Immaculate Garnet or Incomparable Ruby?

Garnet. No contest.

There's a reason why you can't get Rubies from Corals.

b:mischievous

Garnets > Rubies

Fire attack? Pssh, that's nothing compared to the boost you'll get from the garnet.

Always, always, ALWAYS go garnet.

For one thing, monsters have a greater mdef than phys def in general, so your ruby shard will be less effective and, if fighting a fie element or fire immune monster, can be practically worthless. On top of that, garnets will add to weapon attack in the same manner as phys rings do. This means the garnet will become exponentially more useful than just the small +32 phys attack it shows. As if that weren't enough, you already have blazing arrow as an archer... which adds fire damage based on weapon attack... which would be increased by having garnets but unaffected by rubies.

There's a reason why elemental shards are never used for serious weapons by any class, after all.

Ummm mp shards? I got 4 common turq gems in my TT90 pants. and a flawless one in my weapon. Awesomeness.

poisonoaks wrote: »

As far as I know, fist / claw damage is unaffected by blazing arrow, bow mastery, or dex. And since skills can't be used along with it, just primarily normal attacks, wouldn't the boost be greater from an elemental gem?

It actually is affected by Blazing Arrow, but none of the rest.

Personally I use an elemental shard in my fists, but I'm pure dex and only use the fists for chi gaining or if I'm messing around.

KageYingZi - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Element shards shld nvr go on any weapon,regardless whether you're a Archer,Sin,BM or w/e.The bonus atk from the Garnet is more than the Ruby.If u have the coins,u can go try it out urself and see

A Flawless Garnet shard gives +25 Physical attack. A Flawless elemental shard gives +50 elemental attack.

A pure Dex archer will only have strength equal to their level + 4. For the sake of simplicity in constructing my argument, I'll assume a strength of 100. That gives a physical attack value of double the weapon damage, if we disregard rings and any other +phys attack modifiers on ornaments. Blazing Arrow adds 40% of weapon attack in fire damage to fist weapons as well. Thus, we have a total attack value of (Base * 2) physical and (Base * 0.4) fire.

If we add a Flawless Garnet, we increase Base by 25, for a total increase of 50 physical and 10 fire damage. If we instead use a Flawless Ruby shard, we have a flat increase of 50 fire damage. Because pure Dex archers have such a low strength, and therefore a low strength modifier to fist weapon damage, an elemental shard is nearly as effective as a physical attack shard of the same grade.

Now, consider the cost difference between elemental and physical shards. Flawless Garnet shards currently cost between 150k and 200k, depending on the seller and token prices. Flawless Elemental shards, on the other hand, are generally considered worthless and can occasionally be had for less than 10k each. For the same price as a Flawless Garnet, I can obtain an Immaculate (+64) or perhaps even Perfect (+80) elemental shard.

In short, for primary weapons, there's no reason to use an elemental shard over a Garnet or a Sapphire (depending on class). However, for secondary weapons like say, fists for a pure dex archer, elemental shards can actually be more cost-effective.

Ah yeah if you plan on being useful with your fists/claws, then you'll want to shard it with garnets, and you'll have to have more strength in order to wield fists/claws that are actually good.

I just have a pair of -requirement 3-star Instant Strike Fists that I use for messing around or letting the tank build aggro rather than actually using them for full-time DD. For that, I'd rather spend 10k on a flawless elemental shard than 160k or so for a flawless garnet.

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear wrote: »

...

This thread fills me with sadness.

Especially when we've strived to document everything.

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You miss 1 point in this, and that is that in magic weapons, the ONLY think you can add is saphire. Elemental shards have no effect on skils, and with a magic weapon you only use skils. So might want to take saphires out here completly

Pardon me while I point out LA venos in fox form.

Though Heavy/Robe ones are better off sharding garnets than elemental shards thanks to their higher str.

and i would never use +fire att shards because some mobs or bosses are fire ones so it will not have any effect on them wich is the same with other elemental shards so you better just use garnets because that will always take affect.