A mathematical look at the Mage Build Debate

EP_DarkSol - Lost City · February 2009

(Before I begin, I'd like to go ahead and state that I DID NOT include resistance calculations in this exercise. Thus, magic damage will be less than what is stated. However, the Mage's defense against physical attacks is indeed accurate, though I did not consider armor mods or refinement. All of this was done through the ecatomb.net player generator and good old fashioned pen and paper. I hope it helps some of you who are on the fence about mage builds.)

Today, I decided to do some calculation. It came about after I crafted a kick-**** new Dharma Sword(3 star, Blue, 2 sockets.

) and wondered how much damage I'd do with it.

Here's what I found:

At level 44, with the same gear and weapons, a pure mage only does 400 more damage than an LA build.

I bought a re-stat scroll(from LA), expecting to see a MASSIVE damage increase. Instead, I get 400 more damage? But wait:

Expanded to level 100:

Pure with lvl 10 sandstorm: 27277
LA with lvl 10 sandstorm: 21103

This is PvE damage. It's a good chunk of damage to be sure, but look at PvP:

PvP damage is roughly 1/4 of PvE damage. Then, at level 100, it becomes...

Pure = 6819

LA = 5275

A difference of 1544 damage.

It's obvious who can do the most damage, and by what margin.

(Remember, these calculations are BEFORE resistance is factored in.)

However, I took the liberty of creating a worst case scenario:

a WB at level 105 with ALL 535 POINTS in Vit has 12, 461 HP.

That's a 2 shot for the robie, 3 for the LA.

However, at level 105, the same WB equipped with a Regius' Heart Battle Axe does up to 7335 raw damage.(Hacks? This is outside the realm of possibility, due to the aforementioned HP. This is a worst case scenario.)

A 5 con Mage at level 100 has 2030 base hp. Even with demon earthen barrier on, lvl 100 robes do not and cannot stop a one shot.

Now, let's look at LA vs this Barb from Hell:

The same base Hp applies here, so it all comes down to def.

With the ultimate lvl 100 LA, the LA mage can barely survive a hit(we're talking single digits) but yet survives regardless.

So...

If you look at the pure mage, who only needs 2 shots worth of pure damage with sandstorm to kill, but dies in one hit, the odds of victory are low.

If you look at the LA mage, who need 3 hits to kill, the verdict is the same.

However, for damage output, the LA mage IS superior if he survives, because an extra 5k damage is MUCH better than an extra 1.5k.

My conclusion?

Barring the **** barb from Hell scenario, an LA mage should survive long enough to finish the job, whereas a robe mage comes down to one shot or die.

It's still a matter of personal opinion, though I've tried to present the facts as opinion-free as possible.

Darkmaggirl - Heavens Tear · February 2009

So what it comes down to is if you want to do a lot of PvP, go LA, or if you plan on doing the minimal amount of PvP possible, go full INT.

That's been stated before, multiple times, which makes your post completely irrelevant.

streaker · February 2009

I'll stick with pure for a couple reasons... I plan to keep pvp to a minimal until level 90+, when I do PK/pvp, its all backstab or snipe tactics, and at level 100, we get our little mana based skills, so I'm good. *wonders how long it took to do all that* Now try with resistances and smart skill lineups

Skyannie - Lost City · February 2009

The power behind the pure int build is not behind his stats, it's behind his gear, his high level HH gear which makes him reap the benefits of his class as he is no longer a one shot as you state. Even more, why would the LA survive if the robe cannot? I mean, they're naked, right? Neither of them benefit from HP increase or defense increase, what are you accounting for their survivability? Did you just sneak some armor onto that LA?

Your opinion seems biased if you attribute hidden points of survivability to a build, of which, neither adds con, for obvious reasons, and even adding the strength required for the LA build does no make enough of a difference to survive any melee hit. It seems you added the attribute of armor to the LA, which you didn't add to the robe, why?

streaker · February 2009

Sky, have I told you how much I love you? lmao...

EP_DarkSol - Lost City · February 2009

I apologize if I wasn't clear. The defense calculations came from outfitting each class with their lvl 99 gear.

The phys. def. on the robes would not offset the damage of the barb enough to let the mage survive, whereas the LA's gear at 99 would.

Once again, I apologize for not being clear.

EDIT:

I'll lay out my defense testing criteria:

For each build, I statted correctly according to build archetypes, then gave each the level 99 armor that offered the most pdef.

I did not include any items other than:

Chest
Legs
Boots
Wrist

on either build, but they were both tested unbiased. I was determining which build was best for me, and I figured I'd share with you guys.

