Thursday, July 15, 2010

What is the arcane transmutor?



This is the Arcane Transmutor. It has many functions, all of which make your game play easier. It's quite confusing at first to figure out, and it's normal to make a few mistakes in the beginning, so the first few things you make in it may not come out as planned. It may seem difficult to learn, but once you finish reading this tutorial, you should be ready to try.





Here's what it can do:

Create mana stones
Add stats to items
Create tiering stones
Tier your weapons
Tier runes
Create new runes

I'll explain each of these on their own pages with full pictures to guide you.


How do you get the transmutor?

You talk to this guy. His name is Lehman and he's in the Class Hall in Varanas. When you head there to get your secondary class at level 10, you'll see that he has a quest for you. This quest is to give you the transmutor. It is a free gift to you, loaded with 10 charges. He will also sell you charges at the cost of 30 Phirius Tokens each. You can also buy charges in the Phirius Token shop at the cost of 300 tokens for 10 charges. Same price, just bought in bulk, and you don't have to go to Varanas to purchase them this way. They are also sold in the Diamond shop at a cost of 29 diamonds for 10 charges. The diamond shop often has special deals on charges, with reduced price bulk packages, and sometimes sales on the 10 charges.


Everything you do in the transmutor will consume one charge.






Next: Creating a mana stone.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Creating Mana Stones

A mana stone is made by combining a fusion stone with a piece of equipment. Mana stones have a tier which is determined by the tier of the equipment you use to make it.
A higher tier means a better item. You get tier 1 equipment when you start the game, and by the time you are level 40, you will be getting tier 3 items. You will need to look at the tier of your item before you use it to make a mana stone. I'll explain why later.

Here are some examples of mana stones. Notice how they have different tiers, and different amounts of stats on them.











How do you make one? Well, you start with a fusion stone.


Fusion stones can be purchased from "Spirit Mage" vendors. They are Odeley Prole in Varanas Lower West and Leskar Prole in Glory Square of Obsidian Strongold.


They both sell the exact same stones.

If you look at the shop, there are many types to choose from. Mousing over them, you can see what stats come on the stone. The cheapest ones are Random Fusion Stones. They are exactly that, random. The game will randomly generate 3 stats for that stone. They can be any rank I or II stat that you see on an item. There is also a chance for a blank stat, and rarely, 2 blank stats. I've heard of people getting lucky and actually getting a stone with 3 blank stats, giving them a totally clean fusion stone. I've never been so lucky. I'll explain why this matters later on.


Some stones come with one guaranteed stat, and 2 totally random ones. Once again, there is a chance that one or both of the random stats are blank.







The most expensive stones come with 2 guaranteed stats and only one random one. Again, there's a chance of a blank stat. These are by far the best ones to buy for matching sets of stones, which I'll get to in a minute.







Now to actually make one.



This is a random fusion stone I just bought.













Now I open my transmutor by clicking this button in my backpack.










This is a quest reward I got that I don't want to wear, but I like the stat on it, so I'm going to make it into a mana stone. Notice how the item is a Tier 2.










Now I place the equipment and the fusion stone into my transmutor. It doesn't matter what square you put them in. The transmutor will automatically give me a preview of what I will get if I press the "confirm" button. Nothing will happen unless you click confirm, so feel free to put different things in and see what you get. You can only place one item and one fusion stone in at a time. If you put something in there that can't be used, you will get no preview, meaning it won't work.







When I mouse over it, I can see that it has both the stats from the fusion stone and the stat from the equipment. Also notice that the mana stone has come out as a Tier 2 stone. This is because the original item was a Tier 2 item.
Now all I have to do is click confirm, and I have created my mana stone. Doing this will use one of my transmutor charges. It's always good to double check that you are getting exactly what you want before pressing the confirm button, as transmutor charges have to be bought with phirius tokens or diamonds, and the equipment is destroyed in the process.





When you create a mana stone, you have fused the item and fusion stone together. Both of these things become the mana stone. You will no longer have the piece of equipment.
Let me state again: YOUR ORIGINAL ITEM WILL BE DESTROYED!


There are also Purified Fusion Stones in the game. These are purchased through the diamond shop for 55 diamonds each, or through the phirius token shop for 1,100 tokens each. These purified stones, known as puris, have no stats at all on them. They make it possible to make a mana stone with a "clean" stat, meaning only one stat on the whole stone. They have nothing on them at all, only what you are putting on it. If you use a puri with an item that has no stats, you will have a completely "clean" stone, no stats at all, totally blank. Puris are not important early on in the game. They are for statting your gear once you've gotten around level 50, and have started getting high-end set pieces. By then you will have the hang of the transmutor and have no trouble at all getting exactly what you want with your puris.







