NEW COMBAT SYSTEM

All Merchants Items and the coming Update V2.2.0 are fully current as of 4/10/11. The V2.2.0 will be introcudced to UK Servers on Tuesday 4/12/11. US Servers should follow soon after. Please use the link for full details.

Releasing the Power of your Fight Modifications with Base Stats...

"It is not enough to know that something is working
- without knowing why -we cannot duplicate the success."

INTRODUCTION:

This Manual is a set of instructions on how to get the most out of your account as it is right now. I am trying to provide the tools you will need to do that. Also included will be a list of suggestions on how to become even more powerful as you continue to grow. As you study this manual you will realize that you will have to become your own expert in order to make the best decisions about what Talents and Equipment to use to gain maximum performance from your account. There is nobody at all who can tell you how to play your account. The information supplied here are facts ,principles,guidelines and concepts that you need to understand to be able to do that. What works for someone else does not mean it will work for you. Only you can figure out what is best for you.

LEVELING

Most players are familiar with the concept that the way the old version of the game worked was that leveling quickly without raiding or producing a large income and keeping it and using it well resulted in getting weaker and weaker the higher their level became. It proved to be one of the worst things a player could do to their game. This is not true of the New Combat System. It is exactly the opposite where tactics and strategy are concerned. One of the very most important things you can do for your account is to level up as fast as you can. Gain Experience any way you can. Use all your hunt time and hit the Graveyard when you run out.
Here is why:
* Your Opponents are probably trying to get there ahead of you.
* There is absolutely no reason at all not to. There are no drawbacks to this tactic.
* As your level increases you attain access to a greater number of stronger Talents.
These are very much the source of a great amount of your power, because of the way the NCS
has been designed to work.
* As your level gets higher, your income increases in the grotto, as well as the graveyard.
* As your level increases you have a greater selection of Merchants Items to select from, for
different Combinations. The way the game is designed, getting maximum performance from your
Talents is closely connected to what Equipment you are able to use. Having as many options
as possible in this area of your game is a huge advantage.
* Your effectiveness in Clan Wars should improve as you progress.

BATTLE VALUE

Every potential Opponent you will ever Battle is determined by your Battle Value-BV for short. This is the most important aspect of your Game. Nothing else about your Game deserves more attention than this subject. This is because you can change everything else about your account, but:
RULE:
Your Battle Value can only increase and never decrease.

Battle Value is displayed as a number on your overview page right below your Level in the Skills panel. Your Battle Value is the Sum Total of these 3 factors:
1)Your Base Skills.

Every skill that you have trained is represented in your BV as 1 added BV Point.
So- all your stats added up ,including the 5 points in each Skill set the game started
you out with, all contribute to a part of your Total BV.
Like your Stats -this number only goes up,never down.
2)Your Level

For every Level you advance in the Game, your BV is increased by 4 Points.
Like your Level -this number only goes up,never down.
3)Your Talents

For each and every Talent you have activated,simply by selecting it,
your BV increases by a total of 12 points.
With Talents your BV CAN be "adjusted" lower by choosing to deselect a certain number
of Talents to reduce your BV by 12 Points each.
This subject will be discussed fully in its own section of this article.

YOUR BATTLE VALUE RANGE
Your Battle Value (BV) determines your battle range against
other players as well as what opponents you have in the grotto.
The Random Search will now use the Battle Value instead of the level.
The % of gold gained for a winning Battle will also be calculated by the Battle Value.

The grotto demons are game generated.
Demons are no longer based on actual players ever.
You booty score is no longer relevant to your Questing or Grottos.
No more changing your name to drop booty.
Battle value attack range =
For the lower limit- 20% of your battle value/
for the upper limit- 25% of your battle value.
For example, if your BV is 100, you can attack
opponents with a BV level up to 125 and down to 80.
ShadowLord players can reference Their exact BV
by looking at Their range when they select raid.
The higher your Level and the lower your BV
the more likely you will be to have Lower lvl players
with access to fewer Talents in your attack range.
Using this method of tactics is similar to a
Raider keeping his level low and building very high Stats.
By leveling and NOT training skills you can increase
your power for your battle range through the access to more
talents than your opponents within your Battle Range.
As well as the access to more powerful gear than is available to your Opponents .

