael - Dreamweaver

You don't need JoSD for PvE since mobs have no attack levels. They are good for countering Jone's Blessings and R9. But considering JSoD are still way cheaper than vit stones, you'd probably find it easier to go with JSoD.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

Nael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You don't need JoSD for PvE since mobs have no attack levels. They are good for countering Jone's Blessings and R9. But considering JSoD are still way cheaper than vit stones, you'd probably find it easier to go with JSoD.

I need to go to your server. On sanctuary they're almost 10 mil more b:sad

Anyway, here is Asterelle explaining why vit stones may be better for pvp.

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Think of JoSDs as a way to lower your opponents attack level.
If someone has 30 attack level and your 30 defense level lowers them down to 0, you took out almost 25% of their attacking power. Pretty good.

Now if someone had 90 attack level you can only lower them down to 60. That means they just lost only 16% of their attacking power.

Your defense levels are much less effective if the person has much higher attack level. Full R9 gives 93 attack level. Rather than try to lower their attack by only 16%, it can be better to try to increase your own hp by 20%.

But you can't generalize which is better because every person has a different hp, every opponent has different attack levels, and every attack hits at a different rate and for different amounts.


I disagree that "you don't need JoSD for PvE because mobs have no attack levels." Mobs not having attack levels is exactly why JoSD is better. Rather than having JoSD just cancel out attack levels it is actually reducing the amount of dmg you take. If a mob does 2k hits on you 5 times thats 10k dmg. You could either have 150hp more with vit stones or 200hp dmg reduced. Plus, if you have paint its easier to recover 98%. If you have 20 defense levels your hp needs to heal you 20% less to break even.

brent40

I disagree that "you don't need JoSD for PvE because mobs have no attack levels." Mobs not having attack levels is exactly why JoSD is better. Rather than having JoSD just cancel out attack levels it is actually reducing the amount of dmg you take. If a mob does 2k hits on you 5 times thats 10k dmg. You could either have 150hp more with vit stones or 200hp dmg reduced. Plus, if you have paint its easier to recover 98%. If you have 20 defense levels your hp needs to heal you 20% less to break even.

Seekers pretty much prove how well defense levels do in PvE.

RioNHale - Archosaur

josd > vit stones by a lot.

If u dont believe me check bms with josd vs vit stones and compare their survival indexs.

josd rules.

vit stones add more hp so u can get bms spamming and bragging about how much they have.

high def lvl kicks vit stone ***.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

Nael - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You don't need JoSD for PvE since mobs have no attack levels. They are good for countering Jone's Blessings and R9. But considering JSoD are still way cheaper than vit stones, you'd probably find it easier to go with JSoD.

mobs have attack levels and defense levels, its their level.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

SashaGray - Heavens Tear wrote: »

mobs have attack levels and defense levels, its their level.

All mobs have 0 attack level / defense level though I can think of a couple that know how to cast frenzy. At high refines josd is usually better but use the socket calculator in my sig to check.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

All mobs have 0 attack level / defense level though I can think of a couple that know how to cast frenzy. At high refines josd is usually better but use the socket calculator in my sig to check.

Actually was wondering about bosses and Frenzy but figured no one knew the answer. Bosses like Slasher in FCC and the BH metal boss self cast Frenzy and obviously hit harder, do they also recieve lower defense levels? It might be worth it to not purify them in order to kill them faster.

Ruvil - Sanctuary

uhm... purify a boss?

FCC whirly boss dies faster w/ frenzy on.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

Ruvil - Sanctuary wrote: »

uhm... purify a boss?

FCC whirly boss dies faster w/ frenzy on.

bah, purge/purify. Same difference. One removes good buffs off of bad guys the other removes bad buffs off of good guys. What if I'm on the wraiths side?

And I've tried to catch whether it effects the whirly boss but the difference of the last 200k hp falling off in 2 seconds purged vs. 2.17 seconds unpurged makes it difficult to tell which is why I'm aiming for confirmation.

Drunken_Chu - Dreamweaver

Trust me you don't wish you were on this server, cube stamps are like 85 mil. Except for DoDs and JoSDs Dreamweaver is probably the most overpriced server in the game.

Joshcja - Sanctuary

Drunken_Chu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Trust me you don't wish you were on this server, cube stamps are like 85 mil. Except for DoDs and JoSDs Dreamweaver is probably the most overpriced server in the game.

cube stamps are 125 mill on sanc

Nael - Dreamweaver

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

I disagree that "you don't need JoSD for PvE because mobs have no attack levels." Mobs not having attack levels is exactly why JoSD is better. Rather than having JoSD just cancel out attack levels it is actually reducing the amount of dmg you take. If a mob does 2k hits on you 5 times thats 10k dmg. You could either have 150hp more with vit stones or 200hp dmg reduced. Plus, if you have paint its easier to recover 98%. If you have 20 defense levels your hp needs to heal you 20% less to break even.

I said you don't NEED, doesn't mean you don't want it. It's an option that's not necessary if you are going to focus on PvE.

Drunken_Chu - Dreamweaver

Ah my bad, I thought I read a post by you once saying they were 45 mil on sanc or something, that must've been a really old post then. What about script of fates? They are all the way up to 100 mil on DW -_-

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

All mobs have 0 attack level / defense level though I can think of a couple that know how to cast frenzy. At high refines josd is usually better but use the socket calculator in my sig to check.

I have to disagree without further proof, though im not doubting you have some, since attack and defense levels are increases on base level, if what you are saying is the case, then [?] mobs and bosses wouldn't have such a high damage reduction affiliated with them. for example hellfire abomination[105] has more than double the physical defense of Belial[?/150].
they dont have increased attack/defense levels the way players can get them, but they still have their base attack defense levels, which is determined by their level, as far as i can tell.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

There is a separate damage reduction involved in fighting higher level mobs (dark red names). You see the same reduction on a level 50 player fighting level 100 mobs. Also pdef is less effective against higher level attackers. As you level you need more and more defense to maintain the same reduction % against same level attackers.

Also frenzy doesn't lower defense level. It lowers pdef/mres and raises attack level.
I don't know how strong the mob version of frenzy is for the few mobs that have it but it's nothing to base equipment decisions on. Without any buffs or debuffs mobs have 0 attack level and defense level.

Joshcja - Sanctuary

Drunken_Chu - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Ah my bad, I thought I read a post by you once saying they were 45 mil on sanc or something, that must've been a really old post then. What about script of fates? They are all the way up to 100 mil on DW -_-

same here

Your about where the sanctuary market was in the last pack sale.

SashaGray - Heavens Tear

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

There is a separate damage reduction involved in fighting higher level mobs (dark red names). You see the same reduction on a level 50 player fighting level 100 mobs. Also pdef is less effective against higher level attackers. As you level you need more and more defense to maintain the same reduction % against same level attackers.

that seems consistent with my theory, the different color names i thought were there as an indicator of first danger for lower levels, and of exp multiplier and drop rates on variable drop mobs/bosses