Guide to Choosing a Special Upgrade

• Justified wrote on 2011-01-25 21:26

  Quote from Kenero;304266:

  Of course, this is assuming the monsters have 0 defense and 0% protection right?

  
  
  Your numbers are only comparing criticals, while mine compare overall damage. If we adjust for critical chance...
  
  S-Type/Blue
  1,334 normal hit * 70% = 934
  3,335 critical hit * 30% = 1,000
  Average damage = 1,934
  
  R-Type/Red
  1,246 normal hit * 70% = 872
  3,439 critical hit * 30% = 1,032
  Average damage = 1,904
  
  The S-Type is still better after accounting for defense.
  
  Of course, Defense does reduce the effectiveness of S-Type/Blue upgrades, more than R-Type/Red upgrades, but not that drastically. I did mention that in the first post...
  
  

  Quote from Justified;300473:

  [UB]This is a comparison on net average damage, so it'll only be accurate for 0 Defense mobs which you have maxed 30% Critical chance on. The more Defense a mob has, the better R-Type upgrades get (you don't need as much damage R). The less Critical chance you have, the better S-Type upgrades get (you need more damage for R).[/UB]

  
  
  Protection doesn't matter (assuming crit chance is still maxed) since it's a percentage reduction. The stronger hit will still be the stronger hit.
• Dracius wrote on 2011-01-25 22:07
  I'm choosing one just for the color (Yes, I'm a noob), but this was interesting to find out.
• Kenero wrote on 2011-01-25 22:27

  Quote from Justified;304294:

  Your numbers are only comparing criticals, while mine compare overall damage. If we adjust for critical chance...
  
  S-Type/Blue
  1,334 normal hit * 70% = 934
  3,335 critical hit * 30% = 1,000
  Average damage = 1,934
  
  R-Type/Red
  1,246 normal hit * 70% = 872
  3,439 critical hit * 30% = 1,032
  Average damage = 1,904
  
  The S-Type is still better after accounting for defense.
  
  Of course, Defense does reduce the effectiveness of S-Type/Blue upgrades, more than R-Type/Red upgrades, but not that drastically. I did mention that in the first post...
  
  
  
  Protection doesn't matter (assuming crit chance is still maxed) since it's a percentage reduction. The stronger hit will still be the stronger hit.

  
  
  Oh no, I do hear that over time, blue does better, however, realistically, higher tier monsters have more defense which renders them close when it comes to terms of critical. In the same flip side, you could have cases where you're critical hitting like crazy and times where you can not even do a single crit during a while battle.
  
  Point is, these upgrades are fairly close and depending on what is fought, it may make little to no difference.
  
  Likewise, for weapons that boosts almost no critical, blue upgrade is ideal, since red upgrade will have little occurance.
• Alice wrote on 2011-01-26 00:40
  I wonder at what defense red stone would start pulling ahead in that example.
  *nevermind I did some calculations and it's not significant enough I think to be worth trying to figure out...
  
  *And Adv\Hard mobs have +30~40 def so they will almost certainly have 40~70 defense usually, with Elite having an additional +20 def over Hard, so 20 def is a bit low.
  
  *I noticed that it's assumed that the player will always hit max with a normal hit in that calculation but it's only the critical bonus damage that is unaffected by balance. Not sure how significant this is so I'm just putting it out there.
• Zid wrote on 2011-01-26 15:51
  Great guide. +rep
  
  I want to reference this soon into my 2h vs dw guide.
• Phanterz wrote on 2011-01-26 23:47

  Quote from Kenero;304370:

  Oh no, I do hear that over time, blue does better, however, realistically, higher tier monsters have more defense which renders them close when it comes to terms of critical. In the same flip side, you could have cases where you're critical hitting like crazy and times where you can not even do a single crit during a while battle.
  
  Point is, these upgrades are fairly close and depending on what is fought, it may make little to no difference.
  
  Likewise, for weapons that boosts almost no critical, blue upgrade is ideal, since red upgrade will have little occurance.

