CP Items are Surefine
So, JP Imagine experts like Michael have been going around, saying that CP items are completely okay balance-wise, when compared to normal items. CP = cash point, which is the term used in the JP version. AP/Aeria Point items are their equivalent on the EN version.
Since many claims that CP items are just for looks and offer little or no real advantage. Shall we take a look at what an ignorant JP player use?
I’ve ~100 m.attack and ~90 p.attack, netting an effective m.attack of 145 for my demolition rushes.
Taking that into account, an armor piece that add 1 m.attack would increase my damage by 1/145 => ~0.6% for my rushes or ~1% for my normal spells.
Here are the armors that I’m using:
Head
Adds 2% melee/gun/magic damage.
Reduce the casting time of all skills by 7% and the cooldown time of all skills by 3% if the user is Law.
Increase expert skill gained by 5% until the 12th of March, 2009.
Ear
Adds 5% fire/ice/lightning/shock damage
Face
Adds 3% rush/shot damage
Adds 1 magic
*The shot damage applies to spells with the shot movement type too.
Neck
Adds 1 stamina
Adds 4% melee/gun/magic damage.
Top
Adds 8% melee/gun/magic damage.
Reduce the casting time of all skills by 4% and the cooldown time of all skills by 6% if the user is Law.
Until the 12th of March, 2009, whenever you are in a party, your party gains a bonus 5% xp.
Bottom
Adds 2 str/magic
Adds 5 m.def
Adds 7% spin damage
Adds 7% rush damage
Adds 7% shot damage
*The shot damage applies to spells with the shot movement type too.
Back
Adds 2% rush damage
Adds 2% spin damage
Adds 2% rapid damage
Adds 2% shot damage
*The shot damage applies to spells with the shot movement type too.
Ring
Adds 12% magic damage if the friendship of devil you are using is at “open hearts” or higher.
Shoe
Adds 5% melee/gun/magic damage.
Reduce the casting time of all skills by 4% and the cooldown time of all skills by 6% if the user is Law.
Increase experience your devils gained by 100% until the 12th of March, 2009.
Talisman
Not listed in the description, but this talisman adds 20% damage against devils from the fairies family and reduce the damage you take from them by 10%.
I’ve talismans that add damage against Majuu (Kerberos’ race), Elements, Kishin (Jikokuten’s Race), Seijuu (Kirin/Shisa’s race) which pretty much cover every major enemy in Suginami/Ichigaya Gold
The talismans for Kishin/Elements only add 10% damage / 7% damage reduction though.
Extra Slot
Adds 10% fire damage
Reduce the amount of fire damage you take by 15%
Increase the amount of ice damage you take by 15%
I’ve extra slots that add damage to the other 3 elements too.
Weapon
Adds 20% fire damage
Adds 3 magic
Comp
Adds 12% magic damage
Glove
You are immune to effects that causes petrification.
My armors aren’t really fully enchanted because I just replaced several pieces over the last few weeks. Most notably, my head, top, shoe, neck, bottom, face, ring, ear were all from lotteries released over the last 2 months.
Out of everything I wear/use, Aegis, the glove is a non-cp item. It’s only obtainable from special fusion, so good luck getting it in a world with low level enchanters. It also comes with a hefty repair cost: 21600 makka/point at Arcadia/Souhonzan after it’s fully enchanted.
In areas where I don’t need void stone, I use either CP gloves that add 2% fire damage or CP gloves that add 2% ice damage.
I tend to swap in a law cloak too against Jikokuten in Ichigaya Gold:
Adds 10% damage against chaos enemies.
The cloak are a random reward given to those who played Imagine in certain internet cafes in Japan, but are counted as CP items for enchant success rate etc. The way the item is going to be awarded in the EN version is pretty much a question mark as it might become a lottery item there.
Out of the remaining items, are there any alternatives? Well, yes and no.
Ear/Ring have the +4 p/m/rng,attack blood stained stuff, but recall what I say earlier. 4 m.attack is a 4% increase for shot, 2% increase for rushes. This 4/2% value will also drop the more p/m/rng.attack you have.
Drawback-wise, they also only have 5 durability, making them pretty hard to use for grinding especially once you lose durability from repairs.
