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Finally Merged Sylphs. Kinda Disappointed. (Freya)

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  • Finally Merged Sylphs. Kinda Disappointed. (Freya)

    Just wondering why some abilities are there from the prior sylphs and some are omitted.

    I got myself a Freya after months of saving small recharges here and there to do so. Was really disappointed to find that a lot of basic skills aren't available - in particular, there are no 1s CD skills available anymore. Without Gust Strike or Deluge Strike being there, it really takes away from being able to do repeat damage without wasting multiple skill slots to fit in skills with 5s or 10s CDs.

    I probably should have researched it better. I'd have probably gone for a Loki/Odin.

    Also, while Tyr/Thor & Loki/Odin merges gave a few quality skills some love (many existing damage skills increased on merge), it seems the Freya/Frigga merge didn't. Only 1 Damage skill was increased, and that was Tsunami from 145% to 195%. Even worse, the passive Master of Water that pairs with the Water Delphic - Archon Wave to have a % chance of a Stun Effect is gone too. So Delphic actually got worse by losing it's potential stun while not increasing in skill damage %.

    Lastly, given how many KH Passives trigger on strikes / critical strikes, the removal of the double-hit Aquilon's Lament and the double-hit AoE Wind Delphic - Apocalyptic Hurricane is a fairly significant loss as well.

    Don't get me wrong, in a Titan War / X-Server GB setup, as part of a team, I'll use my merged pet simply for the Steal & AoE Shield - but in CW? Looks like it's just going to be a troop since it's always going to get stuck in an eventual default-attack situation. Meh.

  • #2
    First off, grats on the long-awaited merge, though feeling sorry to hear Wind/Water is your first. Its predecessor sylphs are group support sylphs with special abilities, so must it be. In my experience (regardless of hero class), these 2 sylphs can't hit & can't tank (so they are always the ones to hit low & can't last for long), but some of their special abilities (shield, steal, etc.) are unique, so they are needed in some situations & they perform well when stacked on top of high hero stats (it's really the hero being strong & not the sylphs). With almost identical upgrades (mahra & sepulcrum levels), they have always been the greatest disappointment. In the old days when most people had low resistance crystals & could not have sufficient RES without focusing on just a few, they were perceived as somewhat "stronger" than the more-common ones, but nowadays almost everyone has to have considerable RES of every type to avoid pitfalls (unless they already know the opponents), they are unlikely to shiny.

    I still have no plan to spend, but if sylph merge shall become free in the future, Light/Dark would still be my top priority, even though presently my main sylph is electro.

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    • #3
      Loki/Odin has no 1 second skills available either. Beam Sword has a 5 second cd, but is pretty well available when needed. Haunt is 8 seconds, and everything else is 15+.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by R238423534 View Post
        First off, grats on the long-awaited merge, though feeling sorry to hear Wind/Water is your first. Its predecessor sylphs are group support sylphs with special abilities, so must it be. In my experience (regardless of hero class), these 2 sylphs can't hit & can't tank (so they are always the ones to hit low & can't last for long), but some of their special abilities (shield, steal, etc.) are unique, so they are needed in some situations & they perform well when stacked on top of high hero stats (it's really the hero being strong & not the sylphs).
        I actually found that the Goddess (Wind) was a really good Sylph. I preferred it to either Dark or Light, and greatly preferred it over Fire and Elec in all but PvE (WB, DI).

        Originally posted by R238423534 View Post
        With almost identical upgrades (mahra & sepulcrum levels), they have always been the greatest disappointment. In the old days when most people had low resistance crystals & could not have sufficient RES without focusing on just a few, they were perceived as somewhat "stronger" than the more-common ones, but nowadays almost everyone has to have considerable RES of every type to avoid pitfalls (unless they already know the opponents), they are unlikely to shiny.
        Actually, the Wind Sylph, at the same level as a Dark Sylph, has more Strength as far as I've been able to tell. The place it's weaker is Endurance and Defense, but the Endurance deficit on the Sylph is made up for with the +5% HP Passive - so it's really mostly Defense. I've never really had a problem dealing damage with the Wind Sylph given it's got 280% Full AoE, 314% Full AoE and a 210% Lowest HP Target hit. The Dark's Skills are 185% and 310% AoEs along with 215%, 220% and 230% Single Targets - but really, you're carrying what, two of those because you need the 1s CD Skill. Maybe you ditch the weaker AoE to carry all 3 200%+ Single Target attacks, but I'm a big fan of two good AoE hits in things like CW, TW and CSGB.

