Ring CL Management - Levelling, Instance Farming, Soloing

[Zyraen82]

Edit : Test results added below.

RING CL MANAGEMENT

(NOTE : as per the title, this guide is more or less useless for Shallow Sea runs, which require CL 10.0 or 9.9 to have a reasonable chance of completion...)
Found out from one of the Posters that Shallow Seas (Which I have never entered before) is same as all other instances smile So it does indeed apply! But I'm keeping the old sentence for Archive's sakes

Here's a few general notes, observations, facts to start the ball rolling :
- Except for CL-Independent rings (see here), all other Rings improve with Ring CL
- "Instances" generally are dynamic-CL, meaning they change to match the Overall CL of your strongest team member (if you're solo, just your CL)
- "Quests" usually have a Cap such that you are rough equi-strength to your opponent.

In other words - your *overall CL* doesn't matter much for significant number aspects of the game (coincidentally the ones that drop more loot? lol)
- Just because you're 6.0 doesn't make Taiko Drums easier to kill for the quests in which they count.
- DMP doesn't really become easier at 3.5 CL than it was at 2.8 CL. (though it usually does because you get more rings that make it easier)

Have you ever had a moment, when you suppress CL to play with someone, and find out *gasp* not only are you weaker than the other Player, but you aren't as effective as you remember you were when you were that CL?

This might also be a possible reason why relative few people bother to go back and replay the lower instances (for loot, as the idea might be)

The answer is really quite obvious, if we think about it.

Your Overall CL is the average (somewhat weighted) of your rings.
If you were to suppress all your 10.0 rings to 5.0 so you could revisit She-wolf, then you end up going in with, effectively,
- 8 rings each of 5.0 CL.

But when you were actually leveling up you would go in with something like
- 2 rings 6.5 CL, 2 rings 5.5 CL, the other 4 maybe 2.5 CL.

And surprise-surprise - this actually makes She-wolf a lot easier.

==========================

I think the portals provide perhaps the handiest example of where this is useful/applicable :

- Going in at CL 10.0, I'm using my 10.0 Hack and Mantis against a 10.0 Vampire/Werewolf
- Going in at CL 9.2 (after putting on a 1.0 Divinity and a 1.2 Ghost), I'm using my same 10.0 Hack and Mantis against a 9.2 Werewolf/Vampire.

The second one is significantly easier. If you don't feel it, go try with with 3 ringslots placed for 1.0 rings, and the rest (especially attack rings) at 10.0 CL.
Though of course I lose out a little when Rings drop, but otherwise, its still pretty solid.

=========================

Levelling Up

Know the CL-Independent Rings. Don't spend an orb on them, or maybe max take them to CL 2.0. (Unless you're really feeling the pinch and desperately want to increase your CL to catch up with your girlfriend and every one of your other rings seem so costly to improve, of course...)
When you're about CL 4.0, higher level Rings will start to drop and you can swap them in (plus the Vampire / Werewolf portals make such rings so frickin easy...) That's much better resource usage than salvaging the Rings for Orbs.

Suggest you pick 2 Attack rings (my preference is Slash and Hack, or Hack and Mantis) as key attack rings, level them past your Overall CL.

You can have 1 or 2 healing rings (typically Bandage and/or Diagnose). In my experience with Bandage, generally it works well even when kept at about 0.5 to 1.0 CL under my Attack Rings. In Emergencies, just use more Rage.

Plan your Ringsets in Advance, so you know which rings to get from the Quest.

Decide which Ringsets you want for farming (like Angel set) so that you will keep the Rings instead of Salvage them.

As usual, Salvage those you don't need.

If you keep to these guidelines and plan rings well, you shouldn't be too concerned about Solo-ing most instances up to maybe, Papa Saw (due to that sleepiness.. geez!)

