General

[quote=TheDevilish0ne] You can quote by doing this (without the periods of course) [.quote.=.Insert-Basil-ID-Of That-Person]what the person has written (copy paste the part you want to direct your reply to)[./.quote]
So basically it would be like:
[quote]
(your reply)
[quote]
(your reply)
but you don't have to make any brackets for the reply part.[/quote]
Thanks for showing me how to do this xD

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Having that Mechanic for the 20% Buff Duration seems a great idea such that the skill duration is equivalent to its cooldown time. However, can you be certain that it works ? I'm having this doubt because it doesn't seem to work with a Dual Blade's Final Cut skill so this led me to think that skills with cooldown aren't affected ? Though I'm not too sure. [/quote]

Well the mechanic card increases buff duration by 15% at lv 120 and 20% at lv 200 so it makes Soul Stone's duration go from 300 secs so 345 and 360 secs respectively, while its coldown is always 360 seconds. The character card that reduces skill's coldown's time is the mercedes card which I believe is -4% and -5% cd time at lv 120 and 200 respectively, so the mech card is 4x better if the skill is a buff, but useless if it isn't like in final cut's case. My BaM friend is working on making his body boost last as much as the coldown time using a combination of mercedeses and mechs cards.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne] However, I would suggest for you to keep some of your funds to cube your shield (if it was decently scrolled) slightly after the Tempest patch since shields are able to have weapon potential. The secondary weapon that an Evan can possess has 10 Int and Luk as well as 3 Magic Attack so if your shield has better base stats than that, then it would actually be better to cube your shield as it is another source of % Bossing Damage and Ignore % DEF or you could go for % Critical Rate I suppose. [/quote]

I had already thought about this, and yes! my shield is pretty good (20 int 18 ma.att 3l epic 9% int deimos sage shield); but unfortunately it already took me 46 cubes just to get that 9% INT and I don't think i will cube it again. Instead I will cube that secondary weapon to gain the 3% critical rate I need to have 100% crit rate when hyper skills come out and then cube both this 2ndary weapon's and my staff's additional potential to +damage cap since I already do 900k-930ks with dragon thrust's criticals against bosses without PI boost. But yeah still another great source of % boss damage and %mdr.

[quote=phoenix23] [b]Can teleport proc Spark?[/b] [/quote]
No it can't sadly :l otherwise I would totally telecast at any given chance.

[quote=phoenix23] 150% damage over 25s is nothing, really.
Say you see the boss is about to cast magic immune.
You have a choice.
In the time it takes for one flamewheel (and 3-4m damage), you can cast 2 DTs (and 6-8m damage)
Cast flamewheel, or cast two DTs.
150% is not equivalent to 2-5m damage for anyone. This does NOT greatly lower the amount of time needed to kill the monster.
Optimal choice: never FW [/quote]
Exactly what I think.

[quote=phoenix23] I'm not talking about critical rate that people work hard and aim for. Certainly, many players aim for critical rate, perhaps more so in GMS than in SEA. The rings and the link skills and everything I'm talking about is INCIDENTAL crit rate. Crit rate that players stumble upon, or are granted by events, etc... not critical rate people have poured money into getting. Players in a B situation, as above, won't ditch the crit rate unless they're confident they can replace it with something better. If they do, they will no longer be B players.
I'm not suggesting many players do that. I suppose some players go for a balance of crit rate and raw damage. It'd be a very interesting experiment if someone aimed for 666k thrusts and 100% crit rate, but like you said I don't think many people go for that route. In this case, especially, neither 45% NOR 60% crit rates in the chart would be especially helpful. [/quote]
You just described the way I'm funding my Evan, all the %crit rate I obtained was gotten from resources were it didn't reduce my %INT nor boss damage, or even if it did the %crit rate increased the damage output more than what I was losing in stats, decent SE neb over 4% all stats neb as an example.
At the moment, with 143k range (equipping my currently clean but 55% boss 30% mdr staff) and with a total of 70% boss damage and pdr/mdr I'm doing ~900k critical hits with dragon thrust on Pink Bean/Empress. So, instead of spending dozens of cubes making all my equips unique/legendary with 15%+ INT to make my range high enough to hit the same with non criticals, I will just wait for hyper skills and that secondary weapon to come out to get that last % crit rate I need to do critical hits all the time, and perfect my clean staff for the extra range that I need for solid caps. Then I will probably work on getting more MP as I only have 53k at the moment.

[quote=Raskler]Q: Can anybody confirm if the +6% ignore pdr from pirate s set gives mdr ignore also? [/quote]
I believe it does because it says ignore DEF just like in weapon's potential or on the codex's text, but I'm not 100% certain because I haven't tested it myself.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Critical Rate is helpful, yes that is agreeable but everyone has their opinion and mine is with the amount of time spent getting that additional critical rate, wouldn't you have opt to increase your damage by other means such that you won't be [b]reliant[/b] on criticals because Evans are not exactly an easy class of achieving max critical rate compared to classes like Phantoms and Bishops?[/quote]
I agree with your opinion. Again, a difference in perspectives though -- while what you say IS infact ideal and optimal, it's simply not what everyone does in GMS.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Dragon Thrust is indeed the ultimate skill for Evans. I believe it has the fastest attack speed of any mobbing skill (tied with Upper Stab from Dual Blades at 360ms) aside from key-down Hurricane-type skills.[/quote]
330ms for Final Toss wins out <3.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]It gets better with practice actually so if you can master this, the benefits can be rewarding.

I don't think I mentioned this before but I feel that I have found a small little trick to make this telecasting easier (I felt it was easier). @Raskler, you might be interested to know as well.

With Illusion, it really isn't an issue because you can telecasting every 2 attacks but for Dragon Thrust, it works slightly different although you can telecast every [b]3[/b] Dragon Thrust's.

What you should do when you telecast is this: You [b]hold down your "up" arrow key and "Illusion" key[/b]. After every 2 Illusion, press "Teleport" and you should deal damage. Holding on to the "up" arrow key doesn't affect you in any way unless there is a rope/ladder near you which you can position yourself so that you are not directly under it.[/quote]

Yeah, that's exactly how I telecast with my F/P & Bishop... (which I found especially useful during that mage glitch over the summer when all magic attacks dealt 999,999 no matter what).
The 18X evan I use is shared with my brother. It's his character, and he has more practice and better control with it. When I suggested to him (this summer) that telecasting might be viable, he said Illusion was too fast. I tried telecasting every two illusions, and it worked. I asked him if he could pull it off, and it couldn't. That's the extent of my practice with evan telecasting -- so I'll have to give it another shot. I can't boot maple atm, though. Gotta redownload.
If there's demand for it, I'll create a new series adding Telecast Illusion to the chart. I'd be very interested in seeing how that compares to DT. In fact I'll add it to my to-do-list now.
[b]Can teleport proc Spark?[/b]

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]
The issue with Dragon Thrust is that it attacks with this instantaneous and continuous stream so when you try to inculcate Teleport into it, it breaks this momentum that Dragon Thrust has built up.

Now I found out that I could do it easier when I set [b]Dragon Thrust on a macro[/b]. Set up [b]3[/b] Dragon Thrust in a macro. When you attack, gently tap this macro and hold the "up" arrow key and press "Teleport" every 3 Dragon Thrust's (you should be able to estimate when you are able to telecasting again). Skills set into a macro have this "priority" to occur unless disrupted by another skill however, by repeating this macro, you are forcing the "priority" command to refresh and thereby able to keep this momentum of Dragon Thrust as well as being able to telecast with it.

