[Tips & Tricks] How To, Questions & More

[Harvey Guo]

Efficiency is important. I believe max out the armor first would be a great idea.

After Misty Marsh, there are Roc and further stronger enemies with higher attack, you may need to max out your 3 armors to help you go further.

I do not mean to let you stop at Misty Marsh, you can keep exploring areas, but spend some time on farming snakeskin and upgrade your armor, so that you will feel easier to pass next area.

Thanks a lot deathexe, I will look up the guide for leveling the armors

Oh one last question: When should I advance with the areas and how should I level?

Would it be better to start getting the Big 4 to 50 at first while farming Snakeskin and getting some XP there or should I try to push on as far as I can with the areas?

Not exactly sure which method would yield better xp and/or materials.

Thanks again

[deathexe]

Thanks a lot deathexe, I will look up the guide for leveling the armors

Oh one last question: When should I advance with the areas and how should I level?

Would it be better to start getting the Big 4 to 50 at first while farming Snakeskin and getting some XP there or should I try to push on as far as I can with the areas?

Not exactly sure which method would yield better xp and/or materials.

Thanks again

P.S.: Thank you for your reply too Harvey

Here's the research done by Radlonghammer about using snakeskins. All credit goes out to him and all I'm doing is just copying it here.


Originally Posted by supastan
...and is snakeskins the only way for fast armor leveling? i only have 3 armorsmiths
The idea that farming Snakeskins is the only way to quickly level armor is one of the most commonly held beliefs of K&D players, and is not entirely accurate. Up to a certain point, Snakeskin as enhancement material is absolutely the most GOLD EFFICIENT means, but is absolutely NOT the most time efficient, nor is it the fastest.

In order to understand, in detail, the effectiveness of an armor when enhancing another armor, it's critical to understand the concept of Enhancement Points. The more EP you throw at an armor, the more it will level.

All armors have two EP values; one when it is used to enhance an armor with at least one matching elements, and another that is approximately 20% lower when used to enhance an armor with NO matching elements. Here are some basics:

*Basic Armors (Basic Fire, Spirit, Earth, Air, Water) Give 6 points if matching, 5 points if not.

*Uncommon Monos (Seafoam, Dragonflame, Mystic, Wing Warrior, Stonescale, and Nemesis armors) give 10 points if matching, 8 if not.

*Rare, Single Star Duals (Snakeskin, Atlantean, Crius, Chimera, Hydra, Livingflame, Flamestorm) give 24 points if matching at least one element, 20 points if matching none.

**Super Rare, Two Star Duals (Embersteel, Monks, Exorcists, Flowstone, Forgemasters, etc.) give 50 points if matching at least one element, 40 points if not.

Furthermore, if an armor has been enhanced itself, it gives additional Enhancement Points equal to every level beyond level one. For example, your maxed nemesis that might no longer once the boss is gone gives 10 matching element points, plus 29 (Level 30-1) for a total of 39 enhancement points.

Now that you know what an armor gives, let's take a look at what it costs. As with everything in K&D, cost must be looked at as both a function of gold and a function of time.

All Basic armors feature the same cost to craft (300 gold) and the same time to craft (5 minutes). Knowing that, we can calculate an Ehancement Point (EP) payoff per gold spent, and per minute spent.

With matching elements: 50 gold/EP, and .833 minutes/EP
Without matching elements: 60 gold/EP and 1 minute/EP

The Uncommon Monos cost 500 gold and 30 minutes to craft, so:

With matching elements: 50 gold/EP, and 3 minutes/EP
Without matching elements: 62.5 gold/EP and 3.75 minutes/EP

The Rare, Single Star Duals have varying crafting costs, and Snakeskin is by far the cheapest at 3000 gold. Like all armors of this class, crafting time is 2 hours, or 120 minutes. Snakeskin costs:

With matching elements: 125 gold/EP, and 5 minutes/EP
Without matching elements: 150 gold/EP, and 6 minutes/EP

SNAKESKIN ALTERNATIVE #1

Suppose you're using Snakeskin to level an armor with neither the Earth nor the Water element, such as Livingflame (Fire/Spirit) or Rocfeather (wind/spirit). An alternative to the Snake might be to craft Wing Warriors or Mystics, and level them up to L11, where they will pay the same 20 (10 = L11-1) EP as the non-matching Snakeskin. To do so, you will need 500 gold for the Mono, and 300 gold each for 8 basics. You will also pay enhancement costs of 150 each slot x 4 slots to level your mono from L1-L6, and 400 each slot x 4 slots to level it from L6-L11. (Note the increase in enhancement cost as the level of the armor to be enhanced rises. This is a very important cost component to be considered later.)

