Bullets vs Techs - leveling statement

[desturel]

Since I was bored this weekend and had nothing better to do, I thought I would get an answer to a question that has been brought up over and over again about which one was harder to level. A rifle bullet or a line tech (zonde, barta, megid).

Unfortunately I already had barta at 31, but megid was only 30 and 10% so I decided to use that. For bullets, Burning shot was at 30 and 1%. I already had two killer shots to 31, Dark Shot, and Frozen Shot to 31 so I could not use those. Grav Shot was 27 so that would have taken too long to test properly.

I used a Psycho Wand 3/8 on a level 120 male neuman fortetecher on Sleeping Warriors S2 (w/ Leo and Tonnio) to level Megid.

Leveling took 8 hours or real time to get to 31. I gained an average of 6% per run through of sleeping warriors and it took between 15 and 25 minutes per run depending on how much the instant kill of the megid, how quickly Leo and Tonnio decided to blast (if they blasted at all) and what map I got. So over all it took around 5 hours (6% per run averaging 20 minutes not including the inbetween time which made it 8 hours of real life time) to get the 90% on Megid needed to get to 31.

There are a few ways I could have "improved" my leveling method.

1) I could have used 1* weapons instead of a Psycho wand, less damage = more casts per creature which = more percentage per run

That's silly because it would take me longer per run and I would have needed to recharge more often instead of using about 1 photon charge per run. It probably would have averaged out to the same amount of time spent, but less runs.

2) I could have chosen a different map with more bunched in creatures such as White Beast or Sakura Blast ineast of Sleeping Warriors.

For one thing, running sleeping warriors gives me a chance at relic edge (got 3) and svaltus edge (got 1) which I needed for other weapons I wanted. Sakura Blast is a problem for megid since it's an uphill downhill map (it's perfect for barta though). White Beast is annoying with the Ollaka, plus the Komazli putting my NPC to sleep is more annoying than the Svaltus on the last block on Sleeping Warriors. Plus no boss fight to eat up 5 mins at the end of the run.

I'd rather level my dam-spells on Sakura Blast or White Beast (Kakwane knockdown is annoying, but not that bad).

3) I could have not buffed myself. Although I didn't mention it, I used level 21+ retier and shifta / zodial for Tonnio and Leo. This goes with #1 in that I could get more levels per run, but the runs would take longer so it probably would have nullified in the end.

For Burning Shot I also choose Sleeping Warriors. A level 120 male neuman fortegunner (same character obviously). I used two 3/10 Mizurakihoh and 4 0/10 Kiujibahoh. Since I don't have patience to wait out a burning shot on 4 svaltus I used virus traps and boma megiga when I got to that part. Each run I got anywhere from 20 to 25%, however runs with the rifle took me about 90 mins hours to finish. I used no NPC and no other bullets except to kill the Svaltus at the end of the run. So overall it took me about 9 hours of real time, but 7.5 hours of bullet leveling time.

Now before we say it takes 7.5 solid hours, I needed to swap pallet before going to the 4th block to include my grenade launchers this would probably cancel out with the time I spent buffing as a techer. Since I had no way of breaking groups of boxes (megid is real nice about breaking lines of boxes), this also took additional time and the fact that I was not using rifle for anything but the golmoro on the last block. This would likely take about an hour to 90 minutes off of my total bullet leveling time. So I'll say about 6 to 6.5 hours of bullet leveling time.

I know plains overlord with it's safe spots would have been a quicker and easier run for rifle bullet leveling, especially since using the rifle against de ragan would not have caused as much problems as using a rifle against Svaltus, but I wanted to use the same run that I was leveling megid on for a more honest comparison.

So my conclusion is to say that they both level at the same rate (zonde/megid and rifle bullets). The advantage for bullets is that you can level them in any mission equally. The advantage for techs is that you can clear runs faster while leveling. For bullets you can level in a group without negatively affecting the other people in the party. For techs, you likely will need to solo as the more creatures you hit the better they level. Hitting one creature with zonde to try and level it is a sure way to go insane.

Anyway, time for the cliff notes leveling Megid from 30 (and 10%) took 5 hours. Leveling Burning Shot from 30 (and 1%) to 31 took what I'm averaging to be 6.25 hours. Using the same character (male neuman level 120 fortegunner 15, fortetecher 15). Leveling was done under non-optimal conditions so results may vary.

If anyone wants to do a test in a different location and post their results, I'd be more than happy to see your results. Obviously I was bored this weekend and had nothing but free time. Not everyone would be able to waste two days leveling things to 31.

