For PVE purposes, which enhancement of these three would be preferable for a Spell Howler? I've excluded an Acumen effect for a reason, by the way.
1) Magic Power
2) Magic Empower
3) Magic Damage
Just curious to see what your experience with these are before I commit the resources to one. =)
None of the above, they're all worthless for PvE purposes.
Save the money and buy acumen potions with it instead if you're not going to use the SA (although that would be the superior PvE choice, for an SH moreso, by the way, than a sorc or SpS).
The question is, which of the three power effecting enhancements would be preferable to the other two, just to clarify. I already have an acumen weapon set aside for me, and as for the magic attack, it is a far greater difference than 29 points. Not trying to sound rude, I'm a huge fan of acumen. =)
The question is, which of the three power effecting enhancements would be preferable to the other two, just to clarify. I already have an acumen weapon set aside for me, and as for the magic attack, it is a far greater difference than 29 points. Not trying to sound rude, I'm a huge fan of acumen. =)
They are all vastly inferior to acumen. Magic Empower basically does absolutely nothing (it increases the damage of your nukes by maybe 5 or 10 points, if that much - totally negligible when your nukes do 1500-2000 damage). Magic Power increases the damage by a bit more than Magic Empower, but your nukes cost 15% more mp - so for every 7 nukes you do, enough mp for one extra nuke goes poof. And the matk increase does not "grow" as you lvl up, but the mp cost does. That leaves Magic Damage - probably the "best" of the three, since it a.) does something, unlike Magic Empower and b.) has no drawback, unlike Magic Power.
But really, the best would be option 4: none of them. Just save the money. Putting an SA on a weapon costs millions of adena in gemstones. You are a SH - if you have an acumen weapon waiting for you in the next grade, use the money and buy acumen potions until you get there. Will serve you better. Or, if we're talking about C grade here and you have a B grade Acumen weapon waiting, exchange the weapon you have for a homunculus and put acumen on it :)
I have a C grade Homonkulus with Acumen on it, and C Grade Sword of Whispering Death on it, both +3. The Extra damage dealt by the Sword of Whispering Death is far more than just a little.
Here are screen shots, showing the damage dealt by each of these weapons with Hurricane & Cbsps on Fallen Orc Shamans, which like everything I level on, I two shot. The difference is 128 points per casting... 256 a kill makes a difference. When wearing Demon it's an even bigger chunk. This case is a good example, as I couldn't quite two shot them with the Homunkulus w/acumen, so there are times when I would prefer Damage over speed.
Just to make myself clear, I certainly WILL be going for an acumen weapon first, I was just wondering what the differences were between the "Power" enhancements, as "Magic Power" doesn't seem to effect the power of my spells so much as the Magic attack.. or at least doesn't show altered spell power in my skills window. I'd like to think it's more than an expensive Empower, but I'm used to dissapointment in this game.
Magic damage, on the other hand, sounds pretty good...
Note that her SoWD is over-enchanted to maybe around+5 or +6 if I were to guess, while her acumen homunkulus is not.
Even so, she only does 10% more damage with the SoWD while spending 15% extra MP. If she gets buffs, the increase in damage% will drop even further. Furthermore, if she used demon, once again, the same thing would happen.
And Magic: Damage is worthless because it only triggers every few spells - meaning it won't give you the chance to two-shot-instead-of-three-shotting anything.
If she were using a SoES, I'm sure she'd be hitting harder.
Yes the Sword Of Whispering Death is +4, the Homunkulus's sword is +3.
Yes, it's an extra tenth damage, but that's for each of the two shots! With a higher magic attack from buffs or Demon, the difference is more pronounced, not less. The Homu won't "Catch up".
I know why many people advocate acumen for PVE; the monsters get faster and resist more later on. But going for damage over speed is an option I won't ignore, even if it means I can't PVP well.
I'm not trying to sound rude, just saying I've looked into this quite a bit already, in game, and I know that many of the arguments in favor of Acumen are thinly disguised arguments in favor of PVP ability.
Thank you for the feedback, I will carefully consider all of it.
Give us pictures with demon and both of the swords then.
The bonus MAtk is not added to the weapon, but to your total MAtk. After buffs. Which means that yes, the larger your total MAtk gets the more of a waste it is.
It would be better to just go for mobs you can cleanly two-shot instead of wasting your MP on that weapon - especially when you start sleeping or using curses, which also consume additional MP but don't really need the higher MAtk to trigger, you'll notice a difference.
