General

@johnadrianli:

Honestly Dark Knight's don't really need more than one line of ignore defense potential. I was able to kill Cvellum just fine on my drk friend's character with about 86% PDR on the stat screen, but this was pre-nerf and he had infinite gungnir back then.

But yes, coupled with the fact that I believe gungnir also has 30% ignore defense and 30+20 (sources are calculated as separate by nexon) if you count the ignore defense hyper skill- I don't think Drk's need more than 85-90%, even for Cvellum.

In your situation, after you get the leafre codex and lumi link I think you'll still have a decent amount of pdr. (According to a few simple calcs... I think you'll have about 82-83%?
(If you cube away all three of your current ignore def weapon potentials and add the lumi link and leafre set effect.)

However, personally I feel 85-90% is the area to stop at, since at that point getting a 30% source only increases your ignore defense by 3-5%.

If you don't plan on fighting CVellum any time soon... then feel free to cube your weapons. However I'll still advise against cubing the emblem simply because [b]cubing's a b!{th and never gives you the stats you want,[/b] [i]in this case- 21%+ Atk[/i].

The other two you have a bit more freedom on, since you're going to be aiming for a mix of two stats- %boss and %atk.

[quote=johnadrianli]cubing my weapon in my current situation is the best possible path to take in improving my pots and therefore, my damage against typical bosses?[/quote]

We can't really answer that question at the moment unfortunately, due to not knowing your situation (funds available, stats on other gears) [b]BUT[/b]

Bonus potential is a great way to get some %atk, since it's the only stat you want to aim for when cubing bonus potential for weapons. However it's also hilariously expensive, at 2.4k NX each cube so it may not be the optimal route to take at the moment.

If you somehow do manage to get just 9% atk+ on each weapon's bonus potential, it'll be worth it however. Even more so if some turn out to be 15-21% Atk.

[quote=iEvanMaster]Just some PDR values for a few noteworthy bossses:

Chaos Pierre=80%

Chaos Von Bon= Unsure, but I believe he's 80-100%

Chaos Queen= 120%

Chaos Vellum= 300%

Chaos Pink Bean Statues= 160%

Chaos Pink Bean= 180%

Regular Pink Bean= 70%

Empress= 100% or 120-140% (I remembered that they changed her Defense, but I forgot the exact value they changed it to.)

Hard Magnus= Either 70 or 100%

Normal Magnus= 50%

Zakum/Horntail are around the 30-50% PDR range, and so are the other "minor" bosses, but I assume you don't care about them.

** Special mention to Hard Hilla, apparently her defense is higher than Cvellum's when she's below 25% HP... Which seemed to be true, my damage was way lower on her than on CVel.

Gollux= I ESTIMATE, [i]please keep this in mind, this is the only value that I'm simply guessing on. The rest I've seen extractions from SP.[/i]
[b][i]I think Hell Gollux has about 70% PDR, but I'm not sure. The reason for the huge damage cut at the eye and forehead phase is because those mobs are a higher level, which reduces your damage.[/i][/b].

Don't ask how I know. I've spent far too long playing this game and figuring out the hidden stuff behind the scenes >_>. Some numbers may be off by a tiny bit, but most of them are correct, only Empress and C Von Von I'm not sure of. Either way, they'll give you an estimate at the very least of how the different boss's defenses compare to each other.

[b]Alright, now to answer your question on how getting more %ignore affects your damage against different bosses.[/b]

Fortunately, this part's pretty simple.

Let's say your Ignore Defense is 90%. Against CVellum you're doing 70% of your damage to him, not counting physical resist- which reduces that to 35% since physical resist halves your damage.

Now, lets say that you upgraded to 95% defense ignore. Now you're doing 85% of your damage to him, since now he only has 5% defense remaining- which is .05*300 or 15. So now you're doing 42.5% damage, if you factor in physical resist or 85% if you don't.

Basically this concept applies to all the bosses, as long as you know their Defense values.

However basically as long as you have 90% or more pdr you're good for all bosses except cvellum, where the situation changes because his defense is simply far greater than any of the other bosses in the game, and is the reason why I say you want as much ignore def as possible for him.

