Armor Leveling Research. Please Contribute.

[Sifu]

The commonly accepted method is to use snakeskins or uncommons for a few levels. Then snakeskins most of the rest of the way. Finally, there are four fusions with basics that will give guaranteed 50EP or better results. I believe the common practice is to switch to 50 EP armors at about level 50 for armors that don't match snakeskin and at 62 for armors that do.

You can test when you would like to change between them using this calculator that Barbanium already put a lot of work into:
http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthre...and-Calculator
This thing is awesome and calculates the number of fusions, the gold cost, the crafting times and the gold per EP. Unfortunately, it does not seem to consider a category for Spectral Captain's to be used as fuel. It might give you a huge starting place though, where that might be the only thing you need to add to it rather than building from scratch.

F1 + F2 + UNCOMMON COST * 8 > F1 + SNAKESKIN COST * 4
F2 + 4000 > 12000
F2 > 8000

So the time to transition is when the NEXT fusion (F2) is > 8000. This happens after 22 fusions when the armor is at level 23 and has a total of 880 EP.

This seems to bear out. The calculator has similar results. That seems to be the inflection point where the gold/EP starts to favor snakeskins and the calculated total cost is cheaper at that point using uncommons vs snakeskins. This is fairly clear mathmatically, although, I must admit, it doesn't seem obvious. It takes 22 fusions as you stated with that cost rising each time vs only 15 to get to that point with non-match snakeskins.

The transition to Spectral Captains uniform was slightly more difficult, but no more complicated. 80 and 360 have the least common multiple of 720, so here I had to compare 8 snakeskin fusions to 2 spectral captains uniform fusions. I represent it in the following way:

F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 + F5 + F7 + F7 + F8 + SNAKESKIN COST * 32 > F1 + F5 + SPECTRAL CAPTAINS COST * 8
F2 + F3 + F4 + F6 + F7 + F8 + 96000 > 400000
F2 + F3 + F4 + F6 + F7 + F8 > 304000

Putting that formula into my spreadsheet it shows that that happens after 21 fusions, when the armor is at level 45 and has a total 2560 EP.

This is fortuitous since 5080 - 2560 = 2520, which is exactly divisible by 360. 2520/360 = 7.

This yields to total crafting and fusion cost of 2,793,200.

This may be true. It might even be the "best" way (or nearly since we are discounting level 11 uncommons). However, as I mentioned, you have some other methods to calculate if you really want to find the "best" way because those 50EP armors is the generally accepted method. I haven't done the math myself. Of course, that requires fusion stones too and those are hard to put a "cost" on.

I realize that I could swap the off element Snakeskin's for some on element Uncommons levelled to 11; but that just trade a little bit of time for some extra gold.

Here is where I have to question your goals. You make a time vs gold judgement here but you started by asking for the "best" method considering only gold. Are snakeskins better to start off with because you have to do fewer fusions? Are they better to start off with because they are less complicated to farm than shards? With snakeskins, you don't have to try to use a Special Attack on anything but the boss. Is Spectral Captain "viable" due to the difficulties farming it relative to other methods?

We all have to make judgments like this. I definitely don't question your judgement in this statement. I just am pointing out that any answer we give is likely to have some of our own judgments already embedded in them.

So my questions:
1) Can you spot a problem with my math?
2) Can you give a lower total cost?
3) Is there another armor I should consider for fusion fodder?
4) Is there a fusion method that may lead to me NOT having to farm 504 Ghostly Beard Hairs?

Thanks!

Hopefully, Barbanium's calculator will help with the first two questions. As to the second, I hope some of my comments have helped. In all honesty, I didn't do any of those calculations myself, I am a shameless regurgitator of what I have gleaned from these forums.