Your opinions about this gear setup.

_MatrixSin_ - Harshlands

So basicly, as I've gotten myself a job (finally lol) I've been seeing quite a few assassins going rank 9, which basicly is something I'd like to aswell. (In the future ofc) And since I'm into PvP, and always been dreaming about being one of those '' OP '' sins in the server, I've started to look for ATK and DEF lvl shards (DoT, DoD, JOSD.) but I can't tell.. so, for example. I've tried to lurk around on the calc. And this is what I've come to.

1. http://pwcalc.com/d16e7b89ec75a952

2. http://pwcalc.com/3d0ecf06fd1a9930

3. http://pwcalc.com/49a1b75ec5edde06



But I don't know which one I should choose to be honest. I've been thinking of getting 3rd R9 for my sin, and go full JOSD. Though, what I'd like to know is, would a fully JOSD sin be able to '' survive '' in PvP versus other 3rd cast R9's? And by surviving I mean taking hits by my target, and still stay alive? Or would full DoT be worth getting just to do lots of damage towards others? Feel free to tell me what I should get when I'm going to shard my gears.

Salari - Raging Tide

The answer is in the very first post of this sub-forum

Tsyn - Raging Tide

Alright.
So we immediately throw away the Diamond of Defense and DoT build. You always should go one way or the other, not some half-damned in-between. b:laugh

So now it's a question between a DoT Full 3rd cast, or a JosD Full 3rd cast. (Note that there is actually a better combination for survivability - I believe it was 19 JosD/5 Savants, but I don't have the calculator handy).

At this point, it's not really a question about the gear, since they are equally endgame.
How do you play? Are you a very offensive or defensive player? Do you take risks, or wait for fortune's hand to favor your Zerk/Crit%? The thing is, you ought to choose gear that covers the area you're weakest in.

For example, I'm a highly offensive player. I defend myself mostly through sheer force, often by spiking my damage so I'll kill my opponent before he kills me, and I don't concern myself with my HP as much as I do as the HP of my opponent. Therefore, I'm sharding a combination of JosD and Savants, to cover my weak defense area.

Likewise, a highly defensive player is going to stunlock their opponent continuously, and the player in question will rarely die, but also rarely win, unless they either make a mistake and pay the price or get a really nice string of double damage hits. This person should shard DoTs, in order to cover for their strategy, which lacks the offensive initiative.

Most people these days will tell you to shard JosD, because it is currently the best shard in the game for survivability. However, I believe you ought to conform to your own identity, and choose what's best for you, not in general.
Take a man who has more skill with a dagger than a lightsaber, for example. A lightsaber is immediately seen as the most "powerful" or "best" weapon - however, when it comes down to it, the man is probably going to be better off with his own personalized dagger, than a glowy light blade that makes buzzing noises. He's familiar with the dagger, and is an expert at fighting with it - no matter how strong the lightsaber is, if he can't use it, poopoo for him.

Best of luck to answering your own question (and gz on a job! I'm still too young to get one!)

PS: Suggestions for your general gear build
1. Include CotD buff in your next build
2. Best tome for skillspamming is NOT the Luad - it's one of those blockier tomes, like the +55 dex. Personally, I'd go with either the +0.2 mps (kiting ftw) or the reduce physical dmg% - but as I said earlier, choose what fits you best.
3. Adversity Belt has +10 vit and dex, +3 attack and def levels, and +250 magical resistance (if I'm not wrong).
4. A G16 cape and helmet will give you better defenses and HP than the current choice of G15 hat and APS cape. Also, you can shard JosD in a G16 cape.
5. Always have both an O'malley's Blessing and a Jone's blessing. You gain more attack and defense levels if you are proficient at switching them in combat to suit your needs. (Omalleys while attacked, Jones while attacking)

_MatrixSin_ - Harshlands

Well, I am both an offensive and defensive player, as I rely on stealth mostly to not get ganked/randomly attacked by other people. I know what I'm doing while I am outside sz, so that is not a big problem. I take alot of risks when there is a small group with people going versus me, but I usually get away alive, as long as my escape and ad is ready for using.
What I usually do is, DN > tidal > chill of the deep > bp (sometimes) > wolf emblem > 2 spark in stealth > inner harmony > subsea > earthen rift. But if I go into close combats, it would be 2 spark > ih > tackling slash > condensed thorn > power dash > aoe etc..
So it's mainly skill spamming for me, and what I believe would fit me most, is a decent high HP unbuffed (10k+) and decent def + atk lvls, so like 75-80 def lvls, 100+ atk lvls. But yes, I do rely on safety aswell, I don't wanna pop out of stealth and get owned by the person I'm going to kill. Even though we're squishy as hell. The people who knows their chars pretty good (like myself. not bragging or **** so dw) they'd be able to survive pretty good as long as they know what they're dealing with, however.. lets get back on-topic again, so..
since you did mention G16 cape and helm, I suppose it's something like this?

http://pwcalc.com/6aa71e807fd2551a < Fully buffed. Looks good to me though.