  
  
  If you already use heavy-hitting skills that can hit in the four digits, only a Ghast's defense will make much difference. Protection, however, will reduce damage by a lot more on these "higher tier" monsters.
  
  Also, compromises are always available. For dual wielding one weapon could be S and the other R. The breakeven between this and double S is also in the 3xx range.
• Aubog007 wrote on 2011-01-27 11:46
  Alchemy hates Crit and not sacrificing damage and money to make them crit. Only worthwhile R typed cylinder is the Volcano for the protection ignoring capabilities.
• Taliya wrote on 2011-01-28 01:27
  So did you ever do your test? I'm still certain damage on weapons is averaged out. That was always the benefit of enchanting strength over +damage as far as I know.
• Cryosite wrote on 2011-01-29 05:24

  Quote from Taliya;307297:

  So did you ever do your test? I'm still certain damage on weapons is averaged out. That was always the benefit of enchanting strength over +damage as far as I know.

  
  
  The stats shown on your character page lead to a lot of misleading ideas like yours.
  
  WM, Smash, Counter attack, assault slash, the melee portion of blaze, and any other single-hit skill that is based on your melee damage works like this:
  
  Base+weapon1+weapon2.
  
  Max damage enchants, min damage enchants, and balance enchants that are on the weapon itself apply to that weapon in the formula. Str (regardless of location), max damage (etc) enchants on locations other than a weapon apply to the base. However since all three are added together before being multiplied by the skill in question, it is a bit moot.
  
  Where it matters at all is when doing normal attacks (or final hit). Each weapon does Weapon+base. In that situation, after both weapons hit once, str ends up contributing damage twice. So an enchant like spike adds 14 melee damage to WM, it ends up adding 18 damage to N, because the +4 damage from 10 str applies to both weapons hitting. That is the only impact enchanting for str vs max damage has. Considering most players playstyle heavily favors wm/smash there is functionally very little difference. Convert the str gain on your enchant into max damage and enchant for whatever gives the most.
• TheKartheus wrote on 2011-01-29 19:47
  R-type stacks for dual weilding, so the breakeven point comes down to a lot less.
• Justified wrote on 2011-01-29 20:31
  Added a bit of a debate between S and R usefulness.
  Though it's mostly a restate of what was already said, or should be common sense.
  
  
  

  Quote from TheKartheus;309767:

  R-type stacks for dual weilding, so the breakeven point comes down to a lot less.

  
  
  Do you have any evidence of this? I've gotten much more feedback saying it does not stack.
• Animefreak97 wrote on 2011-01-30 00:53
  On the nexon forums in the mabinogi armory(I think) some one posted a SS of his equipment and his R-type weapons and it did stack. (So they say)
  
  Link: http://forum.nexon.net/Mabinogi/forums/thread/6664058.aspx
• Justified wrote on 2011-01-30 02:13
  ^
  
  186 Max in character window
  75 Max Broadsword + 77 Max Broadsword (average 76)
  110 base Max damage (186 - 76)
  262 total Max damage (100 + 75 + 77)
  
  1310 base Smash damage (262 * 5)
  3746 Smash Crit damage (1310 * [2.5 + .18 + .18])
  4875 displayed Smash damage
  
  
  In other words, he cheated the results.
  
  Edit: If for some reason the character window was naked...
  
  (65 - 8 [barehand] * 5 * 2.86) = 815 Smash Crit damage.
  
  4562 total, still 313 less than displayed.
• Aubog007 wrote on 2011-01-30 03:30

  Quote from Justified;309824:

  Added a bit of a debate between S and R usefulness.
  Though it's mostly a restate of what was already said, or should be common sense.
  
  
  Do you have any evidence of this? I've gotten much more feedback saying it does not stack.

  
  
  I've asked other players who look on the JP wiki and they confirm that R type stacks.
  
  I thought ive already said this.
  
  Ill check again though.
  
  
  EDIT: That's Kurodo. I trust his results greatly.
• Archibald wrote on 2011-01-30 03:39
  Does that mean they stack for WM too? if so that would make R far outclass S upgrades for duel wield melee weapons.