Building speed without sapphires

When DSO decided to remove sapphires I didn't really care at the time. My DK had radiant gems, plus some runes, so it didn't make a huge difference to me one way or the other.

Fast forward to today and while I am building my mage, I've noticed that getting speed is quite difficult.

Yes you can try and try again at the crafting table hoping that the rng gods smile upon you to build some gloves, but that isn't a quick process on the best of days.

The weapon adornment offers a speed boost, but who in their right mind would take speed over crit or crit dmg?

The other possibility is spending your wisdom points on speed, but then you give up dmg or hp, which both are needed.

The last option (other than whipping out the credit card) is runes, which come from events in a slow dripping fashion and at 2 points each will take just this side of forever.

Since the game basically forces all dmg dealers to be two handed and they are pitifully slow to begin with and that's before you add the 10 points of wisdom to boost dmg, how is someone supposed to build speed in a reasonable about of time?

I miss sapphires now.

 

Well, one of the ways to build up speed is to open the wallet and hope the jester give you the golden clovers to buy the runes from zumpe
Or you have to do daily challenges till you have enough clovers to buy one

 

I am not understanding still a good reason why sapphires were taken out of the game. Only in this case it will make less people spend. "sargon" some people don't have a wallet to open up to this game. They want a way to get them for free instead of very very slow years way of taking it. I am aware you already know this but it worth mentioning if you didn't.

 

They were taken out because people weren't buying onyxses and to get people to spend, cause now you have to buy speed runes with clovers

 

I would submit that the "attempt" to encourage spending was a failure.

As I don't play PvP, the clovers in the daily are unreachable. As I sell all greens and get money for gambling (to get spirit stones, red and orange ess, and the once in a lifetime clover... there are no speed runes to aquire.

Too bad, so sad, and I really wish they'd bring them back. Don't need sapphires of quazzy, the current conversion to the runes would suffice from here forward.

 

Why don't you make a poll regarding this issue and then you can post the link to it in Q&A Development Team Letter thread? Even if it doesn't change anything then at least you'll be able to show what people really think- and I would do it ASAP ...before sapphires are forgotten alongside the veterans slowly but surely leaving Drakensang Online

 

You should instead play pvp, it's not difficult, at least if you play to participate
You can just pay 40 andermants when there is the quest to win matches, the other can be safely done in 6vs6 or in 1vs1 if you just need to participate

 

I'm another one that gave up on pvp long ago (right before 155). Even if DSO hadn't turned it into a 1 hit win game, on the ghost server it can be incredibly difficult to get matches.

Given the amount of time zones (differences) in when people are playing, pvp is not much of an option for some of us, even if we cared to do it.

If you look at the leader boards, there are less than 1000 total characters. Since we know that most people have more than 1 character, it would suggest that there are probably 400 people or so that have end game characters. I'd be shocked if there were a total of 1000 actual people on the entire server.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen less than 10 players in the pw. This is not rare. On days where there is a somewhat decent event it is impossible to get a match.

While I believe that they do not care one way or the other what players think or want, I've added the poll.

 

u have full moon and new moon now u can get many runes of speed if u keep playing every month, u should get a weapon or weapon adornment with good attack speed or gloves, now u can get better attack speed than before with sapphires because there are more items with attack speed lines now then before, so i dont think sapphires are that needed now, at lv 55 i've rarely seen a slow speed attacker

 

Yes, but sapphires were much less expensive than runes and they were much faster to build, now you either pay tons of andergems to clovers or you are limited to 4 runes per month,the lesser ones, unless you are lucky and bloodmage decided to drop the other one
Also, who in his right mind would use a weapon adornement with speed lines?And as far as i remember, speed line on 2 handed weapon don't exist, and almost noone uses 1 hand weapons

At least all bosses in new moon events should drop the superior rune, the one only usable in 2 handed weapons: magotina, karabossa and vargulf should be able to drop that rune too

They need to adress the population problems of your servers

 

I'm not saying sapphires necessarily, but something needs to change. Yes, if you're willing to grind and grind the two events you can get .04% points of speed per month each. This is nowhere near what we were able to get when sapphires dropped from monsters.

I've got a new level 55 with a whopping 0.78 speed. Yes, I have 2 of the .02% runes now and given the monthly events (although I dread new moon) in a year or more maybe I can get up to a respectable speed.

If we are going to be able to reach end cap in 40 days, (faster if you do the quests) we should have some ability to build speed in a reasonable amount of time.

Again, I'll ask: Who in their right mind gives up crit or crit dmg for speed in an adornment? So the options are gloves only.

On top of this, if you want crit runes, you get screwed again.

I get the desire to make money by charging players for everything, but unhappy players quit the game, happy players spend more money.

 

In my opinion, the difference now and before is now it is harder to build speed using cash.
If you think about it, previously you could buy sapphires to increase your attack speed. However, if you were not buying them it would have taken the same time as of now.

Even now, it is not that hard to build a reasonable speed on a character. Let's consider a three month period.
On average, you should be able to accumulate 30 clovers just as rewards from Daily quests.
The best way to spend those 30 is to buy 2 runes of 8% attack speed for your two handed weapon.

In addition to that if you were able to complete both New Moon and Full Moon events for those 3 months you would get
3 (months) x 2 events x 2 runes = 12 runes of 2% speed
As you would slot these only on Weapon Adornment, you will end up with 3 x 4% runes and 2x 2% runes = 16% speed.

Also, by this time you would have been able to craft a 2x speed glove = 19% attack speed (average 9.5%)

Total attack speed gain that you can have = 16% + 16% + 19% = 51%
In addition to that get the 9%+ attack speed from the Desert Cape = 60%

So now you have a reasonable attack speed of 0.83 x (0.9 from behemoth) x 1.60% = 1.20%

Remember this is only a starting point. I think this is reasonable.

