Maple Story - Archive (3/21/2006)

TelinArtho
Posted 3/21/2006 8:56:47 AM
I didn't play for long last night, and focused all of my efforts just about on kitties. I ended up getting enough horns for 2 trade-ins, not very much, but at the same time - that was with about an hour's worth of work.

The only time I didn't fight kitties was when I missed the jump to the second rope and ended up on a platform with a bunch of star pixies. I decided to kill them and did well enough. I now have ~15 pieces of star. I figure if I keep attacking them on occasion I'll eventually get enough for a trade-in with them.

I didn't get any significant drops last night, but I did notice that I seem to have built up a nice amount of cash in my short stint at kitties. I'm up to ~200k - having started there at ~100k the day before. Bear in mind, this is just the cash drops - I haven't sold a thing to help that out and I really haven't played much since I got to the kitties in the first place.

I'm making slow headway in terms of experience - earning about 10% last night overall. I did manage to stay alive - which was certainly a problem on Sunday. At about 22% now, it'll be a few more days before I reach level 36.

I've put in offers on two glove scrolls that will hopefully come through. The extra accuracy might be enough to make star pixies unmissable and the extra avoid might just be enough to help me at pixies and kitties.

I have started using my warrior and dex potions to improve my damage/reduce my damage taken. I wish there was a potion that increased magic defense so that I could fight pixies better - but since I don't know of one, I'll just have to remember to equip better earrings when I go to them.

The dex potion doesn't seem to make "much" difference, but that may just be a poor avoid stat combined with a decent accuracy on my opponent. I'm not concerned about it - I only use them on occasion anyway.

The warrior potion does make a difference - reducing my average number of hits to kill without PS to 3. If I go to a platform, I can take out the entire platform with 3 SB - 6 kitties, 65xp = 390xp for 42mp and 48hp.

I actually shared the map - kind of - with a wizard last night. I didn't look at his stats, so I don't know what his level was, but he missed almost all of the time with his magic claw, and when it hit, it only did ~90 damage. And I thought I was out of my league at level 30...

He was replaced by another wizard who did well enough, again only magic claw from what I saw. I let him take the bottom, while I slash blasted the top.

Neither wizard stayed very long - as it seems the spawn is too quick for them to take out the kitties as fast as I do. When I finished both of my platforms, I would find the wizard being swarmed by more kitties on the bottom. I didn't want to go KS him - but at the same time, I'm surprised he didn't die on his way out...

---MS TelinArtho2 (windia) 35 Fighter

Doomsday Forte
Posted 3/21/2006 10:42:56 AM
Hmm...you're certainly doing pretty well. If I ever get the motivation to start up a Warrior..
Actually, I wanted to ask you something. I seem to remember that you use a shield. How much of a difference does it really make in the damage you take? I'd like to know, since I'd like to go into either 2H or 1H swords, and all.

Thanks~

TelinArtho
Posted 3/21/2006 11:49:12 AM
In all honesty, my opinion on the sword and board versus 2-h sword is that they are pretty much "equal" in terms of advantage. Many will disagree (and have disagreed...), so take that as you will.

With my current shield, I am taking in the vicinity of 15-20 damage less than if I unequip it - per hit. If I was using a 2-h sword with the same attack value as my cutlus, my regular attack would go from 190-372 to 212-422. Of course, that's assuming I was willing to spend the money on the 6 60% scrolls and 1 10% scroll for the 2-h weapon... (each 60% scroll I bought for 100k - if that was 2h - they would easily be 2.5 times this amount, if not more).

The damage I take from kitties is negligible now - that 15-20 damage makes it so I take about 70-80 hits from them before needing a potion. If I didn't have the shield, that would drop to around 40-50. However, with the higher damage (if I was able to get a scrolled level 35 2-h sword), should approximately offset this.

Honestly, I don't think you hinder yourself one way or the other. As I said before, this isn't a very popular opinion though.

---MS TelinArtho2 (windia) 35 Fighter

winnie the weenie
Posted 3/21/2006 12:02:11 PM
Using a 1-H Sword won't hinder you.... yet. However ¡, I agree that even the smallest damage reduction implies thousands of damage saved per level.

