Some endgame shard advice~

Daeneryx - Raging Tide

Hi all, so I finally managed to collect enough JoSDs to shard a couple pieces of gear... xD But now I'm having second thoughts about it. So far I have avoided using many 'endgame' shards, like vit stones, DoTs, etc, in gear that cannot be switched out easily... Like for example, lunar cape with DoTs and WoCC with vit stones or WoH with DoTs and nirvy helm with vit stones. But now I'm basically left with my rank gear.. and these will pretty much be permanent.. Should I actually do it? b:puzzled

I've seen some pretty insane tanky JoSD wizards, but so far my gear lets me do what I need it to. I can tank sp delta, stay alive when other magic classes splat, and survive long enough in tw to kill the necessary people. And full DoT build is pretty appealing for the even more insane attack power...

Advice please? b:thanks

Def build: http://pwcalc.com/f256531a496ae94d
Offense build: http://pwcalc.com/b8bcc17bfa8995f3

Edit: dunno why forum won't show my icon.. >: and why it says I joined March 2012 o.O

DaKillanator - Raging Tide

If you have pretty much zero intentions to do 1v1 pvp, and only want to do TW, then I suppose the r9 with DoD would be a good choice. I do just fine in TW, survivability wise, with my r8. So unless you're TWing against Vicious or something I don't think you'll desperately need the added survivability that JoSD gives.

Plus if you sell all those JoSDs and buy DoDs, you can buy tons and tons of fash with the extra coin you have left over b:cute

Or buy a better necklace. Believe me, the -6% chan is not worth all the phys defense you're giving up b:shutup

Daeneryx - Raging Tide

Hm.. thank you for feedback, although I wasn't really considering DoDs \: I'd rather have great def from JosD or better attack from DoTs..

p.s. d: I do use a cube neck normally, just the -chan neck when I know there's no chance of getting squished ^^

HexOmega - Dreamweaver

random:

how much are DoT
and how much are DoD on your server?


DoT vary from 17-23
DoD 27-35 here
IF there are any at all b:angry

DaKillanator - Raging Tide

Wewps I'm sorry, I meant DoTs when I said DoDs lol

BLOODMYSTIC - Archosaur

Preparing for rage, I'm going to say it anyway - vit stones on a wizard are a total waste. You are better off with just about anything else, and nearly as well off with citrine gems, which should be much, much cheaper on every server than vit stones. Given the two builds you've shown, I would only play the one with tigers. I wouldn't even consider playing the "defense" build. Ever.

For a rank 9 wizard, an attack build would be Tigers.

A defense build would be jades.

If the only pvp you do is TW, or if you are like me and that is what you are most interested in, I would save room for some garnet gems. In TW, 90% of my deaths were to archers or sins or (far less often on this server, but relatively often on my wizard on sanctuary) barbs with arma. I have 8 garnet gems and now I die much less frequently to them. Rank 9 sins are always going to be a problem, and rank 9 archers if they purge are always going to be a problem, but to be able to tank a few hits from rank 9 archers and 5 aps +10 rank 8/nirvana sins is very welcome in TW, where all you need generally is a few more seconds to pick up a heal from a faction mate or enough time for your faction to kill them.

Daeneryx - Raging Tide

o______o Ah... didn't notice more people replied.

HexOmega: Yeah.. DoTs and DoDs are about same price here, 17m and 35-40, so full DoT would be much less expensive than Jades.. b:surrender

DaKillanator: Haha that makes more sense xD

BLOODMYSTIC: Hm.. I do not doubt that vit stones for a wizard are not as useful as for a barb, for example. But one vit stone is 100 hp and about 40 pdef, so the 1100 extra hp and 440 or so pdef I gain is still pretty nice. I guess all the garnets could go well with demon stone barrier or something.. o.o I just always figured the diminishing returns from def made garnets not quite as worthwhile.. Haha but true, the majority of people I die to are the sins and r9 archers. Although a nice crit from BT can still one shot me.

