edit: also, the SA, the buff (or potion) and the armor bonuses, AND the +4 wit, all stack.
can you say ..... oh well ok i guess you cant, cause you died just too **** fast.
edit 2: as to magic chaos, it isnt a particularly useful SA, as your nuke would kill faster than you need in order to make the landing of chaos effective.
HOWEVER!! if youre a support class, and always rooting, or sleeping, or shackling or weakening your counterparts mobs, an SA like magic hold, magic weakness, magic chaos, or any such debuffing SA is useful when going up against particularly large mobs that take time to kill sans-shots.
Magic Chaos SA says it has a chance when using bad magic. What is considered bad magic? Is it any spell that causes damage or is it only dark attacks?
Also I know conventional thinking says that at C grade get a Homu with Acumen, but how does the bonus from the SA compare to +4 WIT for example?
homu + acu is the popular weapon for a reason. Don't go against the grain.
LOL as is Crystal staff with ManaUp. but i use SoulfireDirk. it costs less, has better CBSPS consumption rates, cheap crystal, and higher Matk than C staff.
All the others are rediculously underpowered in comparison.
Some highlights...
Magic power and Empower add way too little to be useful...
Magic power takes more mana than it adds damage by a pretty large margin.
Conversion/Mana-up actually has it uses in raid boss fights, but other than that it doesn't really help your longterm XP rates as it give you the ability to store a few more nukes when you leave town and then doesn't help.
Magic X (insert effect here with bad magic) goes off and takes effect way to infrequently to really use. Sure, it says 10% of the time... but that isn't how often it lands.
Magic Y (insert good magic here) can actually be useful if you solo, but not really that big of a deal because none of the effects really help mages that much.
Magic Y (insert good magic here) can actually be useful if you solo, but not really that big of a deal because none of the effects really help mages that much.
true, but for an SE , magic regenration is a great SA.
as is BTB
SE arent just for Emp to nukers, and vr to fighters. there is a LOT of flexibility.
as to nukers,what you said is true. acumen is in the best use there.
thanks for all the information guys. it's still a difficult decision. I'm going for SH btw and I just don't like playing to my weaknesses. I originally misread what magic chaos did which is why I was asking about it in comparison to acumen.
I guess my point being that DE are pretty slow casters and that getting an SA like acumen (tat's not considered) would just make me a mediocre caster in comparison to the other races that also use acumen. I wanted to play to my SH's strength wchich is nuking power so from what I gather here an SA like Magic power would be good, except for the penalty.
Adding in Tats, lets say you increase Wit to +8 at the expense of int and/or men, making your casts really fast. So you just became a decent caster but a mediocre nuker. Go the other way and do +8 INT and you pack the biggest punch but have a less than mediocre casting speed. Hard decisions.
So final question, in your opinion, all else being equal if someone with Magic Power and +8 INT faces off against some one with Acumen and +8 Wit who would win the duel?
who cast faster will interrupt the other's cast and likely damage him pretty good too.
the sorc has a great balance of power and speed. in demons, with emp2 and acu 3, +5wit, +homu /w acumen, youll grind out 1000 cast speed and 1000 matk.
that will beat out flat a SH in the same setup.
as to your hypothetical situation, he who lands first hit will start the next cast faster (and therefore land more hits) and likely go red (unless target is already purple) in a 1v 1 fair fight. which as you say is only a hypothetical situation.
every nuker vs nuker pvp comes down to who casts fastest. you could have -9 int and still kick the crap outta your target.
just start casting first.
"He who was fastest won" was true when sleep was actually possible to cast in PvP.
Now, sleep is completely pointless and the responding mage is pretty much dead... All that matter is level/equipment/buffs and who started it.
Even buffs....
I nuke you, you silence me... you won.
I nuke you, you fail silence, I cast cancel and it takes your cast buffs... I win.
I nuke you, we trade silence/cancel but they have little effect... then we trade nukes, likely I win unless you get a crit.
Guy who starts it now wins unless cancel or silence do something or a crit happens.
Mages really need a "counterspell" type spell that stops a fellow caster from casting offensive spells for a short time.
(only works when flagged, ALL human and elven mages and priests get it)
Frankly the most powerful mage in the game right now isn't a mage... its an orc priest.
for all the argument or any hypothetical situations you put out there. It still boils down to buffs and cast speed. Buff being the most important. But any SH/SPS/SORC without acumen SA against another simular lvl SH/SPS/SORC with acumen will loose most of the time.
Also speeking of the nerf on sleep, it has pretty much made DC the only armor worth using past lvl 62 for any nuker. NM sleep resist isnt worth it anymore. Tallum is ok but the increase in cast speed is still less than DC and major arcana isn't worth the cost.