Serenity Stones

They were apparently tested and shortly after, removed entirely. You won't be seeing them, ever.

Kiymori - Heavens Tear wrote: »

They simply don't exist on THIS server, and I doubt they ever will for a long time. The serenity stones are completely broken and honestly would only further cause problems especially on a server like PW where gear differences are very extreme.

As for the vit stones, I simply see them as an alternative to poor/impatient players that can't afford jades/serenity stones(if they existed). JoSD's are the best stones you can have on any character period especially if you can afford full +12 amour and ornaments.

They are from the end game perspective yes.

However i think it is important to note the value per coin of JOSD. If you look at JOSD just as what they are (400-500m for 2 def level) they are already very expensive. Less cost efficient than +12, emperor, G16 NW amulet, S cards etc and should thus be the last thing you get.

If you look at the difference between vit stones (0,9% survivabilty each on a +12 barb) and JOSD (1,2% survivability) then their cost efficiency becomes retardedly low. And this is the way to consider them, When i calculate the effect efficiency of a G16 amulet i also count only the difference towards a G14 one.

Of course if you want the best of the best, yes you want JOSD.

CapnK - Sanctuary wrote: »

Not actually true! They are still the best for some classes but vit stones actually beat them for other classes. As gear quality increases vit becomes more valuable. Play around with Asterelle's shard calculator; the results may surprise you.

Lol...?

My post is directly related to end game PvP since as far as I am concerned PvE is irrelevant and you can get by with basically any gear(within reason) as long as the refines are good enough.... And no, honestly when it comes to survivability in PvP if you think Jades/Serenity stones are out beaten by other shards then show me, but I can almost guarantee you wont find anything better because really and truly there isn't anything else...

Speaking strictly PvP and survivability, Vit stones fall off eventually in comparison to Serenity stones or Jades. When you throw genie skills and character debuffs into the picture it makes vit stones nearly 100% irrelevant in terms of surviving. However, I will say yes def levels can also be debuffed by certain skills(very few) but when your def levels are pushing 120+ you're overall tankyness doesn't actually change by a large amount. But do keep in mind, virtually anyone regardless of their gear/refines/stones will die in mass PvP when a purge+amp+hf etc etc are thrown into the picture, but I can guarantee you 100% that person with the full jades will not be dying very easily in the grand scheme of things.Now if you want to talk damage, then this is easy, Deity Stone build or Devil Stones(if we had them), are the ultimate overall build gear wise to maximize your damage period.


Now you said this 'Not actually true! They are still the best for some classes but vit stones actually beat them for other classes. ' Tell me when in any case vit stones would actually be more viable for the survivability of an arcane for example in PvP or PvE, I look forward to your response because I thought about your post but nothing is coming to me. When you have full gear +12 s3 r9 not even including cards/spirit, your HP regardless of your class will peak 20k+.

So could you use vit stones? sure why not for some more life and small defensive gains(depending on your class), but you could also just drop a full bunch of jades and just boost you're already ridiculous survivability because of primal passives and your +12 gear. And I say this because again, the defensive gain you get from vit stones after a certain point is negligible.



The final thing I will add is that the main reason that Vit stones PvP wise are viable is because one they are 10x easier to attain than jades for the average player, but also one other important reason is because running into a bunch of maxed spirit/nuema/ S card/+12 jaded players is rare. So you wouldn't really have to worry about getting completely destroyed on a regular basis when you reach 'endgame'.

Anyway if I misunderstood you or anything feel free to correct me, I don't mind being corrected and learning new things. But I am only speaking from testing,observation and experience.

SerenityCNB - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I think that I should receive them free.

Why? You ask?

My cleric's name...

Literally came here just to add that. Carry on. LOL.

I saw your name in the mini box and was like 'well isn't that a coincidence'b:laugh.

Saw a barb in FSP last night with 62K hp. And his wrist wasn't full Vit stones, it was jade, and his R9 gear was mostly +12 But had his leggings and wrist +11. Lets say he took the Jades out of his wrist and put 4 Of the vit stones in there, and +12'd the 2 pieces that wasnt. That's like 71k Hp or more he would have. What can beat that. in his case, i think the vit stones are more valuable. He has Invoke to reduce damage. Is my observation anyway.

CapnK - Sanctuary wrote: »

EDIT: hold on links are broken let me fix that.

I plugged my mystic's numbers into Asterelle's socket calculator. I set opponent's attack level to 120, which is an easy number to reach for a r999 character (I have 123).

