I want to be in a party alot... My friends will normally have an SE and a Prophet in the group. Not sure of the help in the 60s and the 70's how to help. I'm at the decision making time and would love thoughts plz and thanks,
If you don't mind having only no variability and no body to mind, by all means go sorceror, but if you like to have a lot of options and have enough mp to use those options, you're going to have to go necromancer.
Yeah, warlocks are a solid and fun class - can solo, can be a good duo partner for just about anyone, and in lare groups, if you don't come from playing a summoner in the past, can use the buffpet without great emotional anguish. :p
Between those two, I'd say which is more useful probably depends on the rest of the group setup.
Necro is more versatile in my opinion, like a hybrid summoner / nuker. Sorcerer is like most nukers, a one trick pony.
That would sum it up yes.
If you like the variety I'd say go Necro (but as stated alreday they are expensive in groups)...Depends on what you seek for in your Caster class... Warlocks are indeed very apreciated in groups specially on the higher levels, but as I said it all depends on what you want out of it in the long run.
Necro has variety and Sorcerers just have one blasting nuke to use all the way round...These type of topics are always hard to reply to cause it really depends on thegame experience you wish to attain.
I wouldnt suggest a nuker. They do get B2M but its not all that great. Having herbs drop will help, but you have to make sure that you are the one picking them up. I logged in my sorc last night for the first time in months. I can say that since they nerfed the cast time on sleep/sleep cloud I am pretty much useless in a group now. Sorc used to be good because you can cast a nuke and then do crowd control too. Now, you just get to nuke once in awhile. I say once in awhile becasue you dont want to aggro mobs and/or run out of mana. People hate it when a nuker has to sit and leech xp from the group. :confused:
If it wasn't for the change in sleep then I would say that having a nuker in a party is a good thing. But if you are not going to do heaps of damage and are going to have issues with mana then being a nuker in a party is a bit "bleh".
However, as a SH you can add a decent amount of damage (especially with the critical hits) and you can slow mobs and still sleep them if you get too many adds (though the sleep is painfully slow).
With body to mind and heal potions you become more viable for party play.
Sorc is the crappiest out of the bunch. Pain to level solo at high levels, not much to offer for groups since sleep cloud got nerfed and with basically only one nuke they suffer from lack of useful skills.
Uhm, self-recharge for all healers or healer hybrids is arriving in Interlude.
Here a few numbers to make sorc hearts beat a little faster:
- At level 74, approximately 3k extra MP in recharges over what is currently available from an SE in intervalls of less than 5 minutes, speculated to drop as low as 2.something with dances and acumen/zerk on the recharger.
- At level 56, approximately 1.6k extra MP in recharges at the same intervals.
That changes the position of nukers in parties rather thoroughly, I'd assume.
Uhm, self-recharge for all healers or healer hybrids is arriving in Interlude.
Here a few numbers to make sorc hearts beat a little faster:
- At level 74, approximately 3k extra MP in recharges over what is currently available from an SE in intervalls of less than 5 minutes, speculated to drop as low as 2.something with dances and acumen/zerk on the recharger.
- At level 56, approximately 1.6k extra MP in recharges at the same intervals.
That changes the position of nukers in parties rather thoroughly, I'd assume.
Great, if I was a SE and a spellsinger all wrapped up into one neat little package, I could actually be useful in a group.
If NC really wanted to make amends with the spellsingers and sorcerors out after having just destroyed their party role and solo survivability (which I believe a lot of mages still enough of even at the 73+ level range), they would have just given them body to mind or at the least modified sleep to bring back its old pve usability.
While its nice that some of the tools I need are there, its not so nice that they aren't here.
I remember when nukers didn't have sleep. Sucks that sleep is gone but I don't mind it. I don't think the nukers should have any of the sleeps or debuffs imo.
I remember when nukers didn't have sleep. Sucks that sleep is gone but I don't mind it. I don't think the nukers should have any of the sleeps or debuffs imo.
I remember when nukers didn't have sleep. Sucks that sleep is gone but I don't mind it. I don't think the nukers should have any of the sleeps or debuffs imo.
thats from a SS and im sorta a 75 necro
i never ever had sleep on bar (except for that time i slept lickn's sub ;) )
My spellsinger is a solo class, or rather it must be used so seeing as the majority of the time I do get to play, I don't have enough time to try looking for a party.
Now I've already showed why I don't party with elven elders. And I shall do so again.
