st3 r9 shards

Evettya - Heavens Tear

Ok so i now have 3/5 armor pieces st3 r9 and was deciding on what shards to use so far these http://pwcalc.com/638b509c613d143f http://pwcalc.com/576af8e8f92f6412 are what ive came up with tell me which you think is better and why. This is before refines come in to effect. I was also thinking bout going 50/50 josd/dot the full dot looks really nice because when in white vodoo you still get 50ish att lvls and when you switch to black vodoo theres not many ppl who are gonna survive a hit from you, on the other hand a full josd psy in white vodoo would be able to take hits from ppl all day long. let me know your opinions.

Eoria - Harshlands

Get two Sky Covers and do full jades.

TheDendra - Harshlands

Nirvana 2nd cast helm+cape are great, you get two percent higher crit rate and additional attack levels. The matchless wings combo gives minor difference to the survivability, so up to you where you want to gain that small edge.

In regards to the rings - generally, going for two sky covers is the best choice - you'll still have plenty magic defense and your physical defense will be close to (probably just below) 10k when you get g16 neck and that's perfect. You will still have more than enough firepower to take anybody down - so going for cloud stir (either 2x or with r9 ring) is strictly situational when you fight casters and want that extra edge.

Far as gear goes - theoretically for demons I've been a fan of JOSD even though some of my friends started contemplating going DoT demons, but far as personal experience goes, DoT build is excellent for sage psys if you are a good player. If you aren't and you are too lazy, JOSD is the way to go - it lets you make a few more mistakes and makes surviving easier without doing as much work as a DoT psy. Before explaining why JOSD is less efficient, I'd suggest thinking about balancing your survivability by sharding two armor pieces depending on your preference.

I've tried full dot with josd in helm+cape, then with drakeflames in those two armor pieces, then with +150hp and then with vit stones. Even though I've always been against vit stones in psy, ironically based on performance in pvp I found them to be most helpful overall, they round up my survivability nicely and I felt they worked better than josd in the situations where I was looking to prevent any holes in my survivability - but like I said, this part I believe is strictly personal preference, so depending on your play style you may prefer to go full DoTs or balance your gear with different kind of shards.

Before going into all the pros why DoT build is more efficient, the only con compared to JOSD build is that people will have I'd say around 15% easier time killing you - and I'm basing that on rpking with full josd psy friend(s), the situations in which 6+ were ganking one of us, etc. and how our psys withstood those attacks respectively.

Now why is DoT a more efficient build? People believe you are too squishy which is far from truth, the only thing that kills you "easily" in black voodoo are the ultimates from wizard/barb and that pretty much only happens if you don't see them coming and they slam you with a full blow at a bad time. In white voodoo the only thing that can kill you is a barb's zerk crit for 20k+ - and that's based on self-buffed fight only, if you are fully buffed, you're a walking fortress.

What makes DoT build so great is the following - you use your attack levels way more than defense levels, you don't really often see people picking a fight with a psy and even if they do, you are the one dictating the pace of the fight. Since everybody uses JOSD build nowadays, your DoTs make it easier for you to kill them (i.e. josd psy has a harder time killing a josd archer compared to a dot psy since it's a game of who kills faster rather than who tanks better).

What this means is that in black voodoo you maximize your offensive capabilities and while in attack mode, you don't really need all the extra defense levels (not just in 1v1 but also in massive fights because you simply attack until they focus fire you, then you switch to white until they give up, so you switch back to black voodoo, rinse n repeat). When you are in defense mode, you don't need all the extra defense given to you by JOSD - it's an overkill in 9/10 situations, so by sharding JOSD you are effectively overkilling your defense levels when you need them while cutting down your firepower when you need it.

The only real benefit to JOSD is that you can be a bit more carefree in RPK and allow yourself some more DDing time compared to DoT build - but like I said, DoT's effectiveness shines in rest of the situations, so if you feel comfortable playing a psy, I'd go DoT, if it's still a new class to you or you don't really care about maximizing your efficiency - go JOSD because you'll still kill most people with ease and have an easier time enjoying the game.