However, the dangerous thing with that is that is can be hard to stop so it can cause some accidental deaths if you unable to stop it in time due to Damage Reflect being casted for instance.[/quote]

The hard-to-stop thing is something I'm very familiar with, Final Toss is the same way.
I'll try programming a macro sometime for DT. I don't think I can work it manually.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]
"Super Magic Defense Up" actually lasts 30 seconds if I remembered correctly.

However, that isn't my point. My point is actually to cast Flame Wheel [b]just before[/b] the monster casts "Super Magic Defense Up" so that the Damage Over Time can deal damage even when you are unable to attack. The thing you have to do is micro-manage the time you have of attacking and know when to cast Flame Wheel for its effects to occur. If you have played an F/P Arch Mage, then it shouldn't be too much of a problem since they have to make sure all the Damage Over Time from their various skills are working their way chewing down on the monster.

When you mentioned that Evans had to cast Flame Wheel in the middle of a Dragon Thrust/Illusion attack spam, I believe you didn't take in account that Flame Wheel is able to deal damage too as with its Damage Over Time and that after that Flame Wheel attack, the only damage you are able to do is only 1. The difference can be made up because of that 30 seconds you are unable to attack, the Damage Over Time from Flame Wheel can greatly bolster and lower the amount of time needed to kill the monster.

Having 60% Damage Over Time on Flame Wheel is insane because that would mean the Damage Over Time from Flame Wheel does 1500% Damage within the span of the 25 seconds and not to forget that Flame Wheel is able to hit 3 lines of damage at a relatively fast speed too.[/quote]

150% damage over 25s is nothing, really.
Say you see the boss is about to cast magic immune.
You have a choice.
In the time it takes for one flamewheel (and 3-4m damage), you can cast 2 DTs (and 6-8m damage)
Cast flamewheel, or cast two DTs.

150% is not equivalent to 2-5m damage for anyone. This does NOT greatly lower the amount of time needed to kill the monster.
Optimal choice: never FW.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]For Player A and C, yes; criticals are not so much as relevant.

However for player B, I feel that the % Critical Rate you mentioned, a players needs to work for that, be it creating a Phantom for a Link Skill or creating a Sniper/Marksman for additional critical rate. And working for that means the player has to spend time, energy and resources which brings me back to my initial point that with the amount of time, energy as well as resources spent on that character, a player can actually focus on getting more funds and improve, slowly inching his/her way to the status of Player A and make this situation much more temporal.

I disagree when you mention "their resources were unlimited" because the fact that they are at a Player B status means that they should be relatively close enough to reach the status of Player A if they are able to improve. My point on this really is the amount of time spent trying to get more critical rate, you could have gotten more funds and improved your damage due to the fact that you are resource-limited. With more resources in play, there is lesser reliant on criticals and Player B can slowly move on up to the status of Player A.

To me, having to try to achieve more critical rate really is a short-term improvement whereas to look far, working to get more funds is a long term solution with regards to improve damage because the lesser you have to rely on criticals, you can actually switch them up for items with more favorable functionality or benefits. However, everyone has their own ways of trying to improve damage and my opinion is that criticals don't give a drastic change for an Evan simply due to the fact that every 10% Critical Rate really only provides about [b]4%[/b] Damage Increase and it gets lower as your critical rate increases.[/quote]

If a player is in situation B, then it's because they've reached a dead end in their resources. Not because they're well on their way to A. If they have the capability to ditch their crit rate (which I continue to assume averages at about 60% in GMS) in favour of %boss, then they will do so and they will no longer be in situation B and the chart will no longer be useful to them. If they do not have the capability to ditch their crit rate in favour of something else, then they remain in situation B, and their crit rate remains relevant and this reinforces their choice of keeping the crit rate.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Yes, it helps but the difference is extremely negligible and my point really is to spend that time trying to achieve that critical rate for improving other aspects.

I'm from MapleSEA and we haven't gotten our Justice patch yet but I'm pretty sure that Phantoms are played because it is a new class and generally new classes are pretty strong when they are released and those two aspects really appeals to people.

Other that those reasons, the most obvious one would be simply creating it for the link skill that it has. And that is my point of it being short term because the time spent creating a Phantom could be used to get more funds be it in-game or in reality.

Of course if you have it, you might as well link it to your Evan but like I mentioned before, it is a luxury.[/quote]
It's a luxury but it's a very common luxury. I'm not implying everyone here made phantoms solely for the crit rate. I am confident the majority of active GMS maplers made a phantom for various reasons, including the link skill (as I did), and if you have the link skill, then you'll put it on whichever character you're funding. In the case of this chart, the implied funded character is the Evan.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Moving on, you have mentioned that you personally have a Sniper/Marksman character card in your deck. However, you cannot assume that it is viable for all others as well just because you are able to have.

There are people who play multiple characters to the point that they are limited in their options for characters due to link skills and certain benefits here and there so by just creating a Sniper/Marksman for a benefit like that isn't really all feasible in my opinion and Marksmen aren't the easiest class to train (your opinion might differ since you guys still have Party-Play Areas in GMS). Also, it would be slightly harder for a Magic-Attack using class (Evan) to share common equips with a Weapon-Attack using class (Marksman).[/quote]

Fair, snipers are a rarer luxury - especially for players who focus on magic characters.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]It is exactly my point that you could spend the time working to get more resources than getting critical rate such that you are able to get more damage increases from having those "Eternal" and "Immortal" Ring Set as compared to additional critical rates.

Its all these improvements whereby you replace your reliant on criticals with straight out increases to your damage where you can be much closer to the status of Player A.

I'm positive the Maximum Critical Damage doesn't work for Evans however, I'm not sure it is because Evan's Minimum and Maximum Critical Damage is a definite 150% or it doesn't work for Evans only. Dark Knights do have 150% Minimum and Maximum Critical Damage and I do think Sharp Eyes' Maximum Critical Damage does affect them.

Yes, in that situation most Evans would keep that. However, if they are satisfied with all the potentials on their other equipment (meaning that the glove has the lowest % Int which is very likely), I believe they would have no hesitation to cube that away for more % Int. Generally Mages have to cube their own equipment due to the scarcity of good Int equips in the market.

The sad reality is that more and more people in the world of Maple are wanting to solo bosses on their own and I could hardly envision an Evan having to bring a Phantom/Archer along for Sharp Eyes unless they are friends or somehow related and want to duo a run together. Again, if anything, that is a luxury that an Evan can have.[/quote]
I'm not talking about critical rate that people work hard and aim for. Certainly, many players aim for critical rate, perhaps more so in GMS than in SEA. The rings and the link skills and everything I'm talking about is INCIDENTAL crit rate. Crit rate that players stumble upon, or are granted by events, etc... not critical rate people have poured money into getting. Players in a B situation, as above, won't ditch the crit rate unless they're confident they can replace it with something better. If they do, they will no longer be B players.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]True, an Evan could aim for hitting 666k's with Thrust and obtain a 100% Critical Rate such that when they land a critical hit, it would be an automatic 1.5x damage increase and therefore they are dealing "max damage all the time". That seems a viable option but how realistic (disregarding weapon potential since it can be assumed that Boss % Damage and Ignore % DEF is absolutely vital to be able to hit that high of an amount) it is to get that (the time, energy and resources spent to achieve that) and how many Evans would opt to go for that route. For some, doing max damage on criticals isn't good enough although you are constantly doing it 100% of the time.[/quote]
I'm not suggesting many players do that. I suppose some players go for a balance of crit rate and raw damage. It'd be a very interesting experiment if someone aimed for 666k thrusts and 100% crit rate, but like you said I don't think many people go for that route. In this case, especially, neither 45% NOR 60% crit rates in the chart would be especially helpful.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne][Abridged] SEA vs. GMS differences[/quote]

Very interesting contrast here. I understand your perspective a little more now. Thanks! I won't address every point you made in this segment.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Ah I see, that would be fabulous but would require some serious efforts and I really am grateful to you for doing this for the Evan community.