Next:Statting an item.



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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Statting an Item

Creating a mana stone is the easy part. Actually creating mana stones for statting an item takes a little thought.
What you need to know before you start is this, I will explain them all:

It takes THREE mana stones to stat an item.
All three mana stones MUST be the same tier.
Any piece of equipment may have ONLY 6 stat names.
A mana stone or piece of equipment can NEVER have the same stat name more than once. All names need to be unique.
The transmutor will ALWAYS take the 6 LOWEST ranking stats possible.


With mana stones, everything works in 3's. You need to make three different mana stones to stat one piece of equipment. Also, they need to all be the same tier. You can make a higher tier stone with 3 lower ranking mana stones. For example, if I put 3 tier 2 mana stones in the transmutor, I will get one tier 3 stone. This goes on to infinity. I've seen a tier 12 stone.

Any one mana stone or piece of equipment can only have 6 stat names. Here's some examples of mana stones with various stat names. The name is on the right, while what that particular stat gives you is listed on the left.


This stone has only one stat name on it.
The name is Stamina X.
This gives you +35 stamina.




This stone has 4 stat names on it.
While you see that the stat name Knowledge shows up twice, you'll notice that it's two different ranks of that name. This makes it two UNIQUE names, Knowledge III and Knowledge IV.






This stone has many stats on it, but only 6 stat names.
Five of the names give 2 stats each, these are known as yellow stats. There are also Orange stats in the game, which gives 3 stats per stat name. These are the ones that drop off bosses in end-game instances. The names that only give one stat are known as green stats. These are the most common, and you will see them on gear when you first start the game.








It's important to remember that you can only have 6 unique names per mana stone, or per piece of equipment. If you try to put more than 6, the transmutor will automatically get rid of the highest ranking stat you have. The high stats are usually what you're trying to put on your gear, so you really don't want that happening.

So, how do you make sure you only have 6 names, and still get the stats you want?
You match fusion stones.

On the previous page I mentioned how you can buy fusion stones with 2 guaranteed stats, and one random stat. Here's where that becomes important.
You can choose from different fusion stones to buy, I chose to buy the ones that give SpiritII, Dark I, and a random stat. I then kept buying them until I had 3 stones with the exact same stats. I ended up buying 14 stones to get the same random stat 3 times. Now I have a bunch saved up, and I won't have to buy too many next time. You can also check the auction house for fusion stones that match the ones you want.



Now I have 3 of this stone. Because they are all identical, there are really only 3 unique statnames over all three of these stones. Identical stat names "cancel each other out",or "overlap", however you want to say it. I now have 3 stat names for a piece of equipment, I have room for 3 more.













I have 3 items, all tier 2, with 1 stat name each. I will be making a mana stone out of each one with the matching fusion stones.

















As you see, each mana stone has the stats Dark I, Stamina I, and Spirit II.








Because they are exactly the same stat name, they will "cancel each other out".






Leaving me with the 3 stat names off the fusion stones, and the 3 stats I've chosen off equipment.






Now I want to put these onto an item, so I need something that's "clean", meaning no stats at all on it.






I have chosen a pair of pants I've crafted with tailoring.





Placed it in the transmutor along with the 3 mana stones, and checked the preview.








Pressed the confirm button, and there we go, a statted pair of pants for my priest.









Now, what if there is already one stat on the piece of equipment I'm going to add stats to?

That's very easy to deal with. There are 5 ways actually. The first way is the easiest.

If you have 1 stat on something, that leaves you room for only 5. In this case, you need to get only 2 good stats to put on it, not 3. You go about making 2 of your manastones the same way with those 2 stats. Then for the third one, you use an item with no stats at all on it, leaving you with a manastone that only has the stats off the fusion stone. All armor and weapon vendors sell items with no stats on them. You only need to make sure you have the correct tier. Tier 3 items can be purchased in Obsidian Stronghold, and in level 50+ areas. 2 stats on something would mean making 2 blanks.

The next way takes a little bit of time and money. Instead of matching a set of fusion stones that have 3 stats on them, match a set that has only 2, or even only 1. This way when you put one stat on each stone, you have 5 statnames total, which will fit on your piece with one already on it. This is also useful for getting more than 3 good stats on a clean piece of equipment. You'll find that sometimes quest rewards, and even drops have 2 stats on them, not 1. This is one way to deal with that. 2 stats on something would mean using only a 1 stat stone.