        The thing I'm envious of with the merge is that, in the case of Loki/Odin, Devour Soul went from 215% to 265%. Endless Engulf went from 310% AoE to 360% AoE. Divine Prayer went from 200% (2-4 Targets) to 250% (2-4 Targets). Similar boosts were gained for Tyr/Thor on Infernal Inflammation, Jupiter's Wrath and Consuming Flames.

        Had Freya's Steal gone from 280% to 330% and/or Ice Bolt gone from 300% to 350%, then yeah, I feel it'd be a more balanced Sylph. But the boosts it got were +50% to Warm Spring (135% Single Target Healing), Rain Dance (180% AoE Healing) and Tsunami (195% AoE Damage) - and it's Single-Target Shield went from 30% Max HP to 40% Max HP Absorption. I know it seems like nice boosts - and in the case of Tsunami it genuinely is good since it's a 10s CD AoE. But I mean, in the case of the healing... I was already healing for over 1.5m HP w/ my Poseidon Rain Dance. Do I really need to heal for 2.2m+ HP? It's kinda overkill. And why buff a single-target Shield to 40% when the whole point of the Freya is the 40% AoE Shield (Holy Water Shield). It's completely redundant and absolutely no one uses it.

        The Loki/Odin boosts were to great skills and they got % Damage Boosters built in as well (based on enemy HP %). They got two very good AoE Delphics and excellent Defensive Passives. Which is as it should be... That Freya Awakening Point Delphic is kind of a waste when Steal is already doing it in one shot, plus dealing damage, and not draining 500 Awakening to cast. If they wanted a really good 2nd Support Delphic they should have ditched Rain Dance and made it a Delphic at 150% Healing + a 30% Damage Buff (Like Stacking Whispering Wind onto Rain Dance and making it a Delphic).

        The one place I feel the Freya is insanely good is on it's unawakened passives.
        - Wind & Water Wheel: +5% MDef, PDef & HP
        - Holy Water Blessing: Forces the Enemy to attack your higher MDef / PDef when they're unawkened. Forces the Enemy to attack your higher Water or Wind Resist regardless of energy type.

        In this last TW, most people weren't even scratching me outside of pet form because of that latter passive. Only 1 group did significant damage to me, knocking me down from 1.9m HP to 1.3m HP before awakening, and that group had 2 Knighthood Characters that had x6 and x8 TW Buffs on them. Being able to force all attacks against a nearly 500k MDef and 62k Wind Resist was pretty insane. KH AoEs that were doing nearly 1m damage to my teammates were doing like 200k to me.

        The Loki/Odin unawakened passive of making one's unawakened attacks half MAtk and PAtk is more of a hindrance unless you're fighting the same class. As a Mage you WANT to keep your attack as MAtk vs. a Knight (or even an Archer), else you're allowing half the attack to use their better defense.

        I don't know what the Tyr/Thor unawakened passives are yet, so I can't comment on those.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Zorich View Post
          I actually found that the Goddess (Wind) was a really good Sylph. I preferred it to either Dark or Light, and greatly preferred it over Fire and Elec in all but PvE (WB, DI).



          Actually, the Wind Sylph, at the same level as a Dark Sylph, has more Strength as far as I've been able to tell. The place it's weaker is Endurance and Defense, but the Endurance deficit on the Sylph is made up for with the +5% HP Passive - so it's really mostly Defense. I've never really had a problem dealing damage with the Wind Sylph given it's got 280% Full AoE, 314% Full AoE and a 210% Lowest HP Target hit. The Dark's Skills are 185% and 310% AoEs along with 215%, 220% and 230% Single Targets - but really, you're carrying what, two of those because you need the 1s CD Skill. Maybe you ditch the weaker AoE to carry all 3 200%+ Single Target attacks, but I'm a big fan of two good AoE hits in things like CW, TW and CSGB.

