So you want a stronger deck?

THEN LEVEL YOUR SKILLS!

One of the most absurd things to me is people who complain about how weak their decks are and they never level the skills on their cards. A player will spend a hundred HP on a new final form card that increases their deck from 80k to 82k but they won't increase their lead card to skill 10 which would be an 8k bonus on an 80k deck. 

Especially now with the changes to skills its more important than ever to level the skills on your cards since leveling them also increases the chance to activate. Most high level fights are decided on who gets more or better procs than the opponent, not by a 2k difference in card quality.

Here's simple example. Five skill 10 Nightmares, an outdated card vs lets say five skill 1 Dragonewt. (For this example we're going to ignore the fact that the chance to proc 2 is reduced since they are the same card, just like I'm ignoring the fact that you would normally use two Trow wings with either of these)

Nightmares go from a 75k base to 92k if one procs. 

Dragonewts go from  87k base to 93k if one procs. 

Nightmares go from a 75k base to 109k if two proc.

Dragonewts go from 87k base to 99k if two proc.

Now, you can argue that Dragonewt only has an 8% buff and that's doing it. So lets play pretend. Lets pretend Dragonewt has a 13% buff like Nightmare. 

Dragonewts go from 87k base to 98k if one procs. 

Dragonewts go from 87k base to 109k if two proc.

So, Dragonewt would manage to tie up to Nightmare. A Nightmare deck that would have 12k less base stats and the best it could do is tie up with Nightmare at higher skill levels.

So remember, next time you're looking at spending your HP on that next level of card, take a look at your deck and the skill level of your cards. Chances are, increasing your cards to skill 10 will increase your deck power a lot more than just getting better cards.

5th Card Evolutions

Bahamut, Odin, Jeanne D'Arc, Lancelot, Ancient Elf, and Tiamat.

Literally one day after I post in comments that people have been talking about this forever and they still haven't brought it over...they bring it over.

Fortunately at this moment the cards that can evolve into five seem to be restricted to SR and up. Now, the question I pose is, is it worth it? As far as I can tell, kind of. Although the stats only increase by 1500 or so, you have to consider a player doing this probably already has the 4max version of the card. For the price of one more of them they can increase their power.

Its up to each individual player, but given the current selection of cards that can be increased, I would only consider Lancelot.

So how does this effect you?

Chances are it doesn't. The cards chosen at this moment will offer mild increases in very high level decks. Most players have decks primarily composed of HR and many of those same players have opted to skip SR and move into SSR.

What these changes have done for players who are moving up is allow them to invest into an SR and eventually bring it up to just under SSR power levels. In essence these cards are becoming SSR 2.0 not legends. All of the other true legends outclass them.

Are these changes good or bad?

Good. As long as they don't try to apply it to every rarity and keep it for the highest. This fifth evolution offers players something that bridges the long and expensive gap between SR and SSR.

Personally, it's something that I don't intend to engage in because I don't see the point on spending a bunch of HP to create a Legend card that doesn't have a Legend buff. If they increased the buff power on the fifth card, I think it would be worth it. 

So, recap. You get about 1500 additional stat points from what I've seen and no increase in buff power. Is it worth it? In my opinion not really.

New Decks Incoming

Personally I did some experiments using two of the same card and didn't notice a huge shift in Proc rate when one was highly leveled. I don't know if anybody else has experienced different yet. With that in mind though and for reasons I listed previously, my decks will probably each switch by one card. In some cases I may swap a couple of cards.

This is not to say stacking the same card isn't viable. After all, we technically stacked the same card in the top three spots in order to improve our chances of a two proc of good skills. We were not stacking three because we thought all three would proc regularly. With the changes, two will still proc often. But by swapping one card out, we can make two proc even more often.

Now, the way the decks will shift will still remain within their rarities. Ideally though these changes promote the use of a card of a higher rarity as leader. For example, Clay, Clay, Clay can now become Achilles, Clay, Clay and experience a very large increase in proc rate. This would be an ideal, but because of the way I list my decks, it won't be noted like this. Instead, Clay, Clay, Clay might become Clay, Clay, Master Archer.

