Talion Guides:
- Beginners Tips and Tricks.
- Jewels and Magic Symbols Guide.
- Exchange Shops Guide.
- Troubleshooting Guide.
Basic Battle Info Stats
- ATK – Base Attack Damage
- DEF – Base Damage Reduction
- Mainstat – Strength / Dexterity / Intelligence
- Skill Attack – Damage added in Skills
- HP – Health Points, damage you can take before death
- Combat Power – Relative power of stats
Attack Substats
- Fixed Damage – Static damage added
- PEN – Armor penetration, lowers enemy defence 1.8 to 1 Def
- Hit – Increase probability of Skill effects
- Critical – Chance prior resist to crit
- Critical Damage – Damage added in crit multipliers
- PvP Attack – Damage added in Player versus Player
- Boss Attack – Damage added against Boss monsters.
- Elemental Attack – Fixed chance to add X element to damage
Defense Substats
- Recovery – Health per 5 seconds at a rate of 10 to 1 health
- Heal Increase – 100 per 1% increase to potion effect
- Evasion – Chance to dodge skill effects (Crowd control, debuffs etc.)
- Critical Resist – Increase chance to resist critical hits, 1 to 1 with Critical
- Critical Defense – Lower Critical Damage taken at a 1 to 1 with Critical Damage stat
- PvP Defense – Defense added in Player versus Player
- Boss Defense – Defense added when taking damage from Boss monsters
- Elemental Defense – Lower Elemental Damage taken
Miscellaneous Substats
- Drain Rate – Chance on hit to activate Drain
- Drain – Amount healed when activated at a rate of 25 to 1 HP
- Cooldown Decrease – Reduction of time taken to recharge skills, 1500 to 1 second, CDR
- Attack Speed – Increase in attacks per interval, 100 to 1%
- Move Speed – Increase in run speed, 550 to 1%
- Exp Increase – Increase to experience earned from all content, 100 to 1%
- Gold Increase – Increased to all gold earned, 100 to 1%
Combat Power and Interpreting its meaning!
Combat power is the number everyone has that ranks and judges your stats. However, not all stats give the combat power equal to their use to the player. For example, you gain combat power when you have drain rate, drain, or recovery added even though it has no real use in combat. You have combat power added when you increase your pen, however how effective your pen is relies on the defense of your target. PvP stats only function in player versus player, and Boss stats on function against boss monsters. Hit increases your combat power even though you can’t get any more evasion than the base amount given to everyone. Understanding how strong you, and other players are based on your stats isn’t an easy task, and knowing that just because someone has high combat power, does not mean they are exactly that strong. Especially in different content, someone who has all boss stats and high combat power rating because of it, won’t be nearly as strong in player verse player content and vice versa.
Questions and Facts About Gear, Stats, and Their Interactions!
I often see questions in alliance chat, guild, or even players whispering me asking about gear, specific stats, how good something is, or what it even does. I will answer some of the more frequent ones, and help set straight some of the misunderstanding or bias that some players have.
PvP Gear! Should I get it? Is it good?
First off, the short answer is, do you do a lot of Team Battle RvR? If you do, then pvp gear might be better (carrying crown especially).
So now the longer answer! PvP gear has PvP Atk and PvP Def as its 2 mainstats, this means that of the 2 spots on your gear where you get a higher portion of your stats (if you assume a double stat on your gear ex. PvP Atk as both a main stat and a substat, about 65% will be mainstat), which results in you being defensively stronger but dealing less damage. On average you deal 30% less damage than sets completely dedicated to damage, but as a trade off you take around 25% less damage. Some of which is dependant on your opponent and how they are built.
From Brick Wall to Paper?
In PvP how much damage you take is reliant on the stats of not just yourself but also your opponent. The core answer to the difference between scenarios is PENETRATION! It is most likely to even definitely the strongest stat in the game if we exclude base stats like pure attack. To answer why, we first need to bring in the math about penetration. For every 1.8 PEN you have, you will ignore 1 defence of the enemy. However it tends to scale at about a rate 6% higher than defence, which means overall it is easier to get it in larger amounts than defence. An example is a grade 6 PEN magic symbol being equal to a grade 7 Defence magic symbol! To carry it forwards, a level 8 PEN jewel is as strong as a level 9 Defence jewel. This means even if you fully devote to stacking a defence build, you can be easily countered by players doing 90% focus into a pen build. To use an example of the interaction between players ignoring the time factor of the game, swapping sets being time consuming especially to find good stats. If players focus on PvP stats, you will see a rise in players moving towards a higher penetration focus to counter that. Which then makes the additional defence harmful instead of beneficial because PEN only helps and adds effectiveness in terms of damage up to the max of ignoring 100% of defence. It can’t go beyond that 100% and multiply damage. So while it is one of the top tier stats in terms of output compared to the amount needed, it has an upper limit. The other thing that is very common currently is the misunderstanding about penetration and fixed damage, along with how strong it is. There is a large amount of players that have sets for this gear type.