Anyways, I decided to just save for an actual orb sale and stick with current shards for now. Nicely refined gear can still be a good match for op sharding b:victory

Nurfed_You - Harshlands

diminishing returns for garnet gems is a much higher barrier then 10k pdef liek ppl say. 10k pdef was based on like g9 shards. the fact was that it was no longer worthwhile to shard more pdef because it took up to many sockets and hp would bemore effective. with garnet gems i'd have to say diminishing returns really starts to hit around 14k self buffed pdef. I think my mage has like 18k pdef full buffed with 4 garnet gems and no JoSD in my gear. I mean you should always be full buffed in tw. I rarely die in tw unless i get 4-5 people hitting me at once.

Your sharding with r9 is dependent on how good your neck is. I have +11 g14 cube, plenty of pdef for me so i dont have to shard as many garnets. if i had +10 or +9 i'd probably shard another 4 garnet gems. Your shards are also dependent on how much you get focus fired, also if ppl view you as a priority target, etc.

Also, for your DoT build. Your damage isnt going to increase as much as you think it will. With a Jones blessing on you should already ahve close to 100atk lvls while everyone has around 80 def lvls. DoT could have its percs on someone who is using an omally blessing or seekers, but is the reduction in survivability worth at most 10% more damage. More then likely it isn't even 10%. You have to consider that once a few ppl see that yrou sharded DoT they will start focusing you down first because you will be one of the more squishy mages in your guild.

Sorry for the wall-o-txt lol. I'm totally against a DoT build, and there are other options to sharding full JoSD they just take a lot to explain.

Daeneryx - Raging Tide

Well... defense always has diminishing returns. It just becomes a lot more apparent at higher values. I was kind of curious about more concrete numbers for % damage reduction with different amounts of pdef, so I tested with a few different buffs. *At a bit over 8k pdef (67% reduction in damage taken), I got a lv10 cleric pdef buff and ended up with a bit over 10k pdef (72% reduction in damage taken). I took off some gear and tried the same thing starting at under 2k pdef (34% damage reduction) and used stone barrier for slightly over 4k pdef (51% damage reduction). In both cases, I gained approximately 2k pdef. Assuming someone has at least sage stone barrier, they would need around 900 extra pdef to gain 2000 more after buffing stone barrier. Rounded up, that would take 8 garnet gems. If starting at 2k pdef, this would be an increase in damage reduction of 17%, whereas at 8k pdef, only an increase in damage reduction of 5%. 8 garnets for 17% less physical damage taken is quite a good deal, considering the same thing would take about 9 jades. But then 8 garnets for 5% less damage taken is not quite as appealing.. especially when you can achieve the same thing with even just 5-6 DoDs. So, garnet gems are probably best choice for squishier magic classes or for the stubborn people who use elemental ornaments for -channeling.

Um.. not to disparage those who did choose to shard garnet gems, but wizards with just cube neck and somewhat decent gear usually have enough pdef that garnets still aren't quite as efficient as defense level shards or vit stones I think...
And I guess I've already answered my own question anyways \: 24 more def levels > 12 more attack levels... Even if I'll never win tiger event b:chuckle


*Sorry I didn't want to work with messy numbers, so I tried to keep it mostly simple.. Exact values would be slightly different I'm sure.

Nurfed_You - Harshlands

lol? thanks for explaining that josd are the best endgame shard....which we already knew.

the fact that JoSD are 90mil+ and cit/garnet gems are 19-25mil is the biggest difference. hp+pdef adds to your survivability almost as much as pure JoSD which is pure defense. tahts what i was saying. The only problem is that magic classes will still crit you for half your hp or more.

Daeneryx - Raging Tide

lol... and what I was saying was that by the time your pdef is just 6k or so, even DoDs are better than garnet gems at reducing damage taken, and are less expensive.

Well you already have massive mdef, and with a refined magic ring, it shouldn't be a huge problem. Of course if a wizzy with +12 icebourne sword crits a BIDS on you... there isn't much anyone can do.

Btw.. when I implied using elemental ornaments was unwise, I did not mean magic rings. Giving up m attack for more pdef is ridiculous, otherwise I would have just made an LA wizzy.

AsHeZ - Harshlands

Nurfed_You - Harshlands wrote: »

JoSD are 90mil+ and cit/garnet gems are 19-25mil is the biggest difference.

Jades are ~130 mil and Citrine gems are ~30 mil while Garnet gems are ~45 mil these days,