First here is the unbuffed (purged) numbers. The numbers are pretty close for JoSD and Creation Stone, although Creation has a slight edge in pdef. This part is important because as a high geared mystic I usually only die if purged, and the purging character is usually an archer.

http://imgur.com/DEAc8lb

Now here's the numbers with level 10 barb, BM, cleric, and my self pdef buff. JoSD has a slight edge here but not much.

http://imgur.com/P8eZAKA

Now what happens if I'm fighting someone with more than 120 attack levels? As attack levels rise, defense levels become trash. So here's someone with 150 attack levels, which full deity characters well exceed.

http://imgur.com/cx8X0wV

Now all in all the numbers are not significantly different between the two - you would do fine with either. But Creation stones are a hell of a lot cheaper than JoSD, and the smarter choice.

See here is the major flaw with a vit stone build, let's say you really did make a complete vit build or even partial vit stones mixed with jades. What if you run into the exact same scenario you just mentioned, someone with full deity stones.

Now let me take it a step further, what if you're fighting a sage sin with Chill of the deep+full deity stones, and your build is partial vit stones and jade mixed or even just full jades. Yes it's true that the fact the sins/enemy's attack levels out do yours but that is EXACTLY the reason why it's important to have those defense levels.

The bigger the gap in def levels/attack levels between you and your opponent the more deadly they become, and when you combine that with the fact that spirit also plays a huge role in your survivability it makes jades even more optimal for overall survivability. The more you can close that gap, your survivability goes up.

Now someone might say this 'then why is it when even an undergeared players uses a dew star their tankyness goes through the roof and they have terrible defense levels anyway'. This is a very fair and logical argument, but let's be realistic. Achieving that kind of defense under normal circumstances even fully buffed is virtually impossible(remember the apoth is scaling off your current stats) even with maxed out primal passives,the most I was ever able to get with a BM fully maxed out gear+12 full nuema portal set RAx2 was nearly 200k(could be even more if I switched some shards) but that's with phys marrow as well meaning my mdef obviously suffered).

That is just another reason vit stones CURRENTLY still don't out do jades in the grand scheme of things,keep in mind like I said before, all that defense/life is meaningless if your opponents attack levels AND spirit is much higher than yours which is why I will say again,when it comes to end game PvP if you want the highest survivability jades is the best way to go because it is covering all areas of your tankyness. When you are fully +12 maxed out gear and passives your base defense is high enough, all that is left is to close the attack/def level gap to reach your maximum potential.

If you want a basic example look at seekers, they don't even need to have their base defenses that high intially to be able to be tanky in PvP, because they are basically cancelling out virtually all their opponents attack levels(depending on their class and build). When a seeker has full jades/def level buffs/Def level rolls on ornaments and even a r8r def level wep they can easily push 140+ def levels,and when you combine that with maxed out gear not even a full deity sin with CoD can kill them effectively.

So yes I am also in agreement with you that def levels eventually fall off assuming your opponents attack levels are higher than yours, but do realize that your base defenses fall off MUCH MUCH sooner than your def levels because they can be easily debuffed to near 0 or 0 if you're a demon veno. So in other words, it no longer comes down to numbers vs numbers, it is also becomes situational, and when you throw that into the equation jades are still going to out do Vit stones for the simple reason that debuffs and purges are ultimately what gets you killed in 1v1/mass pvp when the terms are even. And the only thing that will really be keeping you even somewhat protected at endgame when your debuffed is your def levels.

However I will say this again, it doesn't matter whether your full jades or full vit stones, when you get purged/amped/paralyzed in group PvP and you have nothing to counter it, you're going to die.

Creation stones,Primal Vit stones,Savants etc etc are fantastic stones to have I have no disagreement there, but they only cover a small portion of your defenses and I think that is what some people don't realize.

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Damn people still use that thing. You're going to have to add in the primal passive as a "gear buff" now since that is a new built-in buff. That should actually decrease the value of vit gems a bit due to decreasing relative marginal value of defensive buffs.

This is another point I actually was hoping someone would point out. Thank you.

freygin wrote: »

Choosing JoSD/Vits simply depends on how many hits we can take before we fill our sockets

For example :
- If 1 defense level helps reduce 20 damage, then 48 defense level will reduce 960 damage, if we can tank like 3 hits, that's like adding 960x3 hits = 2880 HP

-1 Vit on a caster other than veno will add 10hp and a bit of def/mdef, so full Creation Stones in 24 sockets will add 2880 HP, and a bit of reduction in damage taken from the def/mdef bonus from vit. The added HP alone also benefits from hp buff.

Now what if the character can take like 6 hits, that'd be 960x6= 5760 damage absorbed by JoSD while 2880 HP even with lv 10 HP buff will only add 3744 hp.