Drill comp, which is sold in stores add 10% magic/melee damage, and eventually 10% gun damage as well after a patch. This is about the only non-cp upgrade that is actually viable.
The other slots? Good luck finding any armor that adds stats, let alone damage boosts.
Putting weapon aside, I gain a total of:
+ 43% magic damage
+ 15% fire damage
+ 12% shot/12% rush
+ 10/20% racial damage
Total: 80/90% damage increase.
On top of this, I’ve -15% cast time/-15% cooldown for ALL skill. I also have a 31% boost to guns/melee if I actually use them.
A mage without CP items will have:
+ 10% magic damage {drill comp}
+ 4/8% damage from stats
Total 14/18% damage increase.
So, a difference of 60% in the best case, and 74% in the worst case.
In addition, damage boost in SMT are multiplicative, rather than additive, so the difference is even bigger:
1 x 1.43 x 1.15 x 1.12 x 1.1 => ~2.03
1 x 1.43 x 1.15 x 1.12 x 1.2 => ~2.21
1.04 x 1.10 => ~1.14
1.08 x 1.10 => ~1.18
(2.21 – 1.14) x 100 = 107%
(2.03- 1.18) x 100 = 85%
So, someone using CP has an actual damage boost of 107% more that someone without CP in the worst case scenario, and 85% in the best case.
I haven’t even factor in weapons, modification or boost from enchants, which will further skew the data towards CP items.
So Michael, are people who use CP things doing 2x the damage of those without, balance and completely inline? A 10% boost isn’t just a mere 10% if you actually know how combat damage is calculated here.
I’m obviously lying out of my teeth to taint your reputation so please, kindly amend the mistakes of my twisted post.
My armor isn’t even the best of the best for a few slots. Imagine that there’s PVP, which does exist on the JP server, how are you going to defeat someone heavily geared up with CP gear?
The only reason I’ve so much gear is because I’ve a high level enchanter alt and I’m able to produce/sell/trade away high end crystals like Uriel fairly easily.
It’s not practical for a normal player to reach my level of equip unless they dump some serious cash into the lotteries.
Good luck trying to trade/buy things with makka as quite a bunch of the stuff that I’m using are voucher only. The pair of legs I’m using cost 25-30m makka in the JP market right now for example due to that.
Things are also getting more and more powerful each week. This week’s best item is obsoleted by next week’s lottery, so have fun trying to trade away last week’s item since no one wants them.
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ROFLMAO this sounds exactly like what Ntreev did with Trickster online but thank god I never joined that bandwagon and I think I’m jumping off this one too. XD
Some people may think your blog is “discouraging” and I think everyone should try Megaten up to a certain point, but investing so much time & money into this game is just silly.
I was looking through the Japanese wiki’s equipment list, and realized that that after the balanced SMT cosplay stuff was put out they lottery stuff that came after started getting all of those bonuses.
CP armor with bonuses is a slippery slope that is not going to end. It seemed like the order to create armor with bonuses was given by the president of Cave, not the director. The money grubbing President is something that the director complained about during interviews.
Unless we see a coup of Cave and a complete overhaul of the Gold level dungeons, we’re continually going to have to upgrade our stuff.
While I know it is useless, wouldn’t this post be better of as a direct reply to one of Michael’s posts on GameFAQs? While Michael himself won’t learn anything, the other posters will most likely get some perspective.
To be quite frank, I don’t care about what gets posted on GameFaqs/etc since there are a ton lot of wrong information there and it’s a pain to correct all of them.
Michael is not the only one guilty of wrong information there; Mappou, Yuriko, flepa etc… are other horrible examples.
There are so much wrong information being spread that we’ve an in-klan meme of “Globe Law – Always doing it wrong” since we apparently play a completely different game from them.
Plus, like you say, Michael will NEVER learn anything or admit that he’s wrong.
I’m “shaming” Michael on my blog because he comes here, i.e. my “territory” and pretty much fling dirt, while refusing to admit his errors.
Have fun reading these comments he left on my blog, which practically implies that all Japanese are stupid for using Wapuro on a day to day basis to enter Japanese or these wonderful comments about gold dungeons being very easy and CP items being balanced.
