User talk:Varst

What are the different playing styles in this game?

Basically there’re three playing styles in HV: mage, light melee and heavy melee.

It’s not difficult to change between mage and melee: usually you only need to obtain suitable equipments, adjust your primary attributes, and train your proficiencies.

Some melees would choose to convert to mages at higher levels, because mages can clear rounds much faster than melees. It’s not a must though, as there are numerous melees who can reach high levels.

- Mages:

Mages are professionals in offensive spells. They primarily use different types of spells to clear rounds quickly.

Advantages:

• Their AOE spells can hit every monsters in the field (assuming you don’t miss).
• Offensive spells are generally more powerful than direct attack.
• Their armors don’t have any interference, so their supportive/depreciating spells have the longest duration.

Disadvantages:

• They’re mana-intensive. It’s usual for mages to consume tons of mana potions.
• They don’t have great defense, so they can be dealt serious damage from monsters.

- Light melee:

They wear light armors, which gives great boost to agility and evade.

Advantages:

• They don’t rely (that much) on mana.
• They can perform multiple rounds before monsters can react.
• They have the best evade, so monsters can’t hit them easily.

Disadvantages:

• They need more turns to clear a round
• It still hurts when multiple monsters land hits on the same round

- Heavy melee:

They wear heavy armors, which gives great boost to mitigation.

Advantages:

• They have great mitigation, which means monsters can’t deal that much damage.
• Rare power variant usually gives the best attack boost.

Disadvantages:

• They have high burden, which means monsters can land multiple hits before you can react.
• They have high interference, which shorten the duration of supportive/depreciating spells.
• Diminishing effects on mitigation hurts at higher levels.

There’re also some unsuccessful playing styles:

• Ninja style, with focus on high evade/parry.

Why it doesn’t work: Diminishing return on stacking evade/parry means it’s difficult to evade/parry every monsters’ attacks. Also, the attack output is just too low.

• There’re battlecaster weapons, but it’s not recommended at lower levels.

In order to utilize this build, you’ll need high and yet balanced primary attributes, tons of ability points, and trainings on both melee and mage proficiencies.

How should I allocate my primary attributes?

The first principle is: never allocate too much EXP on one particular attribute.

The EXP required to raise your attribute above 115% of your current level can be enormous.

For mages, it’s suggested to keep the following trend:

INT=WIS>AGI=END>STR>DEX

For melees, it’s suggested to keep the following trend:

WIS=END=AGI=STR=DEX>INT

Further explanations:

WIS gives you more mana and mana regen, and since everyone needs mana to cast supportive spells, it’s the most important attribute in HV.

END gives you more hp and mitigation. It’s quite important at lower levels, but its effect diminishes when you progress.

AGI gives you more action speed and better evade. It’s quite important at higher levels, since you’re going to get hit less often.

INT primarily increase magic damage output, while STR increases physical damage output. They’re useful only in the respective style.

DEX increases your physical attack accuracy, and is primarily useful for melees only.

How should I choose my fighting style?

There’re also different fighting styles among mages and melees.

Mages:

- Elemental Spells

Elemental spells corresponds to fire, cold, elec and wind spells. They all have 3 tiers of spells, with different status effects.

Advantages:

• Mana-saving
• Assessable at lower level

Disadvantages

• Monsters with double resistance
• Ineffective at higher difficulty

- Holy/Dark spells

They have 2 tiers of spells.

Advantages:

• They’re more powerful spells.

Disadvantages:

• They are assessable at higher level
• They’re mana-consuming.

What equipments should I pick?

Some general principles:

1. There’s something called ‘level scaling’ for over-leveled equipments, which means the stat of those equipments are scaled down to your level, except burden and interference.

You should probably pick over-leveled equipments, since those equipments’ stat will also grow when you advance in levels.

The preferred way to obtain over-leveled equipments is through WTS in the forum, where other players are selling their equipments.

2. Equipment quality

Equipment’s quality can be known from its prefix.

Currently the highest quality is legendary, and the lowest quality is crude.

Equipments with better quality suffix have better averaged stat, and equipments of exquisite quality and above will give you bonus stats.

However, it is advised not to determine equipment’s usefulness with its prefix.

Most of the time, only a few stats are important for a particular type of equipments. You should put your emphasis on those stats instead of the prefix.

Mages:

Starting (lv. < 130)

1. Pick a ebony staff of focus, preferably with high attack accuracy bonus (AAB) and magical damage bonus (MDB). At lower levels accuracy is more important, and you can increase your power output by appropriate armors.

2. Pick fox/elementalist clothes with high elemental proficiency or high INT, to increase your power. Mitigation is not important.

Middle (lv. >130) (also applies to conversion from melee to mage)

1. At lv. 130 you should get aranca focus, which greatly improves your accuracy. Therefore, you can start using destruction staffs for more power output.

