Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Formally Quitting Megaten

Topic.

It has roughly been one year since I've started playing Megaten, and for a few reasons I have been finally exhausted of all willpower to play anymore. I will highlight shortly the few reasons.

1). New Crystals

This one is just sheer laziness on my part, but since the new crystals were added I never got around to getting them. This is simply because of how much more effort it is to make higher level crystals. Many people could afford to mass produce them with bulk buying melons and cups. I did not have access to this method because: I do not unload AP into this game like an addiction. I refuse to plasma farm 8 hours a day, 5 times a week like a second job. I cannot solo and parties are a bitch to find to hunt rares to sell.

I managed to get by with mass producing Flamies for so long but with the new patch I cannot bring myself to even attempt getting Nyarlathoteps. Since I do not have the new crystals my damage is severely lacking since I have been gone for the past few weeks/months and everyone else had finished updating their gears, making my Flamie's set lack in damage.

2). New JP Patches

Killed PvE. Sword Infusion is imbalanced as hell. I do not see bad CAVE could be with shooting themselves in their foot but instead shot themselves in the head.

3). Newer FC Sets

It seems we have finally reached the point in the patches where our FCs are getting higher and higher in General damage. Before the bonuses were manageable to get around as the differences between older FC sets were neglible. I have been running around in Green Seraph for about 6 months and I could still do more damage than most people. However, with the new FC armour and new crystals I don't exactly see this happening.

I knew Megaten was and still is a RL Money-based game and was expecting to quit eventually.

Huh, guess the points were longer than I thought. Anyways, in an unspecified amount of time in the future I will delete all posts on this blog because the point of this blog was to keep track of my thoughts and not necessarily to gain popularity with it or something. I'll probably delete everything the next time I make a blog on a different game as I would like to preserve the URL.

As a final point:

Exfm I do not forget the debt I owe you. PM Compact for my email and you can send me something as soon as you want me to pay you.

Monday, November 30, 2009

PvP After A Few... Weeks?

Well after taking a minor break from homework I decided to hop on Megaten and do what I always do. PvP, because who grinds nowadays anyway?

Well, to make a long story short because writing more than one paragraph takes effort I fell behind in gears and soul stones. In other words my inferiority complex just has reached a new level of high.

That is all, back to homework.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Something Irrelevent: Grand Fantasia

Grand Fantasia came out to CB yesterday... Played it until I was level 13.

It took me 4 hours to realize it was the same as every other MMO out there.

At that point I quit and started to play League of Legends.

Side note: Screw you Pearz the game is hella addicting. >_>

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Sudden Relevation

Current Damage Boosts:

1.91 * 2.05 * 1.22 * 1.7 = 8.12

After Phantom:

1.91 * 2.25 * 1.22 * 1.7 = 8.91

After Nyarl:

1.91 * 1.95 * 1.42 * 1.7 = 8.99

After Nyarl + Phantom

1.91 * 2.15 * 1.42 * 1.7 = 9.91

After Full Nyarls + Phantom

1.67 * 2.15 * 1.81 * 1.7 = 11.04


What I got from this is that I get the most cost efficient method if I just grab a Nyarl and Phantom SS. So I don't have to go broke trying to get 13 tarots.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

New Patch and My QQing

Two posts in one day... Boy do I feel awkward.

(Don't expect new post in the next few weeks)

This post borrows a lot of things mentioned with the post under, however since they were two different topics I felt a need for two posts.

Well I felt this was needed since the new patch made me feel extremely lost on what to do.

The new crystals made me feel just extremely sad because after running some calculations if I had kept up with the gear I would have been able to one rush Gands without inc if I ever finished getting my dream crystals done. Anyways, I'll get them eventually, in the next three months.

Now as I, as a PvE Damage Whoring DD Build I feel the need to develop myself as excessive with damage. As a result I have turned myself into a Glass Cannon in PvP with my future Crystal Set.

13 Nyarl Tarots
1 Nyarl SS
1 Phantom SS

So, roughly, this gives me: -90% Fire defense, +59% General Magic, +20% Rush, -10Magic.