===

In CapnK's example, the unbuffed state / purged, JoSD wins on the Magic part but for the Physical part Creation Stone wins, because the p. defense is much lower, the character will tank less Physical hits and damage absorbed by JoSD can't keep up with the added HP from Vit Stones

The fully lv 10 buffed state, both pdef and mdef are quite close, and they help reduce great amount of damage per hit hence the character will be able to tank more hits, the damage absorbed by JoSD multiplied by x amount of hits taken exceeds the added HP from vit stones.

The last one where fighting someone with more than 120 attack levels, 150 to be exact, it's 25% more damage per hit, it'll also reduce the number of hits on the same target, so JoSD will tank less number of hits and the multiplier (x number of hits) is getting smaller.

What in the world...I don't even...

Capnk's examples don't even factor in primal defense mastery let alone spirit.

freygin wrote: »

I don't even factor in primal defense mastery let alone spirit, exactly as Capnk's examples. b:chuckle

but if it factors in primal defense mastery, I just tried it and sure JoSD won vs. a 150 atk level opponent, but when I increased it to 160, creation stone won.

as for spirit, if it's taken into account as well, it'll only boost atk level and will leave JoSD behind even more, there is also Skill damage passive buff, which will also increase atk level.

I don't think you understand how spirit works based on what you said lol...But anyway, unless someone is willing to go through the extensive testing I have with an actual character with maxed gear(aka Joe and maybe a few select others), I guess it's pointless for me to try and discuss it.

There is a reason why full deity sin,psys and archers can completely trash full vit stone builds(yet they are very squishy), there is a reason why full deity builds can still hurt full jaded builds(assuming we exclude the person is using a r8r weapon with def levels or a seeker for example).

If the gear/refines to defense ratio in PW was different then yes full vit builds would be superior. But because currently we just can't reach those ridiculous numbers even with full primal passives and +12 it just doesn't out do jades in he long run. And another big reason is because of how damage scales in this game especially if you include primal passives, quite frankly your base defenses just don't keep up and that's the devs fault.

Like I said try it yourself, when your full+12 pop a dew star and observe your defense and how much damage you take from players. I am sure you will realize your defense is extremely high and the damage you take is extremely low.But also remember that the defense your gaining from your dew star is scaling off your current stats, if we actually were able to attain that kind of defense naturally WITH THE CURRENT DAMAGE SCALING, there would be 0 reason to even get Jades end game. You could just fill your gear with vit stones and call it a day, but quite frankly the game is not designed that way, thus in my opinion that is why it is important to increase both sides of your defenses. That being your base defense with refines and mastery's, and your defense levels with buffs and stones especially because of the new spirit passive.

Now this will probably be my last post on this, but I will point out that I am not saying you should get jades because jades is the be all end all to surviving in PvP in the current meta. But what I am saying and I stand by this, is that full jade builds are superior to full vit builds. But because of the economy and purely the economy, you can make a full vit build and still do well, but just realize that the full jaded player has the advantage in PvP in the long run.

freygin wrote: »

I understand perfectly how spirit works, in fact I can even check what if I add 10, 20 30, 100, even 200 spirit in seconds how much more damage will I deal against a specific opponent even before I hit him using my own calculator, I can also see how much damage is reduced by per 1 def level, here is an example =>

I use a Lv.0 weapon on the psy for narrowing damage range since psy can't cast skill barehanded. Somewhere in the equation, spirit and skill passive damage act as a multiplier that will boost Atk Level even more while Survival Index goes lower on JoSD and more favorable toward vit stones against opponent with much higher atk level.

To me you look like debating on JoSD vs Vit Stones while what I posted earlier isn't about that. I'm not gonna debate on how JoSD / Vit Stone fare in the battlefield or debate what you said because I agree in most situation JoSD wins and I agree with most of what you said. In the long run JoSD also save charm usage than vit stones since hp scale is lower.

Btw I don't play on PWI anymore, but I'm a PW player from another 'planet', maybe that's where the discussion went wrong. You're talking endgame, super endgame, while I see it from midgame and somewhat endgame environment

Also in real pvp battlefield survival index and all this math means nothing, new variables kick in and change wildly, factor in player skill, ping time, pot usage, charm tick, etc, how to mathematicize all that, there is no magic formula to calculate that b:chuckle

That is exactly why I said in an earlier post responding to Capnk that the vit vs jades debate doesn't all just come down to numbers which is why if you notice a lot of my posts on the issue were not something like 'Well I plugged in X number in a calculator and the results were x+b blah blah'. But I am sure you get the point, my post is coming from a full or 'super end game' point of view as you put it since that is where I PvP and like to experiment on a regular basis. I have only come back to this particular server(HT) just to finish my barbs gear since I am a little bored of my other server.

jwillson123 wrote: »

How do you get coins for full Jod.
Please buy me some for Christmax b:pleased

Getting Full Jades was not so hard last year but now they have become so expensive they not worth it anymore. Unless you cash shop a lot.

