Mega Mage vs. Shadow - Worth It? Advice?

[Pharcyde]

Not at all. MM ends up being way better for clearing. As I explained above, clearing is about high sustained damage output over time, so damage not Crit, and the Hit% difference can essentially be ignored for PvE, since without being debuffed, the 90-some percent Hit of MM hits just as often as the shadow set.

Have you ran any tests? Like I said, theoretically, MM is way better. But somehow lvl 50 sets are still outpreforming it in time taken to clear a map solo with several constants in place to ensure validity. The only thing I can come to on why it is being outperformed is how much of a gap there is in hit and crit.

But again, like I said, I am testing only one component of MM, its ability to clear maps. I would still use MM over shadow and the keeper set any day for its other attributes.

[noneo]

Also note that a pure Int Mage with the MM set will have over 90% Hit which is effectively identical to the higher Hit of shadow gear in PvE (you miss with similar frequency in either set).

Good point, I would love to have the exact numbers if you can get them.

[Royce]

I think somehow you're overvaluing Crit. If damage you do (damage - target armor is 100, then 1 damage is the same as 1% Crit for long term damage output, if it equals 200, then 1% Crit is twice as good, etc.). MM loses some Crit, but the damage increase more than makes up or it, and for clearing maps, as I said above, damage winds up being more efficient anyway since less of your output is wasted in overkill.

[WhoIsThis]

Crit is actually really important. that 17 difference is a lot of extra damage that will be gone.

It's an effective 17% loss in damage.

Example: I do 100 damage each hit, after armor is considered on an enemy. (Let's keep the numbers simple here.) I have a 10% crit. If I have 100 hits, I will do 11,000 damage.

90 shots x 100 damage = 9000.
10 shots x 200 damage = 1000.

Total - 11,000.

Versus zero crit, where I would do 10,000 (100 hits x 100 damage).

[noneo]

While crit is nice, its icing for mages, we are not birds. Mages don't attack as fast as birds to make most use of crit, and have other responsiblities to the party than full out dmg. At least, only the pro mages realize that. MM is ultimate mage gear right now, the trade off of 17 crit vs. the extra skill dmg and armor is in PVE sewers anway. Prob not worth 2 mil though lol, can get by with greens

I agree and disagree. I am not a typical int mage. I generally lead the pack and deal large amounts of damage to mobs, while people behind me clean up the scraps I still res and give health to everyone, but I also deal copious amounts of damage So, hit% and crit are pretty important to me (this may be why I am having such a hard time deciding between the two).

[Pharcyde]

I think somehow you're overvaluing Crit. If damage you do (damage - target armor is 100, then 1 damage is the same as 1% Crit for long term damage output, if it equals 200, then 1% Crit is twice as good, etc.). MM loses some Crit, but the damage increase more than makes up or it, and for clearing maps, as I said above, damage winds up being more efficient anyway since less of your output is wasted in overkill.

I wouldn't exactly say I am overvalueing crit. My test was 15 runs in plasma pyramid with each set. Cyber, shadow, mystery, mystery with keeper staff, keeper set and then Mega Mage set. I used staffs for all of these, since I don't care for wands and bracers all that much and never use them. I then took the average time for all 15 runs with each gear and ranked them.

1.) Keeper set
2.) MM
3.) Shadow
4.) Mystery with keeper
5.) Cyber
6.) Mystery

Shadow was 1 second over Mega, and keeper was 9 seconds under mega.

[Royce]

Have you ran any tests? Like I said, theoretically, MM is way better. But somehow lvl 50 sets are still outpreforming it in time taken to clear a map solo with several constants in place to ensure validity. The only thing I can come to on why it is being outperformed is how much of a gap there is in hit and crit.

But again, like I said, I am testing only one component of MM, its ability to clear maps. I would still use MM over shadow and the keeper set any day for its other attributes.

I played around for a while with my Shadow set even after I got MM, but what I found was that it was dramatically underpowered even compared to a Lowman's green set. I killed much much faster with any BS set I tried than with the Shadow set. So even though it's still wicked cool looking, I quickly eliminated the shadow set from my loadouts.

