Various questions...again!

[bjanko]

Hey guys! =] Thank you for all the continued help that everyone's been giving me. I've started to get my teeth into Runescape again and i've been loving it!

 

Levells said that I should probably ask some different people or post a thread up here to get some of these questions answered, so i'll do that. Apologies if i'm asking too many...

 

1. DPS between classes. Is everything truly equal now, or is there still a niche meta? I've heard things like dw mage > dw melee > 2h melee > 2h mage > dw range > 2h range for single target dps (Assuming things like Natural Instinct -> Berserk/Sunshine/Death's Swiftness -> Thresholds, just as an example). I've also heard that dw mage > 2h mage > 2h melee > pretty much everything else for AoE, is this about right too?

 

2. Magic gear. More specifically, dw vs 2h. I'm a big magic fan and i'm saving for some good magic gear that I can come casually in to gwd with some friends occasionally and stuff. I've heard a lot about this dw vs 2h debate for magic - With melee, you have better single target basics/thresholds/ultimates with dw compared to 2h, so that's quite clear, but with magic, the only difference between the two is that one has access to sonic wave and one has access to concentrated blast. I've heard quite a lot about concentrated blast, hearing that it's really overpowered and such.

 

So I decided to test it out (And I imagine you could replicate this if you really wanted to) - Using t60 staff and wand/orb, Air surge and nothing else equipped, I went to one of the training dummies in Lumby. I wasn't really that impressed with it. In terms of damage, Wrack, Chain, Impact, and other basics formed a rotation where I averaged around 1k per ability for the whole rotation. With dual wield, I was able to do a rotation solely consisting of Wrack and Concentrated Blast, where Wrack would do about 1k and Concentrated Blast would do about 3 hits of 7-800. Now, Concentrated Blast hits once every 2 ticks, I believe, so it's probably a little bit better then 2h in that regard...But i've been hearing people saying things like T80 magic > T90 melee, and that T80 dw magic totally runs T80 2h magic into the ground. While i'm not sure about the seismic wand, because that could be due to the difficulty of Vorago (I haven't looked into him at all), i'm still left wondering about the high price of virtus wand + book...Is it because dw magic is that good, or is it just due to rarity and demand?

 

I'm aware that Concentrated Blast gives each successive hit 5% more chance to crit, but it shouldn't make *that* much difference...Especially since you build up adrenaline slower with wrack -> Concentrated Blast as opposed to a more varied basic rotation, meaning you get your thresholds out slower...And if you're not abusing Concentrated Blast, then you're not taking advantage of the dual wielding benefits over 2h. Am I missing something here? Please point out what's wrong in my train of thought if this is the case =[

 

3. Drygores. Yes, i'm still procrastinating over this, because i'll have to make a bit of money before I can buy these (and i've been doing a lot of divination amongst other things, so...I'm justified in my mind >_<) Is the increased damage over chaotics worth the price tag for general use? (Slayer, GWD, potentially the Kalphite King?) How much more accurate are drygores actually in practise? I believe you get 1212 accuracy from 99 attack, so you have 3670 accuracy with a drygore and 3136 with a chaotic. That's about 17% more accurate, but that doesn't really tell me anything without any knowledge about how the accuracy formula works now =s (And considering both most of the time I tend to hit on monsters that i've been to with chaotics as it is, and even corp with zammy spear tends to take a lot of hits now...) Accuracy seems to be the most cited reason for me to get a drygore amongst people i've met ingame, but is this simply a misnomer, and the real reason I should be purchasing drygores is because of the increased damage? (Still quite expensive @.@)

 

4. Accuracy. I think that it's only affected now by Top, Bottom, and shield slots, and it's a 5% penalty per slot. Does this mean that you can still use ganodermic at corp, for example? Is there any places where it's worth taking the accuracy penalty to wear gear of a different style to stay alive (I'm thinking maybe...with drygores? X D)

 

5. Weapon speeds. I've heard a couple of things about ability damage - firstly, that damage is normalized between weapon speeds (So a Fastest speed weapon will have an ability max the same as an average speed weapon, as long as they share the same tier) and secondly, that when dual wielding, the best combination is a fastest mainhand with a fast offhand (Or in the case of drygores, mh mace + oh rapier). Are both of these true? If so, why is the offhand rapier better? I've heard that damage from power armour applies statically to weapon damage (Meaning that the boost takes place before the normalization), so wouldn't a fastest offhand be better?

 

6. Quick and easy question: With and without pop armour, what's better at solo zammy? Blood barrage, Dual Drygores, or Drygore + shield? 