Merchanting is limited to the demand. Most you could make is 2 billion a month with "HUGE" budget.

Farming TT now sucks atleast in my server.
Yeah you can farm 50-100 million in a day but will you sell those mats in a day? No it will take months. Most you can make from actually "Selling" TT farming is 100m-500m a month.

Botting you could make 4 billion a month with a huge bot army and multiple computers running 24 hours but this was before botting became the norm and most people started getting a "botting real estate spot"



So People that have full Jades either got them last year when the economy was not in a disaster or they cash it.
or they had 10 to 20 alts botting 24 hours making 100m a day

The people who have jades or got jades now either got them when they were cheap or cash shopped them. Sure you can merchant them or get lucky but as of now unless you have a lot of coin from merching or cash shopping they are way out of reach. And quite frankly, unless PW does something to fix their economy(which I doubt they will any time soon especially with an expansion on the way), full jades might just become a dream build like warsoul weapons once were. Then again if they did that with warsoul weapons then who knows, shards might be the next thing on their list that they make easy to obtain while making something else even harder.

But like I said in an earlier post, it actually works out to the average players advantage because full jaded players are rare, so going full vit stones is actually the easiest second option without having to feel like you will always be getting destroyed in PvP due to not having the best shards possible.

Mark of the Horselords you get one of each time you buy the horse pack (forget the name of it). So it's just a small bonus for buying 500 packs. The NPC to exchange them is time-limited though, it might be gone already.

Kiymori, do you actually use math ?

I didnt read everything since i last left this thread for being to lazy to reply to you. Seems you posted a lot more since then. It was kind of clear to me from your first post that you only use what seems like logic on first sight, not actual math to check if you are correct.

I think people use vit stones because it gives both def and hp and they "were" cheaper not because of just def.

I remember when they were at 75 million and they seemed as a way better choice than JoD when DoD that were at 150+ million.
Now vit stones cost 150m too and well they kinda lost their appeal too.

Now best choice is incomparable citrine shards.


With current prices both vit stones and Jod are not worth it at all.

The fact is only a few people are full JoD and few are full Vit stones.
Most players just using incomparable or lower grade of shards.

Best choice is getting incomparable and wait for DoD or vit to go down in price.
If both DoD and vit were under 100m they would be worth it again.


Why they not worth it anymore? Because of the price.
Either you cash them or spend 2 years merchanting and farming to get full JoD.

and Spending 2 years of your life just for a virtual stones? Then pwi slaps you in the face with new gear upgrade and your gear gets outdated b:bye that most really hurt and that happened to a lot of people when R9r3 came especially to someone I know that sold their car just to invest "ALL" the money on their pwi character and it was not just any car it was a car worth 60,000$.
...
That person quit game when NW update came.


Also someone told us in guild chat that now Jades are worthless in pvp because of of spirit stats?
That a person with higher spirit can 1 shot a full Jaded players that have lower spirit than them.
Is that true or just ignorant comment?

the vit vs jades debate doesn't all just come down to numbers

Its a computer game not some esoteric philosophy. The game uses numbers to deceide when you are alive and dead. We can calculate all the numbers. Yes, it all does come down to numbers. Numbers provide facts, not open to biased experience and observation. Words on the other hand may have a lot of meaning for the person who says them, but for others they are just a bit of vague subjective information from a barely known source very open to bias, misinterpretation etc.

Everyone can calculate exactly for his toon the effect of any stone.
As i said before. For my barb made +12 (it is +10, but easy enough to make +12 in the excel file) A vit stone gives 0.9% survivability and a JOSD 1.2%.
I dont see the need for any more words when i got such numbers. Yes JOSD are better, but for me the fact that 0.9% costs 100m and the added 0.3% of JOSD costs an added 400m is a decent reason to stay with vits. That is not something we need to debate. That is a subjective choise. I do not want to afford those extra 400m, you do. Simple.

Crits, zekrs, hfs, amps etc make no difference to this equasion. Pdef/mdef debuffs do a tiny little bit but thats very much negligible. (yes i tried it, by debuffing myself to near 0 pdef/mdef i got to 0.8% for the vit stone) If you have any other aspects you think i am forgetting about, please state them clearly and preferably add numbers instead of just adding a lot of words together and think you made a point.

At the same time, if anyone is going to argue that on some end game toons vits are better than JOSD. Please specify that end game toon and add numbers so that we can verify it.
(I have in the past calculated a bit for other toons and it did seem indeed that josd are best on everything i tested. Of course it is entirely possible that someone found an exception, so feel free to prove that if you did)