The Odyssey - || Strategy And Discussion ||

Dirge is a wasted song on Arebati. Hover shot caps -enmity down by itself and the corsair shouldn't be able to do enough damage to reach the hate cap before the ranger (hover shot really is amazing). The buff potency could also have been off in addition to the songs themselves. Most of the time when a minnie is up it means a dummy song got left on the table, so the bard might not have swapped correctly and that could have affected potency as well. 40-50k damage numbers can easily turn into 15k's when buffs are bad. That lion has stupidly high defenses. Bad buffs are a run ender on him.

Yeah, something is off. Either hovershot is dropping or buffs are bad. My last v20 Arebati ws average was 36k (includes the dinky wildfires for AM)and i think last stand was around 45-47k.

I do hold TP and ride AM3 though, so ws'ing at like 2-3k tp

edit: geo is not Igeo either

I was considering holding TP as well, but regardless than run had no chance. It was 65% with about 4mins left when the RUN died. I'm sure it would need to be about 40% with that amount of time left to clear.

Multiple people have mentioned hover shot, but I don't see any comment from K123 about it. There's no level correction, so the difference between 15k and 40k is far greater than minuet3 + indi-AGI would account for. If soul voice wasn't used, maybe. But, that kind of difference in damage screams 'no hover shot' to me.

W/o level correction, that would require having like 3500 attack. He said he had fury, honor, and 2 minuets.. I don't see it. He didn't explicitly confirm chaos, but I guess it could've been missing.. seems unlikely. Maybe if every song was in the wrong instrument, the geo was casting with no geomancy+, nobody used 1hrs, etc. But, no hover shot is a straight half, that takes 40k down to 20k and the buffs make up the rest.

Beat me to it, was gonna ask if hover shot was being used and if you were moving constantly to keep it active

Case resolved everybody! The PLD (or SCH) let the RUN die, the BRD and GEO both *** up their buffs, and the RNG wasn't using hover shot (properly).

Turns out there's a reason PUGs can't beat V20 fights.

Maletaru after one PUG: “wow this *** sucks ***”

Just say no to PUGs


Asura, not even once.

Even 1 hit of PUG-cocaine could kill you!

I play this game to make friends, chat with them, and accomplish goals together. I don't play it so I can hit groupfinder and join random people I've never met before and know nothing about and attempt to do difficult things with them. This sounds like a recipe for disaster. I can't imagine doing this as someone who also has no idea what half the people in the party are supposed to be doing or how they're supposed to do it.

there's like 1 person who shouts for v25 fights on Asura, and it takes them hours to fill if ever, most PUG groups are for segments and Sortie 8 boss. but even most statics follow the first proven strats though, with only slight modifications, so it isn't unreasonable to expect 10k segments or 8 boss clears with good success rates. PUGs aren't just for people with no friends or skills, some simply can't commit to the time required of a daily event or specific time.

Pick up groups are my way of life... Probably have played with most on the server... Cleared V20 with pick up groups... Maybe it's time to show Charmghost & Haurow how it's done... Those two have been shouting for years now lol...

I have T1+T2 V25 and all T3+T4 V20 clears in pug on main char, and all that except Arebati on my second character. Many people have T3 V25 clears in pug, but mostly Kalunga and Ngai. The RUN dying is irrelevant to the fact we weren't meeting the DPS requirement, which is what I asked about.

Forgot to mention Chaos roll, and like Thorny says, it is clearly not the buff issue that would cause me to do half the expected damage so I don't know what was going on to be doing 16-17k generally. I need to drop the 60M to R15 Foma for sure, and I just made emp+3 feet. I was trying to move every shot, but I haven't properly played RNG in forever - before hover shot was added.

Most of the players on Asura are big cry babies... Grown people literally with tears streaming down there face because they missed a Sortie boss or some stupid ***... Even content like Ambuscade where there's no real penalty they still whine... I can't play with that person... Did you check there gear?... I only agree with 15/16 slots... Did you see there ammo slot? What a noob... The last linkshell I joined the leader was some fascist POS... If you didn't do what they said you got kicked... The weird thing about it was there was some weird e-*** hierarchy that just rolled over on command... They act like the game is shutting down next week or something... Even though most of them have been glued to there screens going on 3 decades lol...

Aren't you the same dude who told someone to drop dead cause they said your gear sets sucked?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I also disagree with 10/15 slots of your TP set so...maybe it wasn't a single piece that caused you to be criticized? Could be worth taking that criticism to heart, maybe you could improve your results.

