Nirvana

SaiIorMoon - Lost City wrote: »

Just curious why I always see everyone use 1st cast as their endgame, when 2nd cast even with -.05 will outdamage it?

Primary reason is that you need all the -interval you can get to reach 5 aps with a -0.05 second cast Nirvana.

Other reasons include the amount of Raptures you'd need to get -0.05 with God of Frenzy, or 20 Attack Levels.

SaiIorMoon - Lost City wrote: »

and if you're already 1st casted NV money isn't usually an issue so what's another (150?) raptures? so it comes out ****ty isn't it only like 7 more to quench or w/e?

Main reason i'm asking this is because even at like +7 they're roughly a little over or right at 7k? when rank 8 unsharded +3 has 8.3k and then you add triple sparks % in it makes the gap even further...I would personally pick rank 8 4.0 over nv 1st cast 5.0. Or is my logic a bit skewed?

Well, you have to consider that the rep sale was just recently, whereas Nirvana has been out for much longer. So, obviously you'll see a lot more people with Barrier Thorn: Nirvana than Ocean Supreme Dagger than you would otherwise. After all, you cannot sell Barrier Thorn: Nirvana once it's been equipped.

And also, in terms of getting into a squad, having 5 aps makes you more desirable than having 4 aps.

Not to mention that going from 4 aps to 5 aps is an instant upgrade of 25% more damage.

Also, the chances of getting both -0.05 interval and a 20 Attack Levels or God of Frenzy is extremely low, so unless you get lucky, you might end up spending hundreds of Raptures to get the mods. And really, it's a massive gamble and you're never guaranteed a win, whereas Barrier Thorn: Nirvana is always the same.

And finally, there are other factors than damage. When you got 4 or 5 aps, actual increases in damage start to not be so important. With Barrier Thorn: Nirvana and Rank 8 armors, you could, for example, use Warsong Belt and Cube necklace instead of TT99s or event boots instead of TT99s. And those are some pretty major upgrades in terms of defenses.

SaiIorMoon - Lost City wrote: »

Main reason i'm asking this is because even at like +7 they're roughly a little over or right at 7k? when rank 8 unsharded +3 has 8.3k and then you add triple sparks % in it makes the gap even further...I would personally pick rank 8 4.0 over nv 1st cast 5.0. Or is my logic a bit skewed?

Your logic is a bit skewed. At equal refines/shards, a rank 8 dagger isn't going to do 25% more damage than Nirvy weapon, or even Hitman Legend.

Rank 9, on the other hand...

Max damage isnt important, its average damage that matters. Nirvana minimum damage is way higher than r8 min dmg when refined high, max damage catches up tp r8 max damage too. The r8's just have high max damage because of the add ons, but at +10 or so nirvana has much better average damage. When your hiting 5 times a second average damage is what matters as you're dps not dph.

I have 1st cast nirv daggers aswell as r8 daggers. And actually far more people have r8 than nirvana because it was so cheap to get r8 in the sale. But rank 8 suck. Really badly. When my daggers were +3 with no shards I could hold agro off sins with exactly the same gear as me who had r8 +10 daggers. (i'm 3.33 aps base, 5 sparked using nirv daggers). The interval bonus you get from the nirvana daggers makes a massive diference. It's the diference of having 5 attacks per second against 3.33 attacks per second. Unless you have 4 base with nirvana and 2.86 base with r8, which means you have every piece of interval possible. In this case you still do way more with nirvana daggers even at low refines, never mind when nirv daggers are highly refined as they gain more dmg per refine than r8.
2nd cast nirv daggers do like 100-200 more dmg than 1st cast, it's really not a big difference and your base aps gets lowerd. For pvp base aps is important because most pvp occurs unsparked. Also not everyone likes zerks, 5 aps zerking wastes alot of your hp.

And if you are willing to lower base apps to 3.33 most people would rather gain defensive bonus's than gain a couple hundred damage and a zerk (+20 atk lvls or double -0.05 int on recasts is so rare/impossible to get I don't even consider it an option lol) You can get warsong and cube orns which wil really really help your mdef, as otherwise a high aps sin has terrible magic defense. Or you could go with 5 pieces of nirvana armor and put jades in all the sockets giving 50 def lvls and 4 aps for pvp and keep your int cape for pve so you can be 5 ps for farming nirv and tt etc.

There are basically better options out there than going for a bit more dmg on your daggers. but yes if your sparked damage is all you care about you'd go for 5 aps with 2nd casts or 4 aps with r9. You'd put diamonds of tigers in everything and get oneshot a lot in pvp too >.<