=========================

Playing at Significantly Lower CL - usually Instance Farming

So if you're going to crew with someone of lower CL, and/or go and revisit some instances of lower levels, instead using a normal suppression, I would suggest taking the following steps :

1. Determine your most Essential Rings.
Typically for me, these will be Attack Rings and Healing Rings.
I normally give Attack Ring a higher CL than Healing ring, depending on the instance, even if I go in with only one healing ring (Bandage on Solos)

2. All other non-essential slots should be left empty, or filled with CL 1.0 rings. I personally suggest keeping on hand a low-CL Angel set for loot.
When doing portals, keeping slots filled does also help, because dropped Rings will auto-equip and push up your Overall-CL.

3. CL-Independent Rings are a real boon. They can be handy and be kept low.

4. Set Bonuses are neat, so you can keep a low level version of a ring just to still have the bonus.

5. If you still have to, Suppress your CL to clear that last difference in CL level.

=========================

Playing (Alone) at Higher CL - usually Soloing

If you're going to Portal on your own, you probably want more rings at 10.0 so that it doesn't affect the number of Orbs you get and the quality of Rings that drop too much. Substituting two 10.0 Rings with 1.0 Rings is a good idea.

I would say that 1.0 Divinity is a must-have to substitute, and it really doesn't really give you any disadvantage at all.

If you have another armor ring, then dropping it to 1.0 is good. If you're solo-portalling, you could probably substitute that AoE slot with a 1.0 Ring also.

I'm planning to experiment some and see if I can drop my CL to 8.8 or so before going to Stone Coatl, but armed with 10.0 Hack, Mantis, and with my Ninja set intact, see if that makes it significantly easier to solo.

=========================

Though really, if you understand it, all the above 3 are about the same for everyone...

Preparation

To have good flexibility along the way, some Tips are
- keep rings that are under CL 1.5. If you lack this, just suppress your CL and go do some Portal Soloing or hunt Lawn Gnomes in Village Greens.
- if you value ringset bonuses, keep low level versions of Rings forming handy ringsets, like Angel Set.
- keep low level duplicates of your current ringset, swapping them to low level, except for "Essential Rings". For eg, on Ninja I would have a 1.0 Divinity and 1.2 Ghost because I don't often use them, though I'm really waiting for another Shuriken to show up, so I can have low level Shuriken and use my 10.0 Ghost.
- for those worried, note that your Inventory for Rings is Infinite wink you can always scroll down to put more rings.

=========================

Now I wonder if this Topic is useful to anyone ?

Its probably too much trouble for people sporting all 10.0 Rings, but I hope that people levelling up might find this helpful, especially when they want to grind a certain orb-giving quest, but they are too high CL for it, and suppressing seems to make things not quite as easy as it used to be...

=========================

Test Results
Testing various levels of Mantis, as used in Dead Mans Path (East) at Overall CL 3.2, on Bootsnakes of CL 2.6, details in post 9 and 10 of this topic.

Mantis 9.6 - 1323 / 20 = 66.15 ==> 66.15 / 9.6 = 6.891 damage per CL
Mantis 7.4 - 1278 / 20 = 63.90 ==> 63.90 / 7.4 = 8.635 damage per CL
Mantis 6.4 - 1211 / 20 = 60.55 ==> 60.55 / 6.4 = 9.461 damage per CL
Mantis 5.8 - 1215 / 20 = 60.75 ==> 60.75 / 5.8 = 10.474 damage per CL
Mantis 5.0 - 1093 / 20 = 54.65 ==> 54.65 / 5.0 = 10.930 damage per CL
Mantis 4.5 - 1079 / 20 = 53.95 ==> 53.95 / 4.5 = 11.989 damage per CL
Mantis 4.1 - 898 / 20 = 44.90 ==> 44.90 / 4.1 = 10.951 damage per CL
Mantis 3.6 - 904 / 20 = 45.20 ==> 45.20 / 3.6 = 12.556 damage per CL
Mantis 3.2 - 746 / 20 = 37.30 ==> 37.30 / 3.2 = 11.656 damage per CL
(for more testing details, see my posts as Replies below this Topic)

The gains from having Mantis upped appear to be reasonably consistent, (subject to testing variance) until somewhere between Mantis 5.0 and 5.8, meaning about 1.8-2.6 CL above the Overall CL, thereafter there is a noticeable reduction in its effectiveness per CL due to diminishing returns.