Anyhow, our L11 mono cost us 500 for the mono, 2400 for the 8 basics used to enhance it, and 2200 in total enhancement costs, for a total gold cost of 5100. This is obviously more expensive than the 3000 for the Snakeskin.

Timewise, we've spent 30 minutes to craft our mono, and 5 minutes each for the 8 basics (40 minutes) for a total of 70 minutes, far less than the 120 minutes the snake took. Let's look at our payoff vs. the Snakeskin:

Unmatched Snake: 150 gold/EP, and 6 minutes/EP
Matched L11 Mono: 255 gold/EP, and 3.5 minutes/EP

It should be clear that while the Snakeskin gives us our 20 EP cheaper, does NOT give it faster!

VERY IMPORTANT POINT

Crafting time ceases to match up with real life time once you have multiple armories. Let's suppose you have four armories, and look at the same example again, but using real life time to craft either 4 Snakeskins or 4 L11 Matching Monos, to exploit all 4 enhancement slots.

With 4 armories, you will craft your 4 Snakeskins in 2 hours of real life time, and your 4 L11 monos in 70 minutes of real life time. Same amount of real life time as the example above, but with FOUR TIMES THE PAYOUT, 80 EP vs. only 20. Hence:

Unmatched Snake x4: 150 gold/EP, and 1.5 minutes/EP
Matched L11 Mono x4: 255 gold/EP, and .875 minutes (52 1/2 seconds)/EP!!!

Not only should this demonstrate that Snakeskin is NOT the fastest way to level armor, but it should also underscore the importance of having multiple armories at work when leveling armors is a high priority!

If you can afford the additional gold cost, and want to level an armor more quickly, you might well consider this alternative to Snakeskin.

SNAKESKIN ALTERNATIVE #2

Let's look at the Snakeskin vs. the Super Rare (2 Star) Dual Elements. Let's say you're leveling a Spirit/Wind Armor such as Roc Feather or Sky Guardian. In this case, Exorcist's Vestments would be a good choice of enhancement armor. Like all of the 2 Star Duals, however, it can not be crafted and is only available through chests, possible event rewards, and fusion.

Fortunately, it is an extremely reliable result of fusing Wing Warrior (Slot 1) with Mystic (Slot 2). Although we can't assign a time/gold cost to the required fusion stones, we can consider the cost of the Base Armors and the Cost of the Fusion.

Wing Warrior (500) + Mystic (500) + Fusion (25,000) =26,000 gold. Time is 30 minutes each for Wing and Mystic, and instantaneous for the fusion, so 60 minutes is the crafting time. The Payoff is 50 EP. Therefore:

Unmatched Snake: 150 gold/EP, and 6 minutes/EP ( 20 total EP for 3000 total gold, and 120 min. total crafting time)
Matching Exorcist: 520 gold/EP, and 1.2 minutes/EP (50 total EP for 26,000 total gold, and 60 min total. crafting time)

Same example with 4 armories, considering REAL TIME:

Unmatched Snake x4: 150 gold/EP, and 1.5 minutes/EP (80 total EP for 12,000 total gold, and 120 min. total REAL time)
Matching Exorcist x4: 520 gold/EP, and 0.3 minutes/EP (200 total EP for 104,000 total gold, 60 min. total REAL time)

Snake loses the speed battle again, and by a TON!

ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT

The cost of enhancing armor rises dramatically with the level of the armor to be enhanced. Here's a glimpse at the rising cost scale, by the amount of gold it takes to fill all 4 enhancement slots at various levels of the target armor (I'm giving this in increments of 5 levels. The comprehensive chart may be seen in the spreadsheet):

L1: 600
L6: 1600
L11: 2800
L16: 5200
L21: 7200
L26: 11,000
L31: 16,000
L36: 24,000
L41: 34,000
L46: 44,000
L51: 54,000
L56: 64,000
L61: 74,000
L66: 84,000
L69: 90,000

Obviously, the higher the level of the armor you're enhancing, the bigger component of the cost the enhancement itself becomes. That's a third component that we've not yet considered. Let's look at 4x Unmatched Snake vs. 4x Matching Exorcists when enhancing a Level 51 Roc Feather or Sky Guardian.

4x Unmatched Snake =12,000 in Crafting Cost + 54,000 in Enhancement Cost = 66,000 for 80 EP, or 825 gold/EP
4x Matching Exorcists =4000 Crafting + 100,000 Fusion + 54,000 Enhancement = 158,000 for 200 EP, or 790 gold/EP

While up to this point, we've accepted that Snakeskin is the Slower, but Cheaper alternative, we see that at some point, Snakeskin fails even to be the cheapest alternative!