Finally, these changes greatly increase the viability of having an anti realm deck for each realm where only the topmost card is a debuffer. For example Master Samurai, Clay, Clay for an anti demon deck. High Alchemist, Clay, Clay for anti God deck. Since anti realm cards are cheap and effective it makes purchasing a debuff card for each realm viable.

So, expect changes to the decks. Ideally you just want to swap the leader card to a higher rarity card for the best results.

Bazaar Scamming

So, I recently learned how severe this issue was a few days ago, when somebody who was trading between games got screwed out of two Jorms by a player named Pumpkincook (people like him ruin games), no idea if it was a main. I debated on not posting this since I know how bad things get when people see easy ways to gain, but on the other hand, if this issue becomes horribly awful, maybe Rage will fix it.

There are two ways that I have noticed that players use to try to scam other players.

Tricky Listing:

The first is Tricky Listing. This method puts a very nice price in HP on a card, then proceeds to place enough rupies to force the next listed item to the next line. The idea behind this is a player sees a really good price and buys the card quickly before he loses out on the deal, hopefully not noticing the extra item on the line.

An example of this would be listing a Claymore Maid for 10HP, 1000 Rupies, then Claymore Maid again. This way the player is paying 10HP for nothing. Another way of doing the trick goes like this. Maxed Claymore Maid, 5HP, Claymore Maid, players are so desensitized to seeing a maxed card and 5HP, they don't think to look for that third card. Their brain is registering, "Yes, I need to give a Claymore and five HP" but fails to recognize the seller is asking for two Claymores.

This method does not work very well, but if you search the bazaar you will see listings like this everywhere, especially in high level cards where players will try it constantly. It's similar to the rupie trade scam in that you are trying to get the player focused on a number and cause them to ignore an important fact long enough for them to click accept.

Bazaar Hawking:

This one, is the really dirty birdy of the two. Players are now playing multiple TCGs and trading cards from Rage of Bahamut for another card games cards can be tricky. It's honestly hard to find players that are trustworthy enough to do this with, after that, it's tough to work out the mechanics. I will give you an example using Marvel War of Heroes and Rage of Bahamut.

A player wants to trade his Ultra Rare Spider-Man from Marvel for a Batraz in Rage of Bahamut. This guy sends his Ultra Rare Spider-Man to the guy in his Alliance purchasing it. To get the Batraz in Rage, the player places a Goblin at the auction house with a buyout of a Batraz and 157 rupies. He then lets the player know he has listed it at the auction house, the player searches for it and purchases the goblin, thus giving the Batraz to the player. This is how it should go.

Now, what I would like you to do is search the AH at this moment for normal cards. You may notice something interesting. Do you see it?

When a low level card is listed with a high level card as a price, there are clones of it. To use our example above, there won't be one listing of a Goblin for a Batraz and 157 rupies, there will be three of them. This is bazaar hawking. Players search for trades like these and put up identical trades hoping that the player only sees theirs and does the deal.

This is theft pure and simple, and it's wrong. Its the same thing as accepting and keeping another persons UPS package. Actually worse, because you would be looking for good packages, running outside, claiming to be that person, and taking the package. It's just absurd and wrong.

How to fix:
Tricky listing is a lot like the Rupie scam. If you fall for it, you fall for it. Realistically, you can protect yourself from it by just being observant.

For bazaar hawking on the other hand, there is no suitable protection. This could be easily solved if a player were allowed to see the name of who they were purchasing from right before making the deal. Currently the only way to be sure to avoid the issue is to wait two weeks or work within complex trade networks and middlemen who charge fees for the services (I have a friend who makes quite a bit doing this). Unfortunately, waiting two weeks is forever in these games and most buyers/sellers aren't willing to do it.

No matter what, it needs to be addressed. It is blatantly an attempt to steal from other players and shouldn't go unpunished. In the meantime you can add an extra layer of protection on your bazaar trades by enhancing a card to random evo, level, % xp.

** Although I do call out pumpkincook, I don't want people calling out scammers on my site. The list ends up long and trolls start listing people that aren't actually scammers to mess things up. They never work out. Any post calling out other scammers will be deleted. **

Shameless plugs

Plug #1

Just created a facebook account under Lucarda Nuoct. Honestly, I haven't used facebook since..I think the last time I was actively on it was 2006, but I am told that I should have one again. Currently I have zero friends though since it is completely new.