Assuming that the only thing an elven elder is supplying me with is mp restoration (which is in fact exactly what is happening), then I am earning the experience for two characters with only one character (because the elven elder isn't contributing any damage) and have to kill more mobs to earn the same amount of experience and adena.
This gets broken off into 2 cases, one where the elven elder refuses to share the cost of shots and one where she accepts it.
In the case where the elven elder refuses to share the cost of shots, I have the same per mob shot cost I would have soloing, but am only earning half the amount of adena I was earning before. Seeing as I use two shots per mob thats about 640 adena per mob. If each mob has a probability of 67% of dropping adena and the adena is equally distributed between 1500 and 2300 (this is what wisdom of splendors drop though I would accuse them of dropping less than 67% of the time) I will earn on average 50%*67%*(1500+2300)/2=636.5 adena when in a group. Since that is less than my per mob cost of 640 adena, I am losing adena when I hunt with an elven elder who doesn't share shots. Now seeing as adena drops are one of my main sources of income, I can hardly afford to lose adena with every kill, and would slowly go broke if I had to do this, discouting additional drops and that quest which gives 100,000 adena per 300 low drop quest items. That in and of course becomes slightly more cumbersome as the number of additional drops, potions and what not continuously become added.
Now we can immediately see that if the elder is willing to share the shot cost, I will be earning just as much adena as I was earning while soloing because my per mob cost is now cut in half.
Thus in terms of adena alone I should only party an elven elder if they are willing to split the cost of the bsps.
Next we consider the amount of experience I earn when partying with an elven elder. Assuming the elven elder is approximately equal in level to me (as she must be since I am only partying with her for her recharges), then we are splitting the earned experience 50|50. Factoring in the 30% duo bonus, we see I can only earn at least as much experience in an elven elder duo if duoing with the elven elder allows me to kill 53.8% more mobs per averaged unit time (here one takes the number of mobs over a very long period of time in order to take into account the fact that you will have to rest eventually and those fights that just go wrong and see you going from full hp and mp to low hp and low mp and then takes the averageover the number of intervals of the desired time). This in and of itself doesn't seem so hard to do, as even with a mp exchange rate of 1:1 the elven elder should have enough mp to fully restore the spellsinger once before having to sit down and regenerate. If done correctly this duo should be able to time the regeneration cycle such that the elven elder restores all the spellsingers mp, then sits down until either the spellsinger has no mp or she has full mp and then restores as much of the spellsingers mp as needed before sitting and repeating this process. This allows the elven elder to essentially be powerleveled as she only needs to be present at the pc in order to stand up, recharge the spellsinger's mp and then sit back down at which point she can afk again. Provided that with this little algorithm the mage can go for an eternity, the duo will not only meet what the mage could earn alone but slightly surpass it. However if this is not enough to allow the mage to nuke for an eternity without sitting, then the duo might not give the spellsinger as much experience as she could earn soloing. At least that was pre C5.
With the new mp restoring herbs, the amount of exp that needs to be earned is quite a bit harder to caculate. Because the mage is benefitting from the herbs more while soloing than duoing, the numer of mobs per averaged unit time which need to be killed in order to earn as much experience as soloing becomes larger by an amount I cannot calculate lacking information on the likelihood of each type of herb dropping.
Thus with a stingy elven elder, I will always end the day negative in adena and possibly in experience verse what I earn from soloing and will never do duo with them.
In the case where the elven elder is not stingy then I end the day indifferent in terms of per mob adena earnings, and might end the day either with more total adena and experience or less depending on how the herb drops effect mp restoration over time.
Those are the ideal cases which factor into the decision of whether or not to invite an elven elder or accept an invitation from an elven elder. As in all things, the ideal cases are not actually seen when the real duo does place. I never ask my duo partner to share the shot cost with me even though the answer to the question if I were to ask them is still factored into the decision, they simply never see it.
Concerning SEs, I will always agree to duo with them because they provide both recharges and the all important empower!
i agree with alot of your post but dont try to argue the econmics of partying with a crafter
With the new mp restoring herbs, the amount of exp that needs to be earned is quite a bit harder to caculate. Because the mage is benefitting from the herbs more while soloing than duoing, the numer of mobs per averaged unit time which need to be killed in order to earn as much experience as soloing becomes larger by an amount I cannot calculate lacking information on the likelihood of each type of herb dropping.
this is about the only part i dont agree with
get the buffer to pick up the herbs and you should go non-stop forever even as a spellsinger
Nameless, if you had thought about this for a moment, you would have realized that there is little difference if the spellsinger picks up the herb and directly gets the mp or if the elven elder picks up the herbs and uses the mp to recharge the spellsinger. Either way, the mp is being turned into spell damage.