Hopefully I will be able to repeat this test with Grav Shot and Zonde if I don't get those both to 31 while waiting on this new skill leveling update.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: desturel on 2008-03-10 09:39 ]</font>

[Dhylec]

Your work is commentable. Once the PA leveling is adjusted in the coming week/s, most of what you show here is out the window. ;]

[JAFO22000]

Nice work. So, all in all, bullets and techs pretty much level at the same (sucky) rate.

[R2D6battlebot]

The difference not shown here is that when youre trying to speed level a technic like Megid, you go to an area with fairly closed in spaces, like Groves hallways or White Beast. Sleeping Warriors is way too huge to expect creatures to be nice and line up for you, and when youre only hitting 1-2 targets at a time of course its going to take 8 hours. In other words, there are ways to level technics like that one easier, whereas with rifles its always the same, go somewhere and shoot things a lot. Either way there is no way to test this in a fair and nonbiased environment, because frankly the Arts level in different ways. Anyone who knows how to level things should know though, that rifles do indeed take a lot longer in terms of actual gameplay and going to the right places to level things.

[amtalx]

Good job. Next time though, you can pack up your leveled bullets and start with fresh ones from the NPC. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[desturel]

On 2008-03-10 09:49, Dhylec wrote:
Your work is commentable. Once the PA leveling is adjusted in the coming week/s, most of what you show here is out the window. ;]


Of course which is why I decided to do this now. ;]

I've been chugging along with Dugrega, but it's only at level 24 right now. Depending on when we get the skill update, I might not be able to finish it to 31 before we get the modified skills. I'm also unsure how well trying to hit three Svaltus with Dugrega will go over, but I'm willing to try. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

I guess Dugrega runs won't take as long as rifle only runs, but will definitely take longer than megid runs (Neuman Protranser 15 since I haven't leveled up fortefighter yet).

[Hrith]

No, bullets easily take five times longer to level up in game time. Most techs level up quite fast.

For someone whose main is a Fortegunner, leveling up technics feels the same as leveling skills: fast, except for a few (Megid, Absolute Dance, etc.)

Really, if you think techs are on par with bullets for leveling speed, you don't know anything about bullets.

[Telina]

On 2008-03-10 10:06, R2D6battlebot wrote:
The difference not shown here is that when youre trying to speed level a technic like Megid, you go to an area with fairly closed in spaces, like Groves hallways or White Beast. Sleeping Warriors is way too huge to expect creatures to be nice and line up for you, and when youre only hitting 1-2 targets at a time of course its going to take 8 hours. In other words, there are ways to level technics like that one easier, whereas with rifles its always the same, go somewhere and shoot things a lot. Either way there is no way to test this in a fair and nonbiased environment, because frankly the Arts level in different ways. Anyone who knows how to level things should know though, that rifles do indeed take a lot longer in terms of actual gameplay and going to the right places to level things.



Not true at all, the monsters in sleeping warriors can be coaxed into a line in less than three seconds all you do is run away and they converge nicely. I got megid to 40, barta to 39 and zonde to 38 by such methods. The level does not restrict them, but you cannot discount the fact that the robots's sidesteping is halted by the walls whereas the sleeping warrior mobs simply charge you.

[Telina]

But aside from the fact that piercing techs will hit more than one monster per cast what the OP was trying to say (i think) was that if you took the piercing part out of the equasion and just did a hit by hit observation, rifle bullets and megid/barta/zonde gain roughly the same exp per individual hit.

And @ Hrith, this was only comparing RIFLE bullets to PIERCING techs, not leveling bullets in general as composed to leveling techs in general please notice the distinction.

[desturel]

On 2008-03-10 10:06, R2D6battlebot wrote:
The difference not shown here is that when youre trying to speed level a technic like Megid, you go to an area with fairly closed in spaces, like Groves hallways or White Beast. Sleeping Warriors is way too huge to expect creatures to be nice and line up for you, and when youre only hitting 1-2 targets at a time of course its going to take 8 hours.


Not true at all. This shows that you haven't leveled techs properly.

First, I have mentioned that these were not optimal conditions, but I'll mention this again to get it out of they way.

Second, EVERYTHING in sleeping warriors charges you head on. Getting all of the creatures in a straight line is as simple as walking into a corner and letting them rush you down. You do not need to chase them down. Golmoro are the only ones that tend to side step a bit, but most times they will jump right back into the megid path unless Tonnio or Leo are drawing them off to some unknown location.