BATTLE VALUES AND TRAINING YOUR SKILLS

PROBLEM:
The way the old system worked:
The higher you trained your stats the better our account was -basically.
The way the NCS works in many respects the opposite is true:
The higher you train your stats- the weaker you become.
This is WHY:

Our Battle Value can expose you to being attacked by players you will not be able to defeat because their game level is high and they have access to much more powerful Equipment and Talents. Raising your Battle Value has the same effect that leveling your account on the old system had on your game if you went too fast and did not train your Skills well enough to compete at the level you were playing at.

When you raise your Battle Value you are leveling up your account, right into the Battle Range of players who can destroy you in Battle and crush your ability to play your game with any chance of developing it stronger. If you are already having problems with losing battles against players that you cannot win against -Your Build is too weak for your Battle Value.

SOLUTION:
Keep your Battle Value low.
RULE:
HIGH LEVEL + LOW BATTLE VALUE = POWER
LOW LEVEL + HIGH BATTLE VALUE = WEAKNESS

The lower your Battle Value and the higher your level the stronger you become against the Opponents you will compete with in your Battle Range. Start right now, no matter what. First of all-stop training your Basic Skills, at least until you have fully understood ALL of the concepts about how the NCS works.

This is WHY:

Every time we train a Skill you add 1 point to our Battle Value and that may be the one that pushes us out of the 'saftey zone' into the Range of the Raider who was watching you level up your BV and drooling hoping that you would be stupid enough to let them get their fangs into you. 5 times a day for every single gold they can steal from you. Thats the risk. There is no bigger, more self destructive, nearly irreversible,possibly fatal mistake we can make than this one. And that is the gentle, sugar-coated way of saying it. (Think about it,lol.)

WHAT TO DO:

We need to apply every possible option we have,other than training Skills, to fine tune our Build for maximum power and Performance. The first order of business is to identify what your biggest problem or weakest area is. To do this you will want to study your battles reports looking for too much Missing/ not enough Damage. We are looking for the fastest way to improve overall performance and do it quick because this will make what we need to correct later, easier. You will want to use the 'Hover' function in the tooltip boxs to get a real picture of what is happening in our battles and why.

We will want to be looking at what seems to be the biggest reason we are losing to the kinds of opponents that are represenative of our 'Normal' battle Range rather than the extreme- The player we have 103% hitchance on because they are super low on Defense or the Player that crushes us with 1000+ Damage every Battle are not the ones to look at. A realistic veiw of our overall performance will give us a better idea of what is needed. You want to ask yourself why you are losing or winning against these 'realistic' players. A losing Battle Report can be turned into gold in the bank with the right kind of investigation.
An example of some questions you need to ask are:

Why are they beating me? Are they doing something better than I am? If so, what, and what can I do about that?
Is this a recurring problem area for me or just against this Opponent? Why?
Am I taking too much Damage because Im low on Endurance?
Am I doing enough Damage? Is my Bonus Damage to low or my Force? Is their Endurance higher than usual?
How is my performance comparing to most of my Opponents who are similar to me?
Am I giving them too many 'Free' Hits! on me? Or is their Defense unusually high?
Are they using Book or Gargoyle? (Check Force and Defense with the tooltip) How much is that affecting my ability?
Am I Missing too often? Why? Is my Bonus Hitchance too low?
Is my Dexterity too low? Is my Dexterity too low compared to my Force and causing Misses?
Are Their Active talents giving them a winning edge over me?/no difference?/they could do better without them ?
Am I wasting my Talent Capacity with unused Active Talents or do they improve me overall?
Could I benefit overall by using only Passive Talents?

FIXING THE PROBLEM:

The very first option we will want to evaluate is Equipment because in one of the seven catagories of Items we may be able to find the full quantity of the Skill we are looking to support in one single Item alone as well as the fact that we may be able to correct the deficiency without adding one single Battle Value Point to our score. After we have identified the best Equipment solution we will want to look at our Talents to make sure that a better plan doesnt present itself to us.

The reason Talents are the second course of action is that unless there is a big advantage to using a Talent to correct the situation we want to reserve that as a future option in case the Equipment available is not the ideal alternative. Also, for the most part-
we just want to get our Talents set to give us Max performance with our Build and leave them alone and not be messing with them all the time. Once we have them where we like them we no longer need to be concerned about rethinking them and that makes any situation we have in front of us simpler to deal with.
For example-

We might need more Damage and use a Talent for that rather than an Item because the cost is not possible to save for at the moment. Or an Item that would meet our needs is some levels up but not available in any catagory at our immediate level. So we go to option #2.