“The money grubbing President is something that the director complained about during interviews. ”
kk, so aside from Tera, we now have this CAVE president to blame for my insanity for still playing 糞 megami tensei. Ok then, for you guys I present you the face of CAVE’s benevolent sacho: Kouya Kenichi
http://www.cave.co.jp/company/index.html
look at his face, imagine him dancing on a face-burnt poor guy’s hard earned money. Isnt he a superb president?
(for some of you who didnt understand what i said, approximately a year ago, there’s a lottery for the Maid outfit, this guy spent loads of cold cash playing the lottery to get it. To put it short, he played too much, fallen in a big big deep debt and burnt his face in the end. CAVE just said “not our fault, playing the lottery is your own responsibility”)
now, for the real dirt: On how much profit he made Tera to make! ^^
http://profile.yahoo.co.jp/fundamental/3760
and http://shachomeikan.jp/enterprise/472
and http://shachomeikan.jp/enterprise/472/finance/#ceotab_top
http://charge.biz.yahoo.co.jp/report/sector33/brand_report/3760.html
Too lazy to translate their report to you guys, but to put it short they made a crazy profit with every week’s yay lottery. Their share prices and profit started to increase fast during the chaos suit, 7 sister, erumin gakou clothes era. But now there’s fewer and fewer people playing the lottery, there’s even less people playing on weekends (kudos to their server lagging when there’s not much people playing)
Here’s a detailed map here to CAVE’s office: http://www.cave.co.jp/company/map.html
feel free to send Kouya san a bag of poop, a slap in the face, oil and lighter, and most importantly your resume.
lottery motto: it’s not a lottery until someone burns his face.
Ah, the face-burning incident. I remember that. You would figure that the incident would encourage the company to boost the sale of regular CP items.
Anyways, I initially though the director was whining and shifting responsibility during that interview, but after seeing Cave put up that job advert, I started to think that the guy might be telling the truth about “useless suborbinates”.
Thanks for this, I’ve found all this quite enlightening. Over at the EN version, the current AP equipment are still inferior to those in-game. It’s nice to have your insight on what’s to expect from later additions so I can be better prepared for the shitstorm that’s soon to come.
Well, I just noticed that the chaos coat set has been added to the lottery over at Aeria.
Base on JP lottery history, Dubthach’s lance (31 p.attack lance that does fire damage and boast all fire damage by 20% as well) or whatever they (mis)translate it to, will be coming in over the next week or two.
That’ll mark the beginning of the lottery nightmare since practically every lottery after the one that introduces Dubthach contain items with stats and/or damage boast.
Why are you as obsessed with *me* as you are with this game??
I don’t know (nor care) is anything in this game is particularly “balanced.” The game is still very playable for many people (including those that constantly bemoan it)
Awww, but don’t you like to help people “avoid bad information on the internet”?
Surely you can fix more of the “bad information” I’ve here… Or is that another promise you can’t keep? :/
Of course I’m obsessed with you; I’m your biggest fan! I mean, I blog only about you.
何故そんなに気にするの? アタシはねぇ、あんたの事が大好きのよ～ あんたの間の抜けた愚かさはある意味で、アタシたちの娯楽の発信源わ～ 別にわざと笑うの。 あんたの愚かさはとっても面白いから、たまらない～ wwwwww
By the way, can you teach me your Japanese romanization skills?
Guess the “no life” card has already been activated. Just need to activate the Nazi/Hitler one and the ciiirrrccclllleee of interwebs arguments will be completed. Name calling > counterargument/refutation.
p.s. Globe and Globe法部 has been two separate entities since practically forever, but you already know that! We don’t play everyday either. What a surprise! So much things to do in Imagine. So worth it to log in everyday and spend 23hrs on it! OTOH, I do check my blog everyday though!
