General

I'm using 2 of those sets as we speak.

Guess I gotta wait for beast tamer to come out again.

Is there no better mage than evan for the last set though? Looks like there's not... Maybe that MP gain effect will help on pot-lock bosses I guess.

The thread post is really long and unorganized(no offense) so I just skimmed real quick. Based on what you have, I suggest use these cc effects assuming they are the all the same lvls.
set 1: xenon, ab, shade: pirate set % pdr
set 2: DS, DA, MECH: resistance set
set 3:kanna evan bt: mage set

I heard some odd stuff about summon duration with my box skill.

I do actually use it in dojo, but I can't really detect if the casting time is worth the extra damage. Currently the orbs hit for like 800k damage if I'm seeing it right, making it add like... and extra 20mil damage over time (max estimate). I could redo my hypers to make it stronger though (I increased speed to blade dance so I can move
around at gollux faster, I'm now more "dojo oriented&quot

What I heard somewhere else is that the summon duration will only affect the box...

Not the orbs! meaning unless yer buffing n00bs with the red box (gives em more HP)
extra box with no orb in it does nothing.

If they have patched this (or the original guy was wrong, I havent tested)
Then the explorer pirate set becomes an option, especially if that summon duration
effect can STACK... Then I think I I would have to make a jett, the other summon duration
class, and I guess a brawler (seems like the best of what I'd have left to work with).

Giving me my oh so beloved +10 (+7 for like... a LONG TIME) all stat that I keep harping on.

All the Cygnus Link skills take one slot. It's quite useful.

If another not useless Sengoku card came out, I think everyone would be happy.

As for another Nova card, if it's +LUK, you're golden.

Summon duration isn't as bad as it sounds if you use Hypogram a lot. It's still probably not worth swapping in though.

@mojitowns and @mrxxkim would be a great help here.

That was exactly the kind of reply I was looking for! I was truly hoping to be proven wrong!

Kudos!

Also it sounds like you can take all of my numbers and divide them by 2, and then my logic is sound.
This leads to like... A 10.5% damage increase for me (10.5 x .95, if I just stay as I am now... If that math works correctly for determining average damage for a guy
with LESS than 100% crit).

I know that the thief set isn't very good. Sounds like it adds +10 all stat & only a 2% actual damage increase.
(Unless chara cards magically break the speed & jump cap)

By the way... I am done with almost all of my link mules, I have 11 of 12 slots full. Mules are like the only thing (besides the very occasional cube) that I spend NX on.
I mean I guess if I keep at it I eventually have to make like 4 more cygnus knights (the blaze wizard ring is what made me start obsessing over crits like I currently am)
to get that 10% status resist from stacking that link 5 times (or would I have to use 5 link skill slots to do that? If so then F that!)

Anyway my point is... I'm in this for the long haul (till the servers close I suppose) so I eventually plan to make the perfect link skill deck as well.
I just don't feel the need to work on them too much as I have been doing nothing but link mules for like 3 months now.

Anyway~

Let's say I take your advice and skip the thief set (means I get to make 3 less mules yay!)
What then might be the truly ideal deck?

Remember I don't care AT all for stuff like the evan card because I make good income off commerci and I zak enough to always have power elixirs, and I have
familiars that restore HP & MP (and my HP maxes out at like 35,000 as we speak).

Hold on one second (this will be instantaneous for you, but not for me~)
Gonna copy some data from another website which I assume to be public domain. Author of this Data calls himself "Stereo" credit where credit due.
If anyone truly wants to raise copyright issues over this let me remind you that as the creator of the source material Nexon "owns" this list
and has made it freely available.

Here's every character card effect in the game (I will bold the ones which aren't horrible):