          The thing I'm envious of with the merge is that, in the case of Loki/Odin, Devour Soul went from 215% to 265%. Endless Engulf went from 310% AoE to 360% AoE. Divine Prayer went from 200% (2-4 Targets) to 250% (2-4 Targets). Similar boosts were gained for Tyr/Thor on Infernal Inflammation, Jupiter's Wrath and Consuming Flames.

          Had Freya's Steal gone from 280% to 330% and/or Ice Bolt gone from 300% to 350%, then yeah, I feel it'd be a more balanced Sylph. But the boosts it got were +50% to Warm Spring (135% Single Target Healing), Rain Dance (180% AoE Healing) and Tsunami (195% AoE Damage) - and it's Single-Target Shield went from 30% Max HP to 40% Max HP Absorption. I know it seems like nice boosts - and in the case of Tsunami it genuinely is good since it's a 10s CD AoE. But I mean, in the case of the healing... I was already healing for over 1.5m HP w/ my Poseidon Rain Dance. Do I really need to heal for 2.2m+ HP? It's kinda overkill. And why buff a single-target Shield to 40% when the whole point of the Freya is the 40% AoE Shield (Holy Water Shield). It's completely redundant and absolutely no one uses it.

          The Loki/Odin boosts were to great skills and they got % Damage Boosters built in as well (based on enemy HP %). They got two very good AoE Delphics and excellent Defensive Passives. Which is as it should be... That Freya Awakening Point Delphic is kind of a waste when Steal is already doing it in one shot, plus dealing damage, and not draining 500 Awakening to cast. If they wanted a really good 2nd Support Delphic they should have ditched Rain Dance and made it a Delphic at 150% Healing + a 30% Damage Buff (Like Stacking Whispering Wind onto Rain Dance and making it a Delphic).

          The one place I feel the Freya is insanely good is on it's unawakened passives.
          - Wind & Water Wheel: +5% MDef, PDef & HP
          - Holy Water Blessing: Forces the Enemy to attack your higher MDef / PDef when they're unawkened. Forces the Enemy to attack your higher Water or Wind Resist regardless of energy type.

          In this last TW, most people weren't even scratching me outside of pet form because of that latter passive. Only 1 group did significant damage to me, knocking me down from 1.9m HP to 1.3m HP before awakening, and that group had 2 Knighthood Characters that had x6 and x8 TW Buffs on them. Being able to force all attacks against a nearly 500k MDef and 62k Wind Resist was pretty insane. KH AoEs that were doing nearly 1m damage to my teammates were doing like 200k to me.

          The Loki/Odin unawakened passive of making one's unawakened attacks half MAtk and PAtk is more of a hindrance unless you're fighting the same class. As a Mage you WANT to keep your attack as MAtk vs. a Knight (or even an Archer), else you're allowing half the attack to use their better defense.

          I don't know what the Tyr/Thor unawakened passives are yet, so I can't comment on those.
          Maybe we have different skill sets. Those are the sylph skills I have:
          Water: Delphic, Tsunami, Ice Shield, Rain Dance, Warm Spring
          Wind: Delphic, Steal, Aquilon's Lament, Wind's Grace, Breeze Blade
          I had Ice Bolt & Whispering Wind before, but reverted back to the blue skills because of long CD. And yeah I usually don't equip the 1-sec CD skills on any sylphs except for light.

          Stat wise, I don't see significant difference for the various sylphs of the same upgrade & enchantment level (even though a maxed orange Athena is like 95k while the rest are like 88k-90k something) if they are used as a carry-on. Would be a bit more different for sylph arena & expedition, but not enough to make a difference if they both use similar skills. For me, the real different is the skills. Of course this is my much weaker toon so it might be a very different experience if I had a sylph in the 400k+ range. I had used all 6 orange maxed sylphs (did NOT turn any of them to second-refined sylphs yet) as troops & as a carry-on for CW before, & wind was almost always the worst. But like I said, now I'm a weak toon so my experience might be entirely different than yours.

