We have many old players coming back from either forever ago, or having quit right after Renewal with most of the playerbase. This guide is meant to be a quick list of what's different to help you get up to speed if you're an older player.
1. Cast time
Old system: 2/3 of your DEX = cast time reduction, as a percentage, up to 150 being instant.
New system: It takes 530 points to reach instant cast (which isn't possible). INT counts once, DEX counts twice. However, it's a diminishing returns formula that initially gives far more - 70 is roughly half cast time, and 200 is roughly quarter. See here for exact formula: http://irowiki.org/w...kills#Cast_Time Note in particular that you can easily halve your cast time without ever touching DEX, while on the flip side, even 10 points can make a noticeable difference early on.
Bolts have also had their base cast times lowered significantly (.5 per level instead of .7), so in general, you'll be lobbing them MUCH faster as a mage. Some wizard spells have also been sped up.
Note: Ignore any mentions of "fixed cast" - this was a mechanic where a portion of a spell's cast time mostly couldn't be reduced, and resulted in a severe power imbalance vs. physical damagers. It was axed entirely for this type of server, hopefully permanently. Likewise, read any mention of "variable cast time" as simply "cast time".
2. MATK
INT no longer curves - it gives a flat 1.5 MATK/point of INT. While that's actually faster at lower levels (the curve was really slow in the beginning), it quickly falls behind the old MATK curve. However, instead of weapons giving 15% MATK and various small boosts, they now give large amounts of MATK, including benefiting from weapon upgrades the way PATK does. However, because two hand staves gives far more MATK than one-handers, these are now pretty much mandatory to reach high levels of MATK. Your overall MATK also tends to be a bit lower with the new formula, although most of the nukes were kicked up a notch in damage, so this should about even out (although still falling somewhat short - I believe later gear addresses this, but I'm not sure).
3. MDEF also curves down
The first few points actually give more than a full percent, but it tapers off fast. The bad news is that this means token amounts of MDEF are a lot more noticable than they were, but the good news is that high MDEF does far, far less than it used to. Monsters with 90% reduction pretty much don't exist anymore, so element permitting, you should have -some- way to do at least moderate damage.
4. Stat builds are generally different
INT doesn't curve, so 99ing it is generally a questionable decision. Likewise, since the later DEX points are giving small portions of a percent, you may not want to max that either. This in turn frees up points that you can spend elsewhere with very little loss of offense. These usually go to VIT (HP, potion power, status resistance), although AGI, flee gear, and Quagmire is not unheard of.
5. At first job, it's more about hit and run
You generally aren't going to have a 2H staff as a first job, while you WILL have rather fast spells relative to old RO. This encourages a lot more hit and run play, and a lot less standing and waiting forever for a bolt to land. You'll probably find leveling speed is about the same, but depending on your old targets, you may want to reconsider your choices for leveling targets.
6. Storm Gust is... different
While the basic rule of "use low level to snap-freeze, use high level for damage" remains, the freeze mechanic has been altered significantly. Instead of putting 3 counters on the monster, where the 3rd counter auto-freezes, the spell instead simply has a chance to roll a freeze. This is generally much higher at low levels of the spell (85%), and much lower at higher levels of the spell (15%). However, resistances may throw these numbers off, and of course, the dice may or may not be in your favor. In -most- cases, the spell is actually a bit stronger than it was, but be aware that auto-freeze is no longer a thing.
7. SP Food isn't as insanely expensive as it was
Several low level monsters and a few high ones drop Strawberries, a new SP fruit, which makes having spare SP a lot more sane. Given a mage's regen, this is unlikely to make a huge difference in most cases, but in things like Strings parties and WoE pre-casts, it's worth noting, as well as the potential for an emergency supply if you get Energy Coated to 0.
8. You may want to rethink cards a bit
-Since using a shield greatly reduces your potential MATK, you usually won't want to. This obviously greatly reduces the value of various 30% reduction vs. creature type cards.
-Since DEF and MDEF tend to be much less powerful than they were, elemental armor, elemental resistance, raw HP, and Energy Coat are all more effective than they were, as they're applying to larger hits.
-Elemental attacks on a lot of monsters hit like trucks now, further emphasizing the above.
-Heal gains more at L1 than it used to (but less later). This in turn makes Healing Clips significantly stronger than they were.
-While a phen card (and later Orelean's Gown) is still very useful as a second job, you don't need to be in quite the rush you'd normally be to get one. Bolts are fast enough that they aren't going to get halted very often, so they may actually do more harm than good when you're just using bolts/firewalls/drivers.
9. Large parties are common on this server, even at very low level
That won't change anything build-wise, but you may find you have several leveling options that you otherwise wouldn't.
10. Leveling (especially at first job) is generally much faster than old RO
You can pretty much ignore the death penalty entirely until you're quite high, which means you can take risks you otherwise may have been hesitant to.
Can anyone else think of anything major I missed?
Edited by Mwrip, 27 July 2017 - 12:03 PM.
thanks for this.