[Royce]

I wouldn't exactly say I am overvalueing crit. My test was 15 runs in plasma pyramid with each set. Cyber, shadow, mystery, mystery with keeper staff, keeper set and then Mega Mage set. I used staffs for all of these, since I don't care for wands and bracers all that much and never use them. I then took the average time for all 15 runs with each gear and ranked them.

1.) Keeper set
2.) MM
3.) Shadow
4.) Mystery with keeper
5.) Cyber
6.) Mystery

Shadow was 1 second over Mega, and keeper was 9 seconds over mega.

Ah but the Plasma mobs have much lower armor than BS mobs. I honestly haven't tried comparing the Keeper safe set to the MM staff set because the MM staff set is just dramatically better in paper. I'll check it out though and see what I come up with.

[Adapts]

Crit is actually really important. that 17 difference is a lot of extra damage that will be gone.

Yea i meant crit is nice to have, but for the trade-off of +all the time damage and armor? Me personally would go the latter for sewers.

[noneo]

I think somehow you're overvaluing Crit. If damage you do (damage - target armor is 100, then 1 damage is the same as 1% Crit for long term damage output, if it equals 200, then 1% Crit is twice as good, etc.). MM loses some Crit, but the damage increase more than makes up or it, and for clearing maps, as I said above, damage winds up being more efficient anyway since less of your output is wasted in overkill.

Crit doubles your damage (based off of Physiologic's thread), so if you hit 100 damage every time, a crit would lead 200 damage.

I could definitely see MM being better for group since it consistently hits higher amounts of damage (even without taking into consideration skill damage). But for solo, with mobs that have larger amounts of health, a 17% greater chance of hitting double damage would be a great attribute to have.

[Adapts]

I agree and disagree. I am not a typical int mage. I generally lead the pack and deal large amounts of damage to mobs, while people behind me clean up the scraps I still res and give health to everyone, but I also deal copious amounts of damage So, hit% and crit are pretty important to me (this may be why I am having such a hard time deciding between the two).

ahh nice, well if its working for you right now, in regards to your original post MM is overpriced right now and if shadow is working out, i would wait lol

[WhoIsThis]

Ah but the Plasma mobs have much lower armor than BS mobs. I honestly haven't tried comparing the Keeper safe set to the MM staff set because the MM staff set is just dramatically better in paper. I'll check it out though and see what I come up with.

If you do, sorry to interrupt, but you will find that the gem blast staff outperforms the keeper's staff. I lended my gem blast to a random that I had some trust in. They said that the gem blast was noticeably better than the keeper's staff. They were wearing an overlord cosmos helmet and the mirage robe. That player immediately decided to try lowmans and promptly bought themselves a gem blast staff.

Pharcyde - I recommend that you do the same. Level 55 gem blast staffs can be had now for as little as 50k. In the end that it doesn't prove that great, you can always sell it and you've haven't spent much money.

[Adapts]

"Getting by with greens" is an understatement! - non-pinks work just as well as pinks. Hell, I remember a Hideout run in which Moogerfooger and I used FULL CYBER EQUIPS and we STILL finished Hideout in less than 4 minutes. I used to believe in "ultimate equips"...now I only believe in "ultimate skill" and "ultimate party."

Ya i remember that too, i was in it :P

[noneo]

Ah but the Plasma mobs have much lower armor than BS mobs. I honestly haven't tried comparing the Keeper safe set to the MM staff set because the MM staff set is just dramatically better in paper. I'll check it out though and see what I come up with.

True, by having lower armor, you can blow through most of the mobs in 1 hit. Whereas in BS you would have to multi-hit some/most of them, and if your luck is bad that night and you aren't landing your supposed crit% it would def be better to have higher base damage.

[Pharcyde]

Crit doubles your damage (based off of Physiologic's thread), so if you hit 100 damage every time, a crit would lead 200 damage.

I could definitely see MM being better for group since it consistently hits higher amounts of damage (even without taking into consideration skill damage). But for solo, with mobs that have larger amounts of health, a 17% greater chance of hitting double damage would be a great attribute to have.

Not only does it double, it also has a chance to go higher then double damage at times.