You seem like a lot of fun to play with though, shame about how everyone else sucks...

Is there any info/idea of what Defense values gaol NMs have? Just curuious, Tried looking through longhorns twitter but found nothing.

To the best of my knowledge, no real reported values. The higher the vengeance levels, the less likely you will be attack capped. The defense values are quite high in v25 and its best to gear under the assumption you are not attack capped at that level.

This is a perfect opportunity for someone to do some testing and get answers for the community if anyone wants to step up.

Bring a tank, BRD, COR, GEO, and a healer. Maybe a BST and/or DNC as well to reduce its defense.

Shoot with the COR. Keep applying more and more attack until the shots stop increasing in damage. Note the point where it stops happening. Can even fine-tune it with some midshot gear to really dial it in. Then add a little PDL (Sroda Ring or something) and see if it goes up.

Should at least be able to do this for any V20 and all the V25s except Ngai, Ongo (irrelevant anyway), Kalunga, and Mboze. Mboze/Ngai will suck because of their TP moves, but not impossible to check.

Since these things probably scale their DEF using invisible buffs, the DEF down calculations can get annoying and without knowing exactly how the buffs work, you'd be guessing the end DEF value so that'd have to be nailed down too.

would be fun

What?

Technically you could do Ngai with cannonballs... :D

Cannonballs don't do fixed damage unfortunately.

Couldn't you just take the ratio of melee crit/non crit hits for a set attack value or does this only work for lvl1 mobs?

I was more referring to the fact that they are blunt damage, so could actually deal damage on V25 Ngai.

Edit: cannon shell

It was mostly a joke though, because you need a specific 75 era gun to use them. And, truth be told I'm not actually sure they're blunt damage

Exactly what it says. NMs added to old zones prior to the removal of level correction in those zones worked that way too and UNMs still do; it's SE's cheap way of adjusting stats without adjusting monster level or parameters directly since raising their level would have made things too complicated (the initial implementation of Peach Power *** this up). That was addressed by removing level correction as they started adding new mobs more often like Apex and Locus. The effect this has on things like DEF down is simple, as an example, a monster with a 100% Defense Bonus being hit with a 50% Defense Down would ultimately receive only a quarter reduction to the final value because they're both applied in the same step.

This mechanic is easily verifiable. Go fight an Apex Crab or Apex Crawler to see the base order of operations in effect, then fight a UNM Crab and see how much different the result of the same amount of Defense Down is in comparison. The UNM Crab will be able to multiply its DEF much higher than the normal Apex/Locus Crab because it gets the level adjustment "bonus" Defense on top of the def bonus from Scissor Guard.

The way Ody NMs most likely work is similar. Instead of having 25 different versions of the same NM, they add a set of scaling % (or fractional more likely but anyway) buffs to various stats and DT- to make them stronger. The exact way it works here is unknown though; the Attack buff that ody NMs receive prevents Attack Down effects from working, but the Defense buff does not prevent Defense downs. They're seemingly different things, or applied differently in some way.

I don't think you've provided any evidence to support this theory. It's very clear that a defense bonus buff and a defense down are in the same step, weakening the value of defense down. But, it's considerably less clear that any of the stat boosts are done via buff, or that it would have any impact on how well defense down works. A multiplier can just as easily be given to the monster's base value.

Level adjustment changes the way ratio works because level correction is a straight modifier to ratio. It doesn't change how defense itself is calculated.

Is there any evidence you can point to that indicates SE is adding an invisible buff, rather than directly modifying the stats when instantiating the mob? Either would require the same data and could be scaled just as easily. There's absolutely no reason I can think of that they'd use an invisible buff to do it, and it seems much more likely to cause bugs or discrepencies. Can you show test results or outline a reproducible test to indicate this?

Basically what Thorny said. I've never heard anyone explain any kind of different effect of DEF down. I've never seen any page suggesting that PDIF changes based on the monster's hidden invisible level correction status, or heard anyone suggest you need extra PDL, extra DEF down, or extra attack based on this invisible buff or stat.

Even if such a thing exists, it would be in effect while you're doing your testing in Sheol: Gaol, so you can still answer the question:

"I'm fighting V25 Kalunga, how much attack do I need to cap out my PDIF with an axe while he has Dia II on him?"