Hero Warrior Adventurer 2% 3% 4% 5% weapon defense
Paladin Warrior Adventurer 0.5 1 1.5 2 level to physical damage
[b]Dark Knight Warrior Adventurer 2% 3% 4% 5% max hp [/b]
Fire/Poison Mage Magician Adventurer 2% 3% 4% 5% max mp
Ice/Lightning Mage Magician Adventurer 0.5 1 1.5 2 level to magical damage
Bishop Magician Adventurer 5% 10% 15% 20% mp potion effect increase
Bowmaster Bowman Adventurer 2% 4% 6% 8% accuracy
[b]Marksman Bowman Adventurer 1% 2% 3% 4% critical rate[/b]
Night Lord Thief Adventurer 2 3 4 5 jump
Shadower Thief Adventurer 2 3 4 5 speed
Dual Blader Thief Adventurer 2% 3% 4% 5% avoid
Viper Pirate Adventurer 2 3 4 5 level to physical+magical damage
[b]Captain Pirate Adventurer 4% 6% 8% 10% summon duration increase
Jett Pirate Adventurer 4% 6% 8% 10% summon duration increase[/b]
Cannon Shooter Pirate Adventurer 2% 3% 4% 5% reduction in exp loss after dying
[b]Demon Slayer Warrior Resistance 1% 2% 3% 4% resistance to all statuses[/b]
Battle Mage Magician Resistance 2% 3% 4% 5% reduction in damage taken
Wild Hunter Bowman Resistance 0.5 1 1.5 2 Chance of instantly killing an enemy (Don't work at stronghold, may be good if it works at Perion)
[b]Mechanic Pirate Resistance 5% 10% 15% 20% buff duration increase[/b]
[b]Xenon Pirate&Thief Resistance 5 10 20 40 +all stats[/b]
[b]Demon Avenger Warrior Resistance 1% 2% 3% 5% boss damage[/b]
[b]Aran Warrior Hero 2% 4% 6% 8% 70% chance of healing %HP[/b]
[b]Evan Magician Hero 2% 4% 6% 8% 70% chance of healing %MP [/b]
[b]Luminous Magician Hero 10 20 40 80 +int[/b] (not good for me though)
[b]Mercedes Bowman Hero 2% 3% 4% 5% skill cooldown decrease[/b]
Phantom Thief Hero 1% 2% 3% 4% meso drop rate increase
Dawn Warrior Warrior Cygnus 2% 3% weapon defense
Blaze Wizard Magician Cygnus 0.5 1 level to magical damage
Wind Archer Bowman Cygnus 2% 4% accuracy
Night Walker Thief Cygnus 2% 3% avoid
Thunder Breaker Pirate Cygnus 2 3 level to physical+magical damage
Mikhail Warrior Cygnus 2% 3% 4% 5% weapon defense
[b]Kaiser Warrior Nova 10 20 40 80 +str[/b]
[b]Angelic Buster Pirate Nova 10 20 40 80 +dex[/b]
[b]Zero Warrior "Child of God" 4% 6% 8% 10% exp bonus[/b]
[b]Kanna Magician Sengoku 1% 2% 3% 4% boss damage[/b]
[b]Hayato Warrior Sengoku 2% 4% 6% 8% min crit damage[/b]
[b]Beast Tamer Magician ? 2% 4% 6% 8% monster defense ignored[/b]
[b]Shade Hero + 5% min/max crit damage[/b]

I typed all that out for a reason.
Basically my thief set sucks because it adds truly useless stats (unless I use xenon in it, which I probably could)

My question now is... Looking at all the above, and considering that half of the ones I said are "good" are not really that good
(I do not intend to raise my HP to obscene levels to tank Damage reflect, and I am willing to spend infinite money on potions and use them a lot)

What exactly do I have that would beat my thief set?
I guess I could go for the 4% boss from a Kanna card.

I guess my real question is... Let's just ASSUME that I somehow get the maximum gain from the warrior set effect:
That truly only adds like at most 9,999 damage, which granted, is more important the less strong my attack is (works best with blade dance basically;
after blade dance hits 1000 times, I have done 10 million extra damage I think)
My lvl 200 hyper can currently hit lines of over 6mil (I think I saw 7 mil in dojo once, but I'm taking minimal estimates here)
anyway... If I ever get to the point where I'm hitting 8mil lines with snipe (I guess 1.5mil range would do that), then the warrior set adds 1/1000% to those lines.

Is there truly nothing better?

Will 4% boss on top of an already 190% (soon to be 210%) really have more of an effect than +10 all stat on a xenon?
What about +10 all stat and 4% max crit?

I guess what I'm getting at is the +all stat from set effects affects us xenons at least twice as much as it does other classes.
Conversely I believe stuff like the angelic buster card only helps us 1/3rd as much. (1/3 as much as a class with STR or DEX as main stat)

Also as you stated the +10 all stat IS affected by %stat! meaning as I stand currently, I think one of those sets would actually give me like
11 STR, 13 Dex, & 12 luk... Double that if I manage to get 2 of those sets.