---MS Bera: Lv. 49 Ice wizard (retired); Terrenzio lv. 30 Best Weapon Page; Lv. 20 Archer (retired)

TelinArtho
Posted 3/21/2006 12:13:13 PM
Well, I went through a comparison of the 1h sword vs 2h sword at various levels and the difference is not that significant. I'll go see if the post has been pruned - but I don't want to clutter up this log with it.

---MS TelinArtho2 (windia) 35 Fighter

mlugia
Posted 3/21/2006 12:42:56 PM
People would always say that at higher levels, when monsters deal 1000+ damage per hit, that the 20-50 damage saved would not be worth the attack lost from a 2H weapon instead.

I'm curious about your thoughts on the subject. Although, if I ever reach Sniper, I might get bored and start a 1H BW Page instead. Uniqueness is hot.

EvilDarkLink
Posted 3/21/2006 1:01:55 PM
Tag for later. Keep it up, I like your writing.

---MapleStory- Hegenon, level 71 Fire Mage, Bera

TelinArtho
Posted 3/21/2006 1:16:47 PM
The problem is my entire argument about 1h vs 2h is very much theoretical and also assumes that the two fighters are equal in funding. It also assumes that there are finite resources to their funding and that 2h swords are much more expensive than the 1h equivalent.

That being said, at level 70, the damage difference between a 85 att groonhill (910.5 on avg) and a 82 att red katana (772.5 on avg) with the same str, dex and mastery is just under 150 on average. Since PS boosts damage by 260%, this increases that margin to 360 (2008 vs 2367). Bear in mind that a katana attacks faster than the groonhill too - but that factor is offset by the range of the groonhill.

At level 70, you will be dealing approximately 15% more damage with you sword then. However, let's take into account the possibilities of scrolling. Red Katana are in much less demand than the groonhill (so a better than avg katana will be cheaper), and scrolls are cheaper on a factor of around 2.5 (250k vs 100k). In other words - it is far more likely to get a "godly" scrolled katana than it is a groonhill, when using the same limited bankroll. If the katana gets 7 more attack points than the groonhill - the damage difference overall is less than 10 points. Talk about negligible.

At level 70, a shield wielder should get a Legend Shield (and let's just ignore the benefits of the strength or dex here...), so the defense on an avg. one blocks 28 damage or so. With scrolling, you can boost this up to maybe 35.

A lycanthrope has 27k hitpoints. With the 85 att groonhill, you'd take one out in 9-16 hits (12 on avg); with the 82 att katana, it would be 11-19 hits (14 on avg). As I have said before, this isn't a likely comparison since the katana, on avg, with the same bankroll would have a better attack value - so the difference is likely smaller than this. Also, since the katana attacks at a rate that is about 8% faster, the katana can get in 13 hits in the time that the groonhill puts out 12 (or so).
Where a 1 handed sword starts to lose it's benefits are when a) the 2 handed sword wielder has an unlimited bankroll b) the trainable opponent has a hp range that is above the average damage of the katana but below that of the groonhill, etc.

So, going back to that 28-35 damage that you are removing per hit at level 70. Well, if you train with unagi and buy 50 each time you go out to train, how much have you saved? If we just work with 50000 hp and a damage of 1000 without the shield and 970 with, it takes 50 hits without the shield and 51.5 with. At higher levels, if you choose to take shield mastery, damage reduction can be as much as 100 points - which is a difference of 50 hits vs 55.5.

---MS TelinArtho2 (windia) 35 Fighter

TelinArtho
Posted 3/21/2006 1:21:05 PM
I forgot to include my source:

Weapon Speed Topic (registration required to view)

Essentially it is the number of attacks per second with different speed weapons. Feel free to disagree with it - but give me something to work with. 8-10% between fast and normal seems reasonable to me.

---MS TelinArtho2 (windia) 35 Fighter

winnie the weenie
Posted 3/21/2006 6:48:46 PM
If I recall correctly, the Groonhill/most 2-handed Swords have a Normal attack speed, which is bumped to Faster with lv. 11+ Booster (can anyone confirm this?), so is there a Fastest attack speed? That would make sense, but the minimal speed difference doesn't make up for te extra range and power in my opinion (which helps on damage, which cannot always be blocked, as magical damage renders shields nigh useless).

---MS Bera: Lv. 49 Ice wizard (retired); Terrenzio lv. 31 Best Weapon Page; Lv. 20 Archer (retired)