And, I think I know better than you what my own cost and benefit schedule looks like. It doesn't take a genius to look up the recipe for bspsa, to know the average buy price of A crystals and spirit ore and then put those together to find the price I pay per bspsa. Now seeing as I am the one who crafts each bspsa I use, then I am not even estimating this rather number, but am telling you exactly what my costs are.
Nameless, if you had thought about this for a moment, you would have realized that there is little difference if the spellsinger picks up the herb and directly gets the mp or if the elven elder picks up the herbs and uses the mp to recharge the spellsinger. Either way, the mp is being turned into spell damage.
nearly but no
if you pick up a herb you will get 100 mp
if the EE picks up the herb it will get 100 mp
here's where it gets tricky
when the EE recharges you it will spend 100 mp and you will get 120 mp
And, I think I know better than you what my own cost and benefit schedule looks like. It doesn't take a genius to look up the recipe for bspsa, to know the average buy price of A crystals and spirit ore and then put those together to find the price I pay per bspsa. Now seeing as I am the one who crafts each bspsa I use, then I am not even estimating this rather number, but am telling you exactly what my costs are.
my "argueing with a crafter about duo costs" comment had nothing to do with actual craft costs
if you are smart you should be able to craft absps for maybe 5% more than what i do
my comment was about how much even a spellsinger spends in party compared to a crafter (or any melee class)
basic numbers
spellsinger 2 hits mobs for 600a mob drops up to 3k adena
crafter 10 hits (im being generous here) a mob for 80 adena per hit 800a to kill a mob that drops up to 3k
wanna get scary?
no se or EE in their right mind would duo with a crafter unless it was in clan or spamming the golem (they would still rather a nuker duo)
cost per buff round on golem 70k
beast ss 150a per hit
it easily reaches the point where you spend 3k to kill a mob that drops up to 3k adena
The EE also has Clarity, which reduces your MP consumption and theirs.
Further, on undead targets (which you SHOULD prefer to hunt anyway just to make Solar Spark more efficient) an equally geared EE can come closer to matching your DPS than you might think, since C5 boosted the damage of Might of Heaven (making it deal bonus damage on holy weak monsters). This is somewhat offset by the fact the EE often won't have as good of a weapon.
But the difference between 120 mp and 100mp is 20mp. Thats actually less mp total than the healer would have earned by sitting and receing the higher sitting mp regeneration rate instead of walking around collecting herbs.
Except it's not actually 100/120 (even a level 20 character gets more of a boost than that from HMG), but, say, at level 66 it's 120/195. The EE also has a larger mana pool than you and therefore will usually get more outta the herbs.
That was a very nice rant with lots of nice numbers, but of course, you're forgetting something else you keep insisting on: Acumen starts increasing your exp rate significantly once you have an EE. The EE can also do the fast CC which was theirs to begin with and which you now moan about not having available.
If you, as a nuker without BtM, seriously think that an EE can't improve your exp rates, you're doing something very wrong.
Also, the EE has Clarity, so that 120 MP recharge actually costs 108 MP.
Further, they can do clever things with herbs, like if they see a superior herb, switch to a Conversion weapon, pick it up to refill all their normal MP + the extra MP from the SA, recharge away that extra MP, and switch back to the normal weapon.
Oh, and as to nuking, which I mentioned they can do, an even leveled EE with equal gear, tattoos (I am aware this isn't always possible) and buffs can deal, with Might of Heaven, more than 95% of the damage of a single Hydroblast (unless there was an Aqua weak undead, which I am not aware of). Even with the fact they can't +INT factored in, they can do at least 90% as much damage as the Hydroblast.
And Clarity + herbs mean they will have the available mana to throw nukes in addition to recharging.
