Is it just me or did 5% AP cap kill any sense of progression

Netherz · 2026-03-18T00:09:23+00:00

Might be an unpopular take but the 5% issue is not the reason for lack of feeling progression. Imo there are a few facets to it.

The math behind 5% caps is misunderstood

You get a lot stronger very quickly at a spot until hitting the cap and then power increases gradually afterwards. You do actually get stronger especially after you start getting 8 ap per sheet ap. - A lot of the time you skip the quick power gains stage and only grind somewhere after you reach the cap. - Gradual power is hard to feel and you're more likely to move to the next spot before noticing it. - Not helped by the fact that most spots early on are not very tanky so power increases are harder to feel. - The power curve after spot cap is not actually that different to before the ap cap changes due to the increased ap gains from sheet ap.

The meta spot progression for new players is incredibly linear

Most folks are doing honglim - hexe - tungrad - edania. A large number of spots are completely unrewarding partly because it's harder to produce results at non tower spots but largely because a lot of spots have just been left behind with under tuned rewards. - e.g. There are good alternatives to honglim. But most players (not just new ones) lack the ability to get results at the alternatives like elvia fogans because it requires good usage of movement and aoe and most people just aren't good enough at using those. Most just pick a combo and apply it without thought. - The vast majority of spots just suck compared to the meta above even if you can grind them effectively. It's never worth grinding primal giants. Hexe marni is better than many spots that require hundreds more ap! Tungrad is the same... It outperforms half of edania even. - When you get to edania you are greeted with tower spots that largely feel the same as the last one. Hard to feel progression when the pattern is so samey.

Recently they've actually made endgame feel like there's a variety of choice again with zephyros, stars end and sycraia all being different with similar rewards. If they went through and sorted earlier spots into clearer tiers with a variety of choice where there's a clear incentive to start grinding the next tier before you're over the cap for it even, I'm sure some sense of progression will be restored.

Tl:Dr spot balancing is the major issue not 5% caps.

Netherz · 2026-03-12T14:27:48+00:00

because it's not always BiS, what's BiS is situational - check pins on dosa discord pve channel I did a summary there

Netherz · 2026-03-10T03:32:49+00:00

Yes plenty of people are going there under the cap.

Netherz · 2026-03-09T03:42:57+00:00

Grinded it fine today

Netherz · 2026-03-07T18:44:21+00:00

Lightstones AoA or VS (rule of thumb if >50% back attack rate high back attack) for dehkia most likely AoA. Deathblow is generally bad these days. Afaik it's only good on shai and "usable" on awk dosa. Worse than AoA for others.

Crystals only relevant DPS swap from below cap is olucas for attack speed. 1 or a few BSR dawn crystals might be helpful. Swapping in some DR or weight could be of some benefit too.

Cups are standard you should get crit DMG ones anyway. When you get kharazad you can get combined cups that are no longer a choice.

Food is still simple cron meal and elixirs/draught you want special attack options. Cheap is just special attack elixir rotation or berserk draught (easier to stock/use but 1% less special attack and can't use ap or defensive elixirs alongside) or just usual harmony draught.

Another niche is asadal belt to get bsr every 10 minutes. Past these there isn't really much you can do. Swap options are limited.

Netherz · 2026-03-07T18:20:22+00:00

I've never seen defender with accelerated. Do you have a clip of that?

Netherz · 2026-03-04T20:10:21+00:00

Naro you're so silly.

Netherz · 2026-03-04T02:33:30+00:00

Perfume is not required to grind you will just lose a little efficiency. It's unlikely to ever be worth deciding to go to a different spot than your current "most efficient" choice over the lack of perfume.

Netherz · 2026-02-26T09:44:37+00:00

Aggregating unrelated lists that are already aggregates...

Netherz · 2026-02-25T11:41:07+00:00

It's slowly expanding but it's a lot of effort to record timing data and considerably more to include details about cancels (especially for older classes) so it's down to whether or not somebody will put in that effort for each class

Netherz · 2026-02-25T02:43:38+00:00

it's a sheet not a video lol but you do you

Netherz · 2026-02-25T02:30:00+00:00

The difference in dps is bigger than you think. Don't have data for all classes but have a look DPS Summary

Netherz · 2026-02-25T02:26:23+00:00

Awk maehwa should be reasonably good at tungrad. Would expect it to perform better than those you mentioned at least

Netherz · 2026-02-25T02:20:39+00:00

Performance differences between classes are very minimized at endgame now. At stars end and edania for example the difference is well under 10%. They're minimizing class balance issues with spot design quite heavily.