          As for light & dark, I actually don't use them much unless I need AOE. Others may have a different experience, but their useful skills tend to have longer CDs, & I still prefer the bigger hits from electro or fire (being an archer...). But Light-Dark merged sylph is another story. I don't own one yet (& will probably never do), but I have been borrowing all 3 merged sylphs for expedition, all at around the same BR. Wind/Water could only solo to 38. Its skills are fantastic. It just isn't "sharp" enough in any area other than having the unique skills that others don't have, & the boss enrage buff stacks more layers than my sylph could survive until it finishes off the boss. Fire/Electro is great on some stages but worse than Wind/Water for some others. Overall it isn't a well-rounded sylph, but it can do real big hits so probably good for speed race events. Light/Dark is entirely self-sufficient & could solo to 41 or further. For me, the ability to solo or two-man expedition stages is similar to the ability to function well as a carry-on sylph for both solo & group activities (although not as good as having a group support sylph when doing in a group). Similarly, doing arena with a light/dark carrier being the strongest on team helps us further than a wind/water one (same guy having both), but if there are 2 strong guys on team then it's best if one is wind/water & the other is either light/dark or fire/electro (the latter is not as great without support).

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          • #6
            Originally posted by R238423534 View Post
            Maybe we have different skill sets. Those are the sylph skills I have:
            Water: Delphic, Tsunami, Ice Shield, Rain Dance, Warm Spring
            Wind: Delphic, Steal, Aquilon's Lament, Wind's Grace, Breeze Blade
            I had Ice Bolt & Whispering Wind before, but reverted back to the blue skills because of long CD. And yeah I usually don't equip the 1-sec CD skills on any sylphs except for light.
            I loved Ice Bolt on the Water pet. And I always carried the 1s CD skill. On the Wind Pet it's especially good because, combined with a Steal every 45s, the ability to speed cast is invaluable. A 1s CD makes one able to do that infinitely. When you have the 150 Awaken Steal and 300 Awaken Gain passives that can trigger on attack, Speed Cast will keep you from ever coming out of an awaken in a BG-Type fight.

            Originally posted by R238423534 View Post
            As for light & dark, I actually don't use them much unless I need AOE. Others may have a different experience, but their useful skills tend to have longer CDs, & I still prefer the bigger hits from electro or fire (being an archer...). But Light-Dark merged sylph is another story. I don't own one yet (& will probably never do), but I have been borrowing all 3 merged sylphs for expedition, all at around the same BR. Wind/Water could only solo to 38. Its skills are fantastic. It just isn't "sharp" enough in any area other than having the unique skills that others don't have, & the boss enrage buff stacks more layers than my sylph could survive until it finishes off the boss. Fire/Electro is great on some stages but worse than Wind/Water for some others. Overall it isn't a well-rounded sylph, but it can do real big hits so probably good for speed race events. Light/Dark is entirely self-sufficient & could solo to 41 or further. For me, the ability to solo or two-man expedition stages is similar to the ability to function well as a carry-on sylph for both solo & group activities (although not as good as having a group support sylph when doing in a group). Similarly, doing arena with a light/dark carrier being the strongest on team helps us further than a wind/water one (same guy having both), but if there are 2 strong guys on team then it's best if one is wind/water & the other is either light/dark or fire/electro (the latter is not as great without support).
            Yeah, as non-merged pets, Light is the best AoE w/ Wind the 2nd best. Dark isn't really a great AoE pet specifically, but it's the most well rounded pet with an awaken steal, heal supression, life drain, 300%+ AoE and the best 1s CD Attack of all the pets. It also has a nice little enemy dispel on an 8s CD which is invaluable vs. Electro / Thor opponents. Kills all those buff stacks.