Magic Power on C grade adds 99 M.Atk. On top of all buffs, masteries, int. multipliers (those things have no effect on it). In the end, on your level, it is only 6% more M.Atk. (buffed) or up to 13% more M.Atk. (unbuffed). Now if you factor that not the full M.Atk. increases damage, but it's square root, unless my Math is way off here, you're looking at an 3-4% damage increase, at the cost of 15% more mana...
And yes, the SoWD on the pics is OE'ed, while the Homu is not. After multipliers that may add more bang then Magic Power ever could.
Yes, it's an extra tenth damage, but that's for each of the two shots! With a higher magic attack from buffs or Demon, the difference is more pronounced, not less. The Homu won't "Catch up".
That is the whole problem. There is no bonus from Int (demon) or buffs or whatever for Magic Power. It's ALWAYS the same. And always takes 15% more mana.
Here is a screen shot of the two weapons in use with the Demon set on. The chat log on the left shows the damage dealt to Fallen orc shamans with cbsps & Hurricane.
With an extra 30% more mp cost per kill and -7 MEN for less than 20% more damage, I can understand why people think it's crap. I like crap, it suits my play style as you can see from my gear.
Hypotheticaly, if YOU were to like one of the three crappy enhancements I listed, which of the three would you prefer, and what are your experiences with it?
Regarding Magic Power: If there is indeed an increase in the power of the spell, it does not show in my skills menu, even at the time of casting.
There is just a flat increase to Magic attack, just like with Magic Empower.
Here is another scenario where I think this question holds complete validity. If you can't afford top A grade and don't want to loose the use of a shield, you won't have the ability to obtain a weapon w/ Acumen SA. My wife uses a +4 Elemental Sword. She wanted the SA on it to provide the additional damage in PvP and she liked having the shield since she solo's so much as well as against archers in PvP. When she was finally able to obtain a Stage 11 Soul Crystal, she wants something that would boost her damage as she's geared for damage per shot rather than damage per second. That left 2 choices, Magic Damage or Empower. When it came down to it, Magic Damage appeared to be just too much of a sacrifice on MP when she was already at -9 Men from her tattoos. While she wasn't presuming a massive jump in damage, she did notice about a 200-300 boost in damage to equal level mobs with the Empower SA attached.
While she wasn't presuming a massive jump in damage, she did notice about a 200-300 boost in damage to equal level mobs with the Empower SA attached.
Thank you for the feedback on this, Aldridge. 200-300 damage is very encouraging to me, especialy in light of the other "information" I've been receiving on this question.
Here is another scenario where I think this question holds complete validity. If you can't afford top A grade and don't want to loose the use of a shield, you won't have the ability to obtain a weapon w/ Acumen SA. My wife uses a +4 Elemental Sword. She wanted the SA on it to provide the additional damage in PvP and she liked having the shield since she solo's so much as well as against archers in PvP. When she was finally able to obtain a Stage 11 Soul Crystal, she wants something that would boost her damage as she's geared for damage per shot rather than damage per second. That left 2 choices, Magic Damage or Empower. When it came down to it, Magic Damage appeared to be just too much of a sacrifice on MP when she was already at -9 Men from her tattoos. While she wasn't presuming a massive jump in damage, she did notice about a 200-300 boost in damage to equal level mobs with the Empower SA attached.
No opinion offered, just something to chew on. :)
Sorry, but I cannot see how an increase of matk by 30 after buffs on an elemental sword (http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/7365/empower4ng.jpg) can give an increase of 200-300 damage per nuke. It is just not possible. An increase of 200-300 points is something putting on a demon set would give you, and that one gives FAR MORE than only 30 matk. So either something else changed in the setup (buffs e.g.), or she compared to a different weapon which had far less matk to begin with. Or - something we can never completely rule out - the empower SA does not do what it says it does and what you can see in the character stats. Or - another possibility - she compared damage in PvP, and A grade weapons with SA have an integrated damage bonus in PvP (so the damage increase might have been due to that).
BTW the screenies of magic power compared to acumen are pretty much what I expected - 99 matk more (plus the +1 enchant extra) will give you pretty much that damage increase at that level (you're in your 50s). The point everybody is trying to make is that the increase in matk is not worth it later on. When your matk as a SH is 2000+ buffed later on, an increase of 99 matk will not do much. Damage of nukes does not increase linearly. 99 matk more is a huge increase in damage when you have like 300matk total, but later on it is not worth that much. Nuke damage uses sqrt(matk/mdef)*9.1*power. So when you have 300 matk and nuke an enemy with 300 mdef, you will get 1*9.1*power. With magic power, this will be sqrt (399/300), or 1.15. So magic power here will give a 15% increase in damage. If you have 1000 matk and attack (just because it is easier to calculate) somebody with 1000 mdef using magic power SA, it will become sqrt (1099/1000), or 1.05. So the bonus shrank to 5%. And with 2000 matk it will be sqrt(2099/2000), or 1.02. You see that the higher your matk without the SA, the more useless the SA becomes. But it ALWAYS uses 15% more mp.