[Pharcyde]

Ah but the Plasma mobs have much lower armor than BS mobs. I honestly haven't tried comparing the Keeper safe set to the MM staff set because the MM staff set is just dramatically better in paper. I'll check it out though and see what I come up with.

Yeah I noticed that too, but when it comes to gold farming in plasma or any sort of farming at low dungeons, keeper is more effective.

I will do the same test in alien oasis (BS is too hard to solo and get valid results) with all sets and tell you what I come up with.

I don't think the results will be much different, that critical hit is a chance of a higher hit happening. Do you or Phy know if crit is directly effected by armor? Considering it is just a % chance of hitting high.

Then last thing, since MM has higher base and skill damage then keeper, doesn't that mean MM would preform better in plasma? Seeing as armor is much lower on mobs? Thats why I think crit and hit are undervalued by mages.

[Physiologic]

Yes, crit is dependent on enemy armor as well.

Values from my data:

Non-criticals landed: 70 (83.33%)
Non-critical damage range: 109-154
Total non-critical damage: 9009
Average non-critical damage: 128.7

Criticals landed: 14 (16.67%)
Critical damage range: 198-300
Total critical damage: 3581
Average critical damage: 255.8
-----------------------------------------
Non-criticals landed: 47 (55.29%)
Non-critical damage range: 109-153
Total non-critical damage: 6205
Average non-critical damage: 132.0

Criticals landed: 38 (44.7%)
Critical damage range: 201-310
Total critical damage: 9963
Average critical damage: 262.2

The damage quoted is all effective damage and effective damage correlates with critical damage. So it's simply crit = 2 x (damage - enemy armor) and NOT crit = (2 x damage ) - enemy armor.

[Moogerfooger]

Ya i remember that too, i was in it :P

+1.

In the end, after several experienced archers ran around countless hours with countless different loadouts that differed wildly on paper and pored over a LOT of numbers and made judgements on what should happen...while field-testing it ultimately came down to probably 80% of it - or more - being individual user skill and party skill as a whole, if with a party. Only drastic differences on paper, such as 43 crit vs 12 crit (which is HUGE in the archer world) are really noticeable. A certain very experienced archer in this thread dares to run around with green Bagman's gear (the horror!) and is one of the best archers in the game and runs rings around almost any other archer (at least in PvE )

As someone mentioned earlier, there are MM mages out there with no real clue, and mages with far 'inferior' equips that outperform 90% of said MM mages due to user skill. It all comes down to personal preference for your personal style of play mostly. I have Cyber Rift on my 54 bear, and while in a party with a 55 bear with full Fury he scoffed at me for my Cyber...and I promptly outperformed Furybear in every way bear-possible, noticed and commented on by the others in the party, and he died repeatedly despite me leading the way with my 'inferior' gear.

You can analyze numbers all day long with diminishing returns at some point, but the trick is finding what works best for your style, your skill level, and potentially the people you run in parties with

[Shouja]

I thought I'd chime in with some skill damage numbers since I have all the sets discussed on my mage.

This is based on a Level 55 pure int mage with level 6 in lightning and firestorm:

Mega Mage w/ Gemstone Wand and Bracer
Lightning: 257-388
Firestorm: 270-383

Shadow Set
Lightning: 218-349
Firestorm: 231-344

Keeper Set w/ Staff
Lightning: 262-390
Firestorm: 274-385

Mega Mage w/ Gemstone Staff
Lightning: 306-434
Firestorm: 318-429

Mega Mage w/ Gem Blast Staff
Lightning: 306-434
Firestorm: 318-429

[Physiologic]

Shadow Set
Lightning: 218-349
Firestorm: 231-344

Mega Mage w/ Gemstone Staff
Lightning: 306-434
Firestorm: 318-429

Dear good god in heaven, lol. If the skill damage differs between Shadows and Mega Mage by THAT MUCH, then Mega Mage wins, despite its crit value. If the skill damages were closer together, then crit would play a much bigger role - but the differences in skill damage is just enormous.

In 100 hits of Firestorm (Shadows 25% crit, MM 8% crit):
Shadows 75x283 + 25x566 = 35,375
MM 92x370 + 8x740= 39,960

Mega Mage delivers nearly 5,000 more damage for this skill in 100 hits.