We may have earlier passed on Berserker with -2 basic hitchance and selected Crippling hit with a +2 Hitchance value to build a stronger Hitchance. Now, later on, we might be strong enough in Hitchance or Dexterity to sacrifice some of it to select Berserker adding +24 Bonus Damage and possibly use an available Item within our ability to purchase,that provides some amount of Hitchance to compensate for the sacrifice.

SUPPRESSING OUR BATTLE VALUE:

By using the methods described in the SOLUTION section we are able to minimize the amount we increase our battle value as we develop. If we are able to eliminate Training our Skills from the equation we will get far stronger the higher we go in Level because of the power we gain through access to additional Talents, as well as more advanced equipment. Of course we will be adding 4 Battle Value Points every time we gain another Level in the game as well as an additional 12 Battle Value Points for every talent that we activate by making a selection and 'Spending' one of our Talent Points.

It is vital to get in the habit of using the Highscore feature to evaluate the opponents we may have to contend with as we cross the threshhold of a new Level. 4 Points of BV is a LOT. 12 BV Points per Talent is HUGE. When we cross over that final Level to get to our next set of Talents and we are excited to be getting that +18 Basic Damage AND 3 Basic Hitchance .... we may have just stepped into a new Bitefight universe of pain. We just increased our BV by 28 Points. If we didnt take a look before we did that we deserve to get our butts kicked.

On the other end of this issue is the Raiding factor. If this is a strong part of how we play and use our accounts we will want to keep our BV exactly where we will have the best chance of having the widest range of Opponents to farm. I have lost great farms just because I stupidly trained one Skill and that put a player out of reach. I was not in a position to alter my Talents to recover my access to that range. So raising BV not only usually means tougher Opponents but also less Opponents.

USING THE HIGHSCORE TO ANALYZE OUR BATTLE RANGE

Our new Highscore is so slick Im surprised they didnt offer it as a ShadowLord feature and give everyone else 2nd best. So take advantage of it, because they didnt hold back in providing us with an excellent tool to get a prescision veiw of the entire server. This is how to use it properly for this purpose:

STEP 1)

Determine your Battle Range exactly.
ShadowLords can find these numbers easily in their Hunt panel right below 'search options'.
To do this without ShadowLord-
A)Subtract 20% from your Battle Value #. This tells you how low your lowest Opponents BV can possibly be.
B)Add 25% to your Battle Value #. This tells you how high your highest Opponents BV can possibly be.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I have seen a report on the Board that a player was attacked by an Opponent who was 'outside' of his correctly calculated BV range. He shouldnt have been able to have been attacked by this player according to the limits of the game format. He was. So I do not assume that the game is going to work exactly like it is supposed to and I prefer to play it safe by adding 2 BV onto the Range (High and Low) when I am searching for possible threats. I highly doubt I would ever get a refund for the gold I lost because I was the victim of a game "Bug".

STEP 2)

Target your Opponents.
At the Highscore filter to veiw: Player/Opposite your race/Level/Battle Value. De-select Booty so that all you filter is Level and Battle Value. Press SHOW and then filter by clicking above the names in the column that says Battle Value. This will sort the players by their BV in numerical order. Use the page # feature with the arrows to find the page(s) displaying the Opponents in your BV range. We want to look at the profile page every single player listed in our Range. After taking a good look hit the Back button to go directly back to the filtered list.

STEP 3)
Know Thy Enemy

A little effort to find out exactly who we are up against will pay off richly. Our goal is to maximize our Build with expensive equipment and get stronger with expanded Talent Capacity. We might find out that no one in our BV can stop us from saving and leveling up safely. That would be good to know,right?

We especially want to look at how their Stats are trained for their Level. How strong are they? How much gold have they captured? How is their win/loss ratio? How do they compare to us?
These factors will indicate pretty clearly whether or not we need to be concerned about them attacking us. Read their Character Descriptions. You can get a good idea of who they are. If the text is large and threatening-they are scared. You can probably bluff them. Etc...

We are looking for the RAIDER.
If we dont know them personally we probably know them by their Reputation on the server. Word gets around. Its a high pitched whining sound with their names in there somewhere. Those are the players we want to spot if they are anywhere close to us in BV Range. Even if they are outside of our BV Range,an aggressive Raider will not think twice about dropping a Talent or two, to get at a rich farm. Some will Morph if they need to. Its their Religion. Better respect it. However much BV we are going to increase as the result of Level gain and expanded talent Capacity- the further ahead we will want to look.

The players at the low end of our BV Range may seem to be less of a threat, but this is very dangerous to assume. We will take them seriously too. Strong players are moving up through the levles fast in a race to acquire more Talents. They may sneak up on us from behind so we need to keep a set of eyes in the back of our heads too, and not just look ahead.