The next way is to use purified fusion stones (puris). This way, you're starting with a blank fusion stone, and you get only the stats you want, with no junk. You get one stat per manastone this way, or what we call a "clean stat". This is more for higher level equipment, as they cost diamonds or tokens to buy. You also use puris for putting 6 good stats on a piece. Also, if you use a clean piece to make a manastone with a puri, you get a totally blank stone. You can use a blank manastone with two clean stat manastones for your 3 if you already have stats on your gear.

This next one is very time consuming. You have to expect this to sometimes take days, this requires patience. If you have a low level stat on your gear that you want to add stats to, you can try to match the fusion stone to that stat. Just because the stat is already on something doesn't change how the transmutor acts toward it. It will still overlap the matching statnames. This might take many trips to the auction house though. Let's say you have a ring with Spirit II on it. This would be easy, since you can purchase fusion stones with that one already on it. But if you have a belt with Ability IV on it, you still could match stones to it. Players over level 50 start getting access to quests and such that give rewards of fusion stones with III, IV, & V stats on them. There are even better ones out there too. These usually end up on the auction house, so you have to spend lots of time looking through them for the right ones.

And lastly, the most expensive choice, just go to the item shop and buy a cleaner. This will remove all stats on an item for you. They cost a lot of diamonds, and are not available regularly. This is really only recommended for high level instance set gear, and even for the Vahtos set. Of course if you don't mind spending cash on the game, you can clean all your gear and have perfectly statted pieces the easy way.



One last rule, you can always add more later!
If you have some nice higher level clean gear, and you're statting it with clean stats, you don't have to put all 6 on at once. You'll end up with 6 seperate one-stat manastones. You can only do three at a time anyway. If you don't have the charges, or the puris, or even the stats for all 6, just do three. You can always add more to it. All rules still apply, the transmutor doesn't care that there's stats already on the gear, just that there's only 6 of them when you're done.



Tiering an Item


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Monday, July 12, 2010

Tiering an Item.

Tiering is much easier than statting. It's so easy in fact, I'm not even going to post any pics for it.

Tiering means you don't need to look at any stats, or worry about matching stones.
All you need are a bunch of random fusion stones, those are the cheap ones, or leftovers from when you were making matched sets for statting. Sometimes on the auction house, you'll find fusion stones for a bid price of less than the 1,980 it costs to buy them. Always check there.

If you look at your weapon, you will see how much damage it does. You also see what tier it is. Tiering a weapon is simply raising it a level. A tier 4 weapon will do more damage than the exact same weapon at tier 3, which does more than tier 2.etc.

Every tier of the weapon will add 10% more damage to it. I have a staff that does 402 magical damage at tier 2. I want more damage than that, so I'm going to tier it. I can go as high as I want to with tiering, it just costs a lot of charges on my transmutor.
You can find out what the damage will be before ever touching it, if you want to compare it to what you are using, or another weapon you see somewhere. If I take this staff to tier 3, it will do 442.2 damage. If I go to 4, it will do 486.4 damage. Just multiply by 10%(or 402 x 1.10 = 442.2 x 1.10 = 486.4 etc.)to find out what the next tier of damage will be.

Now it's time to make the stones.
Just use any old fusion stone, put it in the transmutor with any old tier 3 item, and there you have it, a tier 3 mana stone. It doesn't matter what stats or anything. Just use whatever cheap junk you pick up that you're going to sell to a vendor. I save anything that gets me less than 600 gold to use for tiering.
The reason I'm saying tier 3 item is simple. If you start with 2's, you use more charges to get to 3. I'll explain next.

Ok, so, the transmutor likes to work in 3's. It takes 3 manastones to stat an item. It takes 3 manastones to make another manastone. If you put in 3 tier3 manastones, you will get a tier4 manastone. If you put in 3 tier 4 manastones, you will get a tier5 manastone. And so on. Pretty simple.

Once you have 3 manastones of the same tier, and that's the tier you want to take the weapon to, just put them in the transmutor with your weapon and there you go, a tiered weapon.

I made 3 tier 6 manastones and put my staff in. I now have a tier6 staff, and instead of doing the 402 damage it started at, I'm now doing 588.6 damage. That is a huge increase in comparison to staffs that are still tier 2 or 3, and are 5 levels higher.