[Nitemare Visitor]

The cow thinks its good wink

[Saburoo]

All rings have added effects when they level up, what the ******** are you talking about? confused

*reads through rest of guide*


Edit: Whoah, are you saying to level up attack rings like how much higher then your other rings? O_O

In my experience keeping rings within 1 cl of each other works a lot better then leveling unevenly o_O

[Zyraen82]

I forgot to add, there's a certain "cap" away from your Overall CL beyond which your Ring does a limited amount of good. I think it has something to do with the game doing a reduced weightage on your very high / very low rings, maybe.

For eg, if your Overall CL is 3.5 but you have a 10.0 hack (just an estimate), it would probably function maybe only a little bit better than 5.0 or 5.5 CL hack. Its really a diminishing return away from your Overall CL, different people have different views. I wouldn't just level Attack Rings higher, if you're using only one healing ring (like Bandage), you will probably want it around your Overall CL, if not higher. Matter of personal taste, I think.

I should probably do some tests, to see what is the CL value away from Overall CL that has next-to-no improvement.

As mentioned in my other thread, CL-independent Rings, there are indeed rings that do not get better with CL. Its a matter of opinion when / how to use Orbs to improve them.

My opinion, assuming regular inflow of Rings (kinda true if you can solo-portal) its much more worth it to just swap with a new, higher level ring to level it up, rather than using orbs and salvaging new rings.

I do actually have one character where I regularly kept my lowest rings within about 1.5 to 2.0 CL of my Overall CL. I found that while he was decently strong and playable, at about mid-game I had a large bunch of Rings coming in, at just under the same CL level as my weakest rings. Effectively, many of them are "wasted" in that I have to salvage them to make use of their Orbs.

Quote:

Edit: Whoah, are you saying to level up attack rings like how much higher then your other rings? O_O

Why not you try it out and tell me? Just take a few high level non-attack rings out, leave them as blank slots or put in 1.0 CL rings, and then go attack a portal? smile

Quote:

All rings have added effects when they level up, what the ******** are you talking about?

just go look at the thread on CL independent rings.

[Sara Serket]

I didnt know what CL was and I suppressed it and now it wont go back!! Ahh help

[Fr33d0m4ever]

I'll read through the rest of your little guide here, but that first line you have there tells me you don't know how instances work... and makes me hesitate to read what I'll see later on.

You can be as low as CL 8 for Shallow Seas... and as long as *everyone* is the exact same CL (in the crew), it won't be any harder than if everyone was CL 10.

darkangel: go to the null chamber to unsuppress.

Edit: Okay, after reading through... there's some things I like and... many things I don't like.

I do like how you mentioned the ability to have different CL rings and how it can possibly be useful. Buut what you suggested of having your healing ring slightly lower is, imo, not the best option.

Building on different CL rings, why would you want to salvage those duplicates if you're going to use them at a different CL? If you max all rings' CLs, you can only scale them evenly downward. You contradict yourself a couple times throughout your guide, too.

Also, your "soloing" section seems to be geared toward portals; an instanced area itself. It does work for portals... but soloing portals is easy enough as it is.

Armor buffs are, in my opinion, more useful than you depict them to be.

Overall, your guide needs to be cleaned up. There's several contradictions and faulty logic here.

[Zyraen82]

Fr33d0m4ever

I'll read through the rest of your little guide here, but that first line you have there tells me you don't know how instances work... and makes me hesitate to read what I'll see later on.

You can be as low as CL 8 for Shallow Seas... and as long as *everyone* is the exact same CL (in the crew), it won't be any harder than if everyone was CL 10.

Thanks for the benefit of Doubt that made you read through the rest smile Honestly, I do know how instances work. As a very new player though, with about 1.5 months into Gaia, and only a little time to play every day, I have not yet been able to Access Shallow Seas, have never been inside it before.