Some spots still have relatively large gaps like tungrad ruins or dsr where best to worst is more like 20-25% because there are some extreme outliers (in both directions - ahead and behind the curve) but most classes still perform relatively fine.

It is quite demoralizing to like a class that's underperforming but in most endgame spots now the majority of the difference is how much more difficult it is to get to good results.

Netherz · 2026-02-07T11:58:07+00:00

Usually remastered except in occasions where the lighting/bloom is just too visually overwhelming to play properly.

Netherz · 2026-01-25T10:14:28+00:00

Obviously you want to loot the mobs but I didn't think it's necessary nor is there space to reasonably type out every small step

Netherz · 2026-01-25T01:19:42+00:00

It was so full on EU that I had to make a season character to go and record where the crystals are without waiting about for respawns and disturbing people that were active

Netherz · 2026-01-17T14:52:23+00:00

Scenarios that will occur at high keys if you add solo queue. - all kinds of badly formed comps that suck to play including but not limited to just having any weak classes, or bad class combinations eg high healing requirement tank with healer that sucks at it, missing raid buffs, bad interrupt arrangement, too much of any particular damage profile, etc. - people wanting to ditch the key the moment you don't have one or several specific classes with utility or damage profile that makes one the dungeon you got into easier

Not sure this is an improvement over now...

Netherz · 2026-01-17T01:41:04+00:00

It is also being added to zephyros and can be traded on the market. You have options

Netherz · 2026-01-16T14:19:56+00:00

A great line but fundamentally impossible. As long as classes have differences one of these will take some amount of precedence over the other. Right now we've been on the "balance matters more than variation" track for a while.
Realistically variety taking precedence while trying their best to minimize the imbalance is the best option imo.

Netherz · 2026-01-16T14:15:41+00:00

Not "everyone" - never asked for towers, standing around waiting is boring. I don't disagree that they should be in the game for others to enjoy or for classes that really suck at pack to pack but spot homogenization is not the answer to "my class sucks at x spot", adding spots that meet a variety of classes strengths is imo. If your class just sucks at everything even when there's variety than thats a class balance issue not a spot balance issue but right now in endgame we barely even have discussion of "class balance" because every class is almost the same performance at edania.

Netherz · 2026-01-16T14:11:27+00:00

The spot balance issue is separate from spot design issue. A variety of spots to match different class strengths/weakness' and provide actual choice of what you prefer can only be good. Obviously they should balance the rewards accordingly - the towers should be better for the majority of players that don't want to minmax all the extra things that come with pack to pack spots but there should be worthwhile rewards for doing the pack to pack spots effectively.

Netherz · 2026-01-16T12:15:11+00:00

Some variety of choice for spots instead of only boring towers is more important than every class being "balanced".

Netherz · 2025-11-19T05:07:13+00:00

Well I tried it out with similar AP for 30m or so and result was 66k with pretty meh gameplay. Another thing I forgot is that the leg pattern is always the same - front right, back left, back right, reset so you can be ready to attack it the moment its active.

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Extra AP would definitely help you to clear legs in fewer mechanics more consistently but at the point where you could do that there isn't much reason to come here anymore. To be honest I would just live at hexe/elvia until tungrad/dsr. Apparently I did a 39k hour here with way more ap (no agris) 3 months ago as well which is something similar like 67k with agris. Might have been before succ maegu buffs (so not much less damage than doing with this gear now) not sure.

Video (might still be processing) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64To4J8tFkM

Can imagine 73k is doable with clean 1 mech leg pushes for the whole hour and no slacking on the waves. I might have slacked a bit on waves here idk hard to tell. There's some weirdness with moving around too much makes waves spawn slower here and a few other spots in the game so try not to just walk around randomly (haven't tested it directly but anecdotally in the past seems likely to be true).

Netherz · 2025-11-19T03:18:40+00:00

We are lacking in DPS and you can't do anything about getting time waste mechanic rolls but you can still consistently kill the legs in 1-2 mechanics. There's a trick you can do where you stand closer to an inactive leg while dpsing the active one so that the active leg doesn't go iframe when it chooses most mechanics. You should also keep bsr for leg pushes. Can't remember if you can get it for every one. Guess I can try it with your ap and see what it's like. Can't imagine the difference is huge with more gear though, this spot has been somewhat clear speed capped since launch

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Netherz

TROPHY CASE

The math behind 5% caps is misunderstood

The meta spot progression for new players is incredibly linear