fifiさん！謝りなさい！彼は女神転生の神だよ、違っていることができるように不可能。 ゲームの経済はバザーより発展した、効率ダンジョン周をすることはヨコシマだ、課金アイテムのボーナスは無課金のボナースと同じ！改造？カンタンな事ですね（アタシ火炎攻撃３のため、３３シケンーサのサーブを作ったのことがあります＾＾）！アルカディアはCLOSED-BETAときより既成した！！日本で住んでいるの日本人HEPBURNシステムを使用しない！ 彼はほんとに女神転生の愚神だから、私たちGLOBE－LAWのひとはバカですね； ；
謝るとかはしないわ～ 英語で嫌みな指摘をした場合が多過ぎるから、日本語ではごめん～
やつはアタシたちの言ったことは分かるかどうかと思わせるわねぇ～
えええ、でもあいつはメガテンばかりでなく日本語も上手いな方だよｗｗｗ みたいｗ あいつアタシたちの風刺が分かってるのかしら？ｗｗ アタマが弱いな雑魚ですよねｗｗｗｗｗｗｗｗ
I looked at the other comments you made and they were as a whole quite funny.
You tend to have a habit of refusing to admit that you are wrong or try to skirt around the topic by drawing attention to something else.
Why are you arguing then if you self-admitted that you don’t know anything? ┐(´д｀)┌
Interesting batch of soul fusions….But what’s your take on the Zodiac Soul Stones? >_>
(Random place to ask this but meh…It’s not like you accept questions via mail. >_>)
Feel free to ask any questions you have here.
As for zodiac stones, some of them are useful, but the full set bonus for having 12/13 stones is very weak. As a mage, the only one I use on a somewhat regular basis is Aquarius. (ice/extra slot)
Ophiuchus (zan/ring) is the other stone that I might use if I have it, but it’s given out only during events, making it the rarest stone on the JP server currently.
Gunner tend to use Scorpio (rifle/earring) as there are quite a few things that are weak to rifles in Ichigaya/Suginami Gold.
Melee might use Capricorn (slash/glove) or Libra (blunt/weapon) to brute force their way though resistance. However, Taurus (pierce/head) isn’t really used much since using it prevents you from using the set bonus from 4 kings.
Other stones are just too rare and/or have too specific uses.
IS the four kings set really that special? Since it supposedly increases Rush time and Spin Cooltime…
Short answer: Yes.
The base bonuses are:
+10% damage to all skills which depends on weapons for damage type. (IOWs every melee skill)
+10% rush/spin damage
+ 15 int
+ 15 stamina
Rush takes 60% longer to cast
Spin’s cooldown increased by 120%
If chaos, you gain these additional bonuses:
+5% slash/blunt/pierce damage
+10% damage agaist law enemy.
If law, you gain these penalties:
-100hp
-15 p.attack
10%(weapon) + 5% (slash/blunt/pierce) = 15%, just 5% shy of the 20% pierce boast given by Taurus.
Remember, there’s the spin/rush boast as well, and all the damage increase, less the 5% slash/blunt/pierce boast works with all damage type.
Considering that I can only remember 1 mob i.e. Hecate, who is weak to pierce only, pretty easy to see which is more beneficial.
In addition, rush isn’t really a main form of attack for melee once they get geared up with lottery items as lottery tend to favor spin/attack stuff for melee.
Increased spin cooldown though is quite a penalty, but it’s partially alleviated by the fact that you’ve 3 different spin at class 5 and 4 different spin at class 7 to use. Also, stamina reduce cooldown after a patch, which mitigate some of the cooldown increase.
tl;dr: For a chaos melee, the bonuses from 4 kings is quite significant. It’s pretty decent for neutral characters as well.
Are there any other decent choices for a Neutral Melee or am I forced to go Chaos for anything good?
Dear Stranger X,4 kings for neutral actually still gives decent basic bonuses without serious penalty for Neutrals, you’ll still get:
+10% damage to all skills which depends on weapons for damage type. (IOWs every melee skill)
+10% rush/spin damage
+ 15 int
+ 15 stamina
Rush takes 60% longer to cast
Spin’s cooldown increased by 120%
of course you can use chernobog for head too alternatively, and tanki is a good choice too if you have the HP for it (tanki no knockback 100% for neutrals but you receive 50% more damage). Right now in JP server neutral melee has better choices than law melee.
CHAOS however also have option on Bishamonten crystals which gives +3 str and +2 vit per slot on tarot fusion.
it’s up to you actually, Neutral melee chars i saw in JP server are pretty good, but Chaos ones are the biggest damage dealers right now.