            As for expedition, The Frigga is meant to support a big hitter. I think Frigga + Thor is the best 2-pet combo. My Frigga + my guildmates Thor has me at L51 in Expedition and I've only not cleared that cause I've been unlucky w/ Crits. The Frigga I just keep cycling AoE Shield, AoE Heal, Ice Bolt while the Thor's got multiple Delphics unleashing the boomz . And as it keeps gaining stacks of buffs, by the time you've gone thru your 1st Expedition Buff Cycle and reset the bar, that Attack Booster on Thor w/ 15+ Damage Stacks will do well over 1 Million damage on a Critical.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Zorich View Post
              I loved Ice Bolt on the Water pet. And I always carried the 1s CD skill. On the Wind Pet it's especially good because, combined with a Steal every 45s, the ability to speed cast is invaluable. A 1s CD makes one able to do that infinitely. When you have the 150 Awaken Steal and 300 Awaken Gain passives that can trigger on attack, Speed Cast will keep you from ever coming out of an awaken in a BG-Type fight.
              My builds are all PvE type (never tried to do well in PvP) so probably not good for PvP. I can still beat most opponents within +/-400k (+/-600k for the knight) BR range, but had never been able to beat anyone further above me.
              For sylph skills, I tend to choose a skill that is missing from my hero or from other sylphs.
              As an archer (& as a knight), healing, shield & purification are the skills missing from my hero, that was why they were chosen.
              Tsunami & Ice Armor had been a tough choice for me, but after weighing the skill CDs & the gains/losses, I picked Tsunami. Similarly, Warm Spring was kept (it was previously replaced by Ice Armor) because of a much shorter CD. I would have picked Ice Bolt if I ever planned to use water sylph for bigger hits, but it was intended as a healer & AOE sylph so there's no single-target hit skill on it. Water sylph came out much earlier than eudaemon, so it had to do the healer's job until I had an Oracle eudy.
              Similarly, awakening points stealing & the ability to choose which target to hit (front or back, or AOE) are very important for the PATK classes (more important for a knight than an archer), that was why I picked Breeze Blade & Aquilon's Lament, knowing that they are nothing but plain hits (well...at least I can choose the target so still much better than blind hits). Whispering Wind was great until I had an Oracle, & now with a Ranger or Panther, I just don't feel like it's worth the skill slot.

              The reason why I didn't keep the 1-sec CD skills for most sylphs was because they either hit a random target (which is an unneeded addition for an archer) or hit a single front row target (which is an unneeded addition for a knight). As a mage it's probably wise to pick those skills, as the mage hero doesn't have enough decent single-target skill that hits hard enough without either long CD or significant rage consumption. My (long-retired) mage also used all single-target skills (except for Delphic) on her sylphs & kept the 1-sec CD skills. For me, Thunderer takes more rage than I could regain (& a knight or archer could auto hit me 3 times when I was casting it -_-|'). Ice Bolt is awesome, but skill CD is still a little too long for me to catch up with the other 2 classes when the dmg multiplier is 200% or higher (& my lower HP really got me killed fast in the higher multipliers even if they used only the "small hits" skills T_T). The mage was my only PvP build, so maybe our skill picks differ only by class & focus?

              Originally posted by Zorich View Post
              ...Yeah, as non-merged pets, Light is the best AoE w/ Wind the 2nd best. Dark isn't really a great AoE pet specifically, but it's the most well rounded pet with an awaken steal, heal supression, life drain, 300%+ AoE and the best 1s CD Attack of all the pets. It also has a nice little enemy dispel on an 8s CD which is invaluable vs. Electro / Thor opponents. Kills all those buff stacks...
              For me, water, wind & dark belong to the "skills type" of sylphs, as opposed to the "stats type" (light) & "dps & buff type" (electro, fire).

