HentaiVerse Advice

This page is for general HentaiVerse playing advice.

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Pre-Level 50

Keep stats balanced and do not invest in a particular build unless you are certain. Determine which play style you think best suits you.

Mages: Weapon should be Ebony/Redwood staff of Focus. Armor choice should be "of the Elementalist".

Melees: Weapon should be "of Balance" if you have problems with accuracy. You can use "of Slaughter" on main hand if you're using Dual-Wield/One-Handed style.

Picking Your Role

(See Play Styles and Fighting Styles)

It's generally not recommended to pursue both paths before lv.250 as you don't have sufficient ability points to cover both sets of abilities.

Mage

• Use Cloth armor and Staffs only.
• Can cast spells of every damage type except Void.
• Can cast AoE spells which can hit multiple monsters on the field.
• Can take advantage of elemental explosions.
• Do not need to deal with interference and very little burden.
• Are most vulnerable to attacks.

Melee

Light Armor

• Medium mitigation, burden and interference.
• Has variants which increase mitigation and evade/attack damage/remove burden (Shade armor).

Heavy Armor

• Highest mitigation but also the most burden and interference.
• Has a variant which increases attack damage (Power armor).

1H

• Can use shields for extra block chance but have to deal with more burden and interference.
• Can further boost block chance via Shielding prefixed armor.
• Overwhelming Strikes give increase damage, accuracy, and parry chance.

DW

• Highest damage vs. single targets. Good for high difficulty Ring of Blood and legendary Arena challenges.
• Can take advantage of 2 different procs (e.g. stun and penetrated armor) because of offhand strikes.
• The final fighting skill can hit multiple targets.

2H

• Domino Strike has the chance to hit multiple targets.
  • Easiest style to apply procs on multiple monsters.

Niten

• Usable only by equipping a Katana in mainhand and a Wakizashi in offhand.
• Have partial benefits from 2H and DW.
  • Domino Strike limited to 5 monsters.
  • Offhand damage but no parry bonus.
• For very new players (below lv.100) or advanced (above lv.300) players only.
  • Does NOT give any weapon proficiencies.

Free Equipment

Newer players who are having trouble getting good gear can request some from the Shared Free Shop so long as they respect the shop's rules.

Regardless of Build

The following are universal regardless of whether you choose a melee or a mage build.

Abilities

• Do NOT invest into abilities you do not actively use (e.g. Holy/Dark abilities if you use only Elemental). AP consumed counts across all equipment sets.

Ability	Reason
Top Priority
HP Tank	Increases health pool, massively increases survival
MP Tank	Increases mana pool, greatly useful
Second Priority
(Applicable Armor & Weapon abilities)	Improve with proficiency and work well with the fighting style to which they belong
Recommended
Better Cure	Can cast more frequently and better healing
Better Regen	Stronger and longer heal-over-time
Better Haste	Further action speed increase, very useful
Stronger Spirit	Procs earlier and uses less SP per proc
Better Protection	Solid survival boost
Better Shadow Veil	Decent survival boost, especially at lower levels
Optional
Better Mana Pots	Depends on item usage; mana are the most recommended type of potion to bring into battle
Better Imperil	Increases damage done using Imperil
Faster Imperil	Reduces cost and cooldown of Imperil as well as increases targets affected
SP Tanks	Good for melee (to use Spirit Stance more) or once Spark of Life / Spirit Shield become useful
Substandard
Better Drain	Very weak increase in damage, currently bugged and does nothing
Faster Drain	Already a fast spell, still a long cooldown
Better Absorb	Just procs more often, still a weak spell
Better Spark	Just decreases cost and increases duration; worth even less if SoL is auto-cast
Better Slow	Replaceable with Better MagNet once the MagNet spell becomes available
Mind Control	Both spells are not highly useful even when they break less often
Discouraged
Better Blind, Faster Blind	Weaken is more useful
Ether Theft	Already occurs as part of the Mage play style

Mage Builds

Mage Weapon

• EDB-suffix (Surtr, Heimdall, etc.) or Destruction staff. High MDB or EDB for the elements you use.
  • Preferably Ebony/Redwood if using elemental spells, Katalox if using holy/dark spells
  • Oak if you primarily use holy spells.
  • Redwood is the cheapest alternative for new players.
  • MDB > EDB = Proficiencies, Proc chance and duration preferably be 30-40% with 3-4 effective turns. The use of EDB/prof depends on the amount of EDB bonus you have.

Mage Armor

• Phase gear of the element you use, with a prefix if you can get it.
  • Proficiency cloth (Demon-fiend, Heaven-sent, or Elementalist) can be used when you have insufficient funds, but are less recommended as you get higher in proficiency.
• EDB > PAB = Evade, generally speaking.