LOWERING YOUR BATTLE VALUE
Warning:

The tactic of reducing our BV by de-selecting a certain number of Talents to evade the BV 'Shadow' of a player who is crippling our game or to Raid lower BV players for their gold is a very dangerous business. Overlooking even the slightest detail or remote possibility is crazy. We shouldnt even think about doing this if we are not willing to make a big effort to do it well.

Since this concept is so new there hasnt even been enough time for us to get a good grasp of the many kinds of terrible trouble we might get into by trying this trick.
Here is how we will be most successful:
1)We will need to calculate the exact Battle Value we will be AFTER we de-select X-amount of Talents at 12 BV Points each.
2)We will need to analyze the Highscore by becoming familiar with all the potential Opponents who will be in our new Attack Range.
3)Since we may not have battled some of them we will have to estimate how much of a threat they are to us and what our chances are in Battle against them with less than a full aresenal of Talents to fight with.
4)After getting this info whatever our motive might be for considering this tactic, we should look at every reason not to do this and then decide if there is enough advantage to make this worth it to us.

Conclusion:
As I was writing this section I was going back and forth to an account where I tried this, to try to fix a 2nd bad situation Im in, as the result of doing this. I have tried this 2 times and so far it has blown up in my face in 3 totally different ways. So now I am SpeedQuesting against the clock to avoid getting hit with a lot of gold I need to get myself out of a serious trap.I knew exactly what I was doing and I was careful. I researched the highscore before I did it. In both situations I made the right decision to lower my BV. I recommend using this tactic only when you must.

OBJECT: WIN
How To Win-
A)
Hit harder than your opponent.
Dont miss as often as you opponent.
B)
If they hit harder than you:
1) Make them miss and get more Damage in on them.
2) Reduce how hard they can hit.

The NCS is very different than the Old Combat System. Because of that it seems overwhelming and mysterious. Once you understand how it works, it is actually easier to figure out how to play, from exactly where you are at, than the old system was.

I am going to try to explain how the NCS works as simply as possbile. To do this I am going to use some new words to describe what is going on and I will need to explain what I mean by a certain word as I go along. I am using these certain words because they can make complex concepts a lot more understandable. I may seem to repeat things with only saying something a little differently.

That is because this Manual is being provided so that everyone has a chance to understand, not just the advanced players.

There is a lot of information that all goes together. Every piece is important to playing the game as a whole. The NCS is much more complex in ways because of Talents than the old system, and everything affects everything else. I will try to relate this information in order of importance but may not always succeed because everthing is important.

REVIEW OF YOUR BASIC SKILLS (STATS)

In the Old System we had a pretty clear idea of how the Stats worked. If we had 100 Force and our opponent had 80 Force- we were stronger. If they had low Defense too, we expected to do more Damage than if their Defense was high. We could depend on the "Random Factor" to cheat us out of a clear win, We basically could see when we got "Randomed", because our stats showed the truth about who the better player was.

ERASE THAT FROM YOUR MIND

The way our stats work now has to be relearned. Luckily, we now know how they work well enough to play now and not mess our accounts up making bad mistakes. Before,when we had 100 Force we had a certain Damage Value. Not true anymore. They work a lot differently. Luckily-its not too complicated,just very stange at first.

OUR BASIC SKILLS NOW HAVE NO ASSIGNED VALUE EXCEPT FOR ZERO VALUE.

There is no such thing as: 3 Dex stat points= 1 Bonus Hitchance or 2 Force stat points = 1 Bonus Damage. It doesnt work that way. No matter how high any of your Skills are trained they do not "Add Up" to anything. They have zero value. None.

This applies to all of your Basic Skills. They have no set value, but they do serve a purpose. They have a function. By adjusting them with Training and Equipment selection you can control how much of your 'Bonus Values' percentage you are able to use in Battle. Knowing how they work, and how they can be Balanced and adjusted are the tools you will need to get maximum power from your Basic Skills.

PROVE THIS TO YOURSELF:

Right below your Stats on your overview page is your 'Fight Modifications' panel. Inside that panel you will see a report on the exact amount of Basic Damage and right below that the exact amount of Bonus Damage that you have.

If you hover over the number you will see in full detail all the different things that give you that Damage. Some might be from Talents,some from Helmets,Gloves, etc. If you add them all up- they add up to the number shown.