I can see where Gaia takes from MMORPGs like WOW, so I assumed, wrongly as you pointed out, that Shallow Seas was an end-game instance. From what I see of your post, most of your concerns are I think, due to my poorly worded parts which I will try to revise once I finish this post

Fr33d0m4ever

what you suggested of having your healing ring slightly lower is, imo, not the best option.

Zyraen

You can have 1 or 2 healing rings (typically Bandage and/or Diagnose). In my experience with Bandage, generally it works well even when kept at about 0.5 to 1.0 CL under my Attack Rings. In Emergencies, just use more Rage.
....
I normally give Attack Ring a higher CL than Healing ring, depending on the instance, even if I go in with only one healing ring (Bandage on Solos)

What I did mean was, slightly lower as compared to my Attack Rings, not slightly lower than my Overall CL. The faster I kill, the less I heal.
If I were to use Bandage (and only Bandage) for Soloing, it will be lower than my main Attack Rings (usually 2 or max 3), or about the same, yet I would definitely keep Bandage above my overall CL. Most solo instances have you fighting 1-2 or at most 3 Green enemies or equivalent at the same time.
If I were to use 2 healing rings (usually Bandage and Diagnose) to level up, I'd probably keep them close to or slightly higher than overall CL. Probably that is where the confusion comes in.

Fr33d0m4ever

Building on different CL rings, why would you want to salvage those duplicates if you're going to use them at a different CL? If you max all rings' CLs, you can only scale them evenly downward. You contradict yourself a couple times throughout your guide, too.

Eh please read carefully. Never once did I say salvage duplicates. But you shouldn't be keeping Duplicates of every Ring, just duplicates of certain rings.
For your info, I can Max my entire Ninja Set, and have a DUPLICATE set thats lower. Besides, I don't remember writing suggestions to Max all the Rings.
Perhaps for the next reply, you can quote me so that I can know better what you're looking at, its kinda Vague here..

Fr33d0m4ever

Armor buffs are, in my opinion, more useful than you depict them to be.

Did I ever say Armor buffs are useless?
But there are CL-independent Buffs, in that case I don't see why you should put Orbs into them. I suggest you look up other threads on the topic, like
Valheita's http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/zomg-gaia-s-mmo/zomg-a-tiered-ring-analysis-part-ii-lets-get-discussin/t.54785515/
and there's another topic somewhere on the effectiveness of Armor rings, comparing Post Nerf rings and concluding Ghost is probably the best Damage Reduction Buff Ring atm.

[Phovos]

Hm... Interesting, but when you use these lower CL rings, you reduce your health by quite a bit, and any high CL rings you are wearing are weighted so that they are no better than about half their CL.

What you gain in using rings with huge differences in their CLs is pretty much equal to the cons of reducing your CL.

[Zyraen82]

You're quite right. You don't become more effective in the "real world" by reducing your CL, but you become more effective in Instances, where your enemies are scaled based on your Overall CL.

So if you have less health due to less Overall CL, so will your enemies in instances also suffer.

High CL rings you wear are weighted not to half their CL, but rather to diminishing returns such that they are almost the same as a Ring about 2.0 CL above your Overall CL, I think. I'll have to experiment to find the figure.

[Zyraen82]

TESTING

Tested on DMP-Easy on the Laceback Bootsnake (CL 2.6) at my overall CL 3.2.
Sample to be 20 slices of Mantis.
Criticals, Misses, Killing Blows, to be discounted, Zero Ghi.
() refer to the equipped Ring CL, / indicates a new monster

DMP-Easy is ideal cuz I don't really wanna be dazed lol
prob will test She Wolf later, since that is another one I can leave

============

Mantis 6.4 (2 x 10.0, 5 x 1.0, 1 x 1.2, suppressed 6.4)
61 61 57 / 60 74 58 / 72 58 60 / 58 53 51 / 65 64 51 / 64 69 58 / 53 62
179 + 192 + 190 + 162 + 182 + 191 + 115 = 1211
no misses.