Euzebe - Sanctuary

Never been one for atk/def lvl math, how much does one's attack power increase in full sharding DoT? For let's say, a full r9 3rd cast.

Been considering mainly JoSDs as a demon, already have decent killing power.

y4kuzi

Full JoSD = Godly.

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear

Euzebe - Sanctuary wrote: »

Never been one for atk/def lvl math, how much does one's attack power increase in full sharding DoT? For let's say, a full r9 3rd cast.

Been considering mainly JoSDs as a demon, already have decent killing power.

Depends on the amount of attack levels you have without them.

Which is: (1 - ((Attack levels without DoT + 100) / (Attack levels with DoT + 100))) * 100

This will give you the percentual increase DoT's give, which is 15.6% for 24 DoT's if you just have a Jones' Blessing.

TheDendra - Harshlands

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear wrote: »

which is 15.6% for 24 DoT's if you just have a Jones' Blessing.

Funny thing you came up with that number based on mathematics considering my observations in regards to the differences in defense with josd are also around 15% - though not done via math but inner sense based on observation and experience.

Euzebe - Sanctuary

Ain't no better math than someone else's math b:victory.

Definitely not worth it by that math for me.

The__Sun - Dreamweaver

TheDendra - Harshlands wrote: »

Nirvana 2nd cast helm+cape are great, you get two percent higher crit rate and additional attack levels. The matchless wings combo gives minor difference to the survivability, so up to you where you want to gain that small edge.

In regards to the rings - generally, going for two sky covers is the best choice - you'll still have plenty magic defense and your physical defense will be close to (probably just below) 10k when you get g16 neck and that's perfect. You will still have more than enough firepower to take anybody down - so going for cloud stir (either 2x or with r9 ring) is strictly situational when you fight casters and want that extra edge.

Far as gear goes - theoretically for demons I've been a fan of JOSD even though some of my friends started contemplating going DoT demons, but far as personal experience goes, DoT build is excellent for sage psys if you are a good player. If you aren't and you are too lazy, JOSD is the way to go - it lets you make a few more mistakes and makes surviving easier without doing as much work as a DoT psy. Before explaining why JOSD is less efficient, I'd suggest thinking about balancing your survivability by sharding two armor pieces depending on your preference.

I've tried full dot with josd in helm+cape, then with drakeflames in those two armor pieces, then with +150hp and then with vit stones. Even though I've always been against vit stones in psy, ironically based on performance in pvp I found them to be most helpful overall, they round up my survivability nicely and I felt they worked better than josd in the situations where I was looking to prevent any holes in my survivability - but like I said, this part I believe is strictly personal preference, so depending on your play style you may prefer to go full DoTs or balance your gear with different kind of shards.

Before going into all the pros why DoT build is more efficient, the only con compared to JOSD build is that people will have I'd say around 15% easier time killing you - and I'm basing that on rpking with full josd psy friend(s), the situations in which 6+ were ganking one of us, etc. and how our psys withstood those attacks respectively.

Now why is DoT a more efficient build? People believe you are too squishy which is far from truth, the only thing that kills you "easily" in black voodoo are the ultimates from wizard/barb and that pretty much only happens if you don't see them coming and they slam you with a full blow at a bad time. In white voodoo the only thing that can kill you is a barb's zerk crit for 20k+ - and that's based on self-buffed fight only, if you are fully buffed, you're a walking fortress.

What makes DoT build so great is the following - you use your attack levels way more than defense levels, you don't really often see people picking a fight with a psy and even if they do, you are the one dictating the pace of the fight. Since everybody uses JOSD build nowadays, your DoTs make it easier for you to kill them (i.e. josd psy has a harder time killing a josd archer compared to a dot psy since it's a game of who kills faster rather than who tanks better).