Agreed but it would look similar in my opinion, just that the value differences diminishes slightly as the critical rate increases.[/quote]
I explained what difference crit rate makes in the graph earlier in the topic. It changes both the leftmost and middle slopes - lowering one and raising the other.

Sorry I can't provide more detailed responses, I'm on my way out atm.

I'll work on a new version of the chart this weekend and I look forward to continuing our discussion regarding crit rates and any other further improvements you might suggest after I post a new one!

I'm curious as to know whether magic missile is even worth mentioning for 1v1 .

@TheDevilish0ne Man I tried that 2:1 illusion-teleport ratio on a Pink Bean solo and I will admit that it was fantastic, it does work even if it is somewhat difficult to pull off. I was able to reduce my solo time by a few minutes because of it, the difference wasn't enormous but it was noticeable (from 35-ish minutes to almost 31 minutes not counting the time spent on the statues obviously) I didn't try it with Dragon Thrust yet but it will probably work too at that 3:1 ratio you mentioned. I'd also like to add that a laptop is not the best computer to play MS with if you're applying this technique -.-' my fingers were sore after the run. Nevertheless I'm really grateful for the idea thanks!

I did consider using flame wheel right before magic cancel or super magic defense up or whatever is called xD is being used by the boss, however you can't really tell exactly when a boss is going to cast it as even if there is set timeframes, such as Pink Bean's DR's coldown being 40-43 secs, it might keep attacking afterwards and end up using it a few seconds later, seconds that will be better used spamming dt/illusion than watching for the perfect time to use flame wheel. Then against Czak arms well I already kill those in less than a minute and a half so I wouldn't spend billions pf mesos or hundreds of nx cash just to make it faster by very few seconds. Some examples from self-experience. But yeah I can tell where you're getting at, after all damage is damage and even the little done by flame wheel's DoT adds up.

Regarding fundings vs. time spent getting crit rate I feel that is really personal here, just how said it. Because it depends on what the person prefers to do or what is easier to do. As for me even if I did spent a lot of time for that 12% crit rate on my Inner ability butI rather do that than spend another $1k to make my range 1.5x higher to do caps with dragon thrust all the time which is what I know that will make me stop upgrading. I have had really bad experiences cubing so now I try to use more reliable and cheaper (though indeed time-consuming) sources to increase my damage. But it really depends on what the person finds best for him/her self.

And wow at MSEA 1m for an alchemist stone? those are 5k here @-@ but well yeah NX cash is not easy to come by when you can't directly buy it nor when is that expensive so scratch that on the 5% from an event ring, though getting a phantom to 70 it is quite easy and is one of the best link-skills you can give to any character. I believe the companies who run both EMS and MSEA should and will give out free character slots when more classes come out in your versions, I had only 7 character slots when I restarted playing maple, which was right before big bang, and now I am at 15 all free from legends celebration events and/or hot times and there will also be an essentially free 10% crit when hyper skills come out.

btw can you tell me how you break down others' comments on your posts? it makes it look so organized lol mine is a mess... Thanks!

I also just noticed that you guys were talking about character cards effects so I'll post mine maybe you can suggest me what I should remove/add. xD

1st deck:
Rank S F/P, I/L, Bishop: This deck emphasizes on increasing my range because of the deck effects from having 3 mages, 3 explorers and 3 rank S cards. It adds quite a bit to my range but I will probably change the Bishop and I/L card for something else once I don't need the range increase.

2nd deck:
Rank SS Evan, and rank S Mechanic and Battle Mage: This deck is focused on the individual character class effect provided, once I get my mech to 200 i'll have 20% buff duration effectively making soul stone last 360 secs which is just as much as its coldown, the BaM card provides survavility against the 1/1 + seduce combo though is glitched at the moment sadly -.-'

I was thinking of Adding a Luminous card instead of my Bishop once Luminous comes out, and perhaps a demon slayer for the status resist instead of my i/L or BaM. Any suggestions appreciated

@Phoenix23 I think a graph based on 100% crit rate would help me more but only because my % crit is pretty close to that. I also think that around 60% seems to be average for Evans because at least 10% from phantom's link skill and 5% from any of the various event rings is at everybody's reach. As for how I got that high %crit rate It did take me quite the effort, it took me more than 50 hours (not exaggerating) of Azwan to get my honor to 70 and a lot of circulators as well. And is not even that great, 2 friends of mine have 23% and 25% crit rate on their inner abilities respectively, but they were very lucky I got rank S only 3 or 4 times with the few dozens of circulators I used.

[quote=Skyenets]@phoenix23: That just took me forever to figure out where I was quoted....[/quote]

I didn't mean to quote you. Sorry!
Also I wasn't expecting such a quick reply to such a colossal post. You read fast!

@phoenix23: That just took me forever to figure out where I was quoted....

[b]Bear with me, this post is long. I am addressing the three users I've quoted, and I hope anyone following this discussion isn't turned off by this wall. [/b]
I've done my best to structure it in a comprehensible way. In my next post I'll be sure to abbreviate what I can.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]I think I might have to disagree with you when you mention "critical rate is also [b]no longer relevant[/b]" because it could be a player slowly progressing towards his/her goal of achieving % Bossing/Total Damage as well as Ignore % DEF and in the process of which I feel, a player doesn't really need to expend time, effort and resources to get those unnecessary critical rate because that is all just temporary and critical rates isn't really an extremely feasible way to increase damage due to how critical works for an Evan.[/quote]

I'm talking about a trichotomy here. Players are in one of three situations:
Situation A) the player hits 999,999 non-crits on everything
Situation B) the player crits at 999,999 but doesn't hit for quite that high
Situation C) the player does not crit at 999,999

I will call upon these three situations for the remainder of my post.

For a player in situation A, additional crit rate is useless - whether an attack is a crit or a non-crit does not matter to them.
For a player in situation B, if they're trying to improve, then yes they're currently aiming for %boss and %pdr and %int, but they'll still take any %crit they can get.
For a player in situation C, crit rate is helpful, but it's equally helpful to all skills and won't affect which skill is optimal to use.

This graph is most useful for B-Players. A-players and C-players already know where they are on the chart and really the chart can't help them optimize their damage.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]So I believe in the process of pursuing this goal of having more % Bossing/Total Damage and/or Ignore % DEF, there isn't really a need to aim for additional critical rates but prior to achieving their goals, they would be easily able to relate to your graph. However, this is what I personally feel and would do so that does varies from person to person. I would rather spend the time merching to get more funds/leveling to get stronger than finding means to increase my critical rate since the boost can actually be said to be insignificant than what I would get from doing other things.
[/quote]

Continuing from what I said above, it's not that B-players are AIMING for additional crit rate. It's just that I believe there's a high correlation between B players and crit rates above 50%. If a B-player had access to extra %boss or %total damage or %pdr, they'd take it. Absolutely. If their resources were unlimited, they'd be A-players. The reason they DON'T hit 999,999 non-crits is because the rate at which they are improving their evan is resource-limited (i.e. won't spend $$$ just for more damage), and they WILL seek alternative, cheap means of increasing their damage, like crit rates. I agree, it's not optimal, but that's how I believe the B-players (those who benefit most from the chart) build their characters when they can't reach situation A.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Firstly, if a player only really wants to play a single job, then I feel there's no need to have a Phantom character for that link skill or a Sniper/Marksman character card once you've already achieved your goal and that additional critical rate wouldn't help you any more. Instead, you could work on getting other characters for their various boosts which might not necessarily be for damage since you have reached the most optimum level in dealing damage, why not go for other simple boosts that might help (the difference don't have to be great because in the first place, those addition critical rates give absolutely no boost at all).