It's just a lot to take in. I do feel like through all of this contemplation I have come closer to the real answer.
Here's hoping they release 1 more sengoku class! If they did that (and gave it the standard +all stat effect) my problems would be answered

Hayato
Kanna
Probably Ayume (or whatever had the recent mini-dungeon)

That'd make this really easy.
Also another nova class would make this really easy

AB
Kaiser
Some class

Also if I somehow hit 95% status resist this would be easy as I could hit 100% with a demon card.

I'm half doing this for myself, and half doing it for future perfectionist Xenons. We truly play a different version of maple
than the rest of the classes, and this is one of those areas where there is a debate to be had (unless some pro has literally crunched the numbers
on all of this FOR XENONS).

Thanks for your reply previous poster... You may have just saved me from getting 3 mules to 200... But my jury is still out.

I think I need to re-iterate this:

Just because a set effect looks appealing, doesn't mean getting COMPLETELY (+jump... really...) useless cards to complete it is worth it, especially since they don't offer any link skills.

That second set you posted used to be the standard, but shade now easily replaces the non-pirate resistance.

Pure stat cards do not stack w/ %stat, but set effect stats do. Still, it's not very viable.
Also, that's not how crit dmg works. This is how it works:

Every character starts with a 120% minimum crit dmg and 150% maximum crit dmg. Therefore, the average % of crit dmg is (120+150)/2, or 135%.

Every source of %min and %max crit dmg is actually half as effective on avg crit dmg. Shade card adds both, so that is a true % increase, but Hayato is only half.

To add on, the higher the avg crit dmg you already have, the less any more will give. Yes, crit dmg alse sees diminishing returns.

To see this, say you have the normal stripped char w/ 100% crit (don't even ask how this is possible, or just pretend it's a DS using impact or somethin) and 135% avg crit dmg. Giving dSE to that char will make the avg crit dmg go from 135% to 140%, making the dmg increase 140/135, or ~3.7%.

Now, lets say that char has achieved 150% min crit and 170% max crit, making for an avg of 160%. Adding the same dSE will make the avg go to 165%, making the dmg increase 165/160, or 3.125%

As you can see, it diminishes WAY slower than, say, %boss, mainly because there aren't many sources of %crit dmg available (the values I give are hard to obtain for the average person, unless the class is highly based on crit -cough-hayato-cough-), but it's still present.

As for what happens when %min crit exceeds %max crit, this phenomenon has already been discussed post-Grand Athenatheum, it is was visualized to the stat window, but was conjectured to exist beforehand. They simply swap places. To illustrate:

Let's say a char has 150% min and max crit, and gains 5% min crit from somewhere. The current min crit is 155% while the max crit stays the same, so the crit dmg is calculate as though they swapped. I will now put forth two scenarios from here to clarify the situation further:

1. Gain of 10% more min crit. Now the min crit is 165% while the max crit is 150%. Again, the crit dmg is calculate as though they swapped.
2. Gain of 10% max crit. Now, the Mon crit is 155% and the max crit is 160%. Crit dmg is now computed normally, as max crit became higher again.

Hope I helped.

Well thanks for the advice guys.

I definitely will be making a beast tamer whenever I can, maybe that'll be nexon's Christmas gift to us.

There's a couple of things I still have to consider:

[b]1. I absolutely MUST HAVE A SHADE IN THERE.[/b]
Since I can hit 100% critical rate (If I really want to), I believe that means that the Shade character card should add a whopping
[i]10% to my total damage.[/i] My reasoning is such: I have heard that raising min crit damage has the same effect as raising max crit (if you don't hit cap).
Since 100% of my hits will be crits; is not min/max crit damage the same as total damage for me? It sounds suspiciously like it is. Since it raises both
min AND max critical damage, 5%min + 5%max = +10% total actual damage. Please correct me if my logic is flawed.