If he's "supposed" to have 3000 DEF but it gets bumped to 4000 by someone invisible voodoo magic, the answer is still "he has 4000 DEF".

If you're trying to imply that DEF down is affected by this magic and it changes the calculation of these mobs' DEF values when they're affected by def down or def boost, I'd be interested to see evidence of that and hear a better explanation how it works since I've never heard anyone suggest it before.

This could also be tested. If your COR is hitting attack cap you know the DEF. Remove some of his attack and apply the appropriate amount of DEF down to the boss to make up for the difference. see if you hit the cap again. You could even derive the difference in how def down is applied to these mobs as opposed to other targets.

All the better because Kalunga, Xevioso, and loads of the T1/T2 mobs don't have any defense up moves. It should be very easy to test and prove.

I'm could have sworn I saw a Twitter post from JP where they gave all A3 boss attributes and stats. I'll try to find it

Whether it's applied as a multiplier via buff or a multiplier in the monster's stat table is ultimately irrelevant since the buff isn't interactable in any way from our side. The important part is that the buff/bonus/whatever label you want to use for it is applied at the same time as defense buffs and debuffs. The main reason I would think it's a buff is that it can prevent status downs of the same type, but you know as well as I do that it's impossible to prove the exact method they're using to apply those stat boosts. Either way has the same exact effect, it's about where it's being added rather than the precise way they're adding it to the monster's stats.

The way that level correction affects ratio is also irrelevant and not part of my point: I don't think it was done in order to specifically counter the effect of level correction on ratio nor am i saying that these two things interact in any similar way mathematically, but rather is was done to avoid having to make NMs above level 99 at all before they started removing level correction from those zones. The most noticeable negative artifact of this is that enmity is *** on these NMs largely because they're lv99 monsters masquerading as higher level monsters; the original reason for them doing this is anyone's guess and we will probably never know it, may be as simple as not knowing how or not wanting to remove level correction from the old zones initially, with the system was then repurposed as a catch all way to scale monster stats in large batches.

Previously this effect was observed and assumed to be a resistance to status downs. Most NMs in battlefields and areas created from the beginning to not have any level correction (e.g. Adoulin, Escha, Selbina HTBF, Ambuscade was updated to have true ilvl enemies, Apex/Locus are the correct level as level correction was removed from zones as they were added, im 99.99% sure Peculiar Foes are appropriately leveled for the same reason as Apex/Locus) do not share this trait, but UNMs do, and it seems that they used it to give UNMs/HTBF of a given cLvl similar stat boosts for that cLvl; any NM in an old area or battlefield that used to have level correction are similar: lv99 mobs with boosted stats. I'm guessing this was just done to save time and effort instead of individually tuning each one of the NMs on the list, and that's also why I'd guess they would have done so for Vengeance levels (difference here being that they are the appropriate level NM, with a sliding scale of stats for the various Vengeance difficulty levels).

As for a reproducible test that can show the extra stat bonus applying at the buff/debuff stage, I've already touched on it but I'll lay out all the steps.

1) Fight an Apex or Locus Crab/Crawler to find its unbuffed/undebuffed DEF value. Ranged attacks are easiest, a GEO and a COR should be enough for this since they don't have Germany resistance.

2) Let them put up Cocoon/Scissor Guard. The resulting impact on ratio should match the expected value of just the def buff and def debuff(s) being applied to base defense. It's easier to do this with a single, easy to digest Defense Down value (Angon 25%, Tenebral Crush 20%, etc) or a combination thst gets you an exact, easy to use number like 50%. Cocoon and Scissor Guard are both 100% DEF bonuses.

3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 on Ayapec or Emperor Arthro. This time, you'll notice that the resultant damage doesn't align with a 100% Defense Bonus and [your defense down potency here]. The effect of defense down will seemingly be halved. (This would work on Centurio XX-I as well, but I don't know the potency of Sand Veil offhand).

You could still argue that they decided to specifically add status down resistance to these conveniently specific monster categories in specific areas for some reason I guess, but it seems less likely than SE wanting to cut the time it takes to create a large number of NMs all at once with a catch-all solution that happens to result in a measurable change in stats and that happen to be much lower level than their content level implies (for UNMs). We could also assume that they specifically made all of the A3 NMs immune to just Attack Down for.... some reason? The interaction that this innate defense bonus has with other defense buffs in conjunction with Defense Down effects is my silver bullet, and I'd be interested to hear other theories.