If you can two shot single hp mobs with a FCR setup... actual damage doesn't matter. The overhit bonus ( sometimes adding 500+ more exp per kill when comparing setups ) doesn't mean squat because you are killing much more with the FCR setup. Ive tested this myself ( demon + homy vs avadon + homu... which is nearly identical to your avadon + sowd vs avadon + homu ), and FCR always lead to more exp because of how many more mobs I can kill.
It works the same way for pvp. FCR = more hits in... less chances to be interrupted... more distance you can clear while kiting.... and etc.
At one point in time, I was running around in Tallum Robes and Dasparion Staff, and I was still owning despite having -2 int. ( though now I balanced this out a bit by switching to Som/ Avadon... another Tallum Robe set being in the near future ).
Yeah... this has been my experiance with my SH... FCR is all that matters. You can even go -int and still be better off then + int and w/o an acumen weapon.
Here is another scenario where I think this question holds complete validity. If you can't afford top A grade and don't want to loose the use of a shield, you won't have the ability to obtain a weapon w/ Acumen SA. My wife uses a +4 Elemental Sword. She wanted the SA on it to provide the additional damage in PvP and she liked having the shield since she solo's so much as well as against archers in PvP. When she was finally able to obtain a Stage 11 Soul Crystal, she wants something that would boost her damage as she's geared for damage per shot rather than damage per second. That left 2 choices, Magic Damage or Empower. When it came down to it, Magic Damage appeared to be just too much of a sacrifice on MP when she was already at -9 Men from her tattoos. While she wasn't presuming a massive jump in damage, she did notice about a 200-300 boost in damage to equal level mobs with the Empower SA attached.
No opinion offered, just something to chew on. :)
Sorry, but I cannot see how an increase of matk by 30 after buffs on an elemental sword (http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/7365/empower4ng.jpg) can give an increase of 200-300 damage per nuke. It is just not possible. An increase of 200-300 points is something putting on a demon set would give you, and that one gives FAR MORE than only 30 matk. So either something else changed in the setup (buffs e.g.), or she compared to a different weapon which had far less matk to begin with. Or - something we can never completely rule out - the empower SA does not do what it says it does and what you can see in the character stats. Or - another possibility - she compared damage in PvP, and A grade weapons with SA have an integrated damage bonus in PvP (so the damage increase might have been due to that).
Well, I suppose I could have been more specific with how the comparison was made, however, I assumed the information presented was succinct enough to indicate I possesed an understanding of how to make a comparison...
In any event, the comparison was done with the Elemental Sword at +4 before and after the SA was added using a Zubei set, no changes in tattos which was at the time +3 Wit +4 Int -7 Men fighting Doom Knights in FG. The damage for a Hurricane using ABSPS was approx 100 to 180 more and the damage for Shadow Flare was approx 200 to 300 more. This was using a L2 Empower 3 scroll but no zerk.
Hope this helps in your pursuit of information, lilune666.
And Varaya, it's sqrt(MAtk)/MDef * 9something * skillPower :p Prima made a mistake with the brackets.
I'm going with FCR = faster cast rate, rather then "fast casting rate".
To you the play on words meen nothing but me picking on you. But to me the difference meens the cast of your spells and not me picking on you. (also take into effect the refresh or cool down of them)
I'm Going to comment to the OP as best as I can, I did test this, I did it in ways that I can't fully comment on, (or I'd get banned) but I tring a set up, with SoWD and o/e'd it to +10.(like I said can't comment, lets just say it's a private matter)
I took that sword and used it with the intent to see how much more dmg I could put out with a sps, I di so much dmg that I decied that I wanted to do NM set and SoM with o/e'd SA of M power.
The dmg out put was so much that as a SpS I'd not do the cast speed set up till I hit 78 and do nothign but PvP.
How ever with the MP cost Emp is a better choise unless you got a SE to regen you then I'd totally go with the M power set up. One thing to note, with hiting over hits the lower the mobs HP, the more XP you get back.
so if her weapon is to the point where she gets the mob to 20% hp rather then 40% on her first hit, then she'd get more XP back on the over hit. (btw stay away from dmg if your doing dmg set up)