I am a Glass Cannon, a flick from a match could kill me. However, it feels like I am running on perm-incense, do we need to ban this too? But then again this is easily mitigated by the fact it'll feel like you are rushing Jiko.

Well needless to mention I do have a plan to mitigate all these penalties.

Brisingamen: +20
Roaring: +15
Quetz: +10
Anti-fire: +50
PvP Anti fire: +30

Can't remember if I am missing anything or not... but I should end up with +35% fire resistance. Coupled with a 70% pulse that's 20% of the original fire damage.

I'll be mor weak to Ice but mreh~

Also to mention not only will I have horrid fire defense, I will also have horrid cast time. But hey, Damage Whoring is the way to go.

One more thing I want to mention is how bad the new crystals shafted me mentally.

Nyarl and Phnatom... quite the bitches they are.

I've been playing since Dec '08 and NEITHER of these demons were implmented. The only thing I could gather is Mot/Uriel/Surt plugins, no one even knew that Synthesis existed. Hence the plugins I got from Acts were Uriel's and Mot. I ended up in Chaos.

Now I have to get Phantom SS, however I need to get the plugin to unlock him. To get his plugin I need a Surt... So getting him is going to be something I have no real plan of doing anytime soon.

Nyarl is a Law demon. All the tri-fuse pre-requisites are Law demons. Tri-fusing requires three people. Now, I don't know if I ever mentioned this to people but I am EXTREMELY reclusive in game. I rarely speak with other people, seldom do they speak with me. However, too get these new things I want I'm going to get some more people who I can leech off from. Something that is also noteworthy, Nyarl is level 86. I am level 82. So I am going to have to get someone to make them for me and whore myself to pay them.

I have no people's skills so I never got what I want. Hell, I've been running the same Seraph armour since June '09.

Again, I feel like I forgot to mention something. Anyways, I'll probably remember in three months.

How I Stand in PvP

Bi-Weekly update... maybe I can pull through with this promise?

Well I got some issues with some PvP elements, I'll list them and go in no particular order.

This is how the Food Chain in PvP goes for me.

Shot Mage = Melee > Every other self-enhancer > My DD Build

The way I view myself is as a Damage Whoring DD Mage who strives for the highest amount of damage in PvE. In PvE, our end game dungeon is Ichi Gold, which places heavy emphasis on fire damage. Hence the reason why I ONLY use Delorean.

Because I'm a Damage Whoring DD Mage I chose to go Enhancer reliant so I could make points for Regal. Sometimes I do wish for self-enhance because I wait roughly thirty minutes to just start an ichi party.

I do fairly well in PvP, which I find to be completely coinicdental. My damage is just high if they don't have Enhance/Antis/Proper SS. Once they do however, I need to go cry in my corner because my damage is pathetic. Cheers to me if they don't though.

The drawbacks are pretty obvious, I don't have null knockback. Hence I'm a sitting duck if I EVER have more than one player on me.

Now, I want to get this out in the open. If someone has Super Armour on them, I WILL run away. It doesn't even matter to me if they are pathetically weak, I am at a very huge disadvantage if I'm against someone that does have SA.

If I rush you, you have enough time to charge a spell and kill me in one shot/hit. Better to run away from a losing battle, and so I do.

Next thing on my list...

Banning Incense.

I just want to reiterate what Finella has stated. With JP's equipments the most General you can have is 81% roughly. With just that alone it's like you are running on perm-incense.

Not like that matters anyways.

What do I want banned? Freaking Antis. Though that's just demoralization for me because seeing 4k DDs go into 100s is just... horrid for me. In no way do I find it a NEED but just D:...

Next thing...

Wow, I forgot what I was going to say. I'll come back to this later in about three months.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Enemy Weakness/Resistance Calculation

I thought this was obvious, but idiots prove me otherwise.

Anyways, copypasta.


(Damage Calculation) * Enemy Weakness * Damage Boost

The calculation of Enemy Weakness is:

Affinity * (Action Type + Racial) * General * (Enhance + LNC)

Those are the catgories, in actual practice the numbers follow.

1 * 1 * 1 * 1

Now let’s say if you had 80% resistance to fire, it would go like this in the formula.