Such as going for a Mikhail's link skill to ensure that 50% of the time (unless deaths) you can be confident of attacking without being knocked back and this can really help (potentially increase damage) if you want efficiency and effectiveness in whatever you might be doing. Even with 90% Stance (93% with Decent Combat Order), there are times when you just get knocked back continuously and having to re-position just to get knocked down again just hurts DPS so much.

Replacing the Sniper/Marksman character card with a Battle Mage character card for the reduce damage taken can be a blessing too especially since Evans have 0 protection against 1/1 attacks and with Evans having a reasonable amount of HP, they can very well withstand slightly more hits to prevent death. Sure it might not help in increasing damage, but if you look at it in a way; not dying and having to rebuff certainly saves quite a bit of time.[/quote]

As above, fundamentally I agree. Crit rate is not the best way of improving your damage.
It does help, though. And if you happened to be on board when phantom was released (when everyone and their mothers made phantoms, in GMS), you're going to put that link skill on your B-situation evan whenever you play it. If you happen to have a sniper or marksman, you'll probably put the card in your deck.
Whether it's optimal or not, if it's what you have, it's what you'll use.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Next up you mentioned about having rings/potential, I feel those are actually invalid for this argument as those can be replaced with items that further increase your range such that your Damage Over Time from Flame Wheel continues to prosper albeit marginally. However, in cases when you cannot constantly attack the boss (Super Magic Defense Up/Damage Reflect/Magnus boss for instance), that marginal Damage Over Time might be able to shave a few seconds or even minutes off. Doing a simple 10k with the Damage Over Time can equate to a quarter of a million damage in that 25 seconds where you might not be able to consistently attack due to certain abilities of the boss.[/quote]

Again, yes I agree that %crit rate on rings is not as good as damage stats. If a player has access to damage stat rings, then they'll use them instead. If a player can't afford a better ring (and tbh a Berserker Eternal Ring or w/e is certainly not very cost-efficient in terms of the additional damage it brings) they'll continue to use their crit ring.
If a player CAN afford a better ring, then chances are that when they remove their %crit and replace it with %int they'll be closer to situation A where crits don't matter.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Moving on you mentioned about (Decent) Sharp Eyes, thing is (Decent) Sharp Eyes doesn't really work its magic on Evans as it would on other classes as Evans are not affected by the vital Maximum Critical Damage (which can change things up alot) so Evans really only benefit from the Critical Rate it provides and as mentioned once Evans are no longer reliant on additional Critical Rate, it is basically pointless. In my opinion, it is most definitely a pity having to work hard and get Decent Sharp Eyes, while not providing any sort of boost.[/quote]
It would be a pity, yes. If it is as you say, then it does sound like dSE isn't worth working for.
If in an attempt to cube their glove for better %int, a player ends up with 6% int and dSE, chance are they'll keep it. Especially if they're a B-player who has to use their cubes wisely.
And don't discount the situations where SE is provided by an archer or a phantom. 20% crit already ups the evan's base crit to 65%, well above the average of 60% that my chart currently supposes.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Another issue is that (being no disrespect to @Urvin and @Skyenets), you have mentioned that they are the veterans and I feel they very much have spent a lot of time, effort and resources as well as the invaluable exposure and experience they have is incomparable to new players. However, we cannot root out this possibility that new players aren't going for this goal because I myself have seen players attracted to the Evan class because of the ability to hit max damage is slightly easier compared to other classes and so they want to at least fulfill this maybe-tiny accomplishment of theirs (which might be a big thing for some people).[/quote]

Quite fine, however, people creating evans with the goal of hitting max damage a lot could consider many avenues for reaching this goal. There's no telling how much they will value %crit. If they want to increase their damage enough so that their crits cap, then increase their crit rate without improving damage, then certainly that's a feasible route. Not optimal, but a cheap way of obtaining this fulfillment.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Yes it is. In my opinion, I'm pretty sure you have been playing Maplestory for a long time and that it might not occur to you that there are actually a lot of new players starting Maplestory and they do not have these benefits as you might have. The most important thing that I would like to stress is character slots. I'm not sure what its like in GMS but in my server, MapleSEA, a newly created account starts with 3 character slots and that can really put some strain into smart decision-making on which other 2 characters you would like to make for benefits to your main character. Even if your account was created way back, if you don't have at least one character created prior in the world before those patches granting additional character slots, you would still be stuck with 3.

So my point here is to really give some considerations to new players as they can arguably slowly make up the majority of the players in Maplestory because Maplestory is still constantly appealing to players (at least in my region) such that when they join, they are semi-serious about it and start funding it until they get bored and move on from it or something like that.[/quote]

I never really understood character slots as a limiting factor in GMS. I haven't checked recently, but AFAIK you start with more than three. And they keep handing out expansions whenever they release a new class. I'm at max character slots, on three separate accounts, and I never once bought an expansion...
Your point is very fair and I may be biased by my own situation.
I think our regional difference can account for our different view points on the issue of critical rate. It'd be interesting to see the average critical rate in SEA versus the average critical rate in GMS.

It'd be great if we could verify the number of slots for a new GMS account. Anyone care to chime in on this? I don't want to have to test it with another account ._.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Moreover, I feel it would be easier to see where you are and if you have a higher critical rate, all you have to know is that you're ahead; the question is, by how much ? That's where I feel you can introduce a pattern because since Evans are only affected by Critical Rate and not Minimum/Maximum Critical Damage and so I think it might be increasing in Direct Proportion (might be wrong here).[/quote]
I still have some experimenting to do with how I can make the graph look.
Ideally the graph would come with a slider, where you input your crit rate and it spits out a custom graph. Maybe over the winter break I'll work on that.
It's not quite a direct proportion.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Yes, that is very agreeable since I have played an Aran before and I absolutely love spamming Final Toss because the speed is just insane ! However, I feel that toss spamming should only be utilized on monsters that can't be thrown upwards since in my Server, we don't have any party play areas outside of Monster Park so its basically PQ's, PQ's and more PQ's. And to be frank, I'm not all that strong so I can't kill those monsters in 2/3 hits, but more of like 5/6 hits and when I use Final Toss and sending them flying up in the air, it hinders not only myself but also my party members from attacking and killing them efficiently. But... I am definitely going off a tangent here so I do apologize.[/quote]
This isn't even an issue in GMS. After level 110, the only maps you're on are LHC and SH party play maps, and boss maps. Nothing gets tossed upward.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]How the player uses a skill with knowledge of which provides the best results is actually completely what they hope to achieve with the skill they are using, not necessary for damage so that is my point really. If possible, might want to add that to your graph with a little text box somewhere (don't really have to; I can just type them out as I deliver your graph) as sometimes, its really not about dealing damage, because a dead Evan does virtually 0 damage.[/quote]
I know what you mean, and I agree, when you're dead your DPS is 0, but I don't think it's relevant.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]But I do agree Earthquake's utility isn't that great other than for the Upwards Vertical Range it provides since all your other main mob attacking skill have much more hits.[/quote]
I didn't know there was that application. I'll keep my eye out for maps where it's useful. I'm thinking... Galloperas, or maps with similar structure.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Yes, I meant it as offensively; Teleporting Upwards while attacking (with Teleport Mastery active of course). It is most definitely feasible but does requires a little bit of effort to execute properly, but at the same time, it can be extremely rewarding.