 

7. Dungeoneering. I found out that my beloved blood necklace now gives a meagre 5% crit to all styles now instead of the godly bonuses it used to give, and Quyneax told me in a previous topic that the Hexhunter is now a shieldbow and has less dps then a saggy shortbow, crippling my motivation for 99 slayer to hunt for a hexhunter...So i'm curious as to what suggested binds are now. I was thinking perhaps a 2h weapon with plate/legs for pathing (Plate used to give enough defence to path for suiciding, but with lp being tied to armour I thought that maybe you'd run out of hp before you ran out of prayer making the legs a more worthwhile bind..), Along with the blood necklace for the passive effect (Or perhaps a saggy shortbow for Guardian Doors, I've literally only done one or two dungeons since i've come back and they were easy ones for some of the dungeoneering tasks so everything died anyway =s), and perhaps keeping a set of range/mage gear in your backup loadouts to switch to in case you get an annoying boss. Has there been any change to dungeoneering strategy since about 2 years ago? If any of the much-vaunted floorgazers could help me out, (If they're still to be found here) it'd be much appreciated =]

 

Thank you all in advance!

[Quyneax]

1) Magic is good, because it attacks at a distance and has a very good basic with Concentrated Blast. Melee has the advantage using Destroy and Assault, but chances are a slayer monster dies too quickly anyway, and bosses will move away (Nex, Vorago, KK etc.).

 

2) Concentrated Blast is good because it's equivalent to a 150% damage ability - you can break off the attack before the final hit. It's not properly possible to make a rotation with Wrack and Concentrated Blast only.

 

3) Drygores are good, whether they're worth it is up to you, there's nothing else to buy for that money :P (but Torva is pretty good I suppose).

 

4) You can use ganodermic at corp, but I think Tetsu is better, from when I tried it. There aren't any places where you'd use different style top and weapon except DKS. Defence doesn't do all that much anyway, and you can focus defence by using appropriate helmet/boots/gloves.

 

5) Speed doesn't matter at all.

 

6) Not shield, for sure. Blood barrage is better if you are using t90 magic, otherwise drygores.

 

7) Blood necklace, hood, primal 2h, either celestial staff + primal 2h + celestial top or primal 2h + ssb + primal platebody or ssb + ccs + sagittarian body. If you have only 4 binds, skip either hood or necklace.

[bjanko]

Hi Quyneax! Thank you for the prompt response! I have a few further questions, if you don't mind?

 

 

 

1) Magic is good, because it attacks at a distance and has a very good basic with Concentrated Blast. Melee has the advantage using Destroy and Assault, but chances are a slayer monster dies too quickly anyway, and bosses will move away (Nex, Vorago, KK etc.).

2) Concentrated Blast is good because it's equivalent to a 150% damage ability - you can break off the attack before the final hit. It's not properly possible to make a rotation with Wrack and Concentrated Blast only.

 

I see what you're getting at with the first one. They're generally about the same, but Magic is slightly better due to distance and things like that. Does this still hold true with 2h magic? Is range just...right out?

 

In regards to Concentrated blast, I'm still trying to work out how it's so good. I've seen a lot of people on the RSOF (Mind you, I take posts there with a grain of salt) say that you can't solo nex with 2h magic, but it becomes very easy with dw magic. If concentrated blast is the equivalent of a 150% ability, then that makes it only 25% better then Sonic Wave...And that's just one ability as part of the rotation. I can't say that I understand how dual wielding magic is simply that much because of it - nor can I understand why dw magic gear is so much more expensive then it's staff counterparts. (Is this due to rarity, or is dw magic really that good?). I'm fairly certain that you're right; You've a lot more experience in this area then I do, i'm just trying to understand *why*.

 

 

 

3) Drygores are good, whether they're worth it is up to you, there's nothing else to buy for that money  :P (but Torva is pretty good I suppose).

 

Yeah, everything else is either a tier cheaper or a lot more expensive. =p I've brought a drygore mace and i'll work on saving for an offhand shortly. Thank you =]

 

 

 

4) You can use ganodermic at corp, but I think Tetsu is better, from when I tried it. There aren't any places where you'd use different style top and weapon except DKS. Defence doesn't do all that much anyway, and you can focus defence by using appropriate helmet/boots/gloves.

 

 

 

6) Not shield, for sure. Blood barrage is better if you are using t90 magic, otherwise drygores.

 

Thank you! Was defence changed significantly after EoC, then? I do remember Ganodermic and Nex gear giving astounding and very noticeable defensive bonuses prior to it. Is it because of the defence that comes from stats?

 

 

 

5) Speed doesn't matter at all.

 

Okay, so just for clarification's sake (I got confused again when talking to Levells earlier) - The boosts from power armour are applied *after* speed normalization when calculating ability damage? For example: When equipping a chaotic staff, I have around 1900 damage. With power armour, that's boosted up to almost 2000 damage, for around 70 damage or so (Just rough numbers, I don't remember accurately). Would the ability damage calculation be (normalized 1900) + 70, or simply normalized 2000?