Unfortunately players who had old sapphires will have an advantage over new players.
In my opinion, the only remedy for this would be to make it possible to purchase attack speed runes via the cash shop.

 

Sapphires dropped from monsters, albeit rarely, but dropped. No such speed gem drops now, so I do not agree that it is the same today.

I'm not convinced it pops up 30 times in 90 days, but let's say it does. With that you are assuming that everyone can (or wants) do pvp as often as the reward pops up.

Maybe on the servers where people actually play it is possible, but when it can take hours to get one match you tend to get just a bit frustrated and quit trying to get 3 in one day.

This I agree with. It is 100% my fault that I don't have the patience or steady supply of amphora keys to put up with new moon.

I wish that I had your luck.

Is the desert cape is the one you buy with bone coins? Not sure it is the best possible cape for SW, but for the sake of speed let's say we go with that one.

Is 120 acceptable for a new toon? Sure I would agree with that, but I am not sure it's possible in 3 months.

I know that it was easier to build speed before. The show me thread proves that. Could it be that everyone was buying sapphires, sure, but I also know speed gems dropped from monsters.

No one was forced to play pvp.
No one was forced to play the crafting game.
No one was forced to run the most boring of events.
Yet because of the available drops/purchase still they could build speed faster.

 

It's harder to build up attack speed period, either free or with cash, it's harder and slower
Before sapphires could be found from the jesters and could drop from monsters and could be found in gem bags, rewarded from events

 

I forgot that opening up the blood map on full moon takes a couple of months and finishing that event without that map is considerably more tedious.

Also, what happens for players who cannot for whatever reason finish the previous 6 parts of their daily even if the clover is available? Some players may not be strong enough to kill the boss offered in parts 5 and 6. Some may be low on ander and not be able to switch the dailies.

My point is that DSO went out of their way to make it far more difficult to play the game. Speed is just one aspect that has gotten harder.

I was guilty of not caring when they removed sapphires because I already had mine. It wasn't until I retired my DK and started a new character that I noticed how much harder it is.

That got me thinking about the few new players who enter into this game. Should they be punished? The gap between the old OP players and everyone else is staggering and only getting worse. This is the main cause in newer/weaker players leaving.

All I am suggesting is that something reasonable gets done to attract and keep newer players.

Maybe if I played on the big servers where I didn't notice people quitting every day I wouldn't care so much. Maybe I simply need to learn how to be selfish and not care if everyone quits.

 

I am taking accurate notes for every day i am getting a clover.
Since 25.10.2016 I got 56 clovers ... that is 56 clovers in 10 months (until 25.8.2017) ... that is ~300 days

 

The biggest issue I see is the difference of attack speed that old players have versus new players.

Having said that, I don't see a difference in obtaining attack speed previously versus now as a free player.
Even though previously it was possible to get sapphires as drops, it was not possible to get the attack speed runes through New Moon and Full Moon quests. If you think fairly, the rate you can get them from New Moon/Full Moon is now much higher than the rate you could have gotten Sapphires as pure drops.

Also, now you can get the attack speed by purchasing runes from Zumpe. This was not possible before. So, that is also a new better way to get attack speed.

In addition to that, many new Unique items and item sets have decent attack speed enchantments.

When you look at all these possibilities and that the Supreme runes have 16% versus the maximum through Sapphires was 14%, now a character can have a higher attack speed than one could ever obtain before and quickly(when not spending cash)

Having said that, there are two issues to this problem currently:

(1) The attack speed one can obtain by combining the sapphires in addition to the runes is staggering. However, only SM would benefit massively by having Sapphires in Weapon Adornment. Usually other classes would prefer to have Crit.

(2) Previously it was possible to buy Sapphires using Andermant. Now, this is not possible. My suggestion is to enable buying attack speed runes through cash shop. So, whoever wants to get attack speed fast by spending money can do so.

An additional solution would be to let people slot attack speed runes into Gloves as well?

You should always keep some Andermants to switch Dailys, if you are a non-premium player like me. If you consider the cost to get a clover from Joker versus perhaps spending 5x 40 (around 200) Anders to switch Daily Quests in order to get the Clover. It is almost like free Clover.

 

They'll never let you buy those runes in the cash shop, you'll spend much more andermants to get a clover then buying them directly
And if you are free, you are limited to 4 runes per month, assuming you don't buy them from zumpe and, if it is possible, getting them from the jesters
Before, you weren't limited, theoretically, the only limit was your desire to buy sapphires ,the amount of andermants you had and the luck you had with the drops of gems

 

I agree that runes are better. I also agree that in the long run it ends up in the players advantage. My entire point when creating this thread is that it takes longer than it used to and you've shown me nothing that changes my mind in that.

Trak is getting 5 to 6 clovers per month, not the 10 you suggested was possible. Now maybe you are far luckier than Trak. I'm positive some have worse luck and only see 3 to 5 per month.

Please don't think that I'm attacking you, because I know that you are helpful (at least on forum, and I expect in game as well)

Clovers are also only obtainable through pvp or gambling. What about those who cannot do that consistently? Should we simply ignore those players? Should we say "I got mine, so screw everyone else"?

Again, gambling and pvp.

Doesn't really help the newer and weaker players who aren't able to get them.

In the long run yes, but doesn't address the issue that it takes longer than it used to.

I completely agree.

I love this idea.

I love this idea even more.

For end gamers keeping ander isn't an issue. We get so much more than we used to, but again, this thread isn't just about me or end gamers.

Newer and weaker players can't stockpile ander because they have far more pressing concerns like opening inventory space and locker space.

 

If you got 30 clovers during 3 months you have very big luck. You got average 1 clover per 3 days.
Some players got average 1 clover per 20 day.