What this means is that in black voodoo you maximize your offensive capabilities and while in attack mode, you don't really need all the extra defense levels (not just in 1v1 but also in massive fights because you simply attack until they focus fire you, then you switch to white until they give up, so you switch back to black voodoo, rinse n repeat). When you are in defense mode, you don't need all the extra defense given to you by JOSD - it's an overkill in 9/10 situations, so by sharding JOSD you are effectively overkilling your defense levels when you need them while cutting down your firepower when you need it.

The only real benefit to JOSD is that you can be a bit more carefree in RPK and allow yourself some more DDing time compared to DoT build - but like I said, DoT's effectiveness shines in rest of the situations, so if you feel comfortable playing a psy, I'd go DoT, if it's still a new class to you or you don't really care about maximizing your efficiency - go JOSD because you'll still kill most people with ease and have an easier time enjoying the game.

I had a full DoT psy until I just recently upgraded but as you said you can still have extremely high survivablity if you time your skills/charms according to the situation. Now that our Damage over time skills have been buffed it makes a DoT build even a bit more efficient. Only 2 points that I think should be brought up is when you get purged or when you are attacking someone without JOSD's. There is quite a significant difference in survivabilty once you are purged as compared to a JOSD build. Also in PVP I tested equipping jones blessing vs Omallys and if the person had low def level the difference was minimal maybe like 200-300 damage more with an additional 15 attack levels (to sort of simulate DoT build). Unfortunately I was not able to test this difference against lets say someone with 80+ def levels but possibly in this case it would be effective. Could you let me know if you found significant results with that particular situation.

Subtraction - Harshlands

TheDendra - Harshlands wrote: »

Funny thing you came up with that number based on mathematics considering my observations in regards to the differences in defense with josd are also around 15% - though not done via math but inner sense based on observation and experience.

why is this so funny

TheDendra - Harshlands

The__Sun - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I had a full DoT psy until I just recently upgraded but as you said you can still have extremely high survivablity if you time your skills/charms according to the situation. Now that our Damage over time skills have been buffed it makes a DoT build even a bit more efficient. Only 2 points that I think should be brought up is when you get purged or when you are attacking someone without JOSD's. There is quite a significant difference in survivabilty once you are purged as compared to a JOSD build. Also in PVP I tested equipping jones blessing vs Omallys and if the person had low def level the difference was minimal maybe like 200-300 damage more with an additional 15 attack levels (to sort of simulate DoT build). Unfortunately I was not able to test this difference against lets say someone with 80+ def levels but possibly in this case it would be effective. Could you let me know if you found significant results with that particular situation.

Couldn't agree more with you, the purge has a much greater impact on a DoT psy - the way I rationalize it is that honestly in massive fights anyone who gets purged has significantly higher chances of dying, disregarding the class and shards. But yeah, when comparing DoT to JOSD, even the "mini purges", when you don't carry much buffs on you, still hurt because you have to rebuff white voodoo quickly whereas JOSD build has a bit more time to react.

The attacking non-JOSD build people is also true - and the catch here is that vast majority of players use JOSD as endgame build and in the case of many classes, it is the best choice, so you'll most frequently encounter JOSD builds rather than DOT.

The reason why I prefer DoT build is exactly for those super high defense lvl targets because the DoT build truly shines in those situations - i.e. I've watched JOSD psy friends fight targets with JOSD build and then I fought them, and I noticed a difference in the terms of amount of pressure I can put on the opponent and dictate the fight's pace, they were forced to react and save themselves a lot more, rather than get into a comfortable rhythm.

It's my personal opinion that a psy has sufficient survivability with DoT build while having that extra firepower against JOSD targets - the JOSD psys don't really have that choice, they have a bit better survivability in black voodoo and then an overkill of defense levels in white voodoo, so they never really have a choice - whereas DoT psy can constantly switch between being full offensive and full defensive.

P.S. You brought up an excellent point regarding the dmg over time spells and such, with the latest patch DoT build has become even more viable because it affects a variety of our skills whereas our skills don't benefit from JOSD.