Except it's not actually 100/120 (even a level 20 character gets more of a boost than that from HMG), but, say, at level 66 it's 120/195. The EE also has a larger mana pool than you and therefore will usually get more outta the herbs.
yeah sorry thats just made up numbers
at lvl 74 i beleave its 133 mp used to regen for about 210ish
You get around 215 back, but you spend a mite less than 135 (if you're an EE). The rate doesn't actually improve all that much when you upgrade recharge - personally, once I hit the area where you get a skill upgrade every 2 levels, I probably won't be getting the newest level of recharge every time - you get a better recharger MP/nuker MP ratio if you use old recharges that still work at full power. :D
I doubt that the difference between a mages mp pool and a healers mp pool is all that big, and according to the Prima Guide, at level 66 an elven elder would have the exact same base mp pool as I do, this being 1817. All else being equal, we will have the same amount of mp seeing as we get the same number of skills related to boosting our mp pool. The rboes of each grade if they are the same type (high or low) give equal amounts of mp, though some set bonuses do give an additional amount of mp as their set bonus. However we still aren't comparing bananas to plantains (not the weed), so the difference will be small. The walking elven elder regenerates mp more slowly than the sitting elven elder as she lacks clear mind. Having her follow the spellsinger to pick up herbs which as already shown do not give her any more mp than they would the spellsinger means she loses her higher sitting mp regeneration rate when these same herbs would restore just as much mp to the spellsinger. So the only real benefit then is still the difference between the rate at which mp can be restored going from elven elder to spellsinger rather than just to the spellsinger directly. But because the cost of using herbs to restore the elven elders mp and then using this mp to restore the spellsinger's mp is not that much greater than having the spellsinger pick up these herbs and requires having the elven elder regenerate less total mp than she would have if she just let the spellsinger pick up the herbs.
The 100/120 rate is the exchange rate between the elven elders mp and the spellsingers mp if the elven elder uses a recharge, not the amount of mp being restored by these herbs. Its just not an awe inspiring jump, the process nets a total increase of 20 mp per 100 mp the elven elder spends.
The entire point of bringing up the herb problem is that if the elven elder team and spellsinger duo were already very close to being able to grind nonstop, the addition of just one or two herbs would rbing this to the point where they are grinding nonstop, and any additional herbs will not have any effect on their further grinding as they already have all the mp they need. But for the soloing mage who will with surety need to rest to recover mp, the additon of herbs allows the spellsinger to go much longer without having to rest again, and in some cases actually allows the spellsinger to grind for their entire session without sitting once. Because the soloing mage can earn as much exp as the duo by killing fewer mobs per period and is more greatly helped by every mp restoring herb while the duo are only helped by a few herbs before reaching the point where addtional herbs no longer help them. It is now entirely plausible that the soloing spellsinger with herbs will outpace the amount of experience earned by the duo even if this soloing spellsinger still needs to rest every once in a while because the soloing spellsinger earns more experience per kill than it would earn in a duo.
I really can't argue against the idea that increasing the casting speed of spellsinger if they have an infinite amount of mp is going to increase the number of mobs they kill.
The only thing I have ever said about acumen is given the fact that the spellsinger has a finite amount of mp available, increasing the casting speed will not increase the number of mobs killed if the mage already reached 0 mp before they were given accumen.
Now, when you say, "The EE can also do the fast CC which was theirs to begin with and which you now moan about not having available", you are only stating your own opinion not some true fact. I moan about my lack of CC skills because CC was what a spellsinger excelled at. Before C2 mages did not have sleep, but then before C2, who needed it? As Svorath is keen on saying, the first 4 chronicles were the chronicles which saw NC releasing the content which L2 was supposed to have had from the beginning. Thus mages not having sleep before C2 is no indication they were never meant to have it, simply that they were not given it until C2. We can bicker over this all day but such an argument would be pointless, neither you nor I know for sure whether mages were meant to be in charge of crowd control from the getgo. Though seeing as spellsingers are such mediocre damage dealers but were such good crowd controllers, I'm not sure how you can say they were designed to be purely DD.
Whether or not you think that an elven elder can improve my exp rates is only theory, without having ever actually played a high level spellsinger you can't really speak from experience, but I can. And I can say with surety, at the end of the day, I have never noticed an appreciable difference between duoing with an elven elder and soloing. I simply want to show what must be causing what I have observed.
What if I had BtM, could we have this same chat about how partying with a bishop allows me to keep my mp up because I can convert their heals into mp?
Again, you're not addressing several key points about the EE class:
1. Clarity reduces your MP cost and theirs, leading to even less downtime,
2. They can benefit from MP herbs by switching to a cheap conversion weapon and then recharging away all the "bonus" MP that they have; for you to make best use of herbs like this would require a conversion weapon with as good MATK as your main weapon (you're not going to be in A grade nuking with a +0 conversion homunk; they can be in A grade recharging with one).
3. On your preferred targets (undead) they can nuke almost as hard as you do; with clarity and herbs the EE can be nuking alongside you, not merely recharging you.