Bias, Opinion Not Fact!
So we have talked about PvP stats, and how penetration is a huge reason as to why focusing it isn’t as strong as people are lead to believe. The core reason for the bias from the playerbase is primarily due to the stage of the game we are at, static stats are super strong because people either don’t or can’t get enough of the supporting stats to display their use. An example of this being, you can have 10,000 crit damage, but if you never crit you get no damage being increased. We also have fixed damage playing a more noticeable role in the early and mid stages of the game. The big problem with fixed damage, is how static of an increase you get from it in terms of its long term usefulness. This is also its biggest strength in the early stages of the game. This is an example, not the actual interaction but just a way of making it easier to understand. If you add 5 everytime you change it, it is additive in nature. Your damage continues to experience a straight increase. In comparison to crit builds that don’t have enough value or crit damage to deal meaningful output, and skill focused builds that have no way to counter defence efficiently, fixed damage appears to be amazing! But as you can see, once defence is no longer an issue, or you have crit values enough to see constant output, fixed damage stops being noticeable and starts to play a backseat role. To prove my point, at roughly 6,000 crit stat, which is about 25% crit chance, you have 1 crit damage being equivalent to 1.4 fixed damage. Or you need 14 / 140 fixed damage to every 10 / 100 crit damage. The big thing though is you also need crit values to ensure you deal the damage regularly. The same thing happens with skill attack, even though it is multiplied substantially, it doesn’t have a way to go through defence the same way fixed damage does, because of it being paired with penetration.
Moving on, since we understand there are positives and negatives, along with interactions with supporting stats to your build focus let’s go through the remaining stats, a summary of which is best where and when, then recommendations on what to do for end game effectiveness.
Attack Speed!
This is another stat that a large portion of the player base has fog covering, people will say it is either amazing, or terrible. You will never really get an inbetween answer. So to shed light on it and allow you to make an informed opinion on it, lets dive right into how it works specifically. In most games your character has what is referred to your basic or auto attack. This is just a simple attack meant to be used as a filler between skills, and abilities. In most games, being able to effectively maximize how much you can use them during the fight will have a large impact to your damage. The way it works is you have a simple or basic damage calculation, that deals damage per X seconds, often referred to your swing timer. How it works in Talion specifically is a roundabout and lazy approach, instead of having a swing timer, you have an attack interval. This is X attacks per second, instead of 1 attack per X seconds.
Static Increase verse Diminishing Return
You might ask how they are different, or why knowing the difference matters. In the first case, you have every amount of attack speed giving a static increase, 100% increase in attack speed means twice as many attacks per interval period because it is an addition of 1 extra in the same time frame. This means you have no diminished return and each point gives just as much as the last relatively. 5+5 = 10, add another 5 and you get 15, 15 is 3 times greater than 5 so it is three times the overall output. In the second case, it would be 100% attack speed halving your period, which if the base is 2 seconds, is reducing you to 1 second. This initial part is a larger increase than as you go further, because to again get an equal increase you don’t need to just add 100% attack speed but 200%. Compare this to the first part, 1 attack to 2 attacks per interval, is 100%, to go to 4 attacks per interval you only need 300%, or 3 additional attacks per interval for a total of 4. This means with these exact numbers, you can get 33% additional effect.
So if in Talion the attack speed functions as a static increase instead of diminishing return, why do people say it is bad?
This primarily has to do with the interaction of crit in the game. Crit damage is divided greater on basic attacks than on skill attacks. This leads to skill attacks receiving a larger increase from crit than attack speed. Next its how it is added on with gear, to go for attack speed as a mainstat you need to also take movespeed. This greatly impacts your stats as 22% of your gear would be in a stat that doesn’t directly change your damage. If it is used as a supporting stat you are left with too little attack speed for your basic attacks to out weight going for skill attack. Then lastly, an attack speed build to be equal to a skill attack build in terms of substats means all 5 of the substats matter 100% where in a skill attack build only 4 of them would. This is Attack speed / Pen / Fixed Dmg / Crit / Crit Damage. While Skill builds are Pen / Crit / Skill Attack / Crit Damage. It is much easier to get 4 rolls than to get all 5. Also if you are a player who is capable of purchasing your extra skill points for 280 diamonds, this means you need boss attack and hp passive to get the extra attack speed. So yes, attack speed can be good. The problem is just completing the set properly, losing a good amount of main stat, and losing a large portion from passive.
Skill Attack and Cooldown!