Yes, I do agree that it is slightly easier on an Ice/Lightning Arch Mage and Battle Mage (haven't tried Bishop and Fire/Poison Arch Mage) because they can easily teleport every 1 attack that they do. Evans on the other hand to teleport between every 2 attacks; so 1 Teleport every 2 Illusion/Dragon Thrust seems right and 1 Teleport for every Flame Wheel/Blaze. I'm not sure about what other Evans encounter but for me, its definitely much much much easier with Illusion compared to Dragon Thrust. However, I must say that I'm not exactly an adept at it since I really only had 1 month or so practicing it.

Also, I feel the need to mention that I daresay approximately 99% of mages don't do this in my server. I have tried to get my friends to incorporate this when they attack and they found it quite stressful to do so (more so if you lack a reliable stance; basically Explorer Mages). I agree its definitely not easy to accomplish but I feel it can be very rewarding since mine does a few 100k's easily. However, as I have noticed it doesn't work with Magic Amplification so it stays at 300% Damage which is the same Dragon Thrust's hit/Dragon Spark Activation hit.

Actually I feel with efficient tele-casting with Illusion, those additional monster spawns shouldn't really be an issue because with stance, an Evan can just stand on the monster and using Teleport killing everything that it spawns (unless they have significantly higher HP such as those Mini Castle Golem at Von Leon).[/quote]

I don't really have anything to say about telecasting. I don't know enough evans, I guess. If it turns out somehow that a large proportion of evans telecast, then I'll add it to the data and see what kind of difference it makes, then at the very least add a note with the effects of telecasting.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Your second point is reasonable too, but just to bring out that you mentioned before how Illusion only works when a monster is in-range, that could actually change things because I would consider Illusion attacking at the speed of spawn. Back in the days when you could party in Dojo, Evans could just hold down the Illusion key when the monster is spawning and potentially be the first to kill it. Of course other classes like Shadowers and Wild Hunters could too, with Assaulter/Dash 'n' Slash respectively as well as all classes with a summon.[/quote]
*shrug* There are more subjective factors as well, and I'm sure both of us could start a whole new debate on those. Some map structures favour skill X over skill Y, regardless of DPS. I'm optimistic when I say most evans should know this by intuition. I can't include these factors in the chart, and I hope you'll point out any relevant ones specific to questions you answer with the chart, if you refer to it.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Yes, I'm in agreement with this because nobody (might have some exceptions) likes to see wall of texts/numbers in their face when resourcing for information (and usually being desperate and wanting a clear, precise and decently-fast answer) and I believe this graph will help to solve those issues.

Oh no, not at all. I find this discussion very meaningful too, as it will hopefully meet the needs and wants of fellow Evans intriguing about their attacking capabilities and how they should step up to control their Evan better. It is actually a great honor having this debate with such a respectable and profoundly knowledgeable analyzer.

Also, pardon me for late replies as I'm currently busy with school since my exams are coming up so its not all the time I have access to my computer.[/quote]

I'm happy you think so, and I look forward to your next reply. I'm also busy with school, it's midterm season here.

Right now my next goal is to look at PDR's effect on the left half of the chart. Then I'll see about displaying a range of different critical rates.

---

[quote=nhan1st]Is this graph hand drawn as in MS paint or is there an actually function for it. If there's is an actual function, I'd like to request you use a better graphing program for aesthetic purposes. Also, kudos [/quote]

It's drawn in excel, and yeah I know it's pretty ugly. I'm fairly sure it's the checkered background causing the line distortion. I'll change it next version, and see how that improves things.

---

[quote=guerratrades]Good job on the graph and all the analysis @Phoenix23 and @TheDevilish0ne

I hadn't post anything before because I had a childish fight with the TS on a silly matter in an out of context thread some weeks ago. But I might as well get over it and apologize to @Phoenix23 for my stupid attitude. So yeah I'm sorry... [/quote]
I get into a lot of meaningful arguments and a lot of meaningless ones. I don't the argument you're talking about. So, uh, I guess we're past that! Don't worry about it.

[quote=guerratrades]I find this graph quite interesting and I'm always looking for the best skill to use on any situation I could encounter on my Evan, for instance I'd like to add that I find that %crit rate is indeed very helpful (unless you have insane fundings as in enough to cap with DT on any monster without crit hits then yeah %crit is useless). [/quote]
That's exactly my point here, crit is either very useful or very useless, depending on your numbers.

[quote=guerratrades]Based on self-experience I can say that DT is the ultimate skill for dps/dpm and that all Evans should give it a try and perhaps work on it to make it as strong as their illusion, mostly because of its range and the fact that you can hit other monsters with it without deducting the damage dealt to the boss itself in the process.

Now I'd like to try a few tricks that @TheDevilish0ne has mentioned. That telecasting along with Illusion/Dragon Thrust idea has been on the back of my head of my head for a looooong time, however, as you have mentioned, it is difficult to do and perhaps not worth the trouble of doing it. Assuming you do caps with both illusion/dt and tele mastery, you would have to make sure that casting that teleport doesn't take you more than 1/8th of a sec if you're attacking with illusion or 1/9th of a sec with dt, because you have to remember that it would be just +1m damage from it, when you would already be doing approx. 9m a sec with dt or 8.3 a sec with illusion, so if that teleport delays your casting of illusion/dt by more than about 150ms then you're actually losing damage output because you wouldn't cast as many illusions/dts as you would without telecasting between attacks. Now I can't telecast at the very precise moment everytime, but it might not be impossible.

I do disagree on flame wheel"s DoT being helpful to the point of thinking to gain more range just to improve it by a few k's after you already dish out the most you can with dt/illusion. At 170k range with buffs my flame wheel's DoT deals about 12k each second which means that even when a boss casts magic cancel it would only inflict 240k damage on those 20 secs magic cancel lasts. Now, I could perhaps get another 100% INT to make it hit 20k a sec, effectively making it 400k during the time I would not deal any damage because of magic cancel. Now that's quite a decent number, but if you think about it, you would have to cast a flame wheel in the middle of a Dt/illusion spam, almost losing a whole attack (3m dmg) with dragon thrust and a bit less with illusion because is slower. Maybe if the % of that DoT was 60% instead of 6% it could have some use.[/quote]

Thanks for your input on FW's DoT. I hadn't actually done the math, but based on your numbers it sounds to me like @TheDevlish0ne may be overestimating the value of FW.

If anyone has gotten the hang of telecasting on a regular basis, I'd love to learn how to do it without wasting my time, and I'd love to include the damage increase provided in my chart. The problem is that I haven't met anyone who can pull it off with any sort of reliability.

[quote=guerratrades]I'd also like to post my crit rate as well maybe you can help me figure out how much I need to hit with dt to make it better than illusion.

45% Base (30% from Critical Magic, 10% from Spell Mastery, and 5% that every job comes with)
+10% from decent SE
+10% from Phantom's link skill
+10% from Explorer Critical ring
+12% from Inner ability
And +3% from my Staff's additional potential
Leaving me with a total of 90% for now :o

Also on top of the 10% crit rate, the explorer critical ring adds 10% minimun critical damagen and the Magical explorer ring from the same event adds 5% crit rate and 20% minimun critical damage. The minimun critical damage on these rings was added on the Mihile patch about a month ago.