Feel free to add me, chances are I will become addicted to some facebook game and start writing guides on those as well. I heard the marvel one is pretty addicting.

I will warn you, although I'll probably use it to update when I finish stuff, chances are I will post stuff I at least find fun, even if it is inappropriate. So if you're sensitive, I'm probably not the friend for you.

Plug #2

http://misfitgamers.com/

I've been working on a site to write more broadly about video games. Let me know what you think. What you think it needs, if it's dumb, good, etc. Any advice/criticism is helpful. Game blogging is competitive as hell and I want to build something cool. Keep in mind, I didn't write every article (a vast majority though). Some of them were written by friends who may submit when they can but are good writers and gamers. Primarily, the idea for the article on the 10 hottest male video game characters was not mine, I merely voted in it and established the only two final fantasy character rule because it was getting out of hand.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think.

Sometimes...

Sometimes aspects of this game really confuse me. Maybe it's because of the way I process thoughts.

1) Announcement is made that same card proc's won't be as beneficial as before.

2) Several cards released that have high base stats and buffs to two realms instead of one.

3) Cards released sell for 8HP each.

Pretty much the exact order in which this happened. Take the Demonic Knight for example. I understand quite a few of them are on the market, but this card brings roughly 10% of a buff to the table at 17111 attack. Mad Hatter I believe hits about the same attack with the same buff.

Lets look at this from a full deck standpoint:

NM, Demonic Knight, Mad Hatter, Trow, Trow

15k+17k+17k+19k+19k

13% buff + 10% buff + 10% buff. All with no reduction of proc love because all cards are different.

VERSUS:

NM, Dragonewt, Dragonewt, Trow, Trow

15k+18k+18k+19k+19k

13% buff + 8% buff + 8% buff. With a slight reduction to the second Dragonewt proc potential.

Final Scores: 

87k + 11.3k + 8.7k + 8.7k = 115.7k on the first deck.

89k + 11.5k + 7.1k + 7.1K = 114.7k on the second deck.

In a two card proc situation the Dragonewt deck is 500 damage more. But lets also remember that deck one gets the additional chances to proc from using different cards.

This isn't exclusive to those cards (I actually appreciate the reduction in price so I can buy them cheaply). It also has to do with the other cards that offer high stats and two realm procs.

This is kind of just a rant on how sometimes I don't why certain things happen in the game. The only way I can explain the Demonic Knight/Hatter situation is the market was flooded with Dknights, then Hatter was released and although there were few of them, it's in direct competition with Dknights and nobody will buy it unless its the same price. But that doesn't explain the prices on some of the other cards on the market.

It just goes to show you how unstable things are in the game at the moment.

Just a quick rant.

Oh yeah....and I was right about the event being a raid event. Ha!

Not so Silent Night

 **DISCLAIMER, THIS IS AN EDUCATED GUESS ON THE EVENT TYPE, IT IS VERY WELL POSSIBLE IT COULD BE A QUEST EVENT LIKE TEARS, MY PERSONAL BELIEF THOUGH IS THAT IT WILL BE A RAID EVENT**

Well, tis the season for another event, and this time it will be a stamina/hp event. It appears from the description that this event will follow the format of the Blizzard of the Crystal Castle. My reason for saying this is the words 'Collect as many boxes of toys as you can, and you'll get rewards based on your ranking! you can even get Boss Takedown Rewards and rewards for choosing the right paths!

The takedown rewards and the gathering of presents mirrors the take down rewards and gathering of shards from the Blizzard of the Crystal Castle. Also, since they can introduce new cards for boss damage during these events, they tend to be most profitable for them.

Now for those who don't know the event will follow a simple format.

Quests:
Players will progress through quests and randomly instead of a chest, a boss will spawn. A player is given a certain amount of time to destroy that boss. In this case, Ogre Santa and I'm sure the Wight King will make appearances. Players will receive rewards based on how much damage they do to the boss, these rewards are going to be presents and points. Presents can be traded for cards or items, similar to white/blue/pink/gold shards in Blizzard of the Crystal Castle.

