Some rambling regarding GvG buffs

When in a GvG, you want to maximize chances of winning . Attacking, these chances should be over 99%. Defending, take what you can get.

There are a number of vital buffs to keep in mind here. You are not going to have enough defense or armor to actually stave off hits from a decently geared GvG fighter, so the idea is to get in one shot and make it count.

The following buffs are useful for given reasons-

Last Ditch and Force Shield. Both of these result in surviving a direct hit. These two are vital. If you can have these on constantly during a GvG, do so, they are extremely useful. At lv 150, these yield 30 and 15% chances of surviving a hit respectively. LD can reach 175 for 35% chance of surviving a hit, and FS has a potion for up to lv 200, surviving a hit at 20% rate. The way the math works, this means that if you get hit, you've got a 48% chance of surviving a hit with these two buffs alone.

Dark Curse. Obvious. If they're in a set with high defense, you can throw on DC and tear through them. Lv 225 DC pots are easily available, ask around if you need one.

Stun, Shockwave- At lv 175, these give 8.75% and 17.5% chances to stop the enemy's next hit before they can throw it. Useful stuff in case your first hit doesn't do the trick.

Keen Edge- Up to 17.5% attack for each set equipped. You're likely to be using at least one set at any given time. This and player cast DC are great in tandem for offline retorts, preventing opponents from trying to overwhelm you with defense.

Savagery- Useless for offense. You need to be able to overwhelm them in the first place. Could be useful for defense along with KE/DC, relying on FS/LD to kick in, but even lv 175 yields a mere 8.75% chance of activation.

Enchant Weapon- It can be a minor boost, but don't rely on it. While I could propose situations where EW 1.5k is useful, this requires a serious armory on hand. No need to worry about this one too much, but if you want to toss it on yourself and others, it certainly doesn't hurt.

Shield Strike- Only use this buff has is to cast on others when attacking. Again, 17.5% chance of activation, so if you need it, you're in no shape to attack.

Absorb- Up to 17.5% chance of reducing damage by 25%. Not bad if you're at an armor level, most of us aren't. If you are, go ahead and put it on, it could matter. This is one buff I actually have, albeit only at lv 100 due to putting levels in another buff.

Enchant Armor- Useful, but not something to overly rely on. 17.5% bonus to a Steamwork Cuirass yields almost 100 bonus defense. Nice, but a serious attacker should overwhelm it. Again, if it's easy to get, go ahead.

Unbreakable- Put this on offline members. Any time there is a GvG, this is vital on any offline member. Broken gear is useless gear.

Constitution- Very nice one, since it pumps up defense even with gear on. A lv 175 constitution buff can help cut back a foe's DC.

Flinch- Cut enemy's attack by 17.5%? Yes, thank you very much. This and Constitution combined do a lot to power up your defenses.

Terrorize- Only good at armor levels, not an easy buff to find.

Nightmare Visage- If you overwhelm defense easily, get this put on your target(s) to cripple their offenses even worse.

Empower- 17.5% increase to enhancements. Hard to quantify, but increasing your first strike and duelist enhancements is a very nice thing.

Reflection- Your opponent hits, you survive it with a buff. You just reflected enough damage to overwhelm their tiny HP total. There's a reason people use this, as unpredictable as it can be.

Other buffs such as rage, berserk, fury, evade, and others are useful. However, most people put points into damage for monster killing, so the only ones of note are damage increasing ones, which are best for armor levels.

Here is an example of what a serious buff set can do.

If geared out in the maximum offense I have, I get 356 attack, 41 def, 245 armor, 661 damage, and 147 HP. My only base stat raised is damage, which is at 49. My weapon is a Cobweb Sickle, thus +119 damage. Armor is Emissaries' plate, which is more offensive than Plague armor.

Assuming buffs are level 175 here.

Rage- +1 attack
Fury- +1 attack, +9 damage
Berserk- +17 damage
EW 1.5k- +179 damage
Keen Edge- One set, thus +62 attack
Enchanted Armor- +5 attack, +6 armor, +6 damage
Constitution- +7 defense

Defense and armor are minute enough to me that they don't matter. Offensively, I have just reached +69 attack, +211 damage.