Mantis 5.0 (Mantis 5.0, 1 x 10.0, 5 x 1.0, 1 x 1.2, suppressed 7.5)
46 46 49 48 / 51 70 48 41 / 57 64 53 / 60 66 70 / 48 52 51 56 / 47 70
189 + 210 + 174 + 196 + 207 + 117 = 1093
a few misses

Mantis 4.1 (4 x 10.0, 3 x 1.0, 1 x 1.2, suppressed 4.1)
40 57 40 51 / 55 48 44 (51) / 44 38 38 40 (52) / 44 52 47 43 / 57 43 43 44 / 40
188 + 147 + 160 + 186 + 177 + 40 = 898
(note at this stage, misses started to occur noticeably)
killing blows within ranged of values, are recorded, but not counted towards 20

All above Samples were first pulled using a CL 1.0 Solar Ray.

==================

Finally, for the last test, I found something weird. Suppressing to CL 3.2 gave me Overall CL 3.1.
Oddly enough, suppressing to 3.3 gave me overall CL 3.3. Weird huh? Anyway no choice...
Still my Max Health was 320, and the Laceback Bootsnakes were 2.6.

Mantis 3.2 (all 10.0, suppress to 3.2)
(110Crit) 29 35 (42) / 42 40 44 36 43 / 43 39 36 31 40 / 40 36 31 38 29 35 / 43 36
64 + 205 + 189 + 209 + 79 = 746
significant number of misses.

=============

CONCLUSION
on DMP-Easy against CL 2.6 Laceback Bootsnakes, Player Overall CL 3.2
Average of 20 Mantis attacks.

Mantis 6.4 - 1211 / 20 = 60.55 ==> 60.55 / 6.4 = 9.46094 damage per CL
Mantis 5.0 - 1093 / 20 = 54.65 ==> 54.65 / 5.0 = 10.93 damage per CL
Mantis 4.1 - 898 / 20 = 44.90 ==> 44.90 / 4.1 = 10.95122 damage per CL
Mantis 3.2 - 746 / 20 = 37.30 ==> 37.30 / 3.2 = 11.65625 damage per CL

As we can see, there is a very firm basis for using higher CL attack rings. Especially note it conserves your Stamina, each blow does more damage.

Also observe, it appears to scale slightly unevenly, with some diminishing returns.
From 3.2 to 5.0 appears to rather consistent, possibly within the error level of the limited sample, but 6.4 shows a significant decrease. Still, the figures are not strong enough to show a firm case for Diminishing Returns, to my surprise...

I should run a few more tests on this setting. I'll probably add the Tests to the Topic also, once I'm done with the 2nd set of samples. Have to sleep now, got work tomorrow...

[Zyraen82]

More testing, same setting, DMP-Easy on 2.6 CL Bootsnakes, myself at CL 3.2
Brackets are the rings that I have equipped.

Mantis 9.6 (Mantis 10.0, Diagnose 2.5, suppressed to 9.6)
61 70 58 / 55 61 73 / 73 72 65 / 61 66 58 / 49 74 55 / 49 49 72 / 74 62 66
189 + 189 + 210 + 185 + 178 + 170 + 202 = 1323

Mantis 5.8 (2 x 10.0, 1 x 2.5, suppressed to 5. cool
72 57 52 / 58 74 65 / 57 58 68 / 66 55 48 / 61 72 65 / 51 58 65 / 51 62
181 + 197 + 183 + 169 + 198 + 174 + 113 = 1215

Mantis 7.4 (Mantis 10.0, 1 x 5.5, suppressed to 7.4)
(crit150) 68 / 72 73 70 / 56 (crit103) / 49 73 65 / 61 68 57 / 62 53 72 / 56 75

70 / 56 (crit110) 57 / 65
283 + 243 + 186 + 187 + 201 + 178 = 1278

Mantis 4.5 (3 x 10.0 rings, 1 x 2.5)
64 52 64 / 46 43 56 42 / 42 53 49 43 / 44 42 55 48 / 64 49 58 / 61 44 60
180 + 187 + 187 + 189 + 171 + 165 = 1079

Mantis 3.6 (4 x 10.0 rings, 1 x 2.5, 1 x 2.9, suppressed to 3.6)
38 48 47 34 43 / 42 34 49 43 / 43 44 39 49 / 42 38 39 44 36 / 35 49 34 44
210 + 168 + 165 + 199 + 162 = 904

============

CONCLUSION
including earlier results and sorting by descending CL level...

