Talk:Aetheria

well for data on the level 1 sigil of fury I was doing 1100 on every crit to olthoi slashers in eo with a paradox atlatl and after my sigil leveled to level 1 i was doing 1111, so I'd say that's pretty strong case for 1% extra damage. Also I found a level 4 blue atheria in eo so level 4 drops outside tier 7 loot.--Qalo-LC 22:08, April 18, 2010 (UTC) 3:33:28 You cast Surge of Destruction on yourself 3:33:28 Critical hit! You impale Olthoi Ripper for 1102 points of piercing damage! 3:33:31 Critical hit! You impale Olthoi Ripper for 1320 points of piercing damage! first hit is a normal crit, second is with the surge.--Qalo-LC 08:35, April 19, 2010 (UTC)

• General Advice: Having all your Aetheria use the same Surge is generally better then having mixed Surges. This will allow you to factor the Surging into your combat plans more easily. Randomness can be entertaining, but generally it is better to be predictable.

• Offense: The Offense mindset is simple...you kill the enemy as fast as possible. You don't need to heal until after the fight, because the enemy dies faster.

The combination of Surge of Destruction and Sigil of Destruction is ideal. This nets you up to +7% dmg constantly, and a further +20% damage when the Surge is active. As a secondary Sigil, you should probably use Fury, which increases dmg on crits. Note that Surges of Destruction do not stack.

Use of the Surge of Affliction is a possible alternative, but the fixed 150 dmg is not that impressive, and is actually done to the enemy, not cast on you...so, for instance, if you switch targets, and/or the Afflicted dies, the Surge is wasted. But, if it activates while using a wall or ring spell, it affects all targets hit.

• Defense: The Defense mindset is that by not needing to heal, you don't interrupt damage infliction and you stay in the fight. It's about action conservation.

There are two schools of thought here...damage prevention, and damage restoration/healing. Primary one, secondary the other. (Defense/Prot x2, Growth/Prot x 1, or Healing/Regeneration x2, Defense/Regeneration x1).

Damage prevention naturally entails the Sigil of Defense and Surges of Protection. +7% to your Damage Reduction, kicking with +20%, should prevent an additional 1-2 pts of damage per blow, and potentially a great deal with the Surge, which should reduce your healing needs, and let you stay in a fight longer. Protection is hard to tell if it actually works because the numbers are so small, but if it does, it certainly can prevent potentially hundreds of points of damage depending on how often you are being hit!

Healing is all about taking care of the damage that does get thru so you don't have to spend actions to heal. By boosting the Surge rate/fequency, multiple Surges wipe away your damage and allow you to keep fighting. This technique can be very effective if multiple Surges come out, because the healing effect continues longer. 150 points is the high end of a level 7 healing spell, so it's quite a nice boost.

A Defense set is more appropriate for war magic users, because they do extreme damage with spells already, and the additional damage is not as significant as it is for weapon users. Too, every action not spent healing, or delaying healing, helps the mage inflict more and more dmg, and every Surge of Regeneration is one less Heal Self 7 the mage has to cast, while damage soaked by improved DR delays self healing even longer.

• Utility: Or, more accurately, general usage. The Sigil of Vigor is designed to fill this slot. It grants more hit points, stamina, and mana (+1/5/5 per Level). It's geared for mages mostly, who use all three stats actively. By having more mana and stamina, mages have more tools to stay in a fight longer without having to regain such (even 1 or 2 spells can be key for a mage).

Surges for the Utility/General mindset are going to be either Offense or Defense based, i.e. Destruction or Regen/Protection.

General Commentary

• Sigil of Fury: This sigil is less useful than Destruction. It adds percent damage like Destruction, but only to critical hits, and adds the same percent as Destruction. It has an additional Endurance bonus of 1 point per set bonus, but that equates to just a few points of health and stamina for even high levels of set bonus. This sigil naturally works best if you commonly use weapons with the improved critical hit effects (e.g. Biting Strike, Crushing Blow, Critical Strike, Crippling Blow). Due to the diminishing returns of additional Aetheria levels beyond 6, characters looking to maximize damage can receive additional benefits from equipping Fury set with their Destruction set.