FYI, chaos melee with full bishas slots can 1 spin small elementals+power in sugi gold, kill jikokuten in 3-4 normal attack, spin 7-0 gandharvas with ease. As finella said, spin cooldown increased? not a problem if you have that many spins, things are manageable
Bonus wise, chaos offers the most for melee (4 kings, bishamonten for +3 str, tarot enchant, 10% universal fire boast from surt, 15% magical boast from loki etc…) but neutral have some perks too.
Chernobog gives 10 str for a head slot enchant (same as Taurus) and gives an additional 5 str if you’re neutral, bringing the total boast to 15str, which is ~7% damage. Drawback of taking 30% more blunt damage and 20% more fire damage.
There’s also Tanki for your top, which grants 30% knockback prevention, 100% if you’re neutral but you take 50% additional damage.
No knockback is quite a huge advantage for melee as it prevent you from being stunned by skills/spells as well. This means you can use your normal attack and/or use an item at all times.
Got countered? Not a problem, you can land the next hit immediately if you’ve tanki enchanted. A devil threw a spell at you? Again not a problem as you recover instantly and can quickly walk up and attack them.
The additional damage is a pain to deal with though, but can be alleviated by hotkeying two different healing items and spamming them if you get attacked.
Just don’t go Law, unless you really like the devils, as there are close to 0 perks usable by a Law melee. Law mages/gunners however are a different case.
Guess I’ll write up a LNC analysis for the various archtypes if I’ve time.
Ah, hmmm…thank you for your insight. That analysis would be useful as well, if you could write one.
“Just don’t go Law, unless you really like the devils, as there are close to 0 perks usable by a Law melee.”
;__;
After reading through a fair bit of this blog, and some other things that are contained on other pages, and the sheer amount of depth that you have given into it. It has shown what an ugly side this game really has :/
The way to show how damage is calculated is quite a nice thing to do, was curious to how it was all working. Though, seeing as AP Items will become overpowered over the normal in-game ones, it is definitly unbalanced on that side of it.
IMO, the game truly should have only released ‘Fashion Clothing’ for cosmetic only, the Stat Bonuses were definitly a downfall.
The Lance of Dubtach has been released within the last week in US/EU servers, so the expected Stat Item AP storm will hit here soon, though, I actually bailed out of the game because of financial reasons, the game isn’t healthy for it, so quitting while I still have money and a bit of my remaining sanity :(
I’m having a small dilemma on my mage currently. What would give the biggest damage boost overall? The +2 Magic from Decas or the +2% Fire Damage from Flamies?
General rule of thumb, decarabia/elf/paravasti until ~100-110 m.attack, flamis after that if you care only about fire damage.
umm.. is there any way to switch to chaos from law besides the acts? And how much will that cost?
Other than acts, donations is the only way to have reasonable LNC changes.
I don’t have the LNC chart at hand now, so I can’t really tell you exactly how much it’ll cost.
If you’re just slightly into law, probably 7-9 days of donations will shift you into chaos.
Doesn’t the blood drain stuff give 4 m.attack? And if 5 m.attack = 3% rush increase which decreases the more m.attack you have. Wouldn’t the Takemikazuchi tarot (lightning resistance +1, rush +1%) give a better effect then Decarabia (magic +2). Knowing that 2 magic would give 1 m.attack. Also if 5 m.attack = 3% increase rush that would come out to be 1 2/3 m.attack per 1% increases in rush.
If you compare this to hel crystal it would depend on how much u value the 2 mp u gain. Compared to elemental crystals.. the elementals would reign supreme if you are concentrating on a particular element.
Ah.. what to do what to do..
Side note: Is there a formula to figure out % versus a static amount?
More of a brain fart than anything for the blood drain stuff. Proves how long it has been since I looked at non-cp armor.
Edited it and fix the resulting calculations. Thanks for pointing it out.
1 m.attack is always around 1% and only becomes less than 1% when your m.attack-mob’s m.def is more than 100.
Takemikazuchi does get better than decarabia/hel but it’s not practical for someone to aim to tarot it in 13 slots. Comparatively, Flamis gives 2% fire, which is more bang/buck compare to takemikazuchi and in the end game, no one cares about anything other than fire damage.