Next let’s do skill damage. Skill damage is primarily just multiplying your attack damage and finding your damage done. At least by itself, the draw backs as mentioned earlier, is that it is harder to get pen. On a positive note, you can drop fixed damage focusing completely to go for cooldown instead to get increased up times. The bad part, is again you need pen! Its stats are fairly easy to go for as well, because you don’t need crit to make it effective, and you can employ a hit and run strategy for most things. Drop your skills, and wait for them to come back. I will note, that to do sustained high skill damage, you will need crit but I will go in depth in the crit section as skill is a support to crit instead of crit supporting skill. Skills can easily do massive amounts of damage, with it accounting for 60% of your overall damage without any cool down factored in. Skill can hold its own granted you supply some pen because it is a multiplier, not a static. The less pen you have, the less base stat you have to multiply out. Also, as stated earlier, players that go for full defense set ups will impact the damage that can be dealt in a large manner. Lastly, if you want to pick up the cooldown in passive skills which will give a 12.5% damage increase, you have to pick up drain rate which is meIdiocre, and there is no passive to directly increase your skill attack.
Quick Mention! Drain Rate!
Don’t do it, 20,000 drain is 800 damage on a 10% proc, maxed proc chance from gems and passive is still only like 30%.
Boss Stats!
Boss stats are far superior than the pvp counter part (IE comparing PvP to non pvp, and comparing boss to non boss specific stats). By far superior I mean 1 boss attack actually gives 20-22.5% increased damage, bosses don’t have amazing defence either so you don’t need to focus pen as much leaving you available to go for a lot of skill attack as well. Boss Attack passive shares a column with the attack speed bonus, and pen.
Crit and How It Works
Crit functions on a basis of removing the enemies crit resist, then using a conditional where it can’t go below 0 but can equal 0 as to how much your own crit stat applies to your chances of doing a crit. Which is then added with a base crit amount. The positive thing is that crit resist scales at a slow rate, and is a niche stat. If you want to go for a defense stat to reduce the damage applied to you, straight defence, whether that is defence, pvp defence, or boss defence, will always be superior to crit resist. The same applies to crit damage, you can get rid of 80% or more of your opponents crit damage stat (4.6k crit damage vs 2k crit defence / 4k crit defence giving 300 damage difference), with barely influencing their outputted damage.
Basic Attacks verse Skill Attacks with Crit
As stated in prior sections, crit functions differently with basic attacks, and skills attacks. The reason for the difference is because of how attack speed functions, if they were the same you would end up up with attack speed substats being far superior to skill attacks, especially since skill attack bonuses are limited while in passives you can easily gain 10%. Lastly, in pvp all damage done is reduced, all damage is consistently reduced by the same amount, except for crits. Crits get divided by half the amount that other damage does in pvp. This is actually fairly balanced because it is far easier to stack pvp defence in comparison to getting both crit, and crit damage. A big example of this is crit and crit damage not being available on magic symbols, or sharing jewel types. Both crit and crit damage are squares. Lastly, in order to do a good build, you also need lots of PEN, which in passives if you buy extra points to max out more than just 2 of them, leaves you with lacking 1 passive, or not picking a bonus. The big thing that makes crit a really good build in the late portions of the game, is that PEN is easy to get in large enough amounts to ensure you are doing a significant portion of your maximum, or rather reducing your opponents defence to the point it is paper. The next thing that is helpful, is that it is a multiplier, which means any base or static stats, like attack, fixed damage, skill attack, and pvp / boss attack, all get increased by your crit. The big downside, is that a crit focused build locks in 4 of your substats if you want to be competitive, and the 5th substat can make a big difference. The thing that probably makes crit builds a better option, at least in my own opinion, is the ease of having a burst window by loading it all onto skill attacks. Then just like skill focused builds, you have the option of avoiding a direct fight to stay alive. The downside, is that crit gear is far harder to get, with the accessory pieces only available through spending rubies on boxes, and the gear only dropping from bosses outside of that.
Before we get to the conclusion and discussion of what to build or play, lets answer a few minor questions.
Elemental! How does it work?
This is a question that people often ask, and it there is always vague or varied answers. The short answer is that every attack you do picks one of your elemental attack stats and incorporates that damage, due to the lack of elemental defence, this is just a way of making players who spend money consistently better that others even when free users grind to the same gear level.
Movespeed, is it offensive, defensive, and is it good?
Movespeed indirectly increases your damage by allowing you to get to your target quicker. It is also defensive in nature because it is easier to run away, or dodge skills. If you combined the 2 aspects, you get its easier to get in, dodge, and get out. The whole process of moving from point A to point B quicker means you have more total time to deal damage, along with an easier time of staying alive, and mitigating player error due to smaller reaction windows. It is a good supporting stat, but you won’t directly see its effects.
Recovery, should I worry about it?
Recovery is out of combat heal per 5 seconds, so its great in pve content, and rvr modes like occupy and clash where you can leave the immediate fight to heal up.
