Created 10/3/2012. Updated with new post links on 10/13/2012.
Upgrade Information and Stats of Osmium to Forcium and Quick Tips on Buying Gear.
http://forum.cabal.com/showthread.ph...l=1#post357901
Approximate Attack, Amp and Crit Damage Equivalencies and Recommended Helm and Weapon Setups.
http://forum.cabal.com/showthread.ph...l=1#post359329
::: General Guidelines :::
--Increase STR and DEX so that you can wear whatever gear you want, they give equal stat bonuses. INT should increase naturally from your skill level ups to around, if my memory is correct, 100 or something at transcender; extract it down to the desired amount for wearing martial gear. I personally pumped STR exclusively once I could wear what I wanted. You need about 70-77 INT to wear forcium martial set and about 440 DEX to equip forcium katanas.
--When you are able, level up your skill rank using as much Adept gear as possible until you reach max transcender, hopefully around level 110 at latest.
--Epic bonuses: Designates bonus stats from an item that are not given by a slot.
--Slot bonuses: Bonus stats depicted by an Icon in an item's slot.
--Remember, Class Specific (BL) Martial gear gives HP bonuses naturally.
--Runes are great for getting stat bonuses, but take a lot of time to build up. The most useful rune is Max Crit Rate, and HP Steal is great for PvE.
--Attack is slightly more important than defense in general, allowing you to kill stuff faster and regain more hp with vamp gear (more about this below), but too little defense will make things much harder than they need to be. Keep offensive stats (Attack, Crit Rate, Max Crit Rate, Crit Damage, S. Amp) and defensive stats (Defense, HP, HP Steal, Max HP Steal) at a good balance.
--HP Absorb means the same thing as HP Steal; I'll be calling it Steal in this guide. What distinguishes between actual Steal and raising the Steal cap is whether or not it says "Max" (or you can distinguish it by the way the numeric value is displayed on the item, + for Max Steal, % for Steal)
--I'm going to ignore Attack Rate and Defense Rate; just know that the first keeps you from missing as much and the second keeps you from getting hit as much.
--Get as much crit rate as you can. Aim for 40-50% if you don't have BM3, aim 50% or higher if you do have BM3. Ideally, you want to get 30-32% from rings (using only 2 rings if possible), 3% from K-Red Board, and as much as you can from pet, helm and weapons while retaining as much crit damage (and attack for weapons) as you can.
--Know that damage is calculated according to this rough formula (If you can't follow my math and logic in the formula, that's okay...it's just for reference):
{[Attack x (1 + Amp %)] x [IF Crit, then 1 + Crit Damage %, else 1]} + Add Damage = Damage Output (before defense calculations)
*** Vamp Gear ***
--HP and MP Steal is limited to 10% of your character's level (soft cap) and 5% of your max HP (hard cap). Surpass the soft cap with Max HP/MP Steal earrings and amulets, namely Drosnin's Earrings with Max HP Steal, Vampiric Earrings, and a Vampiric Amulet.
--Even after the Steal limit is raised, you need HP/MP Steal to allow you to gain back HP/MP as a percentage of the damage you deal to targets. Accomplish this with either gloves and/or pets that have HP steal slots, HP steal rune, or most commonly, Extortion Bracelets or Life Absorb Rings or Force Absorb Rings (try to limit yourself to one HP Steal accessory when possible to allow better rings and bracelets to be equipped).
--Remember, for all items, Max Steal is measured by a number (+30, +45, etc) while Steal is measured by a percentage (5%, 6%, etc).
***************
::: Stat and Gear Priority :::
Pretty much all of the stats are very important, but the general priority you should have when building your character's stats with gear is as follows (Gear is generally listed in order of relevance/importance).
1. Attack: Most important offensive stat, off of which all damage is calculated. Affects the impact sword amp (referred to as s.amp or amp) and critical damage increase (referred to as crit dmg or CDI) has on your total damage.
Primary gear: Blades and/or Katanas, Epaulet of Fighter, Bracelets of Fighter
2. Crit Rate: Determines how often you will get a critical hit (aka crit). Very important, as crits provide a huge damage boost. Capped at 50% without max rate gear (soft cap). Rings ALWAYS provide at MAX 32% crit rate (hard cap). Once you get Battle Mode 3, it is extremely important to get 50% rate at least, preferably much more. Starts with a 5% base.
Primary gear: Rings, K-Red Board, Helmet (Epic and/or Slot), Pet, Weapons (Epic and/or Slot)
3. Max Crit Rate (Mainly for Battle Mode 3): Raises soft cap on crit rate. An item that gives 1% max crit rate will allow you to obtain as much as 51% crit rate, instead of the usual 50%.
Primary gear: Prideus' Bracelets, Rune, Pet, Suit (Slot [rare]), Gloves (Slot [rare]), Amulet of Pain
4. Crit Dmg: Determines how much extra damage a crit will do, acting as a multiplier on attack and amp. Starts with a 20% base. You will want to get this as high as you can without sacrificing too much of other stats (i.e. don't wear an amulet of pain for extra crit damage when you need to survive against monsters in PvE with Vamp gear).
Primary gear: Weapons (Slot and/or Epic), Helm (Slot and/or Epic), K-Red Board, Rings, Prideus' Bracelets, Amulet of Pain
5. Sword Amp: Almost as important as crit dmg, this increases your damage on both non-critical and critical hits, acting as a multiplier on attack. It is not as strong at modifying crits as crit dmg is though. You can use amp epic, 2 slot CDI weapons, but you are generally better off with crit rate or crit damage epics. Get amp epic weapons if you can't make use of any extra crit rate and want a more balanced damage output than just heavy crits.
Primary gear: Gloves (Epic and/or Slot), Boots (Epic and/or Slot), Suit (Epic and/or Slot), K-Red Board, Bracelet of Fighter and/or Prideus' Bracelets, Epaulet of Fighter
6. Defense: Reduces damage to your character...enough said.
Primary gear: Higher grades of Gloves, Helm, Boots, and Suit, Drosnin's Earrings
7. Max HP (and MP) Steal and HP (and MP) Steal: Explained in the Vamp Gear section. Very important for PvE, not so much for PvP and War.
Primary gear (Max Steal): Vampiric Amulet, Vampiric Earrings, Drosnin's Earrings (Max HP Steal)
Primary gear (Steal): Extortion Bracelet, Force/Life Absorb Ring, Rune
8. HP: If you have it, you live. If you don't have it, you die.
Primary gear: Suit ((BL), Slot), Boots ((BL), Slot), Helm (BL), Gloves (BL), Epaulet of Fighter, Earrings (Vampiric, Force Regen, Drosnin's)
9. MP: Lets you use skills. Though I don't bother trying, if you want to become immune to Mana Freeze, get a max level mp rune, the best vampiric/force regen earrings you can get, and maybe an amulet of battle or whatever else you can get to raise your MP, while reducing your other stats as little as possible. Mana Freeze takes away 1400 MP. Your skills can cost over 100 mp, so keep that in mind.
Note that Defense, HP, and HP Steal/Max HP Steal are about equal in importance.
That should be a good start for now. I might add more info in another post later.
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