Every five quests players will also have a normal quest boss to deal with. This boss will normally yield rupies and personal clear water or holy powder. Before you reach the boss you will have to choose a path, if you choose correctly you move to the boss, if you choose incorrectly you must go back to the previous quest.

Bosses:
The bosses summoned have varying degrees of health. During the last half of the event I'm sure we'll see the Wight King who will have a very large health pool. Players attack the boss using their attack deck, the more powerful the deck, the more damage. Using event cards with boss damaging skills also increases the overall power of the deck significantly and is very necessary for players who wish to perform well.

Upon taking down the boss, players are rewarded with presents. The presents can then be traded for items. The presents and points you receive are based on: Discovering the monster, damage done to the monster, critical bonuses at 66% and 33%, takedown bonus for killing him, and most damage done. Because of the critical bonuses, it is recommended that you attack every boss that appears at least once since you will be eligible for those bonuses regardless of how much damage you do.

Ranking Highly:
The best way to rank highly is going to be to pick up event cards early. The nice part is if you grab those cards early you can do heavy damage and receive a lot of presents while spending a smaller amount of HP. If this event functions like the previous, HP will be a possible reward from the presents. This means the you can do enough damage you could feasibly cycle through bosses by gaining the HP you spend back in presents.

You can also share cards with members of your orders if you are in different time zones. I know several players that did very well renting out their event cards to players for a few hours who then pounded through bosses to gain shards and points.

Overall though, the best results will be for people who participate heavily. Being on regularly to attack every boss once will yield strong rolling returns.

Odysseus and Zhuque:
If I recall, Odysseus's skill is called Ogre Slayer and he does a big boost to damage against Giants. Much like Ax Masters skill proc'd against Crystal Dragon because he was a dragon, it's fair to assume that Odysseus's skill will proc against Ogres. It might be worth picking up a couple.

Zhuque on the other hand confuses me because he only states that he does additional damage to Wight King in 'the puppet master'. This leads me to believe that he will not do additional damage to the Wight King in this event.

In both cases of these two cards I could be wrong, but given their low current prices, they would be worth picking up before people realize it. 

New Skill Proc

Fancy my surprise when I woke up and found out a week after updating my decks, a task I was putting off, the skill system will change.

There is a lot of concern about how this is going to mess up decks in Rage of Bahamut. For those who don't know, leveling a skill on a card will now increase its chance to proc as well as its power. On top of this, cards with the same skill are less likely to go off.

For example, if Claymore Maid 1 goes off, Claymore Maid 2s chance to proc will be reduced, if both still go off Claymore Maid 3s chance will be reduced again.

Now, assuming all proc rates remain the same outside of these changes this won't be that big of a deal. I'm wagering that if one goes off it will decrease the chance of another one going off by 10%. Assuming both top cards are skill 10, this balances to the same chances during a two proc since you will gain 10% chance by skilling it to 10. The chance of a full on three proc occuring is reduced by 10% overall.

So don't go freaking out throwing all your Apsara/Lancelot defenses out yet. If they work in 10% drops, which I think would be most logical, not much is changing.

What does change...

Is the fact that certain card set can be improved upon. For example, people who chose to do Four Dragonewt Princess will find that their deck that was marginally stronger than 1NM, 2DP, 2Trow, is now marginally weaker since the odds of that fourth or fifth cards skills going off are now in the gutter.

A Sleipner running pointman on an Apsara deck is significantly improved from five Apsara because Sleipnir will go off 100%, the first Apsara will have a 10% increased chance to go off, and the third ones chance will remain the same as before (10% for skill up, 10% decrease since other Apsara proc'd). A King Arthur running point on Lancelot is a significant improvement for the same reason.

If you look at it a certain way, the game is buffing people who use different cards by increasing their proc chances and only giving a 10% debuff to proc chance on people stacking cards. They are also giving players reasons to buy SR cards.