Hit and Evasion?
Hit only influences the effects of your skill, this is the crowd control, dot effects, etc. part of the skill. You won’t ever miss an attack and lose damage, you can only use a skill with an added effect and have that effect not apply. This is why you will see your cc abilities not apply in pvp. It is also noticeable in things like world boss, where dots do not get applied to the bosses for over time damage. Same with slows, attack speed slows, etc. Evasion can not be increased, so with minor things like costumes, mounts, and fairies you won’t need to go out of your way to specifically get hit.
Summary / Builds
So now to summarize all this information and break it down in viable builds, and what will evidently give you the best efficiency in your desired content.
Pen / Fixed Damage – Great early game, good mid game, bad late game. Pen scales too much, and fixed damage not enough. So at earlier points fixed does a lot, and at the end game you waste a lot of pen.
Attack Speed – Okay early game, great mid game, okay late game. The reason it’s a great mid game but falls off late game is because you have to devote to movespeed to mainstat it, and you don’t get enough as a substat to greatly influence other builds. Getting the passive has a poor stat trade off.
Skill Attack / CDR – Mediocre early game, due to no way to counter defence. Great mid game as cooldown is noticeable, and defense isn’t as punishing. Okay late game, once cooldown is above a certain point every addition can actually limit your damage game until you reach a further breakpoint in order to skip skills in your rotation unless you need its effect.
Crit / Crit Damage – Terrible early game, not enough crit to actually get them, defense is also punishing. Okay mid game, you have enough crit to see its effect, but lack supporting stats to do good damage. Good late game, you will crit like a monster, and your damage is okay. Defence can still be really punishing.
PvP – Great mid game, due to the static nature being good for high base stats, and great survivability. Good late game, able to be countered, lack of supporting stats, loss of damage for defensive trade. Niche content where the stats work.
Boss– Same as pvp. Does more comparatively in boss fight than going pvp gear for pvp content.
None of These Sets are Great or Amazing?
As can be seen, we have full sets either okay, or good at the later portions of the game. You may be asking as to why this is! The big thing is because how stats work together and boost each other, along with the priority given to them. Now to explain in more depth, we have all sets with preferred substat options, or stats they need to compensate for weaknesses and ensure better performance. If we are already doing this with all the sets, why aren’t any of them the clear pick? As gone over, and mentioned several times, all gearing requires supporting stats. To take this one step further, means instead of just targeting specific stats either in passives, wings, mounts, costumes etc. as a substat to your main choice, create a hybrid set.
What is a hybrid set?
A hybrid set is where you take parts of different sets as your main focus. This can be shown as having like attack speed armor, and pen weapon / accessories as an example.
Hybrid Sets – X weapon and armor, with typically pen accessories.
Attack Speed – This will allow for getting most of the pen needed while maintaining fair levels of attack speed.
Skill Atk – Allows for reaching base cooldown limits to always use skills along with the pen required to deal decent damage.
Crit – Makes up for some of the early game problems, with helping improve the end game.
PvP – Gives the extra survivability in pvp while shrinking the deficiency in damage output. Mainly good for team battles still.
Boss – There is no real hybrid due to the boss gear performing really well in its element in general. Can replace accessories with crit pieces for a slight increase, however buying boxes to try for the salamander accessories is tedious.
Opinion on The Ranking of Gear Sets and Substat Priority
Crit Hybrid – Pen > Crit > Skill Attack / Crit Dmg. Pick the 5th stat to fit your style, any 5th stat really doesn’t cause much loss of damage.
AS Hybrid – Pen > Attack Speed > Movespeed > Crit > Crit Damage.
AS Normal – Pen > Attack Speed > Movespeed > Crit > Crit Damage.
Skill Hybrid – Pen > Skill Attack > Cooldown > Crit > Crit Damage.
Crit Normal – Pen > Crit > Skill Attack / Crit Damage > Fixed Damage (5th Stat is versatile).
PvP Offensively – Pen > PvP Attack > Crit > Skill Attack / Crit Damage.
Skill Normal – Pen > Skill Attack > Cooldown > Crit > Crit Damage.
PvP Normal – Pen > PvP ATK > PvP Def > Crit > Crit. Damage Can change Crit / Crit Damage with Skill and Fixed Damage.
PvP Defensively – Pen > PvP Attack > Skill Attack > PvP Defence > Movespeed.
Boss – Boss Attack > Skill Attack > Crit > Crit Damage > Fixed Damage Change the final 3 as needed or desired for defensive stats.
Movespeed is a stat highly valued in attack speed builds in order to get into attack range quickly, and its value in disengaging from enemies. Options to replace it offensively are PvP / Boss Attack, Fixed Damage, and Skill Attack. Defensively include PvP / Boss Defense, Crit Defense, Crit Resist.
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