The same thing applies to your Basic Damage. There is NO missing mysterious number that represents your Force. Every single Damage is accounted for. Thats because the "function" of Force has nothing to do with Damage except to enable you to use a higher percentage of your 'Bonus Damage'. The same rule applies to your 'Bonus Hitchance'(Dexterity) and your 'Bonus Talent'(Charisma).

Your Endurance only influences your opponent's Bonus Damage, as Opposing Value to their Force
Your Defence only influences your opponent's Hitchance, as Opposing Value to their Dexterity.
Force/Endurance = Stats responsible for Damage.
Defence/Dexterity = Stats responsible for Hitchance.
Charisma = Stat responsible for your Bonus Chance.

WHAT THIS MEANS BASICALLY IS-
You need the Stats to effectively use your Modifications.
*You need the Force, to use your Bonus Damage.
*You need Dexterity, to use your Bonus Hitchance.
*You need Charisma, to use your Bonus Chance.

THE RULE IS:
*Force vs. Endurance.
*Dexterity vs. Defence.
*Charisma vs. Charisma.

DEFINING THE BASIC SKILLS

This Skill determines how much of your Bonus Damage you are able to use and activate during battle. Heres how it works:

*The higher your Force is in comparison to your opponent's Endurance,
the more of your Bonus Damage you are actually capable of using.
*The higher their Endurance is compared to your Force, the less Bonus Damage you can use.

*As you increase your level in the game you will acquire more Damage based Talents. In order to gain the full benefits of the Damage you will need to raise your Force accordingly.

This Skill is poorly named and would be easier to understand if they had just called it "HitBlock". Because thats all it does. Each Defense Point you raise through Training/Equipment/Talents reduces your Opponents chance of hitting you by a percentage.

Heres how it works:

*The higher your Defense is compared to their Dexterity the more you reduce their ability to utilize their Bonus HitChance.
The more they Miss.
*The higher their Defense is compared to your Dexterity, the less Bonus HitChance you can use.
The more you Miss.

Since the function of Defense is directly connected with Blocking your Opponents Hitchance and nothing else it comes under the influence of the Random Factor, in that while enough of it should prevent your opponent from hitting every time, or most of the time, especially if they have a low Hitchance to begin with when the Random Factor is triggered against you -your Defense just went to Hell. The "Chance" part of their Hitchance when the Random Factor is in play means all your effort to re-enforce your Defense is not going to matter in this particular battle.

Since Defense is a real asset and consideration in the majority of your battles it should not be overlooked or neglected, but in my opinion getting a good 'feel' for what will give you the most overall performance that you are going to need for normal everyday playing conditions is as far as you should go with it and keep the focus on those areas where you dont lose control-Force/ Dexterity (also influenced by "Chance" but needed to balance your Force)/ and Endurance.

NOTE: Every single Defense point added to your base stats adds 300 more points to you Health Capacity.

This Skill is how your Damage is 'applied'. Without enough of it your Damage is wasted, because you will 'Miss'. The more Dexterity you have the better your 'Chance' of Hitting. Heres how it works:

*The higher your Dexterity is in comparison to your opponent's Defense,
the more of your Bonus HitChance you are actually capable of using.
*The higher their Defense is compared to your Dexterity, the less Bonus HitChance you can use.

*It is very important not to miss. Say you have 500 Damage and miss 2 times in 10 rounds-that is 1000 less damage you did. If you can avoid missing, that is exactly the same as raising your Damage by 100 points per round. A battle is 10 rounds. 1000 damage divided by 10 rounds =100 damage per round. This kind of waste must be corrected.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

In your Detailed fight rounds in the column labeled Attacks you will see details similar to this:

Chance: 81.32% (75.74) - Hit!
308.42 damage caused!

The number above where it says -Chance: 81.32% represents your Bonus and Basic Hitchance as it is capable of functioning in relationship to how much Dexterity you have, and will change higher and lower depending on your opponents Defense.

The 2nd number in parenthesis-(75.74) is a randomly generated number and is like a roll of the dice- luck! This 2nd generated number is exactly where the game developers installed part of the 'Random Factor'! By keeping your hitchance very high against the players in your Battle Value range you can eliminate a large percentage of this Random Factor from affecting your game.

I have never seen the 2nd number as high as 100% but it is possible to raise your hitchance above 100% against players with Defense trained low in percentage to your Dexterity.

This Skill should have been named Defense. It is the working factor that reduces how much Damage your opponent is able to inflict on you. Heres how it works:

*The higher their Endurance is compared to your Force, the less Bonus Damage you can use.
*The higher your Endurance is compared to their Force,the more you reduce their ability to utilize their Bonus Damage.