Mantis 9.6 - 1323 / 20 = 66.15 ==> 66.15 / 9.6 = 6.891 damage per CL
Mantis 7.4 - 1278 / 20 = 63.90 ==> 63.90 / 7.4 = 8.635 damage per CL
Mantis 6.4 - 1211 / 20 = 60.55 ==> 60.55 / 6.4 = 9.461 damage per CL
Mantis 5.8 - 1215 / 20 = 60.75 ==> 60.75 / 5.8 = 10.474 damage per CL
Mantis 5.0 - 1093 / 20 = 54.65 ==> 54.65 / 5.0 = 10.930 damage per CL
Mantis 4.5 - 1079 / 20 = 53.95 ==> 53.95 / 4.5 = 11.989 damage per CL
Mantis 4.1 - 898 / 20 = 44.90 ==> 44.90 / 4.1 = 10.951 damage per CL
Mantis 3.6 - 904 / 20 = 45.20 ==> 45.20 / 3.6 = 12.556 damage per CL
Mantis 3.2 - 746 / 20 = 37.30 ==> 37.30 / 3.2 = 11.656 damage per CL

The gains from having Mantis upped appear to be reasonably consistent until somewhere between Mantis 5.0 and 5.8, meaning about 2.0-2.5 CL above the Overall CL, thereafter there is a noticeable reduction in its effectiveness per CL.

(above Conclusion to be added to Topic)

[Prlnc3ss_Wint3r]

I dun get you DX

[Zyraen82]

Simple Summary :
- Don't keep all your Rings the same CL.
- Have your Attack Rings higher than your Overall CL.
- Other Rings, use your discretion, suggest that Healing Rings be higher or near your Overall CL (depending on how many you use)
- CL-Independent Rings should be kept as low as possible, except when you really want to boost your Overall CL

If you are Suppressing CL to either Solo an Instance or Team with a Friend :
- Follow above Steps before you Suppress
- then further Suppress if you need to

[Zyraen82]

Saburoo

Edit: Whoah, are you saying to level up attack rings like how much higher then your other rings? O_O

From the testing, I think have them up to a max 2.0-2.5 CL more than your current Overall CL.
Still the actual gap should be for you to decide.

The reason being, is that the higher level you get, the more "costly" it is to keep your Attack Rings significantly higher than your Overall CL.

For myself, at CL 3.0 it was quite ok to have my 2 main attack rings comfortably above CL 5.0, but when I was CL 6.5, it was a real pain to have both my attack rings even reach CL 8.5...

[Malignant Virus]

Zyraen82

Simple Summary :
- Don't keep all your Rings the same CL.
- Have your Attack Rings higher than your Overall CL.
- Other Rings, use your discretion, suggest that Healing Rings be higher or near your Overall CL (depending on how many you use)
- CL-Independent Rings should be kept as low as possible, except when you really want to boost your Overall CL

If you are Suppressing CL to either Solo an Instance or Team with a Friend :
- Follow above Steps before you Suppress
- then further Suppress if you need to

Meh, the advantage of unevenly leveled rings is completely destroyed as soon as you do suppress though. The steps you listed aren't exactly helpful in that sense.

The only way an uneven leveler would be on par in an instanced area is only if they didn't suppress. {Since I think your attack rings are 3-4 CL's above your overall? Correct me if I'm wrong.} If not, you'd probably be reduced to a less-than-average user, if your other rings aren't far behind your mains. But if they are, then being .1 CL higher than the boss you need to fight would suck, wouldn't it?

Then again, it is just a preference.