Which is Preferred and why?

+ M. Attack increases the damage of all your skills and your heals.

+ Metal (or anything else) increases your damage of all skills by 0, but increases damage dealt when you physically hit a mob with your sword/wand/etc.

There are plenty of threads that go over this too.

Basically, + Magic Attack is the only thing worth putting in your weapon. The *only* other stone that could boost any useful cleric stat is +HP, but the amount of damage you gain with +M. Attack compared to the little HP you gain makes that irrelevant.

ughhhhh... wrong,,

metal gem will increase dmg of cyclone and thunder. IH is heal it s not metal based

attack lvl stone on cleric weapon is pretty pointless since it wont affect heals


it s best to shard with mag stones coz affect heals and dmg.

maybe channel, if someone have realy good reason

ofc not

u ever read plume shot description?

While PS's damage is physical it's based entirely off of your magic damage.

I prefer Saphs myself as I have always been told ele shards are only for melee attacks.

As for the chan shard, I don't see why a cleric would need it. Most of the skills don't take that long. If you're going PvP and you want faster Tempest/Feathers then it might help. Although, just getting it for those skills is pointless.

i believe that just for cyclone metal gem's value will be calculated into base magic and weapon dmg

phy gem wont be for plumeshot since base magic is not calculated from phy weapon stat


never checked tho



edit:

it may also mean that ur base magic attack will always be calc with extra metal gem points just for wood mobs

Lylfo - Dreamweaver wrote: »

There is always the -channel stone, +atk level stone and the +10vit stone too that is worth sharding.

I forget these are in the game now (I played a lot more last year). You're right of course. I still think M. Attack makes the most sense (maybe channeling if you have a lot), but like HP those do help a cleric.

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

ughhhhh... wrong,,

metal gem will increase dmg of cyclone and thunder. IH is heal it s not metal based

attack lvl stone on cleric weapon is pretty pointless since it wont affect heals


it s best to shard with mag stones coz affect heals and dmg.

maybe channel, if someone have realy good reason

Stop spreading rumors...

If anyone's curious, I just tested this myself. Here's a summary of the results:

Method: Level 77 cleric using cyclone with FB19 wand sharded with nothing, or common metal or M. Attack stones on Dryads outside of Archosaur

No shards:
Average damage: 3764
Standard Deviation: 37.59
Number of trials: 16

Metal Shards:
Average damage: 3750
Standard Deviation: 25.60
Number of trials: 16

Magic Attack shards:
Average damage: 3926
Standard Deviation: 36.61
Number of trials: 16

Using a 2-sample T-test to test if unsharded > metal damage, there is an 88.9% chance of observing this outcome if metal damage is not greater than unsharded damage.

Using a 2-sample T-test to test if unsharded > magic attack sharded damage, there is an ~0% chance of observing this outcome if m.attack sharded damage is not greater than unsharded damage.

Using a 2-sample T-test to test if metal shard damage > magic attack sharded damage, there is an ~0% chance of observing this outcome if m.attack sharded damage is not greater than unsharded damage.

Basically, the difference in damage between unsharded and metal sharded weapons is not statistically significant, while the difference in damage between magic attack sharded damage and metal/unsharded weapons is statistically significant.

Metal shards don't increase metal skill damage. I don't know why I wasted the last 45 minutes demonstrating that...

Yeah, the dryads outside of Archosaur.

Delia - Harshlands wrote: »

No shards:
Average damage: 3764
Standard Deviation: 37.59
Number of trials: 16

Metal Shards:
Average damage: 3750
Standard Deviation: 25.60
Number of trials: 16

No shards:
Average damage: 3926
Standard Deviation: 36.61
Number of trials: 16

I assume the third one should be "Magic Shards:", not "No shards:".

