Nar vs Grandice

I guess it's common in most games that if it's hard to get, then it must be good, whether they be characters or equipment or other special trinkets. This ideology somehow runs the same way in sGE. Constellation Weapons, Garim / Magic belts, Argus earrings, Crafted Necklaces - they're all hard to get and sure are powerful. Reckless Emilia, Catherine Torsche and Grandice also fall within this category.

But there are also times when stock, free or easy to get characters are just as strong. Wizards, Scouts, Elementalists are common in the PVP metagame, Fighters and Coimbra Troopers cant be replaced in their roles in IWT and musketeers still rule ranged raids.

This brings me to compare Nar vs Grandice. If it weren't for several events, a lot less players will have Grandice due to the difficulty of acquiring her. Getting Nar on the other hand, is much easier. Despite this difference, the two are actually on par in PVP.

Grandice is wearing a +2STR Stance Ring and +1HP necklace

Nar is wearing a +1STR Stance Ring and a +1STR necklace

Wearing the same armors and roughly same stat weapons and under the same buffs, Grandice has a slightly higher base ATK than Nar, even with Nar's level 12 militant buff. Accoring to the wordwood, Grandice HG has +70% base attack whilst Nar Semilunar only has +50% base attack. Grandice also has 10 more AGI than Nar.

Their skills are similar to each other but from my experience, Nar's skill set is better and here's why

• Harsh Kick vs Impulse - same cool down and cast time, Harsh Kick is stronger by 28% at level 10 but Impulse ignores block and some def and hits 3 targets. Winner : Impulse
• Volition vs Merciless - Volition has a shorter cool down but it has a minimum distance (Grandice will actually step back) while Merciless has a higher multiplier (198% more at lvl 10) and has 10% more chance to stun. Winner : Merciless
• Ruthless vs Gruesome - same range and cast time, Gruesome has quicker cool down by 2 seconds and can attack 3 targets at once. Gruesome also has a much higher multiplier than Ruthless. Attacking 3 enemies at once is a big advantage to clear out an entire enemy family in 1 skill. Winner : Gruesome
• Slaughter vs Militant - albeit they are different in purpose, I decided to pair these two skills. Slaughter gives access to another potential killer skill (its damage is between Volition and Ruthless) whereas a level 12 Militant will greatly increase survivability and damage output of Nar. For raids when I need to spam skills, I would choose Slaughter but for PVP, 3 killer skills is more than enough. Winner : Militant for PVP.
• Carnage vs Occult Science - both low multipliers but cause "unexplainable" damage. It is believed that Carnage and Occult Science deal -holy- damage, ignoring all defense. Carnage is a bit hard to combine with Volition (knockdown, get close, cast at the right time) than Merciless + Occult Science (same ideology). Occult Science however can hit air units, can inflict status (IF they survive) and has a larger AOE (and is so much cooooler - Hi Avey, i like your rainbows). Winner : Occult Science

I also took stance bonuses into consideration when I chose between Hanging Guard and Semilunar. HG has 10% defense against ranged attacks, but is 20% more susceptible to magic and 10% more prone to debuffs. Semilunar has 10% defense against ranged attacks, but has 20% defense against magic and debuffs. The current metagame features a lot of magic attacks and debuffs, so Semilunar was a clear choice for higher chances of survival.

I must say in my recent PVP experiences Nar has proven to be better than Grandice. Merciless + Occult Science pretty much clears almost everyone. Occult Science is nice when Nar has just dodged several Reckless Emilia and/or Elementalists charging up for Abyss Flare. In the midst of chaos, hit the Occult Science button and watch (most of) the enemies die.

High Level PVP team progression

When I first started out, I had no intention of engaging in PVP. I knew sGE has been out for quite some time, and surely a lot of players would have far better equipment than me. So I was mostly a PVE player, just leveling my characters to expert and doing the raids I can.

After some time in Millenion, a number of players started engaging in PVP. They were masters already and I was still expert but I decided to join in anyways. I remember heavenzmandate and his fighter on defender as well as TheShadowKnightz with his elementalist in LOE stance. It was a lot more fun trying to use your skills against players who were not as predictable (sometimes) than normal mobs. This gave me the motivation to train my first 3 characters (Romina, SohoTheWind, Grace) to master and start engaging in PVP.

Training in Bahama AT to master allowed me to camp quite a number of King of Greeds (KOGs) and by the time I mastered my 3 characters, I already got 2 Dragon Heart Recipes. This allowed me to craft a black dagger for STW and a serpent rifle for Grace. Romina stayed with her +6 Trump Sword (woot!).

My initial team was ok-ok, able to handle various threats and can buff and debuff. I did however have problems with Hard Armour characters due to my weapons. After a few months, I got an iPod (calyce) and was extremely lucky in making a constellation crossbow (2 tries to +7, used 7 chips to get the stats) so I retired Grace and started using Calyce. She was fun to use, at the start. Approaching the enemy while invisible then releasing burst shot and watching bodies kiss the ground was fun until the 100th time, then I got bored of it.