Grove of Fanatics fails for two major reasons. Armed Servant (Ozuna) and Bysha type-Otsu32. Both of these enemies will walk around in cirles making it extremely difficult to tag more than one at a time. They don't just randomly walk out into a hallway so you have to chase them into a room AND they start pelting you with foie (although on S2, I take no damage from foie from an Otsu32, I will take about 50 points of damage from Ozuna which is enough to interrupt my spell casting which makes everything take longer.

For Ozuna I'll switch to cards instead of wasting time casting megid. For Otsu, there's not set way to get them all killed with one megid.

White Beast is just as bad with ollaka and Gohmon. Ollaka like running around in circles meaning most of the time you'll only get half of the pack with one megid ball. Olgohmon spawn in a pyramid formation. Megid isn't wide enough to hit all of the Olgohmon at once in some of the pyramid formations, plus they take half damage from techs meaning more time wasted trying to kill them or hoping for the incapacitate to kick in. Add to this Komazli which cast sleep and freeze. You can only have sleep resist (preferred) or freeze resist on at one time. So you will get frozen every so often, especially if you are standing in a hallway waiting for things to charge you down. Kakwane and Sageeta are best for Megid leveling, but Kakwane tend to run through your megid and knock you down. It's better to use a dam tech like Dammegid or dambarta vs groups of Kakwane to prevent them from getting too close to you.

Sakura blast is a MUCH better place to level line techs, but because it is uphill and downhill there will be times that you wind up hitting the bottom of the hill and not killing everything thing. Fighting for higher ground constantly gets to be a pain, but like with Sleeping warriors, Booma, Sageeta, and Ubakrada rush you down straight on so you don't have to worry about how wide an area it is. That they are also ice monsters makes this a great place to level barta meaning barta would be quicker to level there. This does not apply to megid or zonde.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: desturel on 2008-03-10 10:38 ]</font>

[desturel]

On 2008-03-10 10:09, Hrith wrote:
No, bullets easily take five times longer to level up in game time. Most techs level up quite fast.


I'm talking about rifle bullets vs. line techs. Not all bullets vs. all techs. If that was the case, I would say that no tech is as easy to level as Card bullets. Ensei-shiki levels quicker than anything outside of melee skills.

Obviously if I have level 31 bullets I've spent more than a little bit of time as a gunner, so your comment about not knowing what a gunner has to go through does not apply.

Oh and Shotguns are easy to level. Shotgun levels at about the same speed as a Ra tech. Barada Yoga was the first bullet I got to 31. It's 37 currently and that's only because I've been leveling Dugrega and megid. I could easily have all of them to 40 right now if I was a full time gunner.

Heck if I didn't split my time so much between gunner and techer, I would have a higher level Dugrega.

[Telina]

lol desturel you practically plagerized my posts http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif wooooo i feel special

but yea i'm glad i wasn't the only one who took notice http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif

[desturel]

On 2008-03-10 10:59, Telina wrote:
lol desturel you practically plagerized my posts http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif wooooo i feel special


Heh, I didn't read your posts until after I posted, but feeling special isn't bad. http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

What people don't realize is the fact that bullets level the same everywhere makes them easier to level. You don't have to seclude your self away from everyone in order to level them.

I must have sent about 12 messages while leveling Megid to people saying "sorry I can't join your party, I'm leveling megid". I can level bullets in a party and the bullets still level at the same speed.

Megid takes a serious performance hit when you get into groups. So while the bullet that took me 6 hours to level when soloing would still take me maybe 7 or 8 hours to level instead because I'd be slowed down a bit by doing more missions. Meanwhile that 5 hour megid becomes a 12+ hour megid in a group because you are not getting the hits that you need to get the levels.

Group running doesn't matter much for things like Foie, Diga, Ra-techs, nos techs, and regrants. They do matter for Gi techs, line techs, and megiverse. It does nothing but help for buffs and heals.

[Angry_Panda]

On 2008-03-10 09:38, desturel wrote:
There are a few ways I could have "improved" my leveling method.

1) I could have used 1* weapons instead of a Psycho wand, less damage = more casts per creature which = more percentage per run

That's silly because it would take me longer per run and I would have needed to recharge more often instead of using about 1 photon charge per run. It probably would have averaged out to the same amount of time spent, but less runs.


Good post, pretty much what I expected as a FT player. Gunners stop whining.