(1-0.8) * 1 * 1 * 1 = 0.2

In other words you they take 20% the amount of fire damage than usual.

If they are weak to it, you add. Such as with Jiko.

(1+1) * 1 * 1 * 1 = 2

Two times the amount of fire damage.

Now for fun, this is what it would look like if you stacked Anti-fire, Inc, and enhance together,

(1-0.5) * 1 * (1-0.5) * (1-0.7) = 0.075

7% of the original damage, since as far as I remember most decimals are truncated.

Now in case you haven't gotten the concept yet, if you added more fire resistance it would subtract more from the affinity category. The lowest it can go is 0.01.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Cast Time and Cooldown Calculations

I actually knew about this a long time ago, I just forgot about it since it's just that pointless to know.

(Base time) * ((100 - (percentile value))/100)^(how many stacks there are)

Or something along the lines of that.

(Formula is a bit messy, doubt you'll be able to understand it)

Anyways, what this means is that the calculation is multiplied and not a stacked value. What this also means is that the effects of reducing cast/cooldown times are a lot less effective than they appear.

(Note: Examples are fictitious and doesn't reflect real in game equipment)

Example:

Agi cast time is 1 second
Armour decreases cast time by 10%

So instead of decreasing 10% OF 1 second (which results in 0.9 second) we plug in my messy formula to get:

1 * ((100 - 10)/100)
1 * (0.9) = 0.9

The result is the same, but when we continue to add different reductions such as...

Example:

Agi cast is 1 second
Armour decreases cast time by 10%
Crystal decreases cast time by 10%

Now normally you would think that it would be 1 second minus 20% (result is 0.8 second), that is not the case. You have to plug in the formula.

1 * ((100 - 10)/100) * ((100 - 10)/100)
1 * (0.9) * (0.9) = 0.81

In other words, 10% of 10% of 1 second. However, the reason why I made the formula format like this is because of what happens when you add stacks to it.

Example:

Agi cast is 1 second
Armour decreases cast time by 10%
Crystal decreases cast time by 10% (2)

Again, you would think it would be 30% of 1 second (0.7 seconds) but that is not the case and where the formula gets a but more math intensive.

1 * ((100 - 10)/100) * ((100 - 10)/100)^2
1 * (0.9) * (0.9)^2
1 * (0.9) * (0.81) = 0.729

Again, difference is minscule.

Increased Cast/Cooldown Times

Same formula applies, just add the percentage instead of subtracting.

Some Irregularities

Now I just want to make sure because of how the nature of this post is that I mostly took the tests from somewhere else and went from there. Including the fact of how lazy I am to test these things. I just wanted to make sure of some minor aspects clear.

Stacking Percentages

I am unaware of how specific it needs to be for the percentages to stack. For example, if the Top armour and Bottom armour both decrease cast time, do they stack? Or in different brackets?

Same issues with crystals. If they are the same crystal they stack (for example tarots) but what if they are two separate crystals?

Conclusion

So although cast/cooldown times are a lot more complicated than they seem, my question is, "Does anyone even care about it?"

Friday, August 28, 2009

Megaten: Skill System

Not only am I a hypocrite, I also fail to meet exectations (about 2 and a half weeks since my last update?). Anyways this post is dedicated to... myself for my love/hate relationship with Megaten's skill system.

Megaten has an original skill system as far as MMORPGs go, and it also adds a sense of realism to it. It has a skill based progression where to raise "Attack" you have to attack monsters. Your skills will get experience for it and eventually level up.

The skill system is also highly customizable. It is like making a custom gun (excuse my lack of comparison) for your purposes. Just pick a part and train it to tailor for your build. This also leads to very original (albeit not very good) creations/builds for the typical archtypes.

Even though the concept is good, it is still flawed in many ways.

Because not only do you have to level up yourself, you also have to level up your skills. So the game is essentially a double grind. A very long one at that. I would love to argue that skill grinding is a lot longer than level grinding but that is personal preference and the fact that I never use incense doesn't help.

As a reference, I made a newly created character and started to attain Enhancement right away. It took me roughly 3~4 hours to get to C2-5 Enhance. In that time I could probably get from level 78->79 and wouldn't be stuck at that level.