Some examples:
All of these examples are figured assuming the buffs are 10% at skill 10 and the debuffs are 10% per proc. For the two card examples, the first card will always go off and the % will be listed for the odds of the 2, 3, 4, 5 spots going off. For the three card examples the first and second card go off and the % will be listed for the odds of the 3, 4, 5 spots going off.

Five Apsara looked like this as far as procs go:

100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 10% (I can't remember exact percentages)

Now it will look like this if all cards are skill level 1 and only two will proc:

100%, 60%, 40%, 20%, 0% (10% hit from before)

It will look like this if all cards are skill level 10 and only two will proc:

100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 10% (0% hit from before)

Now, the odds of all three proccing at skill 1:

100%, 60%, 30%, 10%, 0% (20% hit from before)

The odds of all three proccing at skill 10:

100%, 70%, 40%, 20%, 0% (10% hit from before)

What you should pull from this is that when cards are at skill ten, the nerf is a 10% decrease that three cards should proc. Low skill level cards are nerfed quite a bit in comparison.

Lets use the same example, but with our new deck, Sleipnir is the leader and all cards are skill 10. This will be for two to proc.

100%, 80%, 60%, 30%, 20% (10% buff with increased chances of two proccing all the way through)

For three to proc:

100%, 80%, 50%, 30%, 20% (10% buff still)

Now for the most fun. Andromeda, Sleipner, Apsara, Apsara, Apsara. All skill 10. Chances of three proccing.

100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 30% (20% buff to proc chance)

Overall:
This is a fair balanced change. This buffs people who use cards in different realms and is only a slight nerf to people who stack all of a certain card. This will increase the usefulness of SR and SSR as well as the usefulness of cards that have the mixed realm buff like Hamelin. This change pleases me because I think it is a fair and balanced change.

Now, I will be greatly displeased if the percent chance goes down by something like 20-30% because then it's just over the top. If it is the decks will look something like Card 1: Best buff, Card 2/3: Second best buff in realm, Cards 4/5 Wing cards and you'll just do all math based on two buffs.

Marvel War of Heroes Update

Just figured since I have time tonight I would do an update on Marvel War of Heroes. Outside of the fact that trading kind of sucks, the rewards are a hell of a lot better. This is partly because they had control on the Power Packs (Hp equivalent) at the start of the game, unlike Rage of Bahamut. We can assume they learned from previous mistakes and all PP are bound to new accounts.

This of course means that players need to have some luck or buy PP from people who pay to play the game. It also means that for the current event I am in line for two SSR (equal to SR in Rage) without spending a dime. Maybe the fact that the rewards in Marvel War of Heroes are so good is why I'm so sour about the rewards in RoB. I am able to stay competitive because nobody has a HUGE amount of PP and being smart about attaining cards and PP goes a long way.

Overall, I can say I'm pretty pleased with the game. Everything isn't out of control like in rage where players spend a thousand HP in order to get one of the poorer S Rares.

The game is actually releasing cards regularly which is pretty nice and a lot of cards won during a previous event are boosters for a following event which helps players rise in ranks. What they did last time that was really cool was the mid tiered rewards were booster cards. This meant players who who did okay in a previous event got a head start for their good ranking.

If you haven't looked at it yet, it definitely deserves a look, and if you have seen it before, it's worth checking back into.

If you do try Marvel War of Heroes, make sure to use my referral code

q w y 7 0 1 6 7 9

Holy War Prizes

There has been a lot of debate lately about the prizes this Holy War and whether or not they are worth the expenditures. I have always noted that Holy Wars are the only events that I truly believe are worth the trouble. Currently, I can no longer say that.

Now, I want to say I still will spend over 200HP by the time this Holy War is over, knowing full well I doubt I will receive adequate payout.

Order Prizes:
Ok, this will be a bit of a rant about some major bullshit. An order can push to achieve #3 ranking, and only their top 10 people will receive a Lord Arthur? Wow, this is the most bullshit thing I've ever heard. In an order that achieves #6, only the top player will receive Lord Arthur. The rest will receive Gawain, a card that is grossly overshadowed by Batraz and Lord Arthur.