Keep up the good job [/quote]

:O
Thank you very much for providing details about your crit rate. This goes to show that indeed some veteran evans do rely on crits for a large part of their damage.
I'm sure you would agree that your crit rate is above average. Were you making a conscious effort to obtain higher %crit? Or was all this %crit incidental? Also, how'd you manage that sweet Inner Ability?

Going back to what @TheDevilish0ne is talking about...
My main concern is this: with your 90% crit rate, is it easier for you to relate to a chart that assumes a 45% crit rate? a 60% crit rate? a 100% crit rate?

Good job on the graph and all the analysis @Phoenix23 and @TheDevilish0ne

I hadn't post anything before because I had a childish fight with the TS on a silly matter in an out of context thread some weeks ago. But I might as well get over it and apologize to @Phoenix23 for my stupid attitude. So yeah I'm sorry...

I find this graph quite interesting and I'm always looking for the best skill to use on any situation I could encounter on my Evan, for instance I'd like to add that I find that %crit rate is indeed very helpful (unless you have insane fundings as in enough to cap with DT on any monster without crit hits then yeah %crit is useless).

Based on self-experience I can say that DT is the ultimate skill for dps/dpm and that all Evans should give it a try and perhaps work on it to make it as strong as their illusion, mostly because of its range and the fact that you can hit other monsters with it without deducting the damage dealt to the boss itself in the process.

Now I'd like to try a few tricks that @TheDevilish0ne has mentioned. That telecasting along with Illusion/Dragon Thrust idea has been on the back of my head of my head for a looooong time, however, as you have mentioned, it is difficult to do and perhaps not worth the trouble of doing it. Assuming you do caps with both illusion/dt and tele mastery, you would have to make sure that casting that teleport doesn't take you more than 1/8th of a sec if you're attacking with illusion or 1/9th of a sec with dt, because you have to remember that it would be just +1m damage from it, when you would already be doing approx. 9m a sec with dt or 8.3 a sec with illusion, so if that teleport delays your casting of illusion/dt by more than about 150ms then you're actually losing damage output because you wouldn't cast as many illusions/dts as you would without telecasting between attacks. Now I can't telecast at the very precise moment everytime, but it might not be impossible.

I do disagree on flame wheel"s DoT being helpful to the point of thinking to gain more range just to improve it by a few k's after you already dish out the most you can with dt/illusion. At 170k range with buffs my flame wheel's DoT deals about 12k each second which means that even when a boss casts magic cancel it would only inflict 240k damage on those 20 secs magic cancel lasts. Now, I could perhaps get another 100% INT to make it hit 20k a sec, effectively making it 400k during the time I would not deal any damage because of magic cancel. Now that's quite a decent number, but if you think about it, you would have to cast a flame wheel in the middle of a Dt/illusion spam, almost losing a whole attack (3m dmg) with dragon thrust and a bit less with illusion because is slower. Maybe if the % of that DoT was 60% instead of 6% it could have some use.

I'd also like to post my crit rate as well maybe you can help me figure out how much I need to hit with dt to make it better than illusion.

45% Base (30% from Critical Magic, 10% from Spell Mastery, and 5% that every job comes with)
+10% from decent SE
+10% from Phantom's link skill
+10% from Explorer Critical ring
+12% from Inner ability
And +3% from my Staff's additional potential
Leaving me with a total of 90% for now :o

Also on top of the 10% crit rate, the explorer critical ring adds 10% minimun critical damagen and the Magical explorer ring from the same event adds 5% crit rate and 20% minimun critical damage. The minimun critical damage on these rings was added on the Mihile patch about a month ago.

Keep up the good job

Is this graph hand drawn as in MS paint or is there an actually function for it. If there's is an actual function, I'd like to request you use a better graphing program for aesthetic purposes. Also, kudos

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]The thing is you mentioned super-funded characters, it can be assumed that all of them have aimed for % Bossing Damage or Ignore % DEF when attacking as much as they can which might escalate to this scenario where they can hit max damage with or without critical on bosses.

Wouldn't you agree that once you can hit max damage without having those additional critical rates, you would rather work on increasing your damage range so at the very least, the Damage Over Time on Flame Wheel can be still improved ? In my opnion, that 45% Critical Rate is fine as it is because having more critical rate is a luxury and that can be adjusted and scaled accordingly to what the players have from their hard work and efforts.

Hitting max damage on a boss is actually easier than on normal monsters in my opinion due to the fact that you can just invest all your funds in getting a significant amount of % Bossing Damage and Ignore % DEF with about a 100k+ range and you're actually good to go.[/quote]

Absolutely 100% agree.
People who go for damage don't often make an active conscious effort to go for crit rate. We're on the same page here.
Your point is exactly my point. You're correctly saying that super-funded characters prefer %boss and %ignore for more damage so that all their hits are capped.
In the scenario you have laid out, you're absolutely right, and critical rate is not a focus. Coincidentally, critical rate is also [b]no longer relevant[/b]. If a player chooses not to focus on crit rate and instead focuses on %bossing and %PDR in order to hit cap with non-crits, then critical rate could be 0% or 100% and the graph is the same to you, as you've plateaued. If you're a super-funded character, optimized for damage and not critical rate, then critical rate has no bearing on you anyway.
The chart isn't really useful for characters who hit cap with non-crit DTs, though, since they already know what works best for damage.

Additionally, part of my argument is that players who go for damage most likely have a phantom side-character. Based on anecdotal observations I'd say 2/3 of 150+ evans have a 70+ phantom. Based on anecdotal observations I'd say about 1/5 of 150+ players have a sniper or a marksman in their character cards, and about 1/5 of 150+ players have a ring or a potential or a weapon class bonus that gives critical rate, and about 1/4 training or bossing situations, a super-funded evan has access to dSE or SE.
I hope you think these numbers I've arbitrarily come up with are pretty realistic, if not I'd be happy to hear what you think. Also, since @Urvin and @Goates, two of the community veterans here have 200 evans and have taken notice of this topic, I'd love to call upon them and ask about their crit rates.

I see the benefit of having the graph assume a 45% crit rate. I understand that every evan who DOESN'T have 45% crit can at least relate to 45% crit based on how much external crit rate they know they have, whereas every evan who DOESN'T have 60% crit rate can't necessarily understand where they are in relation to a 60% crit rate.
Is this the fundamental idea of your argument for a 45% crit rate? I still strongly think people who use this graph have a higher crit rate from various outside sources. I may be biased, though, as I participate in events and link skills and I have a marksman, and my Aran has 78% crit rate fully buffed. This is part of the reason why I'm looking for a bit more data on a realistic crit rate.
I'd also consider posting two charts for different crit rates, or perhaps put an area curve for DT and Illu for their curves critical phases. I'll have to see how easy-to-understand I can make it.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]I feel an Evan's skills are mostly situational since you mentioned about Flame Wheel vs Blaze. It depends how much monsters they are both able to reach and hit at a certain point and which would provide the best results (might not necessarily be in damage-dealing but rather Flame Wheel's extreme horizontal range to stay out of a monster's attacking range).[/quote]

Well yes, as with all classes. That's why this chart is a tool to generate discussion, not to be the be-all-end-all answer. It is purely theoretical, and it illustrates for evans how their damage changes from skill to skill -- NOT from situation to situation. I can't possibly account for every map layout or bossing strategy. I'm just trying to provide the information in an easy-to-understand way

When you're at Czakum, sure, using FW once and then spamming Blaze on the arms is likely better than DT. Blaze and FW still have their places, absolutely. Notice how I didn't include EQ in the chart -- EQ has no role in the endgame, as far as I know, unless you're trying to KS a KSer out of your friend's Toy Room map or something. Maybe.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]It is arguably the same for Illusion vs Dragon Thrust. After you past the point where Dragon Thrust outdamages Illusion on a 1v1 scenario, it might not necessarily be the best skill to use. There is significant difference using Dragon Thrust with and without stance from Onyx Will. It makes the attacking rate much more smoother due to less knock backs which would disrupt Dragon Thrust's consistent attacks where Illusion isn't affected at all if you get knocked back or not because the attack is already locked-on to whatever target that is in front of you. There's also this notion that is is [i]slightly[/i] easier to Telecast-Attack with Illusion rather than Dragon Thrust so that might change some things.[/quote]

First, for telecasting, did you mean offensive telecasting for extra DPS? I didn't know that was still feasible -- does it still increase damage output? I found it easy on my F/P, but a nuisance on my evan due to the evan's attack speed. Or did you mean telecasting for positioning?