The time will also come where you would want to polish your build too, and reseting some skills will be needed. Unfortunately, when you reset some points from a certain skill those points can not be reallocated to a different skill. So you end up having to grind more skills all over again. This has caused me to have trained for at least +100~200 hours just for skill grinding because some are more unforgiving than others (5 hours for last rank of Magic Control?).

However, if we were allowed to reallocate points it would make the skill system broken because it is very apparent that some skills are easier to train than others. Which would make the incredibly hard expertises to train infinately easier.

So while I do wished you could reallocate points, it would have dire consequences to some aspects of the game. One aspect is that Synthers would be more common, which could effectively kill the crystal market. Synthers are usually not made as alts because of how draining it is to train their skill so only a few people have atleast made characters for it (I count 6 or 7 characters? Guesstimation). However hard they are to make, they are a needed aspect of the game. But then again the crystal market probably wouldn't fail because I forgot to account of how lazy people tend to be. Training high level demons is a bore and most people would likely buy it from someone else, not to mention some of the plugin-only crystals (Bishamonten).

Oh yeah, the typical -level up and place skill points here- MMORPG format wouldn't work here either for reasons similar to reallocating points.

To conclude, I hate Megaten's skill system.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Status Report

Just to anyone that actually VISITS my blog, I am NOT dead yet. I am currently renovating my home office so I had to take down my main computer. I am currently on my laptop and I find that downloading Megaten all over again is relatively stupid when I already have the files on my main computer which I can hook up again in the next few days.

So what I am currently doing on my laptop is that I've been playing around with different MMOs. The current one I've been playing is S4.

Anyways, I've always planned for this blog to have (bi-)weekly updates but just to say in short, I have nothing to talk about. I don't care much for all the Aeria Drama that goes around because with the past 5-something companies I've been to, everyones' attitudes are synomous. Take for example, LaTale. When I read that Aeria was picking this game up I decided to snoop around a bit on the forums and what I found was (un)surprising. Everyone pretty much went: "Fuck OGP" and "Aeria are our saviours!"

The same Aeria that caused all that controversy with Megaten?...

To repeat myself, how the company acts and the attitudes' of their player base I relatively don't care much. But then again, I'm a pretty indifferent person.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Revisit to LaTale

So today LaTale came to OB in Aeria Games. This was something I was looking forward to because OGP is dead to me because of all the bad things I heard about. Though, everyone hates on their companies anyways so it doesn't bug me. I typically use a objective view to these issues but it's hard enough for me. Anyways, what made me quit LaTale was that their enchants in the game was drops only, and it was hard enough to actually find the monsters that drop which enchants. So I heard that Aeria was getting LaTale so I promptly stopped playing. Today is a magnificent day because Aeria just released OB today. So without further ado I hopped on LaTale as fast I could.

I quit after five minutes.

What just happened? Well first thing first. Do I really want to regrind thirty levels again? I mean it may be fun to some people but if you read my earlier blog; I have low tolerance towards monotonous grinding. The first time you go through something it's fun, but for every subsequent playthrough it always loses its touch. One thing I realized when I was about to do my first quest is that... I had no one to do it with. What prolonged my gameplay with LaTale was that my brother was there to play it with me. We both leveled together, did quests, and even pvped with each other for the fun of it (I got killed, but hey I'm bad at PvPing). So my point of this blog is that if you have people to play games with it will prolong your stay with it exponetially. I even log into Megaten a few minutes each day just to say hi to my clan mates even though I pretty much quit the game.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Aeria got rid of the buyable Skill Resets the Misc. Shop had. I play as a Fire Wizard, with Dagger skills to help me level faster. I was planning to reskill later when I had at least three skills (Level 40 for reference) because anyone that plays LaTale knows that Fire Wizards have LONG cooldowns. So you pretty much spend most of your career kiting as many mobs as you can. However, since OGP allowed you to buy Skill Resets I was allowed to have extra skills to help me level earlier on. This plan was effectively killed when Aeria got rid of Skill Resets. What Aeria does have over the OGP though is that there were certain features OPG didn't have. For example, you could just BUY the enchants for your armours instead of item hunt for it or buy it with real money.