Mage Stats

(Does not include stats from equipment)

Stat	Equal to	Priority
STR	Level * ~0.8	Lowest
DEX	Level * ~0.9	Low
AGI	Level * ~0.9	Low-Mid
END	Level + a bit	Mid
INT	Level + a bit	High
WIS	Level + a bit	High

Mage Abilities

• Optional: Better Arcane Focus.
• Holy/Dark Builds: Spirit Theft, Dark Imperil, Holy Imperil.
• Elemental Builds: Spike Shield; use one that benefits your spell cycle (e.g. if you cast Cold spells a lot get Flame Spike Shield).

Melee Builds

Melee Weapon

• 2H: Mace/Estoc "of Slaughter" with high ADB and proc chance/duration.
  • Ethereal versions of the above are preferred at higher levels.
• DW: Club/Axe on main hand and Rapier on offhand. Preferably with "of Slaughter" suffix (high weapon damage) for main hand weapon and "of Nimble/Balance" suffix (high parry chance/accuracy) for offhand weapon.
• Use infusions on the weapon(s) if you have sufficient resources to do so.

Melee Armor

• For light melee Leather "of Protection" or Shade "of Fleet/Shadowdancer" gear, with the "Agile" prefix if you can get it.
• For heavy melee Plate and Power armor, preferably with "of Protection", "of Barrier", "of Balance" or "of Slaughter" suffix and with the "Mithril" prefix if you can get it.

Accuracy

• Should have around 100%+ before level 200 to ensure the attacks won't miss.
• Should aim for 150%+ after level 200 against high PL monsters that have higher evasion.

Melee Stats

(Does not include stats from equipment)

Heavy armor players should use less AGI, light armor players should use more.

Stat	Equal to	Priority
STR	Level + a bit	High
DEX	Level	Mid-high
AGI	Level ± a bit	Mid-low
END	Level + a bit	High
INT	Level * ~0.7	Lowest
WIS	Level	Mid

Melee Abilities

• Recommended: Better Silence.
• Optional: Better Heartseeker.

Leveling Adjustments

When you progress in level, you'll start facing monsters of increased Power Level, mostly above PL 400 (thus with powerful spirit attacks). As a result, most of the fights will be significantly more difficult. There's a few adjustments you can do:

• Lower your difficulty setting until you get accustomed to the new monsters.
• Get better equipment (especially a better weapon).
• Utilize your scrolls and deprecating spells such as Weaken, Silence, and Imperil.
• Understand which monsters are more difficult to deal with and their strengths/weaknesses.
• For melee players, use Focus as it replenishes mana and helps to land deprecating spells on monsters at the same time.
• It may be wise to invest in an Innate Arcana slot if you haven't already.

Equipment

Principles for worthy equipments, in order of importance:

1. Suitability to the playing style. (Refer to Equipment Ranges for max/min base values)
   • High weapon damage (of Slaughter) for main-hand one-handed weapons (Club, Axe) and two-handed weapons
   • High parry chance for off-hand weapons (Rapier, Wakizashi)
     • Alternatively, high attack accuracy so proc will appear more often
   • High chance/duration/damage for procs (bleeding, stun, penetrated armor, ether tap)
   • High MDB/EDB for staffs (Katalox)
   • High EDB for Phases
   • High evade/ADB for Shade, high crit rate for of Shadowdancer suffix
   • High mitigation (of protection) for Kevlar, Plate, and Power armor
   • High block rate for shields and shielding prefixed armor
   • High ADB for Power armor of Slaughter
2. Ethereal weapons
   • Rare and worth more than normal equips because of void damage
3. Rarity
   • Rare equips: Wakizashi, Katana, Katalox, Phase, Shade, Power, Force
4. Prefix
   • Better quality produces better equips
5. Primary Attribute Bonuses
   • Make sure the equips have the best PAB for specific styles.
     • INT/WIS for mage build.
     • STR/END/DEX for melee build.

Items

• Utilize your potions. They're meant to be used, not for collection.
  • For potions, save weaker ones for recovering out of combat and use stronger ones (preferably Heroic) for recovering in combat.
  • If you're not so good at keep tracking on your HP, try to put 1 health potion into your item slot and use that in emergency.
• Tokens of Blood used for fighting FSM/TT&T give the best return on investment. Clear all the other Ring of Blood challenges only once for their credit bonuses. Consider TT&T only if you are capable of beating it at the highest difficulty and have excessive tokens.
  • Tokens drop primarily from arena clears and the drop rate is not affected by difficulty.
• If trophies are your target, clear through higher-level (225+) arenas on Normal difficulty. Trophy drop rates are not affected by difficulty setting.