Your entire argument is predicated on them not dealing damage, which is a really stupid way for them to play, assuming they have the MP to nuke.
I doubt that the difference between a mages mp pool and a healers mp pool is all that big, and according to the Prima Guide, at level 66 an elven elder would have the exact same base mp pool as I do, this being 1817. All else being equal, we will have the same amount of mp seeing as we get the same number of skills related to boosting our mp pool. The rboes of each grade if they are the same type (high or low) give equal amounts of mp, though some set bonuses do give an additional amount of mp as their set bonus.
In A grade, the nuker will have DC robe set and the EE will have majestic (usual combination). Then the difference (without bts) is over 400 mp in max mana. Also, if the EE is serious about mainly recharging, he/she will use a conversion weapon. That will mean a difference in MP of about 2K mp.
The 100/120 rate is the exchange rate between the elven elders mp and the spellsingers mp if the elven elder uses a recharge, not the amount of mp being restored by these herbs. Its just not an awe inspiring jump, the process nets a total increase of 20 mp per 100 mp the elven elder spends.
Lvl 74 recharge gives 217mp for 137mp spent. That is a 58% increase, or 100/158 as you put it. And of course EE has clarity, which decreases the cost for the recharge skill by, can't remember, something like 10%? Now just calculate when a EE with conversion weapon (probably in the region of 5.5k+ mp) gets a superior herb and uses that to recharge you, instead of YOU picking up the herb to get back to full mp. 5.5k mp is about 40 recharges, so about 8.5k mp recharged to you, and that is without clarity to reduce the cost for recharge - with clarity you are looking at closer to 9.5k mp recharged.
Of course you probably do not need all that mp, because you will simply run out of mobs and cannot really go "berserk" when you basically have unlimited mp. But what it means is that the EE has mp over for other stuff, like healing (sometimes you DO get hurt, do you?), trance, buffs, compensating walking instead of sitting.
But the basic point is - with an EE you CAN nuke non stop if you hunt in an area where the EE can recharge himself with herb drops every now and then. While if you solo there, you have to pray for "superior" herb drops, or you will run out of mp eventually. I know that on my sorc, when I solo with clan hall buffs (i.e. with emp1), I still get quite often an "unlucky" buff round where I run out of mp before the buffs fade.
If you hunt in rage, not picking up drops youself, you casting speed is the measure for your effectiveness. EE will be able to pick up most drops, if you two decide to pick up everything immediately.
On the other side, you will have to run after each mob dropping herb if you go solo. It greatly slows down grind speed. I'd say your killrate is two times lower in solo even if you have unlimited mana pool.
At level 66 where I am, the elven elder is not recharging with a ratio of 1|1.58, and I am not using a dark crystal set, so I know we will have the same mp pool. Most elven elders or SEs are carrying around a homunculus with acumen simply because the bsps are cheaper and they have no real reason to increase their m attack. So this big differential you are talking about, is a theoretical differential only, it is not what I observe when I am actually playing the game. When I am using a nightmare robe set and the healer is using a majestic set, we have the same mp base from the robes, though the healer will have more because of the majestic set bonus. Otherwise we will have just as much mp as each other. There goes the idea that the elven elder has twice as much mp as I will.
I still stand that there is currently little difference between having the elven elder walk around and pick up the herbs in order to convert that into recharges and having the elven elder sit down and regenerate mp faster, having shown that we will have a similar mp pool.
Since you've already said that once the duo has reached the point of having an infinite amount of mp, they will no longer benefit from herb drops and will reach the point where they can not kill mobs any faster even if they have the mp to spare, we know they will face some maximum amount of experience they can earn. This allows the soloing spellsinger to catch up, depending on the rate at which each type of mp restoring herb drops.
And for the spellsinger to catch up, all it has to do is kill 65% as many mobs per unit time as the duo is killing. My point was that with the herb drops, this is more likely to happen now than when the herbs didn't drop.
Considering nuking, knowing that the elders best use of their mp is to give it to the spellsinger as recharges since the spellsinger will do more damage per mp, why would she ever use it to nuke instead? This seems to me to be decreasing the benefit of having the elder there in the first place.
And what buffs exactly is that elven elder going to give me, might? The elven elder is not there for her buffs or her nukes, just her recharges, and only then if we can show that the spellsinger earns more exp from duoing than from soloing, something no one has affirmed is either absolutely true or absolutely false.