You can tier a weapon to 8, 12, 20, whatever you like. You have to buy a TON of charges to do so though.

Here comes some math.


It really does take a lot of charges to tier a weapon, I'll add them up for you in a minute. It really makes sense to only tier a weapon to 6 once you're over level 40 or so. Until then, you level up so fast, you will outgrow your weapon even though it's tiered. Bringing very low ones to 3 makes a huge difference, and lvl 20-40, go ahead and bring it to tier4. You can go higher if you like, or just wait until you have a really good blue or purple weapon at level 50 before you tier. There's no right or wrong here. This is just to increase your weapon or magic damage to help you along. It also increases healing power for a priest or druid. OK, math time....

To find out how many charges and how many fusion stones you will need, you just keep multiplying by 3.

I'm assuming starting with tier 3 manastones for this.

Tier 3 will take 3.
Tier 4 will take 9. I need 3 tier3's to make a 4, and I need 3 of those to tier the weapon.
Tier 5 will take 27. Yes, that's 27 charges, and 27 fusion stones to make 3 tier 5 manastones.
Tier 6 will take 81. This is the average tier.
Tier 7 will take 243. Yes, that's a lot. It gets worse.
Tier 8 will take 729.
Tier 9 will take 2,187. Now you know why people sell them for 8 or 9 million gold.
Tier 10 will take 6,561 charges and fusion stones. Most people don't go this high until they have a really good purple or orange weapon from a raid instance that they're going to be using for a very long time.

I'm not going higher than that, it's easy to just multiply by three to keep going. I once saw a tier 12 dagger. It was an epic piece from some raid instance. It was also +12 and statted. He was selling it for 30 million gold.


Those are just the charges needed to make the stones to get that high. You still need to add in the charges to combine the stones into higher ones.
Add 1 charge for Tier3, to put the weapon in and make it, making it 3 stones, and 4 charges
Add 4 charges to a tier4, because you need to combine 3 sets of 3's just to get the 3 4's(3 charges), and then put it on the weapon(one more charge).
Add 13 charges to a tier 5; 3 charges to make the three tier4's for each tier5, multiplied times 3, because that's how many you need to put on the weapon, and one to put them on.
It goes up from here. By a lot. That's a ton of charges by the time you're making a tier 6, an insane amount for a tier 10. Always do all 10 dailies every day! You need the tokens for charges!


You can tier armor, shields, jewelry, anything you can wear. There's really no reason to tier your clothes though. Statting them makes more sense. When it comes to shields, tiering increases the defense of it. I've seen people tier shields, I've seen people stat shields. It's personal preference. The most common thing I've seen with shields is stat tiering. This is by far the most expensive thing you can possibly do in the game.

To stat tier something, you first make yourself some very nice manastones, like you're going to stat your item. You want to make really good ones though, you don't want to use the "dirty" fusion stones from the store, you want to use the Purified Fusion Stones from the item shop that I mentioned on the page about statting. You will have 3 manastones with stats that you want to put on your gear, but you need to tier them up using only puris, and gear that has no stats, so you have blank manastones to work with. If you want to make a tier 6 statted weapon, you will need 78 puris to do so. You start with 3 statted stones, and add the 78 puris to bring them to tier 6 and that equals the 81 it takes. You only do this with REALLY good stats. It's a total waste to do this with green stats off of level 40 something gear. You want to use yellow or orange stats for this, or at least green X, XI or XII stats. Remember that each puri costs either 55 diamonds(about $2.75USD) or 1,100 phirius tokens each! Unless you have cash to burn I wouldn't suggest stat tiering until you have an amazing weapon or shield over level 50.

Since transmutor charges cost phirius tokens or diamonds, they are hard to come by. Charges cost 30 phirius tokens each, or 29 diamonds for 10 (about $1.45USD for 10). You really don't want to waste them. You can win them sometimes in Malatina's Dungeon mini-games, and you get one for completing each of her games as well. There's really no other way to get them though, besides buying them. You can see how this can get very expensive, so the best way to do it is to start making your tiering stones as soon as you can. Around level 45 when you get tier3 items dropping all the time is a good time to start getting serious about saving up stones. Go ahead and make an alt just to hold them for you. Tier stones are also good for trading because of their value. I've gotten a very nice level 50 tier6 +10 overdura staff just for one tier7 manastone. They take time and charges to make, therefore are worth a lot.



More to come.....




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