So in the end, pick your poison as I foresee LaTale being killed if Megaten was hosted by the same company.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Current State of EN: Just What Happened?

I'm going to say that at least half the server are casual players. Now by casual I don't mean that you play less than seven hours a week, I mean the type that plays for fun. The type that does what they feel like.

The type that doesn't try to optimize their damage potential.

I'm not going to say it's a bad thing, because Megaten is just a game afterall. Do what you feel like, and if you have fun that's all the more to you. What I AM going to talk about however, is the effects it has on the game itself.

Due to the latest "sponsor" craze anybody can get into an Ichi Gold now, while before it used to be a closed nit group only with the most elite. This was mainly because our gear sucked and very RARELY could someone OHKO Deformed Kirins. Slowly as Aeria released better equipment this limitation was gone and Ichi Gold went down severely in difficulty. Because people could now afford to lose a few slots or two people either: a)Only had few people for more exp or b)Brought someone along to buy plates for them. One thing you should know however is that one Ichi Gold plate costs 20k macca. You could complete Ichi Gold and the minimum you would get is 15k, effectively making costs less expensive. The problem is though is that people want the most efficient experience they can get and for that they do the good 'ol Jiko-Traesto method (unless you've been living under a rock it basically means you kill the Ichi Boss and teleport out as soon as he is dead). 20k Macca might not seem much, but most of the time you will run at least ten runs a session, which totals up to 200k. An average plasma farmer would take them one hour and a half to farm that. Does anyone want to dedicate their time to making money for grinding?

Back on point, what has sponsors done to our server? We have people running around that are level 80+ without a single enchant into their armour. If you don't see what's wrong with that, go slap yourself right now.

The worst part about it is, is that no one cares. Half the server are veterans and know not to invite these people, and the other half, the casual players don't care about how much damage you can do. This creates no sense of urgency in optimizing their damage as much as they can.

If what Finella said about JP server said was true, that they are elitist and expect everyone to be just as good as them, then this would show a huge contrast. Because the JP server are potentially perfectionist at damage potential there is an actual reason to enchant your gears. If you didn't you would get blocked by everyone. However, over here in the EN, because there is no penalty about being mediocre than the rest there is no need to upgrade your gears. The crystal market is practically crashed as the demand for certain crystals isn't really high. Because there is no reason to optimize your damage for the fact no one cares.

Another thing I want to bring up: Sugi Gold. Ever since sponsoring came into play no one runs Sugi Gold anymore. Why would they? Ichi Gold gives much more experience in an experience/min calculation (As a reference, a speed run is about ten minutes. You could run two-three Ichis in that time). Back then where we had mediocre equipment Sugi Gold was more of a challenge. We had to be careful, and to pick our skills carefully. We had to lure, we had to do things a certain way, we had to be precise in our routines (wait this sounds a lot like Ichi Gold). The important fact is, is that it raises some skill play than just leeching Ichi or having some uber-geared melee do everything for you.

Last thing to mention, information accessibility. This is an aspect of EN that we are heavily depraved in. Just for example, we didn't learn about brute forcing great success on weapons until we learned about the modification chances, something we wouldn't learn by ourselves. Most of gameplay related information is gathered through first-hand means which will lead to the veterans knowing most things about the game, while being too lazy to teach others. This is the case that I also fall into sadly, and even more sadly is that I have to leech off other sources of information to broaden my knowledge. What I do know is that I've been playing since CB and knew how to build my character as soon as the get go. Information isn't easy to get to as most of it is passed off first hand and is not in an open place where everyone can see. This leads into many faulty builds in Megaten which people have to sadly restart, because they didn't have the information on what to do first hand.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Something Irrelevent: LaTale

So for the past few days or so I haven't been playing MegaTen. Instead I've been trying my hand at another MMO Aeria is going to pick up, LaTale. However, instead of playing Aeria's version (I wasn't invited to CB anyways...) I headed over to OGP's version.

This game is essentially like Maplestory. 2D graphics, one plane, horrible amounts of grind etc.