I was contemplating on replacing Calyce with someone who was able to handle metal armour, and coincidentally a friend of mine was selling Grandice. In my faction I think less than a handful had Grandice, but I already knew she would be a great HG user. I bought Grandice and traded out my Crossbow and ELB fighter for a Constellation GreatSword, an Elite Schvarlier Armor and some other stuff.

While Grandice was training to master and still lacking a weapon, I went back to Grace for a few weeks. It felt so weird using flintlock again for PVP, but it was only temporary. The constellation GreatSword took 155 veteran chips and tranquilizers to get the current stats.

I was on Romina - STW - Grandice for a long time. It was quite a popular build and even until now, I still see top tier players using the same build. However, Grandice got old (get it? GET IT? ok.) and I moved on to try Nar.

I encountered a Nar user at Poison Yard and was impressed at his power, but I thought maybe that player possessed a really really good Hestia which would explain the great killing power. After training my Nar to master, I borrowed a War Crescent with 39 Atk Stat and tried out Nar's skills. To my surprise, even a +5 39atk 1s War Crescent dealt considerable damage to ESA + Garim + HOA. This pvp test closed the deal and I poured a substantial amount of my savings to prepare my Nar for PVP. His Hestia and stance rings took a lot more resources to complete than expected. Enough to make me EMO //__* but when it was all ready, it was very satisfying.

My current team is Romina - STW - Nar and I need a few more weeks of practice to completely sync their skill timings. But so far, Nar has proven to be thicker and stronger than Grandice.


And now for the hao lian part. My current weapons for my PVP teams.

Romina - Equites

Grace - Flintlock (now shared with Romina)

SohoTheWind - MMA (set sold)

SohoTheWind - Arnis

Calyce - Sagitta (sold)

Grandice - Hanging Guard

Nar - Semilunar

a side note on these pvp weapons - I am unsure as to whether Penetration Rumins are better than Attack Rumins.

One theory relates rumins to weapon type. Apparently one should put attack rumins on physical weapons  and penetration rumins on magic weapons. Another theory is dependent on stat weapon. If it's attack + AR, put attack rumins because the extra AR will penetrate through high DR. If it's attack + human, put penetration. A forum thread suggested that penetration wins hands down, but it used a japanese / russian damage calculator; the difference from attack rumins were only minor, less than 5% damage really. I really don't know which is good, not that rich or too concerned to test out damage with different rumin sets against different armor sets. If only GE had a damage calculator -in English-.

PVP Team : Low Level Secret Temple

I go to High Level Superfights quite often since I promoted my first three masters (Romina, STW, Grace) for a bit of PK action, some sunstone farming and of course, loots. But near the end of my gaming experience I realized that I haven't really gone into the low level superfights. No 32/33AR 30/32DR armors here - Elite84 is the top level equipment. No veteran or expert stances - just basic stances. The battles in low level superfights are closer, due to this limitation.

I wanted to try out low level ST so I asked Lloyd what team I should use. I had Romina and STW in mind, but their non-veteran stances were mediocre at best. So I went for Wizard - Scout - Cath Int, an old build I believe that was popular before the first server merge. I could have gone with an elementalist but I chose Catherine since she can also play as a partial wizard if needed. Scout was their for basic buffing and ressing - an aspect I just cant leave out of pvp. My Wizard would be a debuffer, controlling enemies with a variety of spells and Catherine would be my finisher with her 2 lightning stances. It seemed good in my head and I was ready to give it a go.

I was easily able to gather some equipment for my three characters due to my frequent visits in High Level Superfights as well as some support from my faction vault. Nobody claims elite84 armor anymore so I just help cleared out inventories and paying for them at a cheap, cheap, cheap rate. Weapons were a bit tougher since Elite84 Rods, Staffs and Bracelets are in high demand for making Rosario. I was hesitant at times either to keep my +6 Rod/Staff and Bracelets for my team or to sell them off at a high price.

Leveling this team also took me longer than normal, since I had to focus that each character was able to max all stances available before reaching level 84. I completed my equipment even before getting to level 84! So when I finally reached level 84 for my three characters, I was so happy to finally be able to wear their appropriate equipment. It was my first time to use a wizard and elementalist in pvp, and my scout skills have long vanished since I started using Romina + STW. With the help of Lloyd, Pyratic and MsSwan, I brushed up my skills with my new pvp team and was ready to go.