2. You should also start collecting phases which provides elemental damage bonus(EDB). Try to collect the same elements in order to maximize its power.

3. If you want to become a holy-dark mage, demon-fiend and heaven-sent clothes can be used in-transit.

How should I allocate my ability points?

You should always do some training on ability boost to obtain some ability points(AP), until it reaches about 40/100.

Artifacts also have a chance to give APs, and that would be your main AP source after you reached 40 levels in ability boost.

Some general principles:

1. Pick any spells you need.

2. Pick item slots, aura slots, focused aura, x-item, x-attack, x-magic when they’re available.

3. Pick scroll/infusion slots when you need to fight bosses/legends/gods.

4. Start picking HP tanks. It’s essential for survival.

5. After filling up the HP tank, invest into EXP tanks and MP tanks evenly.

You can adjust the ratio between these tanks to level faster/greater chance for survival.

6. If you’re a melee, you should also fill 1-2 ranks of SP tanks and overcharge.

7. Pick SP tanks when you’ve filled any necessary tanks. That should be important after lv.190, when you get SP shield.

8. Finally, pick some overcharge tanks if you still have APs left.

What should I do with my trainings?

I’ll group training in accordance with their uses.

For general gameplay

Adept Learner:

This training gives 1% experience bonus per level trained.

However, because of the structure of the experience formula, you won’t get a direct 1% bonus to your current experience gain rate.

Therefore, avoid training them over 150/200, and use aura perks as the alternate source of experience bonus.

Ability boost

This training gives you 1 extra ability point.

Useful for new players as you need ability points to fill your ability tree.

Its usefulness diminished after lv.110, when players start to get a new tier of abilities per 20 levels.

Avoid training it over 50/100, as you can alternatively get ability points from artifacts.

Assimilator

This training increases your prof. gaining rate by 10%.

It isn’t that cost-effective currently, as prof. have limited effect on your gameplay.

When you advance in levels, your leveling rate will slow down, and prof. will eventually catch up with your level.

Pack Rat

This training gives you 1 extra item slot.

It’s one of the more important trainings. Getting 1 extra item slot means you can bring more mana potion, thus you can play in more difficult/longer arenas.

It’s advised to max this training as soon as you’ve extra credits.

Refined aura

This training gives you 1 extra aura slot.

It’s also an important training, as you can get 7% experience bonus every time you can activate a new aura.

However, you only get a new aura point for every 10 levels, so you can train that gradually when you’re leveling, and maximizing that at about lv. 150.

Set collector

This training gives you 1 extra equipment sets.

It’s not an important training. Take it only if you want to engage in different playing styles.

Spelunker

The cooldown for IW decreases by an hour.

It’s not an important training. Take it only if you want to level up your equipment twice per day. (you’ll need at least 9 levels of spelunker to do so)

Drop-rate related trainings

Scavenger

This training gives +2 loot drop chance.

The most important of all trainings concerning drops, as it’s the only training which actually increases the chance you can get more items. (The other three only modifies the proportion/quality of drops)

It’s advised to get a few levels even when your level is low, as it can replenish your supply.

Luck of the Draw (LotD)

This training gives 1% loot quality bonus.

It’s not an important training when you’re lower-leveled, as you need to play in difficult areans in order to see its effect.

Equipments are also less worthy at lower levels.

However, it is advised to get more levels of LotD when you progress in levels.

When you reach higher level, your focus would shift to getting better equipments, which makes quality over quantity.

Quartermaster/Archaeologist

This training gives 5%/10% more base equipment/artifacts drop chance.

However, they only changes the proportion of equipments/artifacts you’re going to get from drops, so you’ll need also high Scavenger.

You should train them gradually when you progress in levels, as artifacts/equipments will be important sources of credits/other bonus.

LotD is more important if you play more difficult arenas.

Quartermaster/Archaeologist are important if you play tons of rounds.

Karma related

Karma Amplifier

This training gives you 1% bonus to all received karma.

Power Tank

This training gives you 0.5 base power.

Both of them contributes to your overall power, which in turn is related to your SP level.

However, this power has no effect on your character’s damage output.

Take these training only if you’re an active member in the forum, and expected to receive lots of karma.

What does different battle modes do?

There’re four different battle modes, namely grindfest, crysfest, item world (IW) and areans. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages:

Arenas:

Pros : credits, equipments (esp. in high level).

Cons : less drops on average, can be difficult.

Grindfest:

Pros: Balance between credits and EXP. Can also grind items in high level.

Cons: consumes tons of stamina (2 times arenas)

Crtsfest:

Pros: EXP per stamina (1/2 time arenas). Can also grind crystals in high level.

Cons: you only get crystals and artifacts. No equipments, no items, no credits.

IW:

Pros: Drops. You can raise your equipment's level in high level.

Cons: No credits, less EXP (depending on item's quality).