              For the "skills type" of sylphs, I tend to pick the skills unique to that particular sylph, so they could complement each other in a group setting & I could switch sylph to best suit the situation.
              As an archer with an Oracle eudy, water is basically not needed, unless I need puri, which is much better done by a teammate (I married a mage so...). Its skills are still awesome & I wished I had more than 5 skill slots to use. It just can't kill fast enough & healing/puri/etc. are basically useless when the enrage timer or dmg multiplier are stacking up fast.
              For wind, if opponent has the same RES against every element, wind didn't do well on me. Maybe I just need better base stats to make better use of this sylph. Or maybe I'm just more used to the electro or fire type of 400%+ hits so a 300%+ AOE/multi-target hit still doesn't impress me. Apparently, lots people have lower wind RES so maybe that's a more useful fact.
              Dark is also sort of not needed, as its skills highly overlaps with my hero skills. The only thing I can't do is heal suppression, which is not useful unless the opponent uses healing skills, & it doesn't seem to have any effect against healing rune & "bloodsuckers" (archer skill & dark skill, & regen astral). For awakening point stealing, wind can still do better, & I usually actively revert back to hero form to use hero skills when needed (so I won't stay awakened all the way even if I could). In the first place, dark sounded like the best single-element sylph ever, & I had much focus on it. But after I enhanced my dark sylph to the same extent as electro, it didn't seem to work very well on me. The best archer on my server uses dark sylph for both PvE & PvP. Maybe I just didn't have high enough stats to make it more useful. When I was a knight, it seemed to be much worse than any MATK sylph. Maybe it was because most knights have much higher PDEF than MDEF, & dark sylph doesn't hit high enough to nuke them & my lower defense got me killed fast (my knight was the DPS type).

              For the "stats" sylph (light), I keep only the AOE skills & the 1-sec CD skill, & pray that my base stats are high enough to get thru the challenge. I used to think it were a useless sylph (because most skills don't hit higher than 200% & most skills have a terribly long CD), but on the knight I began to focus on it again after dar sylph's disappointment, & it worked amazingly good when my hero stats were high enough. On the archer it's not as helpful (because the archer also has enough multi-target skills on the hero & she has much lower stats), but it still did much better than expected (maybe my expectation on light was too low? ).

              The "dps & buff type" (electro, fire) sylphs are mainly for big hits & some smaller buffs (freeze, bleed, amnesia, shield, etc.). I tend to prioritize the skill strength & CD, & then the minor add-on buffs. Electro is my main for knight & archer. I don't think it's a well-rounded sylph, but it worked well for gaining the PvE rewards necessary for upgrading other things. On both toons, fire sylph didn't receive any upgrades until recently, but it also worked amazingly good on both, & seemed to do better for PvP as well (due to most people's lower fire RES?). Overall, if I could get back all the upgrade materials I used on each sylph & revert back all sylphs to 1-star white & without any refinement at all, electro would still be my first focus, although my "main" might be something else.

              Originally posted by Zorich View Post
              ...As for expedition, The Frigga is meant to support a big hitter. I think Frigga + Thor is the best 2-pet combo. My Frigga + my guildmates Thor has me at L51 in Expedition and I've only not cleared that cause I've been unlucky w/ Crits. The Frigga I just keep cycling AoE Shield, AoE Heal, Ice Bolt while the Thor's got multiple Delphics unleashing the boomz . And as it keeps gaining stacks of buffs, by the time you've gone thru your 1st Expedition Buff Cycle and reset the bar, that Attack Booster on Thor w/ 15+ Damage Stacks will do well over 1 Million damage on a Critical...
              Sadly, after all the torments & ordeals we players had gone through in this game, I'd rather not spend a penny in this game any more, so there would never be a merged sylph for me, not even one from the unholy brown tree (aka "sacred" gold tree), so I'd never be there to see 2 merged sylphs in expedition unless they waive the balens requirement for sylph merge. But I agree wind/water + fire/electro is possibly the best combo for expedition, as their skills complement each other & both are "sharp" enough in doing one job but not the other. Light/dark is more of a one-in-all type of sylph, with more versatility but has to compromise some performance in each area. My preference to light/dark comes from its generality & self-sufficiency, which is crucial for being a main sylph that needs to work well for both PvE & PvP even if it isn't the best in either place.

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              • #8
                Well seems i gong to wait the merges are free...

                Good thread!!!

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