I was reading through Firestorm's bandit/theif guide, but I saw that he recommended raising dagger mastery to 19 first before starting out with savage blow. Isn't savage blow a better skill to start with first? With it, you can be doing like 2x your damage at level 37.
The same can be said true for mastery as well. Since it raises your minimum damage, the average would be higher.
But let's try something and see what happens involving formulas.
I'm going to be comparing level 19 mastery first to in-the-process of maxing SB first. In this example, SB isn't going to be maxed yet, but that's for the sake of comparison.
Level 36:
Str: 4
Dex: 72
Int: 4
Luk: 120
Equipment: Average Korean Fan/Gephart (50 attack)
SB level 19: MP -18; attack 4x with 58% damage. (232%)
Mastery build base range: 154-254
Mastery build Double Stab: 400-660
Average: 530
SB build base range: 57-254
SB build using SB (level 19): 132-589
Average: 360.5
So taking a look from this, doing Mastery first is easier, seeing as you do more damage that way. However, if you were to max SB first, you'd be doing a lot of damage at level 40 once you do max it. It's up to you, depending on when you want to level up faster, 3X or 4X. o_o
BTW, i'm using a STR dagger thief.
Anyway, seeing from the computations, I guess it's better if I would raise dagger mastery first. Thanks for the info graphitesmoothie!
Also 2 Double stabs = 28 mp while 1 Savage blow = 27 mp. If you go savage blow first you still have to rely on double stab until 37 when you get 6 hit savage blow. And you'll be doing weaker damage that way. Even when you hit 37 the damage averages out to about the same just because savage blow without mastery is inconsistent. If you go savage first it takes more pots from 30-37 since you're damage won't be as consistent then once you hit 37 every time you use savage and it doesn't ohko the monster you have to use it again and waste even more mp. Most of the people that go savage first are the banditsins that use lucky 7 until having enough savage to do the 6 hits. Either way I would recommend against going savage first. However if you have good friends you could just wait at 35 until the Ludi pq comes out (although that probably won't be soon =p) and that makes it much easier to lvl from 35 to whenever you get savage. Plus you can get some pretty good prizes.
well that helps me, too bad i started increaceing savage
I think you should raise 21 SB first then master dagger mastery. After dagger mastery, you can raise whatever you want.
I think skunk knows what he's doing, seeing as he has a level 76 bandit... Mastery is needed to give you stable damage.
one question though, do you have to max dagger mastery? Because the twentyth mastery only gives you a accuracy point and bandits are pretty good with avoid and accuracy.
You're not supposed to max mastery or otherwise you get 6 hit savage at 44. When you put mastery up to 19 its so you get savage at 43. The last point is really a personal preference. I maxed it later just because steals pointless and I had everything else maxed so why not? Also once you get maxed savage you should go haste first because its helps you cover the map since you're a melee character. Once you have lvl 15 haste then pump a bit into booster then max haste and start putting the rest into booster. Once boosters at 10 you can continue maxing it or go into Endure just so you regain more mp so you can save a bit of money potionwise. Steals pointless cause Wizet hasn't fixed it but if tey fixed it, its worth putting into so when you are training on something you can ohko 90% of the time when you don't ohko it you can then use steal to kill it and have a chance for extra mesos or an item(Mainly etc. >.< ). But since Wizet has it so it doesn't drop what you steal its pointless still.
If you steal on Crimson Barlog, do you get a scroll? I should try it later on with my bandit (If I ever get to raise steal with my bandit)
Well if you get lucky and he drops something you will get a scroll
(because all he drops are scrolls) but its a bad idea because then he'll start attacking you with magic and you'll die in one hit so you won't even be able to pick up the scroll