[b]2. Mechanic has to stay.[/b]
We Xenons rely on our buffs for about 70% of our range at least. I jump from like 280k to like 360k when I activate OOA Parts Code (Which unless I am wrong, adds
like another 30% boss damage on top of the total damage which does not display as an increase in your range). Of course this means that I want to stay in
OOA as much as possible (I can already maintain it 100% of the time, but about 50% of that time it's not at full power since I'm at 50% charge). Anyway,
Until the day comes that I roll my inner ability to legendary and get like 40% buff duration from 1 line, Mechanic will have to stay. The angelic buster link skill
makes this even more important to me, making me absolutely max out at 500k range (that's with all the current event NX items, so that's kind of cheating
but what ev~)

[b]3. +7 all stat absolutely beats both the warrior & the mage sets COMBINED (for xenons)[/b]
The recent NX items have enlightened me a little. One of them adds around +7 all stat, that raises my range by over 2,000 (absolute minimal estimate).
Since a lot of my skills do over 300% damage, take that 2k to my range and times it by 3. My base HP will NEVER BE 99,999.
At the end of the day, the +all stat (which oddly enough, IS affected by %all stat) will always beat out the warrior & or mage sets.

Whenever prices for %boss nebs drop in Windia to a reasonable price for a 20% boss neb (I'd pay like a bil for 1... I think that's fair for 20%)
Then I can probably lose the kanna card and any others that give %boss. This will free up several slots, and after a little research, I have concluded
that the thief character card set is something I should strive for. If my logic involving the shade card holds true, then SS rank thief set will add
4% to my total damage. Meaning I will be getting 14% total damage from my card decks... Which is honestly not bad at all.
Fortunately Xenon counts as a thief card, so my thief set will get to have 1 useful card in it.

Here's what I'm thinking of as a final deck, when I'm done training all mules and have hit the point of diminishing returns on both PDR AND Boss Damage%.

[b]Final Card Deck for a Xenon who doesn't hit cap with hit his/her Max Critical Attacks[/b]

1st. Set: [i]SS Rank Explorer/Thief (+4% max Critical Damage, +10 All Stats)[/i]
Night Lord (+Jump)
Shadower (+Speed)
Dual Blade (+Avoid ~ Slightly Helps Xenons Recharge after a successful dodge)

2nd. Set: [i]SS Rank Resistance (+10 All Stat)[/i]
Xenon (+40 All Stat)
Mechanic (+20% Buff Duration)
Demon Avenger (+5% Boss Damage)

3rd. Set 1: [i]Random Deck for pure stats[/i]
Shade (min/max crit +5%)
Angelic Buster (+80 DEX)
Kaiser (+80 STR)

3rd. Set 2: [i]Random Deck for good effects[/i]
Shade (min/max crit +5%)
Hayato (8% Min Crit)
Kanna (+4% Boss Damage)

After writing that all out, it looks like I absolutely MUST have a Hayato (which I actually already have, it's in my warrior deck in place of Zero as we speak)

If all of my conjecture is correct, especially my thoughts on what raising critical damage does...
Then it looks like the perfect deck could raise my total damage by an ENORMOUS 21%. Not counting at the effect
of the +20 all stat I'd pick up from the the resistance & thief sets, and the %boss & wep atk from having 3 SS rank sets.

One combination of the above sets (assuming I'm just right about everything) would give me like...

+13% Min Critical Damage, + 9% Max Critical Damage (21% Total Damage)
+24% Boss Damage
+15 Wep ATK
+60 All Stats
+15% Buff Duration

Against Bosses we can combine total damage with Boss damage for like 37% damage increase against bosses.
If my range in the window is 500k.... My actual range against bosses would read as 685,000.

It all comes down to whether my theory regarding min/max critical damage is correct for a guy with 100% critical rate.
I may run into trouble if I somehow raise my min crit over my max crit... But I'll deal with that in a year whenever I get 9 lvl 200's.

I just wanna see if anyone has any thoughts about all this.

The best set you can do is:
Pirate: Xenon AB Mechanic, This will give you more stat along with buff duration and 6% PDR for a pirate set (if getting a shade replace mechanic card if you dont need buff duration)
Warrior: Demon avenger hayato Kaiser, These cards allows for boss damage, minimum critical damage and stat boost, Set gives 8% of hp as damage (not a lot but it still helps)
Mage: Kanna, Evan and Battle mage (replace battle mage with Beast tamer when it comes back out or if you already have one). These cards will give boss damage, a chance to restore your mp(less pots yay~) and Damage reduction/PDR depeding on the last card you have in. Set gives 8% of mp as damage (not a lot but still helps)

All set bonuses i post are based off S rank cards. Also like someone else said, use the zero card when training new characters, just replace out the DA card cause i doubt you'll be doing bossing at lower levels,if im wrong take out kaiser.