I'm going to assume you know how Nexon calculates how much Ignore Defense (PDR) you have... if you don't, it's fairly simple. The following is an example:

Let's say your ignore defense sources are: 40%, 10%, 30% and 15%.

100*.6*.9*.7*.85=32.13

That means, the enemy now has 32.13% defense remaining. Which means that you have 67.87% Ignore Defense (PDR).

If we were to add another 30% to that...
32.13*.7=22.491

Now it has 22.49% defense remaining, aka you ignored 77.51% of it's defense.

As you can see, %PDR suffers greatly from diminishing returns, which all stats in this game suffer from, the more that you get of something the potency of it diminishes.

For your cross surge problem... simply whack some enemies with it on and without it on, I guarantee you that you will find with surge on, you will be doing 80% more damage.

I hope I helped.[/quote]

This is some really helpful information that completely changes how I prioritize stats and look at my class. So I just wanna clarify: because fighting cvellum is such a small part of gameplay as a whole, is it really worth keeping all this defense ignore for other bosses like magnus / gollux / other cra over hard scaling stats like %ATT, and that if it is, cubing my weapon in my current situation is the best possible path to take in improving my pots and therefore, my damage against typical bosses?

Hard Hilla has 550% pdr after 50% or if she kills you once to gain a orb.

Nexon needs to be consistent with their terms, variables, and tooltip. example, Char cards increase your range but that's fake range when it actually adds directly to dmg output. Cross Surge looks like %Total but isn't (and royally screws up your tooltip range if you're trying to calculate dmg changes with other sources of %Total if you have no clue what things do).

@johnadrianli also another good/easy way to check if Cross Surge is %Total or not (if you have high %Boss). attack normal mob and compare to dmg against Boss (factor Phys resist if you must).
also, Pact works like old Berserk so it should be raw multiplier.

@iEvanMaster I think at some point, people figured Gungnir might act like char cards, too. it's not %total (again) but instead adds directly to output.

[quote=johnadrianli]Wow. No one has EVER brought up the idea that Cross Surge was a straight up multiplier rather than a flat %total damage increase(it certainly FEELS like %total damage, since it doesn't raise my range by even close to 80%). The skill description even explicitly reads %Total Damage. I calculated 170% from (assuming Surge and Pact WERE %total damage) 80 from surge, 50 from pact, and 40 from gungir hypers. It just feels like such a high amount of PDR doesn't benefit anywhere else OTHER than cvel. This leads to my next question, whats the benefit of even having such a high %PDR outside of cvellum? Is there a data chart which lists out all Boss PDR values and how getting %Ignore Monster Defense affects damage on said bosses?

(Also that was an editing error on my part. mb)[/quote]

Just some PDR values for a few noteworthy bossses:

Chaos Pierre=80%

Chaos Von Bon= Unsure, but I believe he's 80-100%

Chaos Queen= 120%

Chaos Vellum= 300%

Chaos Pink Bean Statues= 160%

Chaos Pink Bean= 180%

Regular Pink Bean= 70%

Empress= 100% or 120-140% (I remembered that they changed her Defense, but I forgot the exact value they changed it to.)

Hard Magnus= Either 70 or 100%

Normal Magnus= 50%

Zakum/Horntail are around the 30-50% PDR range, and so are the other "minor" bosses, but I assume you don't care about them.

** Special mention to Hard Hilla, apparently her defense is higher than Cvellum's when she's below 25% HP... Which seemed to be true, my damage was way lower on her than on CVel.

Gollux= I ESTIMATE, [i]please keep this in mind, this is the only value that I'm simply guessing on. The rest I've seen extractions from SP.[/i]
[b][i]I think Hell Gollux has about 70% PDR, but I'm not sure. The reason for the huge damage cut at the eye and forehead phase is because those mobs are a higher level, which reduces your damage.[/i][/b].

Don't ask how I know. I've spent far too long playing this game and figuring out the hidden stuff behind the scenes >_>. Some numbers may be off by a tiny bit, but most of them are correct, only Empress and C Von Von I'm not sure of. Either way, they'll give you an estimate at the very least of how the different boss's defenses compare to each other.