The higher your level -the more Damage the opponents in your BV range have through Talents and Equipment. Endurance competes with and opposes their Force but the way it functions is to suppress their Bonus Damage on a percentage basis. So the more Bonus Damage your opponents have the more value you get for every Point you have trained.

Hypothetical Example:

If you have 200 Endurance and they have 100 Bonus Damage and you are capable of reducing their ability to use 50% of it you are getting a value of -50 Bonus Damage. If they add an additional 100 Bonus Damage and you Endurance remains 200 -you are now getting a Value of -100 Bonus Damage without training a single Point. So now- for every point of Endurance you train you are getting double the value for Zero additional cost. So when you reach a level where your Opponents can no longer find any means to increase their Bonus Damage you are investing in a diminishing return. It may be wise at this point to look to other means of getting maximum return on your Skills investment.

NOTE: Every single Endurance point added to your base stats adds 125 more points to you Health Regeneration each hour.

This Fight Modification/Skill is responsible for the activation or "triggering" of your 'Active' Talents.
It is the key factor that determines how often those powerful 'Active' Talents will come into play during Battle either against you or your opponent. Heres how it works:

* The more Charisma you have compared to your opponent the better your 'Chance' of activating a Talent.
* The more Charisma you have compared to your opponent the better your 'Chance' of blocking them from activating a Talent.
* The less Active Talents you have selected the less need you have for additional Basic or Bonus Talents.

For Example: Even with Charisma trained at 5,which is what the game starts you out with, your chance of activating a Talent is 30%. Thats enough to activate at least 1 Talent, one time, in most Battles, because the odds are that your 'Chances' are 30%- or 3 out of the ten rounds you fight during a single battle.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
In your Detailed fight rounds in the column labeled Talent you will see details similar to this:
Chance: 71.02% (79.35)
not activated

The number above where it says -Chance: 71.02% represents Basic and Bonus Talents as they are capable of functioning in relatioship to how much Charisma you have, and will change higher and lower depending on your opponents Charisma.

The 2nd number in parenthesis-(79.35) is a randomly generated number and is like a roll of the dice- luck! This 2nd generated number is exactly where the game developers installed ANOTHER part of the 'Random Factor'! I have seen this 2nd number as low as ZERO. But I never saw Hitchance at ZERO.

You can totally eliminate this part of the random factor from affecting your game by choosing not to select any Active Talents at all.

BASIC VALUES

These include Basic Damage/Basic Hitchance/Basic Talent. These are always 'in play'. A working part of your Build, all the time. You dont need to do anything to activate them. Everyone is given the same amount to start off with.

They can be added to by selecting certain Talents or by using certain items of Equipment. Your Opponent can not Block any of your Basic Values, but can take some away by selecting certain Talents or by using certain items of Equipment.

BONUS VALUES
These include Damage/Hitchance/Talent.
These Values are NOT always in play.

How much you have available to use and how much you really are using are TWO different things. How much you are able to use is controlled by these factors:

A) Your Trained Skills.
B)The values built into your activated Equipment. (Base Stats/Basic-Bonus +/-)
C)Your Talents.
D)Your Opponents Trained Skills.
E)The values built into your Opponents activated Equipment.(Base Stats/Basic-Bonus +/-)
F)Your Opponents Talents.

YOUR "BUILD"
-Your Build is everything about your account. There are several major factors that contribute
to how capable you will be:

Talents
Equipment(Gear)
Base Skills (Stats)
Battle Value (BV)
Level
Health Capacity (See Defense)
Regeneration (See Endurance)

All your resources and how they work together. Some Builds are great and some are terrible. Some are really good but one area sucks and is messing you up. Almost all can be improved, and that will never stop because the NCS is an action game! You have to keep moving up, and changing as you go.

Most players are familiar with the term Combos-meaning 'Combinations',and usually refering to what Equipment you use together. Now it refers to Talents as well because the two work together and wont work without each other.

RAIDER:

BOOTY RAIDER:

CLAN WARRIOR:

This player is a Booty Raider Hybrid, often higher level,
concerned with having multiple Combos of Equipment/
some of it specialized for Stamina during a Clan War,
some more practical for the Grotto.

PLAYER VS PLAYER-(PVP) BALANCE

BLOCKING

-You probably have a lot more Bonus Damage and Bonus Hitchance than you are using. your own Stats,Talents and Equipment may be more of a reason that you are not able to use what you Bonus Values you have, than anything your opponent is doing to you with his stats. You are Blocking you own Bonus' from being used because your Build. I will explain how this is happening.

