Rank 8 vs Rank 9

You mean regular R9 or R9r3 ?

I would say that R9r3 is really more expensive than reforge R8. Maybe reforge R8 would be more expensive than regular R9 though (depending of the number of tries) but not sure.

And I'm not very familiar to seekers weapon but I would advise Nirv3 weapon rather than regular R8...

They are nothing to compare. A world of difference.

R8(r) is not worth getting except for a few special items for a specific goal. Like a -int chest or defence levels on a weapon. In general it is **** however, significantly worse than G16 that costs only barely more. *less

Rough numbers:

morai : 50m
Full R8 : 150m
Full G16: 250m *non-tradable
Full R8r: 300m
Full G16: 350m *tradable
Full R9 : 1500m
Full R9.3: 2000m

Of this list, except for the special cases only G16 and R9.3 are worth considering and morai is worth considering for the very casual/poor player.

*edited later. Of course since all the other listed equipment is not tradable it is only fair to compare non-tradable G16. And thus indeed it would be cheaper than r8r.

It all depends on what you want to get out the game and your char. The more you put in to it, the more you get out of it.

What you need to ask yourself is, do you want to pvp only, pve only or a mix of both? What do you want out of your class or classes? I would have to disagree with R8 not being end game gear. People always think end game gear is the best gear at the top levels (100+) and its not. Its the gear you want at end game, even if its TT90 Gold. My 95 cleric has tt90 gold and a mix of other orns and gear from my barb and has more real hp and effective hp than alot of full g16 niv casters.

I will tell you about how I progressed my barb. When I made my barb and got him to the 80's I decided for being a sage vit barb. I also decided for R8R (pre NW) which was a real worth while goal as you had to do trials for the mats. I used pwcalc.com a lot to see what I could achieve with various stats and refines. I also decided I would use the forest hat and cloudcharger cape, warsong belt cube neck then what ever rings I could find that gave the best amount of vit and hp.

When NW came out I was a bit heart broken because all the effort went down the drain. Now don't get me wrong, I did not feel this way for the reasons you may think. It was because I would have changed how I geared my toon, not because it was now cheaper. Instead of getting R9 on my sin, I would have gotten it on my barb instead and would have done R8R or G16 Niv on my sin. Ok back to barb gear.

I calculated that I could pull close to 38k-42k hp (depending on r8r rolls) and a ridiculous amount of pdef and a hearty amount of mdef once gear was properly refined and sharded. A very solid cata barb if I say so myself.

When g16 niv and r9s3 came out, at first I was not even thinking of getting a new hat and cape, and not worth the effort as I had the set I already planned for and had. But I found a set not to long ago for 50m each, sharded 3 sockets and refined to +5 already so I decided to buy them and they are G16 lunar Niv. I felt it was worth the cost for a very large increase of hp and defenses all around and I could use them on my sin for very large increase in def and hp when I get my 3rd r9s3 piece (I will be switching to purely pvp from pure dex pve build another story for another time....).

So right now with my sins pangu and pdef cube neck, my barbs bound ws belt and r8r gear and such he is now right at 26.5k hp, 32k pdef and 7k mdef fully buffed!! All the R8R gear is refined to +5 with 40 or 50 hp shards as with the G16 niv hat and cape. The cube neck is +10 and ws belt is +6. The only specific mdef gear I have is the rings and only one is refined and it is +3. So I am no where near the potential mdef I can get at the moment, and the pdef can increase more just depending on what shards I decide to use for end game(vit 150 hp shards or josd). I can get an additional 700 hp if I decide to get and roll the Morai g15 weapon. Currently he has G16 lunar niv axes with hp +350, range and patt. I switched that from getting R8R pole axe.

In the end my barb is more than I hoped for and very happy with him. This was only because I stuck with what I decided and planned for the most part. The main thing I am working on is which type of sharding I will do once his gear is +10. Quite a few barbs players have giving great advice on what I should do even down to mixing in mag shards with JOSD Vit stones.

But regardless what I do, my barb is exactly where I want him to be and by rough estimation he very well exceed that by alot!

I hope this helps and good luck to you

b:victory

Ps the highest pvp crit I ever had to date is with my R8 dagger (34k) which far exceeds what I have gotten with my G16 Niv daggers. Take that as you see fit

Xxxian - Archosaur wrote: »

Thanks for all of your answers especially you Salari for your in-depth answer. The reason why I want to stick to rank 8 stuff is that the amount of cash required for rank 9 or nirv gear is HUGE. I'm not sure I can come up with the 100+ million to buy all that stuff. At that point ill be needing to buy skill books too. That stuff really adds up. I would love to go for rank 9 but $$$$$$$$$$$$$b:shockedb:shocked. Is regular rank 8 or regular rank 9 more worth it? One is 2 mill the other one is 300+ mil with just 100 damage difference. Does refining make the price worth it?

1) r9 has a gazilion attack levels so it's not just 100 dmg difference
2) for the price of r8 you can get some pieces of g16 which will be better than a full r8 set

Eoria - Harshlands wrote: »

Quoting myself from another thread:
Obv some prices will be different depending on server/2x, but generally, no. Full g16 Nirvana is not more expensive than full r8r. And on a 2x, g16 Nirvana can only get cheaper as people spam TT/Lunar/WS. The price of r8r is basically fixed outside of gold price and token price (which will likely only go up from here).

If you can go r9 though, absolutely go r9.

hm I thought he was talking about plain r8. btw, at 15m per illusion stone is cheaper/the same to get the lunar top XD

If you farm the reps in morai you can drop the 68m for that but no telling how long that would take, probably a long time b:chuckle

if you where already 100 i would suggest joining every lunar squad you could find. There will be tons of free lunars going on. You could very well farm every mat you need to make the full lunar set. The only problem would be getting the tt99 gold mats you will need.

One thing i never understood was needing tt99 gold mats to make gold lunar gear but not needing lunar golds for making tt gear

For the price of r8, you can get a g16 Nirv wep which will completely out-class a r8/r8r wep due solely to higher grade and the +40 atk levels add.