From personal experience here, my order will break top 100. We will all receive Tristan, a shit SR, Dark Angel Olivia, a card that is already outpowered by a lot of other cards. And a single H Rare and up. Rough value, under 150HP. The devil queen will probably still be worth quite a bit, making it barely worth it. Now if you drop to 151 rank somehow, it's quite the kick in the nuts.

This game has over a million players. Lets say about 30 active players per order. That means roughly 9000 player could be in the top 300. That means less than 1% of players receive these rewards. If the game has 500,000 active players, 2% receive these rewards. Even if the game only has 100,000 active players less than 10% receive these rewards.

It is just absurd to me because as the number of players gets higher, the number of top ranked prizes should increase, no decrease as it has done this time.

Personal Prizes:
Top three get KA...yeah. .000003 of the player base gets the top reward. Oh wait, that moves all the way up to .00003 if there are only 100,000 players. The absurdity of this astounds me. The worse part, lets say you manage to break into the 20th spot. You get Gawain, DQ, and an SR on UP Pack. How much HP do you think it takes to hit that? Now, at the moment of writing this, two days left, the 20th person has over 1,500,000 points. Lets say he's getting 300 points per attack and can attack five times per HP. The math here is pretty simple, he would have needed to spend roughly 1,000 HP to hit this point, with two days left.

His reward? A Gawain, a DQ, and an SR. Just....wow.

Win Prizes:
Wow, 50 wins nets you two Dark Angel Olivia, and one Demonic Knight HR. That means if an order commits to spending over 50 hours over a four day period to winning matches, they get a single HR and two crap SR that are about as powerful as a High Rare.

Overall: 
I understand that this game probably only has 100,000 active players, each with 10 or more fake accounts powering them. But even if we wanted the top 1% of orders to get the reward, that still means top 30-40 Orders should be receiving Lord Arthur. 

The amount of HP necessary to hit these levels is always increasing, and if the prizes don't increase in value, pretty soon nobody will be participating in events. As it stands a very small percentage of the play base participates in stamina events, there is no reason to take what used to be the event that paid the best and ruining it with crappy rewards.

All they need to do is say they want 1% of the players to have KA, 10% of the players to earn Gawain, 10% of the players to earn tristan, 20% of the players to earn HR, 20% to earn a rare, and blow to get rough prizes.

Assuming those numbers and roughly 3000 orders in the game. The rewards should go, top 30 KA, 31-300 Gawain, 301- 600 Tristan, 601-1200 HR, 1201-1800 Rare, anything under 1800 gain what's left.

That is assuming the game only has 100,000 active players!

Those are my thoughts.  

 

Holy War Prep

Honestly, this post may seem like quite a bit of common sense, but you would be surprised how many people don't prepare for Holy Wars properly. This post will be short, it will also be blunt.

1) Stop buying damn cards for your deck and save your damn HP. You think that adding that 5k damage/defense to your deck is more important than having HP to spend during HW? If your deck isn't up to par yet, tough luck, attack weaker opponents. One card probe peoples defense before attacking. What you don't do is leave yourself with thirty damn HP right before HW you anchor.

*If you are a new player and 30HP is a lot for you, it's understandable*

2) Liquidate. Do you think getting HP for your cards is hard now? Who do you think is buying during HW? Not people paying a premium I assure you of that. If you can't get HP for them, get CW for them and trade CW for HP.

3) Know how Holy Wars work. With all the damn information out there, there is no reason for you not to know how Holy Wars work. I don't care if you're new, you should still know when it is and isn't alright to start a battle and not to attack players before the wall is down because you lower their point value. You sure as hell shouldn't start a battle if your defense leader has no points from the last war. (Happened 3x to my order in marvel war of heroes when some asshat would declare with our defense lead at 30 points)

4) Have your orders full. You don't get bonus points for having open slots.

This has been a short post on prepping for Holy Wars. Pay particular attention to point number one. Good luck and have fun!

Best R/HR December Update

Alright, so I sat down and forced myself to do go through my Best R/HR posts and update them. The Best R/HR Man, Best R/HR God, and Best R/HR Demon decks have been updated.

Man:
-Rare attack added High Gunner as wings
-Rare Defense added Castor as wings
-High Rare attack had no changes since it's claymore
-High Rare defense placed Master Astrologist as wings. I like it more than Captains.