[b]Alright, now to answer your question on how getting more %ignore affects your damage against different bosses.[/b]

Fortunately, this part's pretty simple.

Let's say your Ignore Defense is 90%. Against CVellum you're doing 70% of your damage to him, not counting physical resist- which reduces that to 35% since physical resist halves your damage.

Now, lets say that you upgraded to 95% defense ignore. Now you're doing 85% of your damage to him, since now he only has 5% defense remaining- which is .05*300 or 15. So now you're doing 42.5% damage, if you factor in physical resist or 85% if you don't.

Basically this concept applies to all the bosses, as long as you know their Defense values.

However basically as long as you have 90% or more pdr you're good for all bosses except cvellum, where the situation changes because his defense is simply far greater than any of the other bosses in the game, and is the reason why I say you want as much ignore def as possible for him.

I'm going to assume you know how Nexon calculates how much Ignore Defense (PDR) you have... if you don't, it's fairly simple. The following is an example:

Let's say your ignore defense sources are: 40%, 10%, 30% and 15%.

100*.6*.9*.7*.85=32.13

That means, the enemy now has 32.13% defense remaining. Which means that you have 67.87% Ignore Defense (PDR).

If we were to add another 30% to that...
32.13*.7=22.491

Now it has 22.49% defense remaining, aka you ignored 77.51% of it's defense.

As you can see, %PDR suffers greatly from diminishing returns, which all stats in this game suffer from, the more that you get of something the potency of it diminishes.

For your cross surge problem... simply whack some enemies with it on and without it on, I guarantee you that you will find with surge on, you will be doing 80% more damage.

I hope I helped.

[quote=iEvanMaster]Where is this "170% free total damage" coming from?

If it's from cross surge: you must know that cross surge is a [b]multiplier, NOT %total damage. There's a reason why it's so OP. Basically, Surge is currently a 1.8x damage multiplier.[/b]

Final Pact is also an multiplier. As far as I know, Gungnir is the only skill that gives %total damage, and that is on its hyper.

[b]EDIT[/b]

One more thing I forgot to mention... I'm going to assume that you made a minor error, and you've edited the 12.25, which had me going "wtf" for a second there.

There's a very simple reason %boss can compete with %atk, despite the fact that point for point, %atk has much greater yields.

%Boss simply comes in greater quantities. 30% and 20% on unique versus 9 and 6% for %atk on unique, and 30, 35, and 40% for legendary versus 12% and 9% for %atk.

A ratio of approximately 3 is actually perfect- That means %atk and %boss will both give around the same damage increase when you take the above into account.[/quote]

Wow. No one has EVER brought up the idea that Cross Surge was a straight up multiplier rather than a flat %total damage increase(it certainly FEELS like %total damage, since it doesn't raise my range by even close to 80%). The skill description even explicitly reads %Total Damage. I calculated 170% from (assuming Surge and Pact WERE %total damage) 80 from surge, 50 from pact, and 40 from gungir hypers. It just feels like such a high amount of PDR doesn't benefit anywhere else OTHER than cvel. This leads to my next question, whats the benefit of even having such a high %PDR outside of cvellum? Is there a data chart which lists out all Boss PDR values and how getting %Ignore Monster Defense affects damage on said bosses?

(Also that was an editing error on my part. mb)

[quote=johnadrianli]I want you to realize how valuable %ATT is to my class. I'm a DrK, so just from hypers and class skills I have 170% free total damage (including the %boss hyper). I ran your formula and 1% ATT is = 12.25% Boss. With this insane ratio, wouldn't actively cubing for %ATT on every slot possible be more effective? (For example, I'd much prefer two %ATT lines and one PDR line on my emblem, rather than it is now).[/quote]

Where is this "170% free total damage" coming from?

If it's from cross surge: you must know that cross surge is a [b]multiplier, NOT %total damage. There's a reason why it's so OP. Basically, Surge is currently a 1.8x damage multiplier.[/b]

Final Pact is also a multiplier. As far as I know, Gungnir is the only skill that gives %total damage, and that is on its hyper.