 

I do recall hearing that dual wielding applies this damage twice, or something similar, making power armor godly with dual wielding.

 

 

 

Blood necklace, hood, primal 2h, either celestial staff + primal 2h + celestial top or primal 2h + ssb + primal platebody or ssb + ccs + sagittarian body. If you have only 4 binds, skip either hood or necklace.

 

So you can simply omit a primal 2h all together now? O_O

 

I notice that you mentioned a hood in there. The last I heard, hoods were relatively useless (And indeed, once I destroyed mine for primal gauntlets before I found my Blood Necklace, I was quite pleased). Was there a significant change to hoods in EoC or something similar? Wouldn't you simply be de-hooded for most of the higher floors?

 

Thank you for your time =]

[Aiel]

Edit: I hate the new quote system, Im not going to try and fix this mess. Answers are bolded.

 

Q is sleeping so I'll try and get most of these..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Magic is good, because it attacks at a distance and has a very good basic with Concentrated Blast. Melee has the advantage using Destroy and Assault, but chances are a slayer monster dies too quickly anyway, and bosses will move away (Nex, Vorago, KK etc.).

 

2) Concentrated Blast is good because it's equivalent to a 150% damage ability - you can break off the attack before the final hit. It's not properly possible to make a rotation with Wrack and Concentrated Blast only.

 

 

 

 

I see what you're getting at with the first one. They're generally about the same, but Magic is slightly better due to distance and things like that. Does this still hold true with 2h magic? Is range just...right out?

 

In regards to Concentrated blast, I'm still trying to work out how it's so good. I've seen a lot of people on the RSOF (Mind you, I take posts there with a grain of salt) say that you can't solo nex with 2h magic, but it becomes very easy with dw magic. If concentrated blast is the equivalent of a 150% ability, then that makes it only 25% better then Sonic Wave...And that's just one ability as part of the rotation. I can't say that I understand how dual wielding magic is simply that much because of it - nor can I understand why dw magic gear is so much more expensive then it's staff counterparts. (Is this due to rarity, or is dw magic really that good?). I'm fairly certain that you're right; You've a lot more experience in this area then I do, i'm just trying to understand *why*.

Ranged is bad because its threshold abilities are terrible (compare snap shot to wild magic...)

 

Basically magic damage is incredibly complicated to truly understand and there's been a fair amount of patches/changes to it over the last few months so there's a lot of misinformation. DW mage is largely better for barraging because you can tag monsters quicker. When using abilities it is slightly better. It used to be significantly better, but this was changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4) You can use ganodermic at corp, but I think Tetsu is better, from when I tried it. There aren't any places where you'd use different style top and weapon except DKS. Defence doesn't do all that much anyway, and you can focus defence by using appropriate helmet/boots/gloves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6) Not shield, for sure. Blood barrage is better if you are using t90 magic, otherwise drygores.

 

 

 

 

Thank you! Was defence changed significantly after EoC, then? I do remember Ganodermic and Nex gear giving astounding and very noticeable defensive bonuses prior to it. Is it because of the defence that comes from stats?

 

 

 

defense was changed significantly. most of your bonuses come from armor now. Because of the strict tiering, ganodermic got worse and nex armor got better with EOC. (the offensive bonuses on nex armor helped with this) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5) Speed doesn't matter at all.

 

 

 

 

Okay, so just for clarification's sake (I got confused again when talking to Levells earlier) - The boosts from power armour are applied *after* speed normalization when calculating ability damage? For example: When equipping a chaotic staff, I have around 1900 damage. With power armour, that's boosted up to almost 2000 damage, for around 70 damage or so (Just rough numbers, I don't remember accurately). Would the ability damage calculation be (normalized 1900) + 70, or simply normalized 2000?

 

I do recall hearing that dual wielding applies this damage twice, or something similar, making power armor godly with dual wielding.

 

 

 

The boost from armor is applied before it is adjusted for speed and is applied at 50% it's MH value to your offhand. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood necklace, hood, primal 2h, either celestial staff + primal 2h + celestial top or primal 2h + ssb + primal platebody or ssb + ccs + sagittarian body. If you have only 4 binds, skip either hood or necklace.

 

So you can simply omit a primal 2h all together now? O_O

 

I notice that you mentioned a hood in there. The last I heard, hoods were relatively useless (And indeed, once I destroyed mine for primal gauntlets before I found my Blood Necklace, I was quite pleased). Was there a significant change to hoods in EoC or something similar? Wouldn't you simply be de-hooded for most of the higher floors?

 

Thank you for your time =]

Hood got better because armor got worse (especially armor that was previously used for offensive bonuses- gloves/boots are basically worthless now).