425 attack, 872 damage. While I could tweak that up about 5-10 points with serious investment, that's using relatively normal buffs with the exception of EW 1.5k, which is really a matter of absolutely maximizing what I can do. With DC 225, I can drop an opponent's defense by 45%. For a reliable hit, I need to drop their defense to 383 or lower (425 - 10%). 700 defense drops to 385.

So, I could reliably attack someone with roughly 600-650 defense, if I overwhelmed armor. If they have armor, I need to check for armor, HP, and odds of reinforced armor. Since reinforced armor adds 25% to armor, I have to account for that.

Let's take a hypothetical 200 HP. A few players will have more than that, most won't. I could break through approximately 672 armor. I'd imagine 600 at the most even without reinforced armor, simply due to damage variations. However, reinforced armor would push that up to 750, I wouldn't do enough damage, and it would fail. 500 armor would result in 625 at best, and I'd stand a great chance of winning. So with pure offense, I'd want someone with mo more than 650 defense and perhaps 475 armor, if they have 200 HP.

These calculations are a bit much, but if you're in a difficult spot, they can help. If you aren't terribly fond of the idea, we've got a few who enjoy the number crunching.



Finally, one last hypothetical for amusement's sake.

Shield Strike cuts someone's defenses to zero. So, cast on a target, I'd have a 17.5% chance of attacking someone with 0 defense regardless of gear. Armor is another matter though.

So, I have a 17.15% chance of a hit, excepting dodge/first strike. Since enhancements are tough to quantify, I'll ignore that for the moment. I need to get past the armor.

As I said before, 872 damage. Shatter Armor can cut someone's armor by 75%, but my odds are dismal, 8.75% even with lv 175 cast.

Savagery? +245 armor added to damage, for a total of 1,117 damage. However, if I balance out damage and armor a bit better... My damage is 592 normally, the buffs are all the same minus EA, which is 3 points lower, so I get +208 damage. 800 damage even, how nice! Savagery tosses on a nicer 422, so I get 1,222 damage in total when it kicks in.

8.75% of the time. Ouch.

Hey, guess what? Chi Strike, if anyone in the entire game even has it, tosses in a tiny 14 or 15 point bonus. I've just pumped myself up to 1,237 effective damage, minus enhancements.

I've just managed to net a 0.13% chance of unleashing 1,237 damage on something 25% of normal armor. Not very good odds, this is true. Let's go crazy.

Critical hit, 2x damage. 2,474 effective damage.
Piercing Strike- Reduces enemy armor by a further 50%.
Wither- 50% HP decrease.

Well, what kind of power are we talking about here? Let's take the most overpowered thing we can think of.

Hooftest.

17,465 armor, 2,212 HP at the moment. All my armor bypassing would result in cutting that imposing number down to a mere 2,183. Wither? Cuts that HP down to 1,106.

Well, that's 300 HP per hit with fortunate circumstances. Duelist increases my offensive power a touch, but 300 is still being generous.

0.13% chance of the fight even starting out right. 44.5% chance of that being withered. 0.05785% chance of such favorable circumstances. Then, perhaps a 10% chance of critical hit each time, maybe 25% chance of piercing strike. So, a 2.5% chance of that, and I'd need four of those. Well, that just sinks odds down to 1 in 25.6 million.

I was already shooting for 1 in 1,728 just to start things right. Ouch.

Of course, if I keep going until I break that armor down that I can hit for that mere 1,106, I make my odds so very much better. 1 in 69,120. That, or we go on the relic warpath.

That's right. 1 in 69,120 chance that with the most powerful enhancements I could possibly get, a bit of assistance in breaking things down, and some sort of way to get him on the BB, I could actually beat Hooftest. Hey, with LD and FS, that'd even give me almost 50% chance of another shot, if I didn't quite do it right the first time.



So, all that pointless number crunching with some fuzzy assumptions? That right there is inspiration, people.

At level 25, stretching the game to the absolute limits, even I have a shot at beating the overpowered test character as he stands at the moment.

Buffs really do matter. Get what you need, and mow down all who stand in our path!

Gawd, i love this guild and its members! i will throw in a if you take hooftest down lol