[b]EDIT[/b]

One more thing I forgot to mention... I'm going to assume that you made a minor error, and you've edited the 12.25, which had me going "wtf" for a second there.

There's a very simple reason %boss can compete with %atk, despite the fact that point for point, %atk has much greater yields.

%Boss simply comes in greater quantities. 30% and 20% on unique versus 9 and 6% for %atk on unique, and 30, 35, and 40% for legendary versus 12% and 9% for %atk.

A ratio of approximately 3 is actually perfect- That means %atk and %boss will both give around the same damage increase when you take the above into account.

[quote=iEvanMaster][b]I will have far too much PDR even for cvel.[/b]

You do realize, that you can [i]never[/i] have too much pdr for CVellum, right?

PDR is still very important, and 1% PDR is equal to 3% of your TOTAL OVERALL damage being recovered when fighting him. Unless your capping, ignore defense helps a ton when fighting CVel.

... WITH THAT SAID: I believe you do have too many weapon potentials with pdr.

[b]DO NOT[/b] recube that emblem potential. Emblems cannot get %boss, and as such a mix of %pdr and %atk is the best that you can hope for, and that's what you have currently.

Instead, recube your weapon and secondary weapon, get as much %boss and %atk combined as possible, since you don't need to worry about %pdr any more once you've gotten your leafre set and link skills you're free to invest entirely in %boss and %atk.

To find out how much %boss is equal to %atk for you, please use the following formula:

100+(%boss)+(%total damage)/100+(%atk)= X % boss = to 1% atk.

For example, if someone has 200% boss and 55% total damage (20% from kanna and DA link, 15% from Mu Gong gloves, and 20% from gigas wave reinforce)*
and if you have 30% atk, then: 100+(200+55)/100+(30)=355/130=2.73

This means that currently for that person, 1% atk is equal to 2.73% boss damage.

*Kanna and DA links count as %total damage. So do reinforce hyper skills. Just something that some people may not be aware of.[/quote]

I want you to realize how valuable %ATT is to my class. I'm a DrK, so just from hypers and class skills I have 170% free total damage (including the %boss hyper). I ran your formula and 1% ATT is = 3.24% Boss. With this ratio, wouldn't actively cubing for %ATT on every slot possible be more effective? (For example, I'd much prefer two %ATT lines and one PDR line on my emblem, rather than it is now).

[b]I will have far too much PDR even for cvel.[/b]

You do realize, that you can [i]never[/i] have too much pdr for CVellum, right?

PDR is still very important, and 1% PDR is equal to 3% of your TOTAL OVERALL damage being recovered when fighting him. Unless your capping, ignore defense helps a ton when fighting CVel.

... WITH THAT SAID: I believe you do have too many weapon potentials with pdr.

[b]DO NOT[/b] recube that emblem potential. Emblems cannot get %boss, and as such a mix of %pdr and %atk is the best that you can hope for, and that's what you have currently.

Instead, recube your weapon and secondary weapon, get as much %boss and %atk combined as possible, since you don't need to worry about %pdr any more once you've gotten your leafre set and link skills you're free to invest entirely in %boss and %atk.

To find out how much %boss is equal to %atk for you, please use the following formula:

100+(%boss)+(%total damage)/100+(%atk)= X % boss = to 1% atk.

For example, if someone has 200% boss and 55% total damage (20% from kanna and DA link, 15% from Mu Gong gloves, and 20% from gigas wave reinforce)*
and if you have 30% atk, then: 100+(200+55)/100+(30)=355/130=2.73

This means that currently for that person, 1% atk is equal to 2.73% boss damage.

*Kanna and DA links count as %total damage. So do reinforce hyper skills. Just something that some people may not be aware of.

If I were in your position I'd personally leave the Badge and secondary as is. Recube your weapon, aim for higher boss or a mix with more ATT%. Really I'd say it depends on where you are sitting at right now with how much %ATT you have and boss damage you're sitting at.

But if you can, maybe you could end up recubing the badge if you really must.

Again this is just my personal opinion though. Hope others get to share theirs too