Anyways.. I'm sure the JOSD shards are pretty good for me. Since I'm also going to +12 everything afterwards, if I still have enough coins for that b:laugh

Oh... and you're not gonna love getting yourself a job lmao, after a few months, perhaps years of working. You'll most likely be like '' God damn.. working isn't as fun as I thought it'd be. '' depending on how lazy you are and **** lol, I do enjoy mine though. But I don't find it relatively fun at all, but I've got to, if I want to be able to get myself food and stuff hehe.

Tsyn - Raging Tide

(I was originally referring to your playstyle outside of stealth - Being in stealth basically means infinite defense).

Hmmm, offensive and defensive... in that case, I'd probably go JosD, especially since you mentioned your tendency to AoE a lot. If you're going to repeatedly do that, you'll need enough defense to get away - two spark should take care of any damage problems.

Your build looks excellent, but I'm a bit concerned with your Mdef. As a tanky physical sin, you're most likely going to get killed by magical range DD that you can't locate in time to save yourself. I'd recommend switching that cube neck into a magical one, while keeping the rings.
Everything else looks great.

You may want to start looking at various genie builds; Because you're into AoEing, you'd be well suited to TW and Group PvP. Therefore, you'd want a vit/mag genie. You have two options at 103: Faith+Elemental resists, ToP, fortify, that sort of stuff, or AD+Expel and the same after. If you put the same Elemental resist skills in both, you should have equal resist power to magic; however, Faith is going to give you more flexibility in your escape methods (blocking purge! Get out of stun to go into IG!) while AD and Expel are going to be both more reliable and better vs physical damage. Choose the build to counter the classes you have the most trouble with.

As for bragging: Dw, we all have egos here.

As for jobs: I have a few more years to enjoy, I guess. b:victory

_Mg_Zr - Harshlands

I would get the refinable r9 ring instead of one of those sky covers.

Id also get the emperors tome

If you can afford all that then id also get the new cube necklace

And always carry a jones blessing and a o'malleys.

_MatrixSin_ - Harshlands

Tsyn - Raging Tide wrote: »

(I was originally referring to your playstyle outside of stealth - Being in stealth basically means infinite defense).

Hmmm, offensive and defensive... in that case, I'd probably go JosD, especially since you mentioned your tendency to AoE a lot. If you're going to repeatedly do that, you'll need enough defense to get away - two spark should take care of any damage problems.

Your build looks excellent, but I'm a bit concerned with your Mdef. As a tanky physical sin, you're most likely going to get killed by magical range DD that you can't locate in time to save yourself. I'd recommend switching that cube neck into a magical one, while keeping the rings.
Everything else looks great.

You may want to start looking at various genie builds; Because you're into AoEing, you'd be well suited to TW and Group PvP. Therefore, you'd want a vit/mag genie. You have two options at 103: Faith+Elemental resists, ToP, fortify, that sort of stuff, or AD+Expel and the same after. If you put the same Elemental resist skills in both, you should have equal resist power to magic; however, Faith is going to give you more flexibility in your escape methods (blocking purge! Get out of stun to go into IG!) while AD and Expel are going to be both more reliable and better vs physical damage. Choose the build to counter the classes you have the most trouble with.

Well, I am not afraid of fighting AA classes at all, as I am used to it (playing in a private server aswell.) and I believe, being charmed aswell can be a great addition to survivability, cause in some cases, such as ganking and/or group pvp could require a charm. As far as I know, the gankers (yes, gankers.) probably would attempt to kill the strongest person that is pking them with other people. Cause basicly that's one of the greatest moves you could do, if you're in a squad and pking, and going versus some groups. And so far.. the sin I'm playing on the private server is quite good if you ask me.
So far, I am able to ' tank ' 4-5 people who are fully buffed. Though, I'll need to be fully buffed aswell. (I get about 30-32k pdef with all buffs.) And since most of my skills are already sage, it's quite the high zerk crits that occurs, especially when I'm in stealth and 2 spark and do my thing. Even though, I usually stay out of stealth in group pvp's, cause I'm always up for a decent challenge. Even though most people takes pvp too seriously, and makes up a big mess out of it all, we all still enjoy it, since it's balanced pvp. (kinda)
But yeah.. about changing neck, I'd rather get something like this though.

http://pwcalc.com/b06efe850825ae14

And yes, that's with all buffs, aswell max stats on weap, should be enough with atk lvls, aswell as the engraves on the rings (if lucky ofcourse.) and the def lvl's are fine if you ask me. Not sure, but if possible I'd like to get a few more def lvls, but I believe that is the maximum def lvl's you can get out of that gear set.

Zsw - Dreamweaver

Tsyn - Raging Tide wrote: »

So now it's a question between a DoT Full 3rd cast, or a JosD Full 3rd cast. (Note that there is actually a better combination for survivability - I believe it was 19 JosD/5 Savants, but I don't have the calculator handy).

Could you provide me the calculation for that please? I calculated sharding for end game assassins multiple times and I always come up with 24 josd.

Olbaze - Sanctuary

I don't think any of those setups are ideal. All of them have the G15 Nirvana helmet for no apparent reason. Similarly, all of them have way too much PDef: it'll be even worse if we talk full buffs.