I am quite willing to take advice.

But before I get 9 chara's to 200... I wanna make sure that I'm on the best path.

I understand that chara cards are not a great way to increase damage, but I think the best deck
could add like 5% to yer total damage.

For guys like me that don't have infinite NX...
I think this is a worthy thing to work on... Since it's FREE.

[quote=NeoShinron]I kinda wanna keep the %Boss cards though... Meaning Kanna has to stay, unless 3% boss damage on top of like 170% has hit the point of REALLY
diminishing returns, which it very well may have.

Also is there really that much difference damage wise in 100% crit vs 95% crit?
It seems like almost all of my hits are now crits so I dont know if I should use that cheap neb I got.[/quote]

From what i read you have 80% pdr which is good enough unless you plan to do c vellum, so you can take out the beast tamer from the 3rd set for the kanna card. If you want the demon avenger card for the %boss as well you can out the zero card if you dont care about leveling and just want to boss.

About the crit I personally think that 95% is fine but if you dont mind going the extra mile for the extra 5% crit whether that would be getting dse, inner ability, potentail lines, nebs, marksman character card (S-rank 3%, SS rank 4%), then I would just get 100% crit.

OK, from what I'm seeing, you won't even take advice from us.

But whatever. And at 500k range, char cards aren't even something to worry excessively about (unless you're me)

Anyway, I use and recommend:

3 set pirate: Mechanic, Xenon, Shade (this is a set every person who cares should have, no exceptions)
3 set warrior: Hayato, Demon Slayer, filler (there are lots of good filler cards, Demon Slayer for some free status resist, Zero when training link mules, Kaiser for stat; just PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't use paladin)
misc set: any of MM, merc, Beast Tamer, Kanna, AB, anything else you can think of. Sucks all the rest of the archer cards suck, so archer set is less than ideal.

Lessening the CD of AB link by 3s is really nothing at all, but I'd see keeping it for recharging energy useful.

It's not that the resistance card effect is bad; it's that there are better options out there. People used to use the resistance set until Shade came.

And yes 100% crit is ideal.

I kinda wanna keep the %Boss cards though... Meaning Kanna has to stay, unless 3% boss damage on top of like 170% has hit the point of REALLY
diminishing returns, which it very well may have.

Also is there really that much difference damage wise in 100% crit vs 95% crit?
It seems like almost all of my hits are now crits so I dont know if I should use that cheap neb I got.

I cant remember off the top of my head what i had but i think i went something like this:
Set 1- Kaiser (+str), Hayato(%min crit), Demon Slayer (abnormal resist) Warrior effect
Set 2- Xenon (+ str,dex,luk), Mechanic (15% buff duration), Shade (%min/max crit) Pirate effect
Set 3- Beast Tamer (%pdr), Angelic buster (+dex), Zero (%exp) Random effect

Not bad.

But I think it's less than ideal.

For one thing, I just hit 210. I am done training so Zero chara card is useless. The warrior set effect at most would add 8000 more damage to my lines of 1mil (average).

Also, since I have become VERY FOND of the angelic buster link skill, the Mercedes card effect taking like 3.5 secs off that cooldown (maybe more) I think I would
like.

I'm wondering; since I have kind of high PDR from like 10 different sources, if I could actually lose the pirate set altogether, since it probably only adds like,
3% to my already 80% PDR.

If I lose the pirate set, I could do weird stuff, like add the bowman or theif set (which ever affects critical damage).

I could also do odd stuff like have a pirate/explorer set, keeping the PDR & picking up a +7 all stat as well (at the cost of crappy individual card effects).

Anyone else got somethin?

I would recommend the following 3 sets for a xenon: Hayato, DA, Zero;-warrior Mechanic, Shade, Xenon;-pirate Mercedes, Kanna, ABorKaiser(for +XX stat), or rather use the marksman char card for +%crit rather then a little stat boost-miscellaneous. I also have different recommendations for sets but this is a pretty good basic one for xenon in my opinion