I'd also like to point out some other subjective factors that favour thrust. Since you provided two, I will also provide two:
Thrust is better 1v1 than Illusion in situations where there's a high likelyhood that another monster will spawn in the area.
Thrust is better 1v1 than Illusion in situations where a monster has, say, 8.5 million HP. This monster would be killed with 2 to 3 Illusions, taking 1.02 seconds sometimes and 1.53 seconds other times; this monster would also be killed in 3 DTs, taking 1.08 seconds every time. This notion of overkill might change some things.

As I said above the chart isn't a conversation-ender, it's a conversation starter.
The chart shows you the objective, mathematical advantages of one skill over another. The subjective factors, like some of the ones you mentioned, can't be accounted for in a graph like this. The graph is a useful reference, and most importantly, it's easier to remember than a page-long "mess" (albeit a logically organized one, if you will) of numbers.

PS: I'm very glad we can theorycraft like this and I'm especially glad we're both thinking of practical application. I respect your opinion very much and I am very happy to continue this intellectual debate. I hope that many are reading it and forming their own ideas and learning about how to best use their evans, and I hope that you know I'm not defending my decisions because I'm stubborn, I'm defending my decisions because scientific methodology requires us to take our debate to its logical end. I mean you no offense with my argumentativeness and I hope you're enjoying this discussion as well as I am.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]The chart is pretty good in my opinion, good work on that ! Bookmarked !
[/quote]
Thanks! I hope you update your bookmark when I update the chart!

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Thing is though, 60% critical rate seems a little bit out of reach for the average player.
An Evan really has 45% Critical Rate within his/her arsenal of skills;

5% Base Critical Rate
10% Critical Rate from Spell Mastery
30% Critical Rate from Critical Magic

The extra 15% could come from an Explorer Ring, Phantom's Link Skill, Inner Ability, etc but I'm skeptical to think that most of the players would have them due to a few reasons:

Firstly, if you create a new account, you only really have 3 character slots and you have to really use them wisely for whichever benefits you might choose by creating certain classes/jobs.

Secondly, the 10% Critical Rate can come from Hyper Skills; I would agree if you were somehow heading in that direction. But also with the Hyper Skills, a lot of factors come into play now as the skills an Evan would choose from are completely up to preference and funding efficiency level for you to hit more damage so that can really shift the curve of the graph.

Lastly, some might not go out of their way just to get more Critical Rate because they might not like to rely on having more criticals to deal more damage and might opt for other lines on their weapons (since weapons are the only equips that offer critical rate+x% lines).

I see you mentioned on how to gauge the graph of where you stand base on your critical rate but I feel it would be simpler to use the base stats of an Evan since there will only be an option of having more critical rate than what was presented (of course, unless some Evans hadn't max out Critical Magic; but those probably aren't really that committed in my opinion).[/quote]

The key point in my argument is this: the target audience for this chart are the super-funded characters. Bear with me!

It's very easy for me to change the critical rate in my excel sheet and adapt the chart. I have just run a simulation for 45% crit rate and compared it with 60%. The lower critical rate reduces slope the linear phase (i.e. the leftmost phase) of each curve, while increasing the slope of the critical difference phases (the gentler slope middle phase), and has no effect on the plateau phases. These results were theoretically expected.

The most significant difference the change from 45% crit to 60% crit is the intersection between DT and Illusion. With a lower critical rate, DT needs to hit higher (830k instead of 770k) to surpass Illusion damage for 1v1. The other changes do not affect any other intersection.

So an evan with a 45% crit rate must hit 830k noncrits with DT for DT to be the best 1v1 skill, while an evan with 60% crit must hit 770k noncrits with DT for DT to be the best 1v1 skill. This difference is significant, and this is why I will be very happy to discuss the intricacies of critical rate with you and anyone else at length.

Extra critical chance sources (on top of 45% base):
Phantom Link 10% (common)
5% critical (event) ring (uncommon)
Sniper character card(s) 1-4% (uncommon)
dSE or SE 10-20% (uncommon)
Potential line(s) 1-12% (rare)
Nebulite 4-8% (rare)
Inner Ability 1-30% (rare)
Explorer ring 10-20% (rare) [@Urvin: thanks for this info]

As you can see, evans could have anywhere between 45% and 100+% critical rate, depending on how much they seek.

Now, you bring up relevant points about how the base critical rate may apply to most evans.
I completely agree with you. However, the average evan with 45% critical rate, without any of the external sources listed above, is not usually the type of player who has to worry about DT hitting 800K's and at what point it's better than Illusion. I expect a superfunded evan to have higher than 45% critical rate.

Of course, superfunded evans don't focus their resources on increasing their crit rate, as you mentioned, and I agree with you. For example, they probably don't seek crit potential lines or nebulites. They likely don't seek crit rate inner ability (but if ANYONE has a sweet 30 %crit inner ability it's a superfunded endgame player).
However, if a player takes maple very seriously and put a lot of resources into their evan, though, you can bet that they'll be looking for sniper character cards, and phantom link skills, and they'll hang on to their crit rings, and they'll invest in dSE or have archer/phantom training buddies or even buffing mules.

In terms of the players who will find this chart MOST useful and MOST applicable (i.e. the aspiring super-funded characters), I found 60% to be an appropriate average value. I look forward to your rebuttal, and I hope you can convince me otherwise.

As for hyper skills, I haven't touched them. I look forward to new levels of complexity offered by them, but atm I have made no effort to understand their system. It's part of the reason why I decided to publish my chart for feedback this week, rather than 2 weeks from now.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Also, any Maximum Critical Damage + x% doesn't seem to affect Evans in case you had wanted to add in Decent Sharp Eyes. The only skill that gives Maximum Critical Damage is Sharp Eyes and that doesn't affect the Critical Damage of Evans, those critical hits are still 1.5x of the normal attacks (easily identified due to Evan's extremely stable mastery of 95%). However, I'm not really sure how those potential lines that give maximum critical damage plays out.[/quote]
Oh, I didn't realize Sharp Eyes critical damage does not affect Evans. Okay, then now I have no need to specify 150%. Also I haven't considered the maximum/minimum critical damage potential lines -- the values they add are too low. Anything below 10% extra maximum critical damage won't have much of a visible effect on the chart TBH.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Not including those MDR that an Evan has on Illusion and Blaze is actually technically fine since we are comparing straight out numbers that an Evan can deal and one more thing to note is that the (P/M)DR from Ambition doesn't work for magic-attacking classes (all mages).[/quote]
I don't think the chart accurately portrays the pre-capping phases of Illusion and especially Blaze correctly. Blaze is a lot better for mobbing than FW before you cap, but the chart doesn't really show that much of a difference. Sure, after you start capping on Illusion and Blaze, PDR doesn't help increase that damage. But it does help you begin capping sooner. The linear portion of their curves are still very much affected by MDR. I won't adjust it arbitrarily -- I'm still looking for some numbers on the average end-game MDR.

