16 replies to this topic

[Teochiu]

Just wondering what peoples' opinions of Hookah's Hat for a Monk/Invoker are. Is the item end-game material, or will it just be used for a couple of levels? I'm debating on whether I should invest in one or not.

[Rimmy]

It depends, really -- but at the end of the day, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if you don't have one, b/c it's really not all that important anymore once you hit the end-game. I'll explain.

In PvP, unless you have a very good computer, you won't benefit much from the extra attack speed b/c you'll usually be lagging too hard to hit the maximum rate of fire, anyways. In PvE, it's easier to hit that point even w/ a slower computer, but you'll be a monster-killing machine with or without it, so it's more of a nice bonus than a necessity (especially since you can use cash gloves/medals to boost your attack speed a bit, now, too).

Also, you have to take into consideration other factors, such as alternative headgear. The Hookah Hat is nice, but if you can get your hands on a full Heirloom Bone Dragon or Heirloom Chaos Hera set, you'll probably want to opt to keep the set helm on for the added defense and higher option bonuses.

So ultimately, it's up to you, but like I said, I wouldn't go shelling out thousands of gold for one unless you have plenty of gold to throw around and you focus primarily on PvE.

[invazn]

Use it up to like lv54 or something. End game is probably either, like Rimmy said, full Heirloom Chaotic Hera or Bone set. Just get The Last Boyscout medal and a MP3 or laptop balloon. The 12% + 4%/5% aspd is close enough to a Hookah

[Legomancer]

Is there an upper limit on how many speed buffs I can stack?

[Legomancer]

Topics kindof dead, but I have to say after hitting what I think is the max possible speed for a priest aside from using consumables, I'll be wearing this hat until a hat with more than 20% attack speed comes out. I may be overzealous here on stacking up so my Attack speed while ignoring more well established players opinions on defensive stats being more important, but from what I've seen, priest sets almost universally suck for their set bonuses as far as offense is concerned, and I wouldn't trade 20% attack speed for -250 physical damage -Ever-.

I'm a priest, unless the mob is going to instantly kill me, defense amounts to squat since -I'm- the one with the constant stream of health regen effects.

[Thuy]

Topics kindof dead, but I have to say after hitting what I think is the max possible speed for a priest aside from using consumables, I'll be wearing this hat until a hat with more than 20% attack speed comes out. I may be overzealous here on stacking up so my Attack speed while ignoring more well established players opinions on defensive stats being more important, but from what I've seen, priest sets almost universally suck for their set bonuses as far as offense is concerned, and I wouldn't trade 20% attack speed for -250 physical damage -Ever-.

I'm a priest, unless the mob is going to instantly kill me, defense amounts to squat since -I'm- the one with the constant stream of health regen effects.

im guessing you never been in a level 60+ pvp with a full bone invoker.

Edited by Thuy, 11 December 2010 - 04:58 AM.

[Balladd]

im guessing you never been in a level 60+ pvp with a full bone invoker.

I have qq. *cough* invazn *cough*

[CHiSEEN]

im guessing you never been in a level 60+ pvp with a full bone invoker.

[Legomancer]

im guessing you never been in a level 60+ pvp with a full bone invoker.

Why would I want to PvP on an MMO like this? <o<.

Hookahs hat is the best damage upgrade headpiece I've seen in game for priests, Chaos Hera and Bone Dragon both do diddly squat in raising your damage.

Edited by Legomancer, 11 December 2010 - 10:22 AM.

[Rimmy]

Why would I want to PvP on an MMO like this? Where did I ever imply I would be PvPing?

Would you like to tell me that Bone Dragon is better than hookahs for PvE DPS?

Of course it isn't better for DPS -- on one or two targets. But if you're regularly coming up against large mobs (especially the mobs in Van Cliff), I'd argue that it's actually a much better idea to use Rain of Fire or Spark Rock to mop them up. It's much, much faster, particularly because many mobs in VC can easily knock you down multiple times, interrupting your x-spam constantly.

Also, the Heirloom BD armor can be quite useful when facing harder-hitting bosses like Lust -- and most other mobs do only 1 damage per hit to you (if your armor is somewhat enchanted), meaning you make a nice tank. And with Drakos Tower and Muted Island on the way (along with tougher bosses/mobs, many of which can freeze targets, leaving you prone to massive amounts of damage), it might prove more useful than you think.

X-spam is getting nerfed in other versions of the game, meaning it will likely happen here, too, which may decrease the importance of extra attack speed.

Lastly, if you're using x-spam, it relies on your computer's ability to keep up w/ the extra attack speed. If you're running MMs w/ a party that's spamming a lot of skills or the server's being a pain, you're probably going to lag, which limits its effectiveness.

[Legomancer]

Of course it isn't better for DPS -- on one or two targets. But if you're regularly coming up against large mobs (especially the mobs in Van Cliff), I'd argue that it's actually a much better idea to use Rain of Fire or Spark Rock to mop them up. It's much, much faster, particularly because many mobs in VC can easily knock you down multiple times, interrupting your x-spam constantly.

Also, the Heirloom BD armor can be quite useful when facing harder-hitting bosses like Lust -- and most other mobs do only 1 damage per hit to you (if your armor is somewhat enchanted), meaning you make a nice tank. And with Drakos Tower and Muted Island on the way (along with tougher bosses/mobs, many of which can freeze targets, leaving you prone to massive amounts of damage), it might prove more useful than you think.

X-spam is getting nerfed in other versions of the game, meaning it will likely happen here, too, which may decrease the importance of extra attack speed.

Lastly, if you're using x-spam, it relies on your computer's ability to keep up w/ the extra attack speed. If you're running MMs w/ a party that's spamming a lot of skills or the server's being a pain, you're probably going to lag, which limits its effectiveness.