As with all superfights, things are only exciting in the presence of enemies, so you can try out your skills and equipment against them. So far, my team has proven good to most physical type enemies but is having a problem battling other Wizards and Elementalists/Hellenas. I still need to practice more in using the Wizard - she just has so many skills in her arsenal. Even if I only have three stances available at any one time, each stance has its own use. I usually get stuck in using levitation most of the time, switching to Illusionist for finisher debuffs (sleep / magical piercing) or escape (ritardi, spiritual shield) but I keep forgetting to use Psychokinesis skills - especially Apocalypse which has a large AOE and can stop enemies from using their skills.

Low level superfights actually give substantial amounts of experience to characters. If done three times daily, my characters will quickly get over their level limit of 90 and be unable to participate.. So I don't go to low level ST unless Lloyd will really bug me and I'm not swamped with other tasks. But when I do go and there are reds, it's always fun.

Brain of Argus #4, #5, #6, #4 again, #7, #8, #9

When i said in my previous entry that I will be leading the Brain of Argus raid, I thought it wont be difficult or stressful. Go in there, do the procedure, get the loots and done.

After doing Boss Summoning that night, I gathered a squad for the raid. The first batch had 7 people, which was a healthy number. BOA #4 consisted of Vugtis as tanker and me as main DPS. Our "roasted sotong" method is very dependent on our tanker, and Vugtis' internet connection is... not that reliable. Don't get me wrong, Vug is a very capable tank - if he is online. As fate would have it, Vugtis disconnected at BOA #4, and we aborted that due to people dieing left, right and center.

A small squad is enough

I then switched people around and designated Cruz to tank. It was his first time to do so, but he has seen me done the role several times. I had hoped seeing me do the tanking was enough for Cruz to tank well. As his first time on the job, he did pretty well :) BOA #5 and #6 was a breeze. We went and revisited BOA #4 on the same evening and finished it with no problems.

Roasted Sotongs

After the max emo time a.k.a. respawn time was over, I gathered a squad again to visit BOA three more times. I was not able to farm Amethyst Piece over the week, so I did not have enough to sponsor my raiders. Luckily, drummies (server's Highest family level - 56 + 2) had been farming at that map and was kind enough to provide AP for the rest of the crew.

We went off with a cold start with BOA #7. Vug was available again to tank, but was unable to maintain his connection for the first half of the raid. We also had a newcomer with us, who used AOEs (Abyss Flare) against the 8 sotongs. Sotongs are very angry mobs. You touch them once and they will not stop whacking you until you are dead. And die, we did. Without a tank, the ideal way to deal with sotongs is to attack them 1 at a time, with a scout on arnis upfront while elementalists and musks whittle away its HP. But due to Abyss Flare, all 8 sotongs engaged us. The family who turned them aggro quickly died, which left the 8 sotongs free to choose from the rest of the squad. There were 8 of us at the time and sotongs had a target fest. We were getting knocked backed and consequently dieing. It took me a fair bit of time to settle things down, even with the help of drugs. As we were finishing rounding up these wild sotongs, Vug's connection improved and he was able to tank the brain.

Cruz came online just before BOA #8, so again Cruz and Vug switched roles. This time around Cruz had minor computer problems and some people (including me, lol) went to the wrong channel for the raid. By the time everyone was gathered, there were 2 sotongs left. We moved on to the brain and it didn't prove to be a problem as we were able to down it before it hid it its shell and summon Argus.

Finally on BOA #9, everyone was familiar with their roles and we were able to do it a lot quicker. Everyone went to the correct channel this time (lol), entered the same time, stacked the right buffs and attacked according to plan.

Everything was going ok until I looked at my inventory and saw that I had brought 2 Prelude Rings. I could have lent them to our Prelude buffer for level 12 buffs. Many thanks to drummies for sponsoring them much needed AP and the faction's excellent Daemon bracelets. This will be the last time I will lead Argus raid (for now) as next week our Faction Leader will be back.

"oh, i have 2 prelude stance rings here"

loyd is not impressed

Another Boathon Successful

Colony Boss Summoning

During my faction leader weak week, it is my responsibility to summon our colony bosses every night. It's sort of a source for extra income as the bosses will drop veteran and level 100 chips, pure gold bars, elite 84 and level 100 items and other items that are unique to that boss. The best loots I have seen so far is a Dragon Heart Recipe from Avalanche Apparition, and an Unknown Ore (Claire Quest) from the Elite Storm Cockatrice that accompany the Giant Cockatrice when summoned.

When a colony boss dies, its loots normally would have no name attached to it, meaning that anyone will be able to pick up the loots. It used to be free-for-all for Eminence Boss Summoning, so people with high movement speed and pigling pet were at an advantage. To equalize the loots, a squad is now formed for boss summoning and the loots are now set to acquire by turn. Not only does this make the loots fair for everyone, it also makes it easier to down the bosses by stacking multiple buffs from various characters.

Colony Boss summoning is done every night when most of the members are able to participate. It should take no longer than 25 minutes to summon and deal with all colony bosses.