God:
-Rare attack swapped completely to three *Corrected: 1 Agni and 2 Centaur** and two Reshef.
-Defense remained the same
-High Rare attack swapped to Trow and four Sword Valk despite my hatred of Trow in the top spot of a god deck.
-High Rare defense doesn't change (come on, 5 Apsara aren't going anywhere for a while.

Demon:
-Rare attack stayed the same since oddly no real offensive demon cards were released in rare.
-Rare defense deck changed to three Jack-o-lantern and two scorpio/manticore. Also recommendation to use Destroyer Golems if you can find them as wings.
-High rare attack swapped to NM, Dragonewt, Dragonewt, Trow, Trow. Primarily because I don't think it's worth paying all the extra to run three or four Dragonnewts.

So, these decks should be running current unless I missed something. Most of the cards Rage added it seemed were cards that were close to being top notch cards but hit missed the mark. Neko for example had 18+k attack but failed in the buff department. Xuanwu was released in gods but is slightly worse than Apsara.

Calculation Question

Previously I believed that attacks were calculated first and defense was calculated second. If this occurs its actually equalizing debuffs by making them closer to their buff counterparts.

For example:

If 100,000k attack vs 100,000k defense. Attack debuff and Defense buff. Attack 20% defense 25%.

Attack hits defense for 20k, bringing it down to 80. 80k with a 25% boost is 100k. Equal.

If buffs and debuffs are solely calculated base stats, not in turns then the math looks like this.

The buff gives 25k, the debuff takes 20k. End result is 100k vs 105k.  Percent is king.

Now recently a poster has been pointing out this math. Normally the cards aren't so close in stats that I need to worry about the difference between buffs/debuffs being the deal breakers on what makes a card the best, but there are a couple instances where it occurs.

So, I decided to search for the information I needed. Unfortunately it was a complete pain in the ass and I didn't get a pure answer on it, but I did find something interesting and I'm curious if anybody can verify it.

I pulled this from the wiki, it was posted five days ago:

************

Skill Stacking Test -- TylerDurden (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC) -- TylerDurden (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I ran a test to determine if a buff from a defender would be calculated using the deck's base value (outcome 1), or if it would be calculated using the base value with debuffs applied (outcome 2). To do this, I created a scenario with two simple cards using "all" skills. The defense card has one single defense point higher than the attack card. Both players are using non-realm cards and have no other bonuses applied.

Attacker
Card: Goblin Fighter (R)
Attack: 2866
Skill: [Rage] Medium hit to foe's DEF (all)

Defender
Card: High lancer
Defense: 2867
Skill: [Lightning Lance] Medium boost to DEF (all)

If outcome 1 is true, then the defense value should be identical and the defender will win. If outcome 2 is true, the resulting defense value should be slightly lower, and the attacker should win.
In the test, the defender won proving that the defender's buffs are not calculated using the debuffed base value.

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Now, if this information is correct, it definitely ruins any thought that a 20% debuff is equal to a 25% buff, and assures that buffs are king. If anybody can verify or refute this information I would be curious. It would really help in me creating accurate decks for best decks.

Thanks for any help people can offer on the subject.

Best SR Decks December Update

Today I went through past posts and updated the Best SR Man, SR God, and SR Demon Posts.

The changes I made are as follows:

Man Realm:

Achilles listed as the best offensive SR for Man.

Lancelot remains the champion of defensive SR.

God Realm:

Three Haniel and Two Thor make up best offensive deck and I also mention the viability of Sephirot as a contender to Haniel. Given the way buffs/debuffs work he is very close to Haniel.

Defensive Deck was swapped over to Sleipnir x5. I also mentioned here that he is only a mild increase over Apsara and not necessarily a card to jump all over since Lancelot is still better.

Demon Realm:

Added a comment on the defensive deck I have listed. Reasonably people should remain 1 Wraith, 4BM instead of moving into SR defense cards for Demon at the moment. If they want to improve their deck past that I would recommend 1 Wraith, 2BM, 2 Death.

Tomorrow I will be updating all the Rare/HR Decks to reflect new cards.

Thanks for reading.