UNBLOCKING

- I will use this word to describe different methods of freeing up your Bonus Values (Damage,HitChance ,etc) so that you get more of them working for you in Battle. I will explain different ways of how you can do this.

AN EXAMPLE OF HOW BLOCKING AND UNBLOCKING AFFECTS YOUR BATTLES:

Q:"My Fight Modificartions say I have a total of 413 Damage when I add up my Bonus and Basic Damage.
Where does it go in my battle report? How come I dont have that much then?"
A:
"You do have that much. You are just not utilising it all, only a percentage of your Bonus Damage"
Say you get RIPaxo weapon:
Basic damage: +7
Bonus Damage: +35
You get all the benefit of the Basic Damage but you only get the use of part of the Bonus Damage!
Why? NOT Because your oppponent "takes it away".
Because they BLOCK it!
How?
With their Endurance!
What can I do about that?
Raise your Force,with Items/Talents or Training!
The higher your Force is compared to their Endurance -the less they can BLOCK!
You can UNBLOCK your Bonus Damage!!!

Q: On some players I never miss and some players only win because I do miss. Why?
A:
Same thing!
Their Defense is BLOCKING your HitChance!
What can I do about that?
Raise your Dexterity,with Items/Talents or Training !
The "Ratio" /Difference/Percentage between your Dexterity and their Defense is
what controls how much percentage of your Hitchance they are not able to Block!

Q:I get attacked by a higher level player and its not bad enough that his stats and equipment are better but he
activates so many strong Talents in our Battles that he totally crushes me. I have Talents too, but it either says
'not activated' or No talent available! but he doesnt seem to have any problem at all with having plenty.
Why is this happening and what can I do about it?

You will need to look at how your Charisma compares to theirs and decide if raising yours is the way you want to go.
In a situation like this you can probably find a way to reduce your opponents effectiveness but their level factor
is so strong that if they know what they are doing it might not be possible to overcome.

THE KEY TO CONTROLLING YOUR BUILD:

The Ratio /Difference/Percentage between all of your Base Stats (Skills/Talents /Equipment)
and all of your Opponents determines the outcome of your Battles.
Not the Skills,Talents ,Equipment themselves or any preset combination of them.
The "Gap" between yours and your opponents is the only thing that matters.
And you can control that!

THE GAP CONTROLS HOW MUCH PERCENTAGE OF YOUR
BONUS VALUES YOU ARE ABLE TO USE IN BATTLE.

HOW TO MEASURE THE GAP

EXAMPLE: FORCE VS. ENDURANCE

COMPETES

CALCULATION EXAMPLE:

Exaggerated Example:
If your force were trained to 5 as though you had never trained any and just had what you started the game with but you had accumulated 1000 Bonus Damage as you leveled through Talents and Equipment -you would only be able to utilize a tiny fraction of it, due to not having enough Force to enable it!

(Simply enter the appropriate numbers into the form boxs.)

SUPPORTING YOUR BONUS VALUES

Okay! So you just got to the new level where you could get some really great Talents and you also bought a strong new Item but it has not helped. your not doing any better than before. Lets use RIPaxo as the perfect example:
Basic Damage: +7
Bonus Damage: +35
Remember- That "Bonus Damage: +35" isnt really +35!
It is only a percentage of that much depending on how much Force you have compared to your Opponents
Endurance. The good old Gap. And that Gap is different with every Opponent you are up against.

This is a great weapon. Powerful! But it doesnt work well if you dont give it some help. You need to SUPPORT your Build. RIPaxo has no Force value. When you replaced your last weapon with it you probably dropped some of your Force. You might even have reduced the amount of Damage you can do by activating it, or just stayed the same! With this weapon you need to widen the Gap between your Force and their Endurance to get the most power from it. You have 7 ways to do this by using Merchants Items and you just used one up (Weapon!).

Its either use an Item, select a Talent with Force value(if there are any left that you didnt already use) or start raising your Force stats. You probably dont have a lot of room left to make any big Force increases. This kind of decision has to be thought out in advance. All your decisions need to be thought out in advance. The best decision is an 'Informed'decision. Dont start skipping parts because you think you got it already. You will just cheat yourself and get in trouble. That player beating the hell out of you probably wont skip any parts if they get their hands on this info!