Monster Lab

• Make 1-2 monsters and get them to a fair PL (200+) before making any others. If you have enough crystals and food coming in then feel free to make more.
• Do not increase the INT of any monsters without magical attacks unless it is to inflate their PL.
• Don't use happy pills instead of crystals until you have stronger monsters (PL 400+).
• For Chaos Upgrades: Scavenging > Fortitude > Swiftness > Brutality > Dissipation > (Everything Else)
  • Remember that all chaos upgrades slow a monster's morale drain rate.
• You can check for gifts as often as you want but remember that it takes at least 1 hour for new gifts to appear and weaker monsters likely won't have them that frequently.
  • Remember that monsters who haven't given you a gift in over 3 days will not lose morale until they give you one.
• Remember to name your monsters' special attacks or they won't be used in combat.
• Avoid using food if it says it will restore less than 1,000 hunger; same with Pills restoring less than 6,000 morale as this is wasteful.

Hath Perks

Tank/Regeneration

Resplendent Regeneration -> Effluent Ether -> Vigorous Vitality -> Suffusive Spirit

Note that EE/VV/SS increases your maximum HP/MP/SP but not the base HP/MP/SP, so any pots used would still recover the same amount.

Crystal Perks

Plausible if you play tons of rounds. Highly recommended after you pass round 200 in Grindfest.

Innate Arcana

Common selection:

• 1st: Haste
• 2nd: Shadow Veil/Protection

Shadow Veil/Protection can be substituted with Spark of Life or Spirit Shield when you're playing on high difficulty. However, remember that putting SoL and SS on IA has risks since they can dissipate if you fall below 10% mana. SoL will not be recast if you are below 25% and it is triggered.

Ring of Blood Strategies

• Universal: Weaken, Slow, Imperil, Silence. If you don't have silence, keep Spark (or Spirit Shield with over 50% health) and Haste up at all times. Shadow Veil is also good, but is not a must.
• Mages:
  • Armor: Use those which boosts your damage in specific element. Heimdall for FSM, Fenrir for IPU.
  • Weapon: Preferably a Destruction staff with high magical damage bonus. EDB/prof staff is acceptable. High ether theft duration/chance is always a plus.
  • Strategy: Use the strongest spells of the damage type(s) matching the weakness(es) of the opponent. You can also use infusions to raise the spell's power.
• Melee:
  • Armor: Preferably mitigation armor with high mitigation bonus. Usual armor is also okay, but you'll receive more damage.
  • Weapon(s): Void weapon is recommended (either ethereal weapon or use a voidseeker shard). For Dual Wield a club for Main Hand and a rapier as Off-hand. For two-handed, either a mace or estoc. Use the weapon with highest weapon damage.
  • Strategy: Just beware of the health left. Always keep Silence on.

Grinding Proficiencies

Proficiency grinding is mostly only needed for Deprecating and Supportive proficiencies if they are below 50-75% of your level. Weapon, armor, and magic proficiencies usually don't need to be ground as much unless you are power-leveling.

• Weapons - Go into a high difficulty crude equipment's Item World and go for as long as you can.
• Armors - Same as above but on Normal difficulty.
  • Remember that you still gain armor proficiency when you evade so there's no harm in using Shadow Veil, etc.
  • Do not use Haste when training Armor; you want monsters to attack you as often as possible.
• When grinding magic proficiencies it is recommended to change your equip according to your current proficiency level. Use cloth armor and mana-conserving staff at low proficiency to save mana, then gradually change to equips with high interference when your proficiency gain rate starts to slow down.
  • Supportive - Spam Cure. Protection is also viable.
  • Deprecating - Spam Weaken.
  • Elemental - Spam any elemental tier 1 spells.
  • Divine - Spam Smite.
  • Forbidden - Spam Corruption.

Trophies

• You can turn these in for equipment or sell them any time you want, there is no real point in hoarding them.
• No trophy should be sold to the bazaar; what lower trophies become from shrining will almost always be worth more than what the bazaar will give you and higher trophies can be sold to players for more than the bazaar pays.

Training

• Train Adept Learner to ~100-150.
• Train Ability Boost as much as possible unless you have no more active abilities to upgrade.
• Train Pack Rat as your item consumption dictates. Same goes for And A Scholar and Tincture.
• Train 2-4 ranks of Assimilator if you are power-leveling. If you've reached the proficiency cap in anything then don't train it further.
• Keep Scavenger, Archaeologist, LotD, and Quartermaster balanced cost-wise.
• Misc Posting does nothing for HV.
• Set Collector isn't useful until much later on (when you have enough equipment and want to try different play styles).

The Forge

• The first 5 upgrade levels don't require bindings (but may cost Rare Materials!), thus making them relatively cost effective.
• Do NOT spend bindings on upgrades it unless you have amazing pieces of equipment, especially if it requires a rare material as well.
• Salvage high quality common equipment only if its bazaar sale value is worse than the possible material would be.
• Low-grade materials and wispy catalysts can be used on crude equipment to get easy forge experience.
• Reforge equipment right away when it gets a potency you don't want as every level of potency requires another amnesia shard to remove.
• Remember that stacking infusions increases their duration but not their effects.

See also

• HentaiVerse FAQ
• Ask the Experts! forum thread