Red always except for magic weapons. Not sure about cylinders. Just think about it this way, once you get stronger, ull regret ur weapon is blue

Quote from BecomeMeguca;1139484:

Red always except for magic weapons. Not sure about cylinders. Just think about it this way, once you get stronger, ull regret ur weapon is blue

For one-handed weapons, Red doesn't overtake Blue until base damage ~275 and above.
For 2-handed weapons, Red doesn't overtake Blue until base damage ~300 and above.

... but those are at 30% critical, the less your effective crit rate (due to protection and/or using a skillset without a lot of prot-calc-ignore), the less effective Red is.

So which combat type you're using comes into it as well, which is why I mentioned how people say to go red for things with prot-calc-ignore like guns and fighter. Like, if you're using melee or range with normal attacks and your effective crit against a target is 0%, then Red is doing nothing, while Blue is still increasing damage.

I made this calculator display varying cirt percents because people need to stop thinking about the best case scenarios and take into account the range of combat styles people use and the range of targets people fight (especially how shadow missions toss lots of prot on monsters, it's so annoying).

Of course towards end game you're going to have 120%+ crit anyways which will allow you to crit 30% of the time even with mobs with high protection. Heck most of the time I have 130% crit.

Then again, to get to that point takes a lot of time and effort. If you don't have that high of crit, then of course blue will be the better choice for skills that don't ignore protection

Quote from Rydian;1139491:

For one-handed weapons, Red doesn't overtake Blue until base damage ~275 and above.
For 2-handed weapons, Red doesn't overtake Blue until base damage ~300 and above.

... but those are at 30% critical, the less your effective crit rate (due to protection and/or using a skillset without a lot of prot-calc-ignore), the less effective Red is.

So which combat type you're using comes into it as well, which is why I mentioned how people say to go red for things with prot-calc-ignore like guns and fighter. Like, if you're using melee or range with normal attacks and your effective crit against a target is 0%, then Red is doing nothing, while Blue is still increasing damage.

I made this calculator display varying cirt percents because people need to stop thinking about the best case scenarios and take into account the range of combat styles people use and the range of targets people fight (especially how shadow missions toss lots of prot on monsters, it's so annoying).

I can understand your sentiment, but it's really, really easy to hit the crit cap for the average player. I was at over 100 crit by the time I was 2k. It's especially easy if you wear critical enchants and/or post talent. Unless you're going for something crazy like 70% protection, or you're very new, you shouldn't have a problem critting.

At least, that's my take on the situation anyway. There could be other specific cases, such as if you only ranked magic for 2k levels, but blue upgrades would be better anyway :p

Critical becomes a throwaway commodity in late game.

With my current guns, I have over 150% crit, meaning even if an enemy has 60 protection, I still have maximum rate of rate of critical.

It'll be very uncommon to find an enemy who will have over 60 protection as an every day enemy. Even Peaca Ghost bears 70% and you always have MA or Bone Dragon to knock off at least 10% protection.

Thank you!

Quote from Gensokyou;1139494:

the average player
[...]
2k

The average player is not 2K total. I'm less than 1.2K myself and I've been around for a few years on and off (and I've been on this forum almost 2 years).

This is why I made the tool, because not every player is "endgame", so the same bits of advice don't apply to everybody's situation. People can type in their damage and weapon type and see for themselves which path works in which situation, not just endgame with specific combat styles

Quote from Kenero;1139499:

and you always have MA or Bone Dragon to knock off at least 10% protection.

I don't, nor do any of the 6 people I normally play with have a bone dragon. Don't know what MA is.

Quote from Rydian;1139504:

[Image: http://rydian.net/emotes/cat_silver/images/wtf.gif]

The average player is not 2K total. I'm less than 1.2K myself and I've been around for a few years on and off (and I've been on this forum almost 2 years).

This is why I made the tool, because not every player is "endgame", so the same bits of advice don't apply to everybody's situation. People can type in their damage and weapon type and see for themselves which path works in which situation, not just endgame with specific combat styles

First of all, you're taking what I said completely out of context with that quote. Did I say that the average player is 2k? No, I didn't.

What I DID say was that it was easy for the average player to hit the crit cap, and it is. Now, we could sit here and debate the average total level of a player but that's really beside the point:

[SPOILER="total levels"]Considering the length of time that the game has been around, and that the availability of 3 week rebirth has been around as long as i've been playing at least (which is around a year), you can argue that for the average player (So not the new players, not the inactive players, not the vet players, the average player) has had at least 17 rebirths in their time playing, assuming they've been playing for about a year without paying or for a few months paying for weekly rebirths. Level 90 is a fair average to assume, considering that on my first ever 3 week rebirth, playing the game, without any help, I managed to get to level 80 from 1. I didn't know about single day rebirth before level 100 back then or anything, and I didn't nolife the crap out of Mabi. 17 by 90 gives you 1.5k, which would be by far a lower bound estimate for the average player. In my experience, the average player would be more around 2-3k, although I can't give you any statistics or maths to back that up. It's just my experiences on my server. Now, irregardless of the total level, it's quite easy to hit the crit cap. Looking at non-smithed artisaned battle swords alone, with a decent roll (60+ luck, which is easy with artisan kits and not too difficult without NX because of the availability), you get nearly 40% crit just from your weapons alone, with no enchants, no stats, no nothing. [/SPOILER]

The point that i'm making is that it's really easy to get crit. I've discussed this in my guild chat a few times now: If you're a lower levelled player and don't have the stats to back up the better upgrades/weapons, then chances are that you don't have the enchants, or can't afford the special upgrades anyway. Enchants are a better use of money then special upgrades at first unless you are really, really lucky. And even then, it's not hard to get or hunt some cheap enchants.

