Getting to the Endgame: The General Guidelines to Min-Maxing and Best Bang For Your Buck

• Ever looked into the 100 epic equipment and got overwhelmed?
• Which one is the best in slot for my character?
• What would be the best bang for your buck in term of damage increase?
• This post provides general guidelines to help you with your gearing and spending decision in the end game.

Equation For Basic Skill Damage

• This Reddit page explains clearly how damage is calculated but let's look at it in a simplest way possible.
• This was was last edited 3 years ago, so it may be outdated, but this is the only equation the author can find.

If you get a critical hit, just take this and ✖1.5

• Yellow
• 
• Depends on if your character is percent damage or fixed damage. You can read more about how to know which one your character is in this post.
• The higher the Stat, the higher the damage output.

• Blue.
• 
• The higher the Elemental Damage, the higher the damage output.
• Green
• 
• In the past
• Only Weapon can give Piercing Attack
• Fixed damage classes have no piercing component.
• For 100 cap, piercing attack is not really a thing anymore. It's all raw physical/magical attack now due to monster defense is practically gone.
• Therefore this green part may not be up-to-date, but the basic components of stat and elemental damage are still there.
• For now, it's the blue line "+11: Physical Atk. + 604" through weapon reinforcement or "+4: Independent Atk. + 119" through weapon refinement (examples below).

          

• Other modifiers
• They usually come as
• "All Atk. +XXX%"
• "All  Classes Level XXX +XXX"
• "Skill Atk. +XXX%"
• "STR/INT +XXX%"
• "Physical/Magical?Independent Atk. +XXX%"
• "Additional Attack Damage +XXX%"
• And more
• It can get complicated to see which one is the best. TL;DR: the more of these modifier you stack, the more damage you can output.

Best Bang For Your Buck

• Looking at the equation, you can clearly tell which component most contribute to damage output and which component doesn't do as much.
• This part is intended for new and returning players.
• Rank 1: Critical Cap
• A critical hit multiply the damage by 150%, this is best investment.
• You can read how to hit crit cap in this post.
• This Spreadsheet will tell you how much critical your class would need in town.
• Rank 2: Swap Set
• Including title, pet, avatars.
• Getting a complete swap set is not cheap, but it's still one of the cheapest option and no other content can replace your swap set in a near future.
• Operation hope was released in June 2019, the last swap set was basically when DFOG came back in 2015.
• You can read more on Swap Set here.
• Rank 3: Weapon Reinforcement/Refinement
• On the damage equation, these two do NOT have denominator.
• I would work on this first before Stat and Elemental Damage.
  
• Get your weapon at least +10 Reinforcement or +6 Refinement before moving to rank 4.
• Weapon reinforce/refine has RNG, but +10 reinforcement typically take about 10-15 million gold (of course depends on your luck)
• Rank 4: Avatar & Emblems
• Advance clone avatar and rare emblems should be enough.
• Advance Avatar Box does for about 9 million, rare red/green emblems are about 1 million each
• Later can transition to rare avatar and unique emblems.
• Rank 5: Enchants
• This is where you're adding Stat, Physical/Magical/Independent Atk., Elemental Damage to your gears.
• Use this page for recommended enchant for each slot.
• Beside the BIS card such as Red Ghost Soryun , Prophet Ezra , etc., 2nd best cards are becoming more affordable. 
• NOTE: Cheap enchant cards such as Officer Mercel , Hound Cyrus , Anje Wane  would probably give you more damage in term of best bang for your buck comparing to Rank 3 and 4. 
• It's completely fine to get those first. 
• But when it comes to BIS cards such as  and , the author can't recommend spending 20 million gold on a single un-upgraded .
• It's hard to justify spending 20 million gold to get 15 to 26 elemental damage (  → ) when a new player can potentially get a +10 weapon plus an advance avatar box.
• Rank 6: Pet, Title, Aura
• This rank last because Neople almost always releasing better version in form of avatar packages, sales, lost treasure, etc.
• Look for additional modifiers such as "All Atk.", "Bonus Damage", Elemental Damage, etc.

The Start of Min-Maxing

• There's a great discussion on this topic on this Reddit Post.
• Some ways include but not limiting to:
• Getting as much modifier as possible from level 100 epic sets
• There are many set combination, each with different modifier .
• Adding them by hand can be tedious, that's why Dawnclass made the calculator.
• The author is currently using this calculator (August 14, 2020).
• Use this link to see which epic weapon is popular in Korea.
• Korea strongest Weapon Master also has videos about ranking level 100 epic Armors and Accessories/Special Equipment.
• Change all slot's grade to 100% superior using Kaleido boxes.
• Further Amplify your gear and Reinforce/Refine your weapon.
• Getting the latest/strongest pet, creature artifacts, title, aura from packages, lost treasure, etc.
• The author felt the best way to explain this min-maxing part is to compare the author's current gear (August 13, 2020) to Korea strongest Male Ranger.
• That's 57 Billion vs. 570 Billion damage.
• Link to top Korea Raven here.
• Basic Gear

• Amplification
• The author is unsure of the reason behind the no reinforcement on the Korean player's weapon. Perhaps dunfaoff just didn't include it.

• Strength
• Author (3,905) vs. Korea (6,124) strength.
• Korea new cards (probably from Sirocco Raid).
• +50 Strength on each Waist, Shoulder, and Shoes.
• +70 Physical Atk./40 Strength on Top and Bottom.
• Why don't you plug that 2,200 strength in difference in the equation and see how much damage can increase (hint: It's ✖10).
• Elemental Damage
• Author (192 Water) vs. Korea (271 Shadow).
• The 79 Elemental Damage does not strengthen the damage as much as strength but the reason shadow is used is to take advantage of the effects of "Secret Watcher of the Abyss Set" and "Black Magic Researcher Set" (higher shadow resistance = higher modifiers).
• Insignia - Same
• Swap Set - Same
• Avatar
• Both Rare clone.
• Korea uses all Gold emblems with as much strengths as possible.
• Talisman
• Same talisman.
• Korea has all rare runes and both talismans have Purple, Blue, and Red rune slot.

How Much Does It Cost?

• Totally RNG to reinforce/refine/amp your gear.
• Just look at how much to get one piece to +15 amp on this video.
• If you want to invest in the least RNG as possible, get the BIS enchants, rare avatar, gold emblems, full swap set first before attempt amplification..

What About Saders?

• Same general concept, maxing your stat through enchants/amplification and swap set option.
• Below is ranking for saders to use for buff and 1st Awakening.

Changelog

• 8/15/2020
• ADDED: Clarification on Rank 3, 4, 5