Now what I wanted to talk about was LaTale's quest system. Anyone that knows me knows that I have horrid stamina to long periods of grind. Which explains how the farthest I got in Maplestory was level 23, which is pretty fail if you never played the game.

The same goes LaTale as it follows the same principles as other MMOs:

1)Grind here
2)Level up XX times
3)Move onto next area
4)Repeat

Still, I enjoyed LaTale much more than Maplestory even though they are both grindfests. One thing I have to hand it to, is the amount of quests LaTale offers over Maplestory (though I only made it to level 23 so I have no say about it).

The quests in LaTale are the standard "Talk to so and so guy and kill so and so monster so and so times" but what OGP did with the quests is interesting. In the JP and KRN version they follow the same follow the same outline, but what OGP did was that they took those quests, divided the things you needed to do and rewards earned by three. Then, they made it so you can repeat the quest three times, ending up with the same experience as intended.

The way OGP dealt with this was interesting to me as there was less emphasis on grinding because when you start off you can already accept one or two quests, and then repeat those three times. You'll also probably level up while completing them and then you can accept more quests even though you still haven't finished the quests you started with. So even though you are grinding you end up spending more time running around to complete the quests. Yes, it does feel repetitive but it gave me a small sense of accomplishment, no matter how trivial it was.

I'll relate this to Megaten since this is supposed to be a Megaten blog.

When I first started Megaten what probably drawn me in was that there was a story and that is was presented through Acts that actually had variety to it. Oh, and instanced dungeons but those are a dime a dozen the more I actually looked at MMOs.

tl;dr Questing, even if they can be repetitive, as long as they have decent rewards will prolong my grinding and stay with the game.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

MegaTen Review

How is Megaten as an MMORPG?

When I started this game in CB I was honestly obsessed with it. I easily clocked in at 10 hours a day. However, I can't log on for longer than an hour today.

This game, in the early levels is very interesting. Interesting enough for me to come back for more. This is thankful because of its combat system that is different from the other generic MMO's combat. Different from the usual point, click, watch. With the occasional skill spamming. Megaten has a very Rock-Paper-Scissors combat oriented style. Pretty much the same of what Mabinogi is. This makes combat require you to pay much more attention and incidently much more intriguing.

Another thing, there's an actual story! With cutscenes too! Too bad that it's not very interesting so you won't be drawn into it too much. But for attempting to have a story is always a plus, it gives you a small sense of achievement.

When you first play you'll be brought through a tutorial Act (story quests). This would probably take 10 to 20 minutes if it's your first time. After that the next 30 levels is you completing the 16 Acts the game has to offer. Pretty good for a F2P game I guess. After that though, you feel like you are missing something. As if there's nothing left for you to do besides grind with no end. Which is mainly true.

Grinding in this game is mostly going to be done in instanced dungeons. For those that are used to killing XX mob for YY time for ZZ levels it's a good change of pace. The problem in this is that instead of killing mobs over countless number of times you are going to be running through certain dungeons over and over and over.

The grind is only half of it too. When you level, all it gives are stat points. No skills whatsoever. In order to progress skills you have to use them over and over again. For example, to raise Attack you have to attack mobs over and over again. Level grinding is only half the battle, grinding skills is also much more painful. So even if you did get powerleveled you won't be as strong as the other players as you don't have the skills they do, which matter a LOT. If I had to be honest, I could probably have totaled over 100 hours of skill grinding by itself. Thankfully, there's "incense" to use to speed up the skill and level grinding.

Later on in grinding, you will usually get a party for efficient experience. Most people don't have the ability to solo dungeons by themselves without dying over and over. Because you partied the complex skill system is taken out of the window and the combat turns into skill spamming as much as you can before the mobs can react. Very much alike from the earlier MMOs. To also say myself, doing dungeons over and over again is much more draining on you than point and clicking on mobs. Though that's a personal opinion. Another problem is that you will NEED a party to grind unless you have a specific build tailored for soloing. This makes grinding not something you can do as soon as you log in because you have to search for a party.

You can control demons as your personal sidekick. People generally want to use what demon they like and stick with it for the rest of the game. However you can't do this because there are demons that are better than the others because of the traits they have that are specific to certain demons. Take for example PvP. Loki is a demon that is highly resistant to most, if not all status ailments. This makes it a good demon for PvP, defensive purposes.