There are a couple things I'd add to your "speed" section tho, that have led to a considerable difference in my speed tech leveling. Just lettin you know I did all my pierce techs at SW as well, my lowest currently being barta at 31 (zonde 36, megid 40). Each are considerably painful to get past 31, with barta/megid seeming to take the leads for time consumption. SW is hands down the best place for ANY kind of speed tech leveling. As stated, people who disagree are not leveling techs properly.

In terms of speed/damage, a leveled FT will do around 200-400 less with a nice grinded shato (8+), then in your case a 3/10 pwand. Added with a har/quick, the grinded shato will gain more tech exp and kill faster then you can with the pwand. You will also have more mobility options, and be able to adjust your character faster if the enemies fall out of firing line. With a tech mag, you should be hitting 5+ targets hopefully every time, and doing it quickly. This should shave a couple mins off of run time while still gaining the same (if not more) tech exp. I'm not sure what the exact numbers are, but it's about 20-30% exp a run (for pierce techs 31+), at 10-15 mins a run.

A level in around 1-1.5 hours is pretty close to what I was averaging...however that's after 31, and for some reason techs pick up speed there until about 35 or 36 and then slow down again. Reasonably, going from 30-31 in my mind was about the same as 37-38 for megid...painful.

Also, flame all you want for this, but b4 imo is a waste of time. I completely cut it out of my runs, even after using a stun / resist. The option of finding a svaltus sword / svaltus edge versus finding more diads/relic edges/[b] pwands is greatly weighted imo, and I'll gladly bypass svaltus swords for a greater chance at more pwand boards. So far it's benefited both my run time, tech exp and in game wealth by bypassing that block, as long as you don't need the exp, mission points or mission award money you'll be straight. Trust, the benefits of selling a pwand board outweigh your mission rewards there, you'll be happy campers....with hi tech levels.

[biggabertha]

This is really insightful stuff but Rifle bullets only hit one thing at a time whereas line TECHNICs hit several things. This comparison is between Lv. 30 and Lv. 31 which is arguably one of the hardest (and most frustratingly slow) parts to level. After this hurdle, it's easy going until Lv. 36 then it sort of grinds to the same pace as Lv. 30 - Lv. 31.

Rifle bullets I'm sure, take a HUGE nosedive in leveling speeds at that point because they can still only hit one target as opposed to line TECHNICs. I'm fairly sure that the EXP required to get a Rifle bullet to Lv. 40 is higher than that of any line TECHNIC and highest of all are the LAser TECHNICs.

Add to the fact that when I was leveling Mayalee Prism to Lv. 40, it literally drove me insane when I read that bullets will be receiving something like a 3x EXP boost or more per hit.

GoOd woRk nONetHEleSs

[desturel]

Well, lost my patience and leveled Zonde and Dugrega to 31 since the PA update got pushed back. Anyway, to make a long story short, Zonde went the same as megid. About 5 hours of leveling time.

Dugrega on the other hand was lolez in comparison. 2 hours worth of leveling time. Would have been much faster if I did a different run besides sleeping warriors, but oh well.

[Akaimizu]

An it also differs depending on the guns as to dependancy on what mobs you need. I'm pretty sure people were still in agreement that multi-mob bullets like Laser cannons rely on having more monsters around like most multi-mob techs do. The advantage of Lasers is the lack of a limit on the number of creatures they can hit. However, it's hard to tell whether they're set to level slower, in general, because of that fact.

Some of them do take their good ol' time to level, but it's tough to do a direct tech/bullet comparison on them, but I'm kind of doing both bullets and techs as my GT so everything seems equally as painful to level, with the exception of certain bullets, as you say. Though some techs, obviously, also have their faster levelling.

Bullet owners only have issues because they feel the need to level every elemental bullet for each weapon they specialize in. Lest they be severely weakened against certain mobs. Some techs, luckily, are a lot more general purpose use. Stuff like a Nosdiga, which works well on many things at once, instead of the feeling you best have this precise bullet for this precise gun, and if you haven't gotten that levelled where have you been? Leveling some of the other 40 PA arts?

Funny enough, I kind of see this from both sides of the issue being the half-breed player that I am, and playing with lots of others and watching their achievements as they play. They both have their levelling issues, as they do now; but a different set of growing pains involved. Being a GT, and one who has spread their levelling to equal issue of both sides of the arts (especially these days), I feel your pain as was said in an old Clinton speech.

Bullets have gotten better today than it used to be. Remember bullets need to hit in order to even count towards your level. Techs don't. Back in the past, when so many more zeroes were accounted to much lower ATA stats, the bullet levelling was at its most painful. It's a good note that if you are a lower level character and starting the gunner's route, just be ready for things to take a bit longer.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Akaimizu on 2008-04-02 15:30 ]</font>

[mvffin]

the comparison is a little skewed. If you're gonna compare piercing line techs, compare them to lasers. Admittedly, Megid takes FOREVER to level after 14 or so... But my dark laser has been at 18 like forever.