This is why I need to read more about other versions of this game apparently .

I haven't done CSS yet, but are the same issues true about mob knockdowns? Or am I going to be able to farm just as fast there. And as for Van Cliff, are we dealing with ranged knockdowns?

[tunafish]

This is why I need to read more about other versions of this game apparently .

I haven't done CSS yet, but are the same issues true about mob knockdowns? Or am I going to be able to farm just as fast there. And as for Van Cliff, are we dealing with ranged knockdowns?

From what I remember, there aren't any mobs that can knock you down in CSS. However, there's quite a handful in Van Cliff that do, some which are ranged, and some which you may become locked and be unable to heal, thus dying in that horrible combo. What level are you currently?

If you think about it, attack speed over defense increase, defense wins.
The faster a priest dies, the faster the party dies.
If a priest is too concerned about their own health, the party loses priority, and mistakes will be made.

Other than the Hookah Hat, medals help with attack speed.
Legend of Combo (10,000 combo) gives +15%, even Uber Combo (5,000) gives +15%.
Could get one of those balloons that give 1% to 5% attack speed, depending on the type.

You could also invest in getting a [Special] costume (not soulcraft) like Paris/Devil/Angel/etc.
Those gloves (item mall) give +10% attack speed.

Also, if you're in a guild, you get to use their +10% attack speed buff.
Yeah it only lasts for 30 seconds but it's spammable and hardly takes any MP whatsoever.

Edited by tunafish, 11 December 2010 - 11:05 AM.

[Rimmy]

This is why I need to read more about other versions of this game apparently .

I haven't done CSS yet, but are the same issues true about mob knockdowns? Or am I going to be able to farm just as fast there. And as for Van Cliff, are we dealing with ranged knockdowns?

The details aren't very clear on the nerf, but apparently they are going to make it so that the longer you use X-spam continuously, the less damage it does (damage decreases over time). As far as I know, no one's sure if that means you can fire for a while, stop when your damage starts to decrease, and then start up again immediately, or if there's some kind of cooldown feature to restore you to full attack power. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Archers' AAS is supposedly getting the same nerf.

If we do get the nerf, depending on how it changes X-spam, we may be forced to use it mostly as "added damage" (similar to sorcerers), rather than our main source of DPS.

Either way, between the addition of our new skills and the announced nerf, I think it's clear that Barunson is starting to work toward making invokers more of a skills-based class (like other classes), where you have to rely on multiple attack skills rather than just your basic X attack. I actually prefer this, because I find that the classes I enjoy playing the most are the ones that have many different attack options to choose from -- and it may mean that we end up getting even more useful offensive skills in the future, which in turn would mean less boring gameplay (and, perhaps best of all, less-frequent repairs).

Many mobs can knock you down in the later stages of the game -- but only the mobs in VC do it quick enough (and at a great enough range) for it to be a nuisance.

And yes, VC mobs do have ranged knockdown attacks, even in the early stages. Even worse, these attacks hit multiple times, knocking you down each time, and many of them function like PF skills -- meaning that they hit you even if you dodge the animation.

Lust (Bone Dragon) also uses a lot of knockdown attacks, and also has an attack that temporarily disables all skills, meaning that your Double Shot effect is removed and you're only able to fire one fireball with each shot. Oh, and it prevents healing, too, of course.

Add to those issues the fact that most VC mobs can deal (if you don't have enchanted armor) 1K+ damage per hit individually with multi-hit skills, some of which root you to one spot -- and the fact that most VC mobs are tightly packed together -- and you could be in for some trouble if you let your guard down. I've seen even decently stacked level 65 players get caught in mob combos that killed or nearly killed them.

What's really going to be interesting is seeing how the Muted Island monsters' freeze works. If it's like sorcerers' Blizzard/Penguin freezes, and the attacks are hard to dodge, PvE could be a little challenging for once. I'm actually kinda looking forward to that.

Edited by Rimmy, 11 December 2010 - 11:15 AM.

[Paxon]

Why would I want to PvP on an MMO like this? <o<.

Hookahs hat is the best damage upgrade headpiece I've seen in game for priests, Chaos Hera and Bone Dragon both do diddly squat in raising your damage.

Why don't you want to pvp? I personally think pve is boring, just button smash enemies that barely do anything to you.

[Legomancer]

Why don't you want to pvp? I personally think pve is boring, just button smash enemies that barely do anything to you.

Games like this don't ever feel "balanced" to me. It doesn't help that most of the PvP video's I've seen end with one player killing the other while holding it in an forced unresponsive state from start to finish. So I guess fights against actual "good" PvPers work on an arms race of who can stack the most Evade/AIM D:.

If I do PvP here it would just be for the rewards, it sounds stupid, but seriously, I get way more of a kick out of... Farming, Gathering Gold, and Trading Resources.

[Paxon]

. It doesn't help that most of the PvP video's I've seen end with one player killing the other while holding it in an forced unresponsive state from start to finish.

.

they might be from IAH because from what I know in this version its looked down upon to do that stuff

[Rimmy]

Games like this don't ever feel "balanced" to me. It doesn't help that most of the PvP video's I've seen end with one player killing the other while holding it in an forced unresponsive state from start to finish. So I guess fights against actual "good" PvPers work on an arms race of who can stack the most Evade/AIM D:.

If I do PvP here it would just be for the rewards, it sounds stupid, but seriously, I get way more of a kick out of... Farming, Gathering Gold, and Trading Resources.

Just don't PvP 1v1 and it's not too bad. That infi-lock stuff rarely happens in group PvP.