Chaotiic - Lost City · February 2009

lol sky's point sums up why this is stupid but if we do take all u say at face value.

The LA survives with single digit hp which = they die in next shot.

Mage skills take wat 3 secs average, the pure needs 2 shots to kill and the light needs 3.

Considering the pure dies b4 it kills the barb that means the barb hits after the 1st shot therefore u are trying to tell me the light gets off 2 more shots(6 secs) before its single digit hp is taken out? Do u know how fast melee skills are? Even if we consider charms the barb would need 2 more shots rather than one to finish the light armor so ur telling me a barb fires off 2 skills slower than a mage?

Your logic is seriously flawed.

Magic/Dex/Str have a bigger impact on damage as ur weapon gets better and has higher refines so that 400 pve damage at lv 40 will be MUCH bigger at 100 with 8jun/hh99 +8 or more as a level 100 would have.

Chaotiic - Lost City · February 2009

EP_DarkSol - Lost City wrote: »

I apologize if I wasn't clear. The defense calculations came from outfitting each class with their lvl 99 gear.

The phys. def. on the robes would not offset the damage of the barb enough to let the mage survive, whereas the LA's gear at 99 would.

Once again, I apologize for not being clear.

Just saw this post, u need to factor the damage reductions not just look at the raw numbers. Although the barb my be said to do 7k with reductions would be around 3.4k light armor would be less. Its not the numbers its the % reduction as has been said before 1k-2k pdef makes a lot more of a difference than 5k-6k. Many pure mages have more pdef than archers, i have very good gear and lushess in my guild has 200 or so more pdef than me. Its easy to get enough pdef as a pure at later levels and its easier to grind up to those later levels as pure.

double post

EP_DarkSol - Lost City · February 2009

It's becoming clear to me that no one has really read this thread in its entirety.

I stated that neither of them could kill this barb from hell, but the Pure did more damage to him in one shot.

My argument, for you tl;dr types is this:

The LA mage survives in melee combat with low HP, still gets off one more speel assuming it isn't interrupted. He does 10k damage total.

The pure dies after doing 6k.

A dead mage does no damage. Since no one is capable of accepting that, I attempted to prove it with math. Turns out, you guys can reject that as well.

Can a mod delete this please?

Skyannie - Lost City · February 2009

Your math is evidently flawed, because you missed out vital variables, and as such, you cannot draw a conclusion. This is starting with the fact that you ignored the addition of real armor, not npc ****.

With real gear, no upgrades, none stoned, the pure int mage at level 100 will have at LEAST 3,650, which is a more credible number, because even I don't have just 2,000 hp, get real. From ecatomb, I also got 3,390 with LA gear, using mostly identical accessories, just LA, which, the gold set properties aren't really oriented towards mages.

I did read your wall o' text, but I noticed that... well... it lacked a lot, so I find that it's not adequate evidence. There are too many missing details... maybe I'll comment for real later.

Oh, uh, yeah, lay out the scenario against a caster, because that's also a problem. I leave it to your imagination for now.

Legerity - Sanctuary · February 2009

Chaotiic was saying that you cannot as a wizard fire off another spell in that small gap between getting hit ONCE and TWICE from a melee (or ranged phys hit) because the wizard's cast time is too slow. Unless you do something like gush which really just seems about the same damage as pure.

I stand on neither side and I don't give a damn about which is better [playstyle matters here]. Just wanted to point out what I interpreted from Chaotiic's post.

Edit: Also what Skyannie said.

Adroit - Lost City · February 2009

I agree with the philosophy, which is why I want LA. I do think the math is a bit flawed, and unrealistic (I think you oversimplified the math)... but surviving at least one hit could never be a disadvantage. I could see some circumstances where that one hit could be enough to get another shot or two off, if after that first hit the wiz distance shrinked away, there is a good chance the wiz would be able to get another shot off.

streaker · February 2009

If you've got 9 hp left, you have a snowballs chance in hell of surviving without having like the leetest cleric in the game....

but he still fails to realise we have mana based skills at lvl 100, and he used level 100 in his uhhh.... test? like I said, retry with decent skill sets, and lets see

VonTerror - Lost City · February 2009

Darksol i applaud your effort and what you are trying to do here. In the end, though, all of these debates are for naught. Pure/LA - Mage vs Other class, Best for X, best for Y. Biggest reason i say that is it all comes down to the gear you get and the people you play againsts gear. Period! Not everyone keeps there eq/weaps at base stats. PvE there is no question by 99% of the wizzards we should stay Pure. So the only questions come in PvP.