I had no clue that Ambition PDR doesn't work as MDR. That's messed up. I wouldn't be surprised in Nexon ninja-fixes it with Luminous, though that might be giving them too much credit. Thanks for the tip, I'll remember it.

[quote=TheDevilish0ne]Most of the points that I have stated are just preliminary and not that I have found fault with your calculations and graph so if I've doubted and offended you, I do apologize.[/quote]
Not at all! Thanks for your valuable feedback. I was looking forward to you posting here -- I had my fingers crossed!

@Urvin: When I think of superfunded Evans, I think of you. I'd love to hear more from you on what you think of the chart's value and accuracy.

[quote=Raskler]Thrust start up time vs illusions start up time is something to consider, which maybe a chart cant accomadate for. Maybe it isnt significant either idk

Nice work here[/quote]

First, I must admit I am not aware of a significant difference in start-up time.
Even so, I am not considering start-up time as part of a DPS calculation for the reasons that @Demiray stated.
Thanks for the feedback, though! I'll have to pay a bit more attention next time I hop on my Evan.

[quote=Raskler]And sure you graph deserves a sticky, but wouldnt it be great if you worked with @TheDevilish0ne to make an amazing thread? His wording and explanation is comprehensive and easilly understood, and you would both compliment each other![/quote]

A picture is worth a thousand words, my friend.

In any case, as I said, I'm certainly not looking for a sticky. Once the graph is final, it won't have a dedicated discussion topic. It'll just be a hotlink that you or any other evan can drop into question topics to help the veterans of the Evan community answer questions.

And finally, if you find any shortcomings in my English cohesion, coherence, or comprehensiveness, then I'll eat my wallet -- money and all.

[quote=marimois]Atm whats considered "Low , Average , High , Extreme"?[/quote]

You're asking... "What damage range is considered low / avg / high / extr?"
I'm afraid cannot answer with confidence.
Isn't there an Evan damage ranges thread or something for this purpose? If not you'll have to rely the answer from a more experienced Evan.

Atm whats considered "Low , Average , High , Extreme"?

[quote=Skyenets]So basically Dragon thrust outdamages Illusion the moment it hits 770K+? (1VS1).[/quote]

With a crit rate of 60% and a crit damage of 150%, yes, the moment you hit 770K average regular non-crit DTs.
Regardless of PDR, regardless of %Boss.

I did not take Mastery into account -- if you deal 760-770K DTs, then you're not quite breaking even; if you deal 770-780k DTs, then you're well in the clear. If you deal 765-
775k DTs, you're doing slightly better than breaking even.

Let me show you.

DT hits 3 times at .36s per attack.
If DT hits 770K normal attacks, it hits 999k crits.
With a critical rate of 60%, then we simply find the average damage like so: (0.4*770,000 + 0.6 * 999,999) = 908000 per line, or
Therefore, 2,723,998 damage per DT, and 2.7778 attacks per second, for a subtotal of [b]7,566,661 DPS[/b]
With a proc rate of 40%, we can expect Dragon Spark to proc on 40% of all attacks. In this one theoretical second, we can thus expect (2.777*0.4)=1.1111
Therefore, we have effectively 1.1111 Sparks per second with illusion.
If DT does 770k non-crits and 999k non-crits, then Spark also does 770k non-crits and 999k non-crits.
Average spark damage is the same as average DT damage, at 908000. Spark DPS: (908000*1.1111)= 1,008,889
Adding spark DPS to the total gives DT a [b]grand total of 8,575,449[/b] DPS.

If DT is hitting 770K non-crits and 999k crits, then Illusion is definitely hitting 999K non-crits and 999k crits.
Illusion hits 4 times at .51s per attack.
Therefore, 4 million damage per illusion, and 1.9608 attacks per second, for a subtotal of [b]7,843,192 DPS[/b]
With a proc rate of 40%, we can expect Dragon Spark to proc on 40% of all attacks. In this one theoretical second, we can thus expect (1.9608*0.4)=0.78431
Therefore, we have effectively 0.78431 Sparks per second with illusion.
If DT does 770k non-crits and 999k non-crits, then Spark also does 770k non-crits and 999k non-crits.
Average spark damage is the same as average DT damage, at 908000. Spark DPS: (908000*.78431)= 712,153
Adding spark DPS to the total gives Illusion a [b]grand total of 8,555,345[/b] DPS.

As you can see, Spark makes all the difference, because it procs more often with the faster attack, DT.

If your crit rate is higher than 60%, then your damage with Illusion remains the same, your damage with DT improves, and your damage with Spark improves. This benefits DT more.
If your crit rate is lower than 60%, then your damage with Illusion remains the same, your damage with DT decreases, and your damage with Spark decreases. This benefits Illusion more.

Hope this clears things up for you (:

Of course, there are non-mathematical differences in extreme-funded Illu vs. DT.

For example, Illusion won't attack unless there's something in range, which means it's great at saving time. However, since it hits 4-5 million damage about just under twice per second, at best, while DT hits 3-4 million damage just under thrice per second, then DT is great at saving time thanks to less overkill, especially noticeable on low-HP mobs where you 1-shot them anyway (like in PQ's) and where mobbing would be an advantage. In my personal opinion, if you see 770k non-crit Thrusts and your crit rate is 60% or better, just use Thrust. Even if it's a rare 770k and mostly 760k's, DT is more versatile and maneuverable than Illusion - plus it mobs.

So basically Dragon thrust outdamages Illusion the moment it hits 770K+? (1VS1).

[quote=Expressive]Thank you, a lot!
Maybe in version 1.1 you can add dragon spark too?[/quote]
You're very welcome n_n

I have incorporated Dragon Spark into each skill already. This is why you see Illusion damage increase slowly even after Illusion caps.

While Dragon spark strongly favours fast attacks (like Thrust), Spark has the same skill%damage as Thrust, so it caps at the same time as Thrust does. Therefore you can't see a distinct part of the Thrust curve that's affected by Spark.

@Demiray, @Skyenets;

I have updated the first post with version 1.1.

[quote=Demiray]A couple things I would suggest, however, is if possible to state how much damage / line would you need to do where the different lines intersect. That way we can personally know when, say, DT is surpassing Blaze and FW in damage. Also, just so you know, Dragon Thrust hits 6 mobs, not 8, and FW hits 10 :X So that could affect your calculations.[/quote]
You had me thinking I was crazy there, for a sec!
I checked on 4 web databases... and I'm pretty Dragon Thrust hits 8, so I will stick with my 1v8 math (:
I can't log into Maple right now for some reason, so I can't check with my 187 Evan.

Also, I'm not looking for a sticky I just hope people will share the graph (once it's finalized) whenever someone has a relevant question.

Now I'm working on applying a 60% critical rate (at 150% critical damage). Very tricky when we're talking about damage cap math. Should be fun to figure out.
[1 hour later] Aha! Got it!

Stand by for version 1.1

Thanks, I'll fix that outstanding error when I get home. Will make chart 1v6 stead of 1v8.
(Posting between classes lol)

the damage cap is way too low