[icewyrm]

I was interested in whether or not it's faster to level techs at hyuga rescue 1 or at SW S2. From the data I've collected for hyuga 1:

Each run takes about 9:10 to finish, depending on how the robots line up, incapacitate occurance etc, gives around 14,000 meseta and 24 mission points. I'm playing a human male lvl 126/10 acrotecher with a me/quick. Of course, there are no worthwhile drops here, unless you have a freakish fetish for repeaters or crea swords. Oh, and you'll get about 10,700 EXP if you aren't yet capped.

Approximate levelling numbers

Lvl 16 -> 17 = 23% <- Megid EXP per run
Lvl 17 -> 18 = 20%
Lvl 18 -> 19 = 17%
Lvl 19 -> 20 = 14%
Lvl 20 -> 21 = 11%

11% divided by 9.16 minutes = approx 1.2% exp per minute. Not bad, especially considering you can do the mission at a pretty low level if you need to.

Those figures are pretty consistent. Heres the figures for a quick run through of the first three blocks of SW S2, same setup. 18,500~25000 meseta, 28000~36000 EXP depending on spawns.

Run type 1- Megid used on every monster, no npcs
Lvl 20 -> 21 = 31%
25 Minutes runtime (approx 1.24% per minute). Slightly better pa exp, along with better drops and such.

Run type 2- Megid used on every monster except fatties, which I used foie on, Tonnio and Alfort as npcs.
Lvl 20 -> 21 = 25%
19 Minutes runtime (approx 1.31% per minute) About .15 percent increase over the hyuga 1 PA exp rate, pretty good along with the other benefits.

Run type 3- Same as type 2 except block 4 included.
Lvl 20 -> 21 = 28%
22 Minutes runtime (approx 1.27% per minute). Hmm, considering the extra meseta. mp and boss box drops, I'd say it's probably worth doing the fourth block.

All in all, SW S2 looks like a better choice for levelling megid. I'm not sure how levelling barta or zonde would change things, since you lose the element damage bonus and exchange incapacitate for shock or freeze http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_eek.gif



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: icewyrm on 2008-04-02 20:43 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: icewyrm on 2008-04-02 20:48 ]</font>

[desturel]

On 2008-04-02 15:25, Akaimizu wrote:
I'm pretty sure people were still in agreement that multi-mob bullets like Laser cannons rely on having more monsters around like most multi-mob techs do.


Laser cannons have the distinct advantage over techs in that they can be aimed up and down giving you more options on where to level them.

For the most part they level like line techs, but with the added option to shoot up and down without the limitation of being stopped by many minor obstacles like low walls or corners like barta is and you have yourself a wide variety of places to choose from when leveling them.

The thing that pisses me off the most though is Chikki. It levels like greased lightning whether you use on it one creature or a mob. It can't aim uphill/downhill like a laser or barta, but it has twice as wide an area of effect as either of those. Plus it can shoot THROUGH solid walls/pillars unlike a laser or a tech leaving you the option of sitting outside of a room and wall spamming the PA. :/

"Oh but it doesn't cause a status effect". Bah, the ability to shoot from safely outside of a room and the quicker leveling of the ability in general is more than a good replacement for level 1 freeze/shock of level 21 barta/zonde.

Choutou is in a similar situation, but is a bit harder to level past 21 due to it's wider area so you have to pick the stage to level it on more carefully. (I like true darkness sendillian.

[panzer_unit]

On 2008-04-03 07:07, desturel wrote:
The thing that pisses me off the most though is Chikki. It levels like greased lightning whether you use on it one creature or a mob. It can't aim uphill/downhill like a laser or barta, but it has twice as wide an area of effect as either of those. Plus it can shoot THROUGH solid walls/pillars unlike a laser or a tech leaving you the option of sitting outside of a room and wall spamming the PA. :/

Chikki will aim up... it can hax hills and stairways to hit enemies from underground.

[Sexy_Raine]

An elemental rifle bullet is definitely easier than an line tech. Those who say otherwise don't know WTF they're talking about. My Nova's Dark shot 40 is already, and few others at 31+, so that proves it right there.

Element laser cannon is about as hard as line techs. My Megid is lv33, it took about 10 runs of Sleeping Warriors to do 30-31.