• Surge Frequency: The trigger method involves more then launching a single attack. 600 attacks at a Target Druge yielded only 4 Surges. I posit that it checks to see if you are being attacked to increase the chance of a Surge. Certainly mages don't seem to have that many fewer Surges then fast attacking melees. (RE: doesn't seem so. Tested surge rates using the same Aetheria set with a mage under non-stop attack by at least 6 mobs whenever casting for 10 hours; results were identical as surge rate when casting without mobs in melee range, or < 1%). It's also worth investigating if increases in crit chances (such as the Biting Strike/Critical Strike affect the frequency of Surges (worth investigating, given base crit chance is extremely close to surge chance).

• Surge of Festering: This reduces the effectiveness of regeneration, but also healing spells and health items, which has implications in Player versus Player combat. This is also considered an attack spell effect, which certain creatures will 'activate' and start casting hostile spells back at you (Crystal Lords, Plat Golem Mtn kings, etc)

• Sigil of Growth: Tests don't seem to show any change to Natural Regeneration or the Surge of Regeneration. The healing boost is +1 point per Level, to things like potions, spells, and probably the healing skill. This is not absolute from tests, but seems pretty clear. (ie : dissolve it, it's worthless !) ***Sigil of Growth also now incorporates Sigil of Purity as well, which reduces the damage taken by Damage Over Time spells (Void Magic) by 4% per level***

Combinations and misc details

Please post individual findings and observations below. The information here will be structured and integrated into the main article as we become more confident in our findings and conclusions. So the information below may not be 100% accurate, but should be useful as we flesh out the details together.

• Aetheria with a maximum level of 1 are most common; level 2 are less common, and level 3 are even more rare. Very, very rare are Aetheria which can grow up to level 4 or 5 (unverified 6). Level 4 have been confirmed to drop on non Tier 7 creatures (for example in Egg Orchard).

• Blue Aetheria, regardless of maximum level, always drop with 750,000,000 "bonus" xp already invested towards their first level. Yellow and red Aetheria always drop with 0 xp to start, and must be leveled from scratch.

• Aetheria may drop with any combination of Set + Surge, for a total of 25 possible combinations thus far. In addition to these variables, Aetheria's maximum possible level also ranges from 1 to 5, bringing the theoretical total number of unique Aetheria to 600 after factoring in color variations.

• Initial observations suggest that all Sets have an approximately equal chance of occurring, while certain Surges--particularly Affliction and Regeneration--may be significantly less common than the rest.

• With five sigils and five surges, there are 25 possible variations. This means that if you are looking for a specific combination, say Growth/Protection, there is only a 4% chance of getting it each time you create a new Aetheria.

• 3:33:28 You cast Surge of Destruction on yourself 3:33:28 Critical hit! You impale Olthoi Ripper for 1102 points of piercing damage! 3:33:31 Critical hit! You impale Olthoi Ripper for 1320 points of piercing damage! The first hit is normal damage the second is after a surge. Using paradox touched atlatl with deadly barbed darts(23.1-33 base damage) and a level one surge. NOTE: This represents a 20% damage increase, in line with other tests.

• It is not necessary for a spell to land in order for a surge to occur. It happens on the release of the war spell, not the impact. I would guess a similar thing would happen with melees.

Critical damage rating increases your damage done when critically striking. IT does not affect chance of crit (600 strikes = 59 crits with Sigil VI up), and the damage is a % of the base crit (14 went to 15).

Surge and Sigils of Destruction are also % based damage, not fixed (i.e. not like Blood Drinker). This is probably because Spirit Thirst mechanics work on melee attacks, but BD isn't scaled to work with wands.

3 level 3 Sigils effects stack only to level VII (7). Having 3 Sigils at Rank3 does NOT get you to 9. As Turbine said, there's a benefit for having some versatility in Sigils. The ideal combo is thus 6 of one Sigil and 4 of another.

Surge rates of occurrence: (please verify, before beginning your tests, that non-hits such as evades and resists either can or cannot cause a Surge). Note: Pure attacks are only one Surge trigger. 600 fast UA attacks generated only 4 Surges, but the Surge rate can be MUCH higher in melee.

Blue Aetheria

Level 1: X over (# of tests)
Level 2: X over (# of tests)
Level 3: X over (# of tests)
Level 4: X over (# of tests)

Yellow Aetheria

Level 1: X over (# of tests)
Level 2: X over (# of tests)
Level 3: X over (# of tests)
Level 4: X over (# of tests)

Red Aetheria

Level 1: X over (# of tests)
Level 2: X over (# of tests)
Level 3: X over (# of tests)
Level 4: X over (# of tests)