Arcane VS L.A. ONCE AND FOR ALL!

current gold prices are prohibitive for any kind of refine beyond 3 under lvl80. And if u think u can get to 85 in a week doing Gamma and another 3 weeks to 90 living at fish and doing your dailies+cube, there isn't any good reason anymore to refine anything below 90.
When I was is the 60s and 70s the gold was 100-120k. I was able to make about 5 gold/day without even trying too much from grinding. There was no Bounty Hunt quest beside CS and WQ the only thing that could give me some extra XP were FBs. Now having the posibility of 2 BH quests/day, sometime 2 in the same FB (I made a habit now of waiting until I get both Linus and Brigand before doing a 79) changes everything. When I hit 77 and got my mold top and wrists the first thing I did was to refine them to +4, 4 socket them and go in RB. There were about 60-80 ppl in rebirth Gamma range at that time on the whole server, so to get a spot I needed to stay alive and DD. Refines helped me do that. The hardcore wizards on the server at that time were all +4 at least, I remember Zeratul having all 4 sock +5 gear with flawless in it and he was in the 80s. His weapon was never refined under +5. He was and still is a tough cookie.

Also, TW was and still is a big part of what I do in PWI. Since 77 (and especially from 80 when I got my +6 yaksa) LA wizards under 90 were just toys. Not enough output dmg to take me down and the laughable magic def once undined and poisoned made them a 2 shot always. LA still is the easiest armor to take down and it will only get easier as refines are going up on the weapon.

But yeah, no one in their right mind will refine like we did at the beginning of the server. With the gold prices right now it's pretty hard to build a nice Arcane wizard, since a good chunk of HP comes from refines. I'm beginning to think now that if had to lvl-up another wiz I would prolly go LA until 90 for the sole reason of being cheap to gear with decent stuff. LA drops in FBs/BHs seem to be waaaay higher in number than arcane ones especially in the 60s-70s range. Damage would be **** compared with pure, but f damage, u can level at a decent pace doing dailies and some quests, squad up with someone and there u go, u won't even feel you are LA. Really, at the current gold prices LA is the choice, better drag your feet to 90 and start living once you get there.
Save up for later on, every singe gold you save will make a diff at 90.

PS: I was looking at some screenshots on my PC since I started playing on DW (march 5). What was interesting was the HP evolution:
around lvl 36 - first TW - 1100 HP (Buffed)
around lvl 43 - 1200 HP
around lvl 51 - 1700 HP
around lvl 60 - 2100 HP
around lvl 70 - 2500 HP
around lvl 80 - 2700 HP
middle 80s - 3000 HP
late 80s - 3500 HP
at 90 - 3800 HP
91 - 4100 HP (TT90 gear begins to pay dividents)
93 - 4616 HP

All values are unbuffed, except the first one, and I'm citing them from memory now, maybe a few of them are off, I will post a pic with all values if someone is interested (guess not, lol b:thanks).
Why I put those values there? well, basically until the middle and late 80s as a wizard (or cleric for that matter) you are a non-factor to a decently equipped 90+. In TW whatever has less than 3k drops in a maximum of 2 shots, and dmg in the 6-700s wont even tick my charm unless u can land about 5-6 of them. Crit on gush/pyro will make u a 1 shot, u can't stand a lvl 10 ultimate and undined+nuked you're still a 1 shot.
All this taken into consideration, LA vs AA is an obsolete discussion. Get to 90 asap and then u can play in the big league. The cheapest way to get there now is LA (you will be able to stand your ground easily in RB due to higher HP and pdef). After 90 I think it's pretty clear what road to take. 4.6k HP and 5.7k pdef self buffed or 5.9k HP and 8.1k pdef full buffed are my arcane numbers. Can't wait for the 95 gear.

****, that's a long **** post b:cute

Since you are on a pve server I don't think you have enough PvP experience.

Really, now. Trying to bring THAT particular little thing into the argument? You'd be real surprised to know that people on PvE servers actually HAVE a way to PvP. Just in case it's news to you, bro.

And yes, it was in PvP. With charms.

this debate is soo pointless in every way....now with the newer event gear its easy for an arcane to hit a decent phys def. but lets be honest, the damage increase isnt as huge for pure as people say , ive had both builds, it still boils down to the extra 5% crit from LA easily matches the extra dmg from pure.So it really just matters who u pvp against more and what playstyle your most comfy with ... if ur out in pk hunting wizzys an clerics,or if your main job is killing barbs in tw ... arcane has the advantage.... if you want a more blanced def against ur archers and bm with a lil higher crit go LA.i often see the pure wizzy as a lil more stuck up about their dmg with no real reason why.LA still seems better for delta imo,anything over 10k mag att draws too much attn even for them.... have fun with the game, avoid cookie cutter builds go HA if u want

This thread makes me worry that I really made a bad choice when choosing to become a LA wizard, as a newbie wizard I thought the extra survivability was the best way to go since I didn't really know how the class worked out. But now I'm so unsure If I will make it through the rest of the game, my wizard is level 42 and I need rather many hits to kill a mob which has the same level as my character.
Since we are talking builds I would like to hear your guys opinion, I do not PVP at all or do TW so my character is strictly for PVE. Will I be able to make it somehow even though I choose to build my character as a LA?

Also I don't have a job right now so my economy is pretty low so I can't spend money on reset stuffs. =(

it's all about teh heavy armor.
*cough*
b:chuckle

oops... wrong thread. b:surrender

MagicHamsta - Lost City wrote: »

it's all about teh heavy armor.
*cough*
b:chuckle

Yes! *High Five*

LA > AA pre 79
LA < AA post 79
/thread

.I thought it was lvl 90 Arcane > LA

Anyways. Im just lvl 74 hard working wizz so still long to go before actually knowing much. I ve just gotten faar enough to know all that I dont know.

Anyhow. I m LA and my experience and from what I ve seen I t seems like I can at least se some indication when it comes to the LA ascane issue.

Arcane craves costly refined armour.
Thig is pvp wise especially archers will rip u apart if u r not well sharded and refined arcane. U dont want to spend much in refines and shards in my opinion until late level gear unless u r stupidly rich or got a load of real money to spend.

For me not spending real money assets ingame takes time to get so -I dont wanna waste to much effort on my pre-80 gear sine I paln to get there quite fast.

Arcane do more damage,arcane wizzies my lvl outdamage me like crazy and also handle themselves better against most types of mobs. since most mobs past 70 seems to do a lot of magic based damage.

Mele characters on the other hand.. and for that matter psy based mobs rip them apart in seconds if they get a single chanse to hit.

I d say in all aspects except survivability they r better than me at my level but they suck at surviving especially in PvP.

So if arcane fix the psy-def issue they should be better than LA, and that they do with high lvl well sharded and refined gear.

But in my opinion unless u get those refined and sharded high lvl gears arcane sux at pvp but is as good and in many cases better at PvE.

I prob switch to arcane when I get lvl 90 gear or earlier. When I feel my lvling speed is slowing down enough so that I know I ll be keeping the gear I m wearing for more than just a month so that i t ll be worth the effort to shard good and refine past +1.

btw tok me about 4 month to get lvl 74 wiz with mostly sharded tt 70 gear. so so faar I m lvling to fast to really waste money on refining and sharding past what i got, a few weeks and I ll be trying to get the 80 gear insted.