YET ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT If you look at the cost progression above as a road on which you have to make a certain number of stops, and pay at a certain number of toll booths, it should become obvious that the fewer stops you have to make, the less total gold you will spend along the way. Simply put, the MORE EP you can add to your target armor per enhancement, the fewer times you'll have to pay the enhancement cost. This isn't a terribly big deal when you're enhancing a Nemesis armor to it's maximum level of 30. When you're enhancing an armor that maxes at L70, however, it becomes a significant cost component, further devaluing Snakeskin vs. the alternative.

In conclusion: Snakeskin is a very valuable component of a proper armor enhancement strategy, but it should never be seen as the only component. When it's time to start leveling those L70 armors to the max, it's time to lessen your reliance on Snake. When Snake is non-matching, and you have more gold than time, consider those L11 Monos!

***Edited to add***

When your "real time" is going to be spent away from the game, Snakeskins are still great to craft. I have my armories churning them out any time I know I'm going to be away from the game for at least 2 hours!

All credits to Radlonghammer for the research.

[harlequeeny]

Awesome thank you two of you again

[deathexe]

Awesome thank you two of you again

Glad I could help

[harlequeeny]

Glad I could help

Absolutely

I guess I will farm some Snakeskin while watching a movie tonight since I can't play that regular during the week. So I will be able to put my three forges to good use then.

Oh another questions just came to my mind: If I farm a stage either for a mono armor + basic armor material or the skeleton tomb, which difficulty should i choose?

[deathexe]

Absolutely

I guess I will farm some Snakeskin while watching a movie tonight since I can't play that regular during the week. So I will be able to put my three forges to good use then.

Oh another questions just came to my mind: If I farm a stage either for a mono armor + basic armor material or the skeleton tomb, which difficulty should i choose?

That's more or less up to you. However if you're farming things like stone slabs or chunks of coral, it's better to do the stages that require the least time to get you to the boss yet still gives you enough monsters to charge up your special attack meter. However of you're farming things like snakeskin, the easier stages have less chance to drop snakeskin while higher stages have a higher chance. You need to take into account the damage you're receiving and how much you can handle.

[Vigorous]

After calculating ill prob only have to spend 100 gems to get plus version vs doing the chest. Considering I'm a collector and I love this armor ill go for it. 100 is cheap(got 450) plus send I'm completely expanded I can level it up real quick. Appreciate your input

[RadLonghammer]

Absolutely

I guess I will farm some Snakeskin while watching a movie tonight since I can't play that regular during the week. So I will be able to put my three forges to good use then.

Oh another questions just came to my mind: If I farm a stage either for a mono armor + basic armor material or the skeleton tomb, which difficulty should i choose?

I haven't actually taken the time to log the results of my farming activities, so I don't know this for sure, but it FEELS like the Valor Stage of Skeleton's Tomb drops Snakeskin Leather at about a 70% rate. When you don't get leather, you'll get Stone slabs instead, and you can craft and level up some Stonescale Platemail which will help you level up your other armors as well.

[Vigorous]

Oh dude you misread my post LOL I'm not level 26 I'm 52 or 52. I'm at boss 26, 27 now lol

[pown otto]

ok so, these are my armors im lv. 26 and have up to writhing cascades unlocked, how should i go about upgrading my armor?

[RadLonghammer]

ok so, these are my armors im lv. 26 and have up to writhing cascades unlocked, how should i go about upgrading my armor?

Otto;

You don't have any good armors yet, and none are really worth upgrading any further. PLEASE do NOT spend any time, gold, or other resources toward improving these armors.

Use your friends to help you farm the heck out of Writhing Cascades until you have at least 8 typhoon gems, then IMMEDIATELY craft Atlantean Avenger. Once it's ready, level it up to 15, and STOP! This will unlock Atlantean Avenger+. Then, craft AA+, and concentrate on leveling it ALL the way to L50.

Your next will be Crius+, then Living Flame+, then Hydra Hunters+ (all from farming the next levels and going through the same motions).

[pown otto]

oh, okay. thanks then

[Howzee87]

My question's about this forum not the actual game.

When can I post a new thread?

I've been a member for over a week now and posted a few replies around the place, but I still can't create a new thread. It's kind of frustrating because I have an issue that I'd like to get others comments on but I don't want to hijack another thread or have it get lost in this one.

[Justice711]

I remember its 10 posts bro. maybe we can chat here then u can type 4 more.

Or u can do the survey or polls that are around the forum now.

[Vigorous]

Anyone know how many ep is needed to max nem armour?