As for sharding, I'm personally of the opinion that you shouldn't shard DoTs. It's kinda dumb when you already have a ton of Attack Levels to go with. Also, never shard DoDs.

As for the tome: I don't think it's worth it to ditch Love: Up and Down just yet. It's a much more flexible tome than the Dex tomes you could get. Also, your comparison is unfair: Love: Up and Down is a tome made from 1 Scroll of Tome, whereas Divine Ignorance is made from three tomes of that grade, meaning it's triple the price. The Scoll of Tome equivalent of Love: Up and Down is Divine Brotherhood, which is just 25 dexterity with 2% crit, hardly worth a comparison considering that LUAD provides 25+ dex from restatting and 1% crit.

Zsw - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Could you provide me the calculation for that please? I calculated sharding for end game assassins multiple times and I always come up with 24 josd.

It does come down to what we're talking about.

For some, "endgame" is full +12's. For some, it's +10's.

Asterelle wrote an effective HP calculator around sharding. That is, it tells you the best overall sharding you could use with a setup.

For example, the OP's three setups produce the following results:
First setup: 13 JoSD with 11 Vit Stones
Second Setup: 10 JoSD, 14 Vit Stones

The third setup is the second one with a different sharding plan.

The reason why the effective HP is superior with some Vit Stones here is because his refines are at +10. Put them at +12 and we get the following results:
First Setup: 23 JoSD, 1 Vit Stone
Second Setup: 20 JoSD, 4 Vit Stones

Naturally, those stats are unbuffed. Put in some buffs and it'll be 24 JoSD.

Tsyn - Raging Tide

MASSIVE NOTE: Olbaze ninja'd me. That ******n mathematics student. He mentioned some of the calculations; however, I did include attack levels in mine, though I didn't make any distinction between +10/+12 and Full/Self Buffs.
So, begin my ninja'd post:

You know, it probably wasn't correct, lol. I believe that was the build it calculated for my aps-type endgame build (don't ask) so I apologize for the confusion.

I took the OP's last build, stripped it of it's non-self buffs and all shards, corrected the R9 belt, and added an O'Malley's blessing: http://pwcalc.com/795dc9cd4a4f2f8e
I proceeded to dump the raw data into Aster's Socket/Sharding calculator.
Against the following opponents, the calculator advised me to get these shards:

vs: Level 100 opponent, 0 attack levels
Physical Defense: 16 JosD, 8 Vit Stones
Magical Defense: 15 JosD, 9 Vit Stones
Average Defense: 16 JosD, 8 Vit Stones

vs: Level 100 opponent, +30 attack levels (datJONES)
Physical Defense: 21 JosD, 3 Vit Stones
Magical Defense: 22 JosD, 2 Vit Stones
Average Defense: 21 JosD, 3 Vit Stones

vs: Level 103 opponent, +163 attack levels (as if the sin were cutting itself)
Physical Defense: 1 Garnet, 23 Vit Stones
Magical Defense: 24 Vit Stones
Average Defense: 1 JosD, 23 Vit Stones

As you can see, depending on the opponent, the shift in best sharding is all over the place, as dependent on the attack levels of your opponent. This is because JosD and DoT are not straight % more or % less damage.

Zsw, did you calculate your effective HP with or without Attack Levels of your opponent? I might have made the mistake that you did; because this is the age of R9s3 I believe it is extremely important to include attack levels. You might want to consider using the calculator yourself and also include attack levels similar to a full R9; I'm guessing, considering your reputation, that is what you'll be fighting the most.

I just realized how stupid I am, by the way. Couldn't believe I missed that. I have to recalculate my build for my aps sin to fight Full R9 third cast, now.

Zsw - Dreamweaver

Right. I only calculated for up to full r9 stage 1 using a set of full +12 gears.
Recalculations with this build seem to show that full josd is still superior in all cases except against other sins.

On another note, the OP's builds are broken. Stats on the armor got removed. I think that is the same problem with your build, Tsyn

Olbaze - Sanctuary

Zsw - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Right. I only calculated for up to full r9 stage 1 using a set of full +12 gears.
Recalculations with this build seem to show that full josd is still superior in all cases except against other sins.

Well, the point that I was rather trying to make is that the biggest influence with the optimal sharding is the refinement. The amount of HP that you gain when you go from +10 to +12 with gear like r9rr is so high that it kinda makes Vit Gems a bad choice.

On another note, the OP's builds are broken. Stats on the armor got removed. I think that is the same problem with your build, Tsyn

Oh, that's just a PWCalc thing, he hasn't added the stats for the armors yet.

Zsw - Dreamweaver

Olbaze - Sanctuary wrote: »

Well, the point that I was rather trying to make is that the biggest influence with the optimal sharding is the refinement. The amount of HP that you gain when you go from +10 to +12 with gear like r9rr is so high that it kinda makes Vit Gems a bad choice.



Oh, that's just a PWCalc thing, he hasn't added the stats for the armors yet.

Yeah, that makes sense. I thought I was missing something so I wanted to confirm. Thanks. b:victory