Demons would not be as strong as players though so they do tend to have a more support role than offensive one.

Gear in this game is quite balanced for the most part because they don't have any special bonuses. Most of your power comes from enchanting your gear with different demon crystals. This was totally destroyed when Cave introduced armour that adds insane damage boosts. So unless you can fork over lots of money or spend lots on ingame time farming cash, good luck getting those.

PvP in the game is broken. Points listed in earlier blogs.

A painfully obvious thing to remember in PvP is that the level gap is not easily overcome with sheer skill, more or less impossible.

I guess this sums up my experiences with Megaten, I just hope Aion comes out sooner.

Oh, and another thing to add on to this. Megaten's Community is absolutely amazing. Everyone is usually social and friendly for the most part. If you do play, make friends and join a guild. It will make your experience much more enjoyable.

In dedication to my favourite clan which was family to me, Twisted.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Other Problems with PvP and My Dilemma

Back on topic with PvP, there is another problem. Despite the fact that different classes are dominant over the others there is another problem, Status Ailments.

Most of these status ailments are rather insignicant in PvE as they are a minor annoyance but in PvP these can be between disabling you for a good 3 minutes to getting you stun locked.

Because of these annoyances you need to make sure you null everything you can or bring lots of Dis Stones from the Pharmacy. At the very least, null everything that can potentially stop you from doing anything. Muddle, Charm, Sleep, Stone are the major ones and then you can just use Dis Stones to get rid of the other small annoyances.

However, nulling these takes SS Slots in your armour so you tend to be weaker in terms of strength just to null these annoyances. For example, nulling Charm would take up Neck Slot, which breaks Cerb/Orth combo. Unlike Melees, Mages are heavily dependant on that damage multiplier and end up being severely weaker. Top tier melees tend to use Blunt weapons for the Regal bonus and stack +Blunt mods on their weapons. They can easily achieve the 100% Blunt Affinity cap with the right mods and SS. There's also a Talisman that grants null charm but it can't be SSed or repaired, meaning you also lose null sleep.

Lot's of complications with builds as a product of this.

There are also a number of people making PvP demons that either: Have a crap load of Area Status Effects or have Anti-element. The latter is practically unlikely as it involves a LOT of demon leveling. So far only one person on the EN server has such a demon.

PvP Matches can end up being revolved around inflicting statuses and curing them.

This arrives to my dilemma if I should trade off power to make me null 3 of the main statuses.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Dominant Classes in PvP

Hm... it's bad.

Currently with the gears EN have using Lord of Armour in PvP is suicide. This by itself is the reason why I am heavily mediocre in PvP.

The staple of all PvPers is that you must get atleast C2 or C2-5 Enhance and have Int as their secondary stat. This by itself is a problem as two Chain Expertises (Magic Bullet and Demolition Dash) have a secondary stat which boost its damage. On top of that Rush and Shot can easily be broken by one attack.

Another problem is that DD is more EASILY broken than Shot because of its lower range. So unlike Gunners who can kite the crap out of you, DDs are stuck in the front lines with a Rush that can be broken quickly.

This leaves Melees and Shot Mages superior.

Unlike the other two Classes Melee and Shot Mages are dependant on one stat and can easily dump their spare points into Int. Not to mention that Melee and Shot mages pretty much have a "universal" set that can work for any situation. Kali for Melee, Pavarti for Shot Mages. Shot Mages will also get a cast time reduction from the Int while Melees already have a 0 second cast time with Attack so Shot Mages get a more beneficial boost.

Currently, the top PvPer is a Shot Mage who can instant cast pretty much any spell.

Back on note, because of Enhance and its null knockback buff going against them without your own null knockback is suicide. This makes Enhance a staple in anyone's build.

This is the reason why I fail in PvP as a DD Mage for not having null knockback or a skill that can't be broken. The only kills I get are from blindsiding people, in groups, or killing cannon fodder.

Most of these scenarios are also assumption that it is 1v1. In a group PvP you WILL need null knockback on you if you want to survive. People have a tendancy to stun lock you with demons, other players etc.