Other than that, great work! Nice to see the scientific method applied to disproving nonsense. :-)

cant say ive used a garnet sharded weapon but id have to say it would effect plumes damage.
Why use a garnet when they are
a.) more expensive
b.) saph would effect cyclone among all skills
c.) saph would effect heals also.

if you dont believe me try using plume shot without barb buff

then try with

There is ALWAYS speculation on this subject.

A general rule of thumb: ONLY shard your weapon with sapphire. (you can use -chan +crit stones if you're rich, but you get the point)

Elemental shards that say they add +elemental damage to attacks ADD THEM TO REGULAR ATTACKS. Regular attacks= your melee strike with a magic weapon. They do nothing for skills and garnets do not work for plume shot. This has been tested.


please please please all you new clerics out there, use sapphires.

Sangodoc - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I assume the third one should be "Magic Shards:", not "No shards:".

Other than that, great work! Nice to see the scientific method applied to disproving nonsense. :-)

Correct. Fixed it, thanks .

/Billion - Heavens Tear wrote: »

cant say ive used a garnet sharded weapon but id have to say it would effect plumes damage.
Why use a garnet when they are
a.) more expensive
b.) saph would effect cyclone among all skills
c.) saph would effect heals also.

if you dont believe me try using plume shot without barb buff

then try with

I've tried it with and without a barb buff in the past, it does not affect it. I don't feel like spending another 45 minutes right now to do that again either. You always get some people saying these things (and I've probably been guilty of spreading some rumors in the past too, just hopefully not cleric ones, and I try to be careful about what I'm sure on and what is speculation). I'd encourage you to go retest plume with and without a barbs buff though.

Rillien - Heavens Tear wrote: »

There is ALWAYS speculation on this subject.

A general rule of thumb: ONLY shard your weapon with sapphire. (you can use -chan +crit stones if you're rich, but you get the point)

Elemental shards that say they add +elemental damage to attacks ADD THEM TO REGULAR ATTACKS. Regular attacks= your melee strike with a magic weapon. They do nothing for skills and garnets do not work for plume shot. This has been tested.


please please please all you new clerics out there, use sapphires.

+1

Paramedic - Dreamweaver wrote: »

ughhhhh... wrong,,

metal gem will increase dmg of cyclone and thunder. IH is heal it s not metal based

attack lvl stone on cleric weapon is pretty pointless since it wont affect heals


it s best to shard with mag stones coz affect heals and dmg.

maybe channel, if someone have realy good reason

b:bye put metal shards on and do melee

/Billion - Heavens Tear wrote: »

cant say ive used a garnet sharded weapon but id have to say it would effect plumes damage.
Why use a garnet when they are
a.) more expensive
b.) saph would effect cyclone among all skills
c.) saph would effect heals also.

if you dont believe me try using plume shot without barb buff

then try with

Jamiesangus - Lost City wrote: »

shards that are able to be put on this wep will make very little difference to any attacks

maybe try a 5x or 6x weapon with average or better shards and see if there is any difference

I don't think this needs further testing. And almost everyone agrees with Sapphires on magic weapons for clerics. No good enough reason to test this. I would suggest for you to do it yourself if you are that curious.

Jamiesangus - Lost City wrote: »

shards that are able to be put on this wep will make very little difference to any attacks

maybe try a 5x or 6x weapon with average or better shards and see if there is any difference

I saw a statistical increase in damage testing with sapphires, and I saw no such difference with metal shards. In addition, there was a statistically significant difference in damage with sapphires compared to metal shards (in the favor of sapphires), with very little possibility of observing such a biased result if in fact the metal shards increased damage by as much or more than the sapphires.

Using a higher level weapon with barely better shards would increase the variability due to the weapon and decrease the difference (relative to the standard deviation) of the damage, which would actually require more tests.

Feel free to spend more time on it yourself, or take a statistics class. Sorry if I'm a little touchy, but I spent a good chunk of time on those tests .

Also... now I'm sure for myself. I don't really care that much if other people don't want to believe it, I just wanted to know for sure.