I found PvP not to be too hard as a robie vs people my level range from 30-65 but i did alot of research before hand so i made sure i had the gear for it. I check every day a few times as far as 10 levels below what i am so i don't miss a piece of armor or weapon i want. I was pure up until yesterday by the way. All of my gear had blue bonuses of +69 two times except my boots and i had +hp as the third in a few pieces. All my neckies/belt had + phys, reduce phys damage and hp, My hats and robes too. This allowed me to pump a mix of hp and phys stones so i had higher then normal HP and phys def and was able to survive quite well, keeping my damage at a high output

The problem is now at higher levels the stuff cost a whole lot more coin. If refining were not allowed in this game everyone could make a valid arguement about class/build/etc. But in reality when i can only to afford to +1/+2 everything, gr5/6 shards and i am going against people that +5 everything or higher and better shards. I am toast. As a LA build or Pure

So my suggestion for all is just do whichever your playstyle fits better, because in the end, when someone comes around with that +8 90 xbow or +6 axes on your +1 or 2 gear. You are going to get owned regardless

Another note(only refers to those that want to PvP) - my reasoning for switching was the hh/mold robe eq is horrible 70-90, 3 star is better cause you can find eq with +hp and phys def which is mandatory to survive any fight more then one shot. The 70's gear you can find 3 star like i said, but the 80s you can't in you look in shops or AH, meaning you will use the same gear 70-90. Unless you craft and getting what you want will be luck if i ever saw it, and expensive as hell.

By going to LA at 78 you can get the molder eq, stay in robe boots, switch the neckies/belts/hats/robes to those with + magic def, use all hp shards. This results in having almost as much mag res as a 73 robe, more hp, a lot more phys def, a lot more crits. Downfalls are you hit weaker, a lot less mp. But since its hard to upgrade from 70s gear till 90 as a pure anyway, i see these LA options as giving me a longer chance to survive against all the other classes green/gold 80 gear thats tends to get highly refined.

Last thing to note - I don't plan on going higher then low/mid 80s, if i were to play through 90s i probably would of stayed robe and suffered through the 80s with **** gear compared to my counterparts

streaker · February 2009

hmmm, thats actually a really good read!

+1 to VonTerror.

Same thing thats been posted all around, but this 1 seems to be a bit more friendly... that or I'm just too damn tired to realise anything. lol.

Mysticlifex - Heavens Tear · February 2009

My noob knowledge

Magic hits hard
Melee hits medium

LA have less magic defence
Pure has high magic defence

Early game - most mobs physical
End game - most mobs Magical

End result - Robe - higher defence against higher hits = better for a reason I forget

VonTerror - Lost City · February 2009

Ha thanks, I try not to hate on wizzards. It's us against them, we all got to stick together or the world will be taken over by Archers and Barbs b:victory. Though i am sure i am have said some mean things on the forums i rarely try to. It's hard to read peoples tones sometimes though. After all, we see the words and hear them how we want, not always how a poster intends.

DiFiore - Heavens Tear · February 2009

400 PvE damage (before account for elemental weaknesses) at level 40 is pretty high. Sparking at level 40 only adds around 300-400 actual damage per spell...

Legerity - Sanctuary · February 2009

well... 400 raw PvE damage isn't so much if it is put into PvP terms. It becomes 100 more damage, not taking anything into account.

Hidden - Lost City · February 2009

EP_DarkSol - Lost City wrote: »

Expanded to level 100:

Pure with lvl 10 sandstorm: 27277
LA with lvl 10 sandstorm: 21103

This is PvE damage. It's a good chunk of damage to be sure, but look at PvP:

PvP damage is roughly 1/4 of PvE damage. Then, at level 100, it becomes...

Pure = 6819

LA = 5275

A difference of 1544 damage.

Just exactly how did u 'expand' to level 100 and get those figures?

What level 100 weapon and rings did u base the damage on. And what magic did both your light and robe builds have in the calcuations?

Elahim - Lost City · February 2009

I feel like your model was too simplistic to accurately draw any conclusions. You've ignored +s, shards, reductions, charms, HH armors, etc. It's definitely a good first step but before you can draw conclusions you must refine things a bit more. In anticipation of someone arguing that these things should be the same between the two builds so we can ignore them consider this. If you add a significant (but equal) chunk of health/phys def to both builds then compare them you'll see that the % difference in life and phys def are smaller.

A mathematical look at the Mage Build Debate

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