Now, if you are in the situation where:
-You don't have the stats to back up R upgrades as the better option and/or are low levelled
-You're somehow filthy stinking rich
-You also somehow have a fully decked and activated enchant set and still don't have enough crit/damage

Then yes, it's not as clear cut, just as you're stating.

However, it's always my intention to give the best advice possible. When someone asks about special upgrades and specifies only a few things (Such as their total level or their maximum damage, or playstyle), then i'm going to give advice that caters to the 99%, not to the 1%. If they specify that they are in x situation and not looking to improve and/or are stinking filthy rich yadda yadda, then you can give more specialized advice.

I don't, nor do any of the 6 people I normally play with have a bone dragon. Don't know what MA is.

MA is Martial Arts. Kenero's referring to the spinning uppercut skill, which debuffs the opponent for 30 defence and 10% protection at rank 1.

It's also not about having or not having a bone dragon.

And that's not even taking into account skills that ignore protection, like most things that hits more then 1 mob at once :x

I understand where you are going from, and if you do not meet the requirements for red, then blue is superior... however, red is always a long term investment. Whether that person believes it is worth the investment is up to them.

It's kind of ironic, most of the type of mobs in which reds a generally most effective are those that have a bare minimum of 30~50% protection. Still, critical rate isn't too much of a concern.

Quote from Zekkii;1139591:

It's kind of ironic, most of the type of mobs in which reds a generally most effective are those that have a bare minimum of 30~50% protection. Still, critical rate isn't too much of a concern.

Pretty much!

People can have ungodly critical rates without any significant boost (but I've used critical sets that have boosted me up to 240%):


[SIZE="1"]This is me with just my guns equipped[/SIZE]

However, on some boss monsters, mainly raid bosses, field bosses, or martial arts npc (such as Tarlach, Kristell, etc.) with insane high hp, you can lower their prot to 0 with brionac/demigod and deal red damage unhindered.

It's actually quite nice when your smash hits Tarlach for 20k+ damage per hit and he goes down quite fast.

It's actually quite nice.

The only thing about blue upgrades that is tiresome is that unless you're perfect for it...

Upgrading in general is just expensive. Especially on Mabinogi's luck system, you can spend so much just to get to r5 of Blue...

If I had to choose as a newbie, I would rather not SG my weapon and just stick to the fomor or normal variants until I get strong enough and financially stable to make use of red, or expect a long term investment...

Like buying a HLB and getting it to r5 when my max damage is only 180, but expecting to grow my character to some high damage.

Quote from Kenero;1139499:

Critical becomes a throwaway commodity in late game.

With my current guns, I have over 150% crit, meaning even if an enemy has 60 protection, I still have maximum rate of rate of critical.

It'll be very uncommon to find an enemy who will have over 60 protection as an every day enemy. Even Peaca Ghost bears 70% and you always have MA or Bone Dragon to knock off at least 10% protection.

I thought each point of protection reduces crit chance by 2%. thats what the wiki says, anyways, and i was under the impression it was correct for the longest time.

EDIT: whoops, was reading too fast, i should have paid more attention. My bad.

crit ain't gonna be throwaway come stat revamp

monsters that reduce 60% of ur dmg r probably going to have like 90 something protection

though the monsters with 50 or under are gonna be easier to crit

unless they change the crit chance vs. protection formula too

Quote from drezzt;1139639:

I thought each point of protection reduces crit chance by 2%. thats what the wiki says, anyways, and i was under the impression it was correct for the longest time.

It does. 1 prot = -2% crit.

But if you think about it... 50 prot = -100% crit, so to effective do 30% crit to an enemy, you only need 130% crit.

If you have an enemy with 60 prot... it is 60 * 2 = -120% ... then to do 30%, you need to do 150%

With an enemy with 70 prot... it is 70 * 2 = -140% crit chance, so you need 170% crit chance to do a full crit.

However, you can reduce an enemy's protection.

Let's take Peaca Ghost.

They have 70 prot, so you need 170% crit to have the full 30%.

If you lower it by 10 from bone dragon ,it becomes 60 prot, meaning you only need 150% to do the full crit chance.

If you lower it another 10% from spinning uppercut, its prot becomes 50... which lowers it further to 130% to do full crit chance.

If you use brionac, it permenantly takes away an enemy's protection by -3% PER hit. You can effectively bring an enemy with high prot, like 70%... all the way down to 0%.