So now your in a tough place with your Super RIPaxo. Your looking around for a way out when you say
"HEY! I wonder if that Balbriggan!! is any good? He said I needed Force to support my Bonus Damage!"
Force: +43
sale price: 303.457gold
Resale value: 75.864gold
Requirements: character level 68

It is the same for every Item. You have to consider what is going on with your Build and what kind of effect it will have on every part of your Build. Both Weapons are the right answer for the right Build.

You have to think about if it is what is needed or if there is something better that will do 2 or more things for you that you need like add Hitchance and maybe something else. Maybe the ideal item is a few levels higher and you can make do with what you have until then and plan the expense more comfortably. Many Items, like Segal, offer all 5 Basic Skills.

Talents come in two Modes:
*Active Talents
.........
(Represented by a Dagger)
Only work under certain conditions that have to do with your Charisma/Basic and Bonus Talents/
How many Active Talents you actually have/Your Opponents Charisma and a randomly generated
percentage of "Chance".
*Passive Talents
.........
(Represented by a Sheild)
Passive Talents work all the time in every battle round.
They come in Five Catagories-
Basic and Bonus/Stat Based/Plus and Minus.

Once you purchase the Point that allows you to select a particular Talent,it is paid for-you own it forever. You can re-use your Points over and over again by choosing to Reset them either for gold, or hellstones. You can do this on your overview page where it says "Buy Now".

Resetting with Gold:
The first Reset is 500 gold and gets expensive very quickly.
The second Reset costs 7400 gold.
The third Reset costs 51.500 gold.
The fourth Reset costs 211.400 gold. And so on.....

Resetting with Hellstones:
You are offered the option of resetting a single Talent for the cost of two Hellstones.
Another Option is to Reset all of your Talents for 19 Hellstones.
If you use the Option for a full Reset using 19 Hellstones your gold option is Reset to
allow you to reset them for 500 gold again.
Another option is to Reset a single Talent for 2 Hellstones each.
Whenever you choose an option to do a full Reset you will heve to reselect ALL the Talents
again. If you copy and paste the list of 'Learned'Talents you already have before you Reset
into Notepad you can use it as a reference to rebuild your list changing only the ones you didnt want.
This can save you a lot of time and help you avoid mistakes.
You will want to Reset as fast as possible because during that time your Talents are not selected
you will be very vunerable. It is a good idea to do this at a time when you are less likely
to be attacked by anyone because they will probably win if you do not have your usual Talent protection.

NOTE:
If you accidentally press Reset while you are somewhere in the process of Resetting your Talents
you will either waste a lot of gold or Hellstones and have to fix it immediately.
You get one guess as to why I mention this :S

TALENTS AND YOUR LEVEL.
More Talents can selected as they become available as you increase your level.
Inside the 'Buy Now' box it will tell you when more Points will become available to you.
Since the price in gold of paying for the Points you use to select your Talents gets
expensive you may want to prepare as you get near the level you need to be at
by starting to save gold in advance.
The amount of levels in between increase by 2 more levels
than the previous time.
So if you needed to raise 9 levels to get to the next Talents
the next Talents after that are not available for 11 levels.
After that-13 levels...etc.

ACTIVE Talents VS PASSIVE Talents.
If your opponents hitchance is high against you I have noticed that a strong Minus Hitchance
Active Talent doesnt mean it will affect them enough to cause a Miss every time.
Sometimes their Hitchance is high enough against you to evade a Miss and sometimes the "Random Factor"
will just be working against you and allow them to Hit! anyway.
You may not be able to make them Miss, you just increase the chance of that happening.
They might not be able to make you miss either with a similar Active Talent!
I prefer the idea of increasing my Hitchance rather than taking theirs away because
every time I do that I am reducing the effect the "Random Factor" has on me.
So it comes down to who does the most Damage over 10 rounds.
The Passive Talents are always "ON".
You get the benefit every single hit.

If you choose to use only Passive Talents for super high overall Damage you remove the need to worry about Charisma and Basic and Bonus Talents because you have no need to activate anything. This extra room for Talents can be used to reduce their chance to activate as well by using some of those "spare" unused Talents to select one like this:Curse/ Level 64 Passive Talent/ -2 Basic Talents/ -4 Bonus Talents (On Opponent). If you choose to use all the Damage Talents available and have some Talents left over and your hitchance is not an issue you can reduce how often they activate an active talent causing them waste. If you have extra selection after you have chosen all the best Talents for your build, and there is a talent that you think may cause them to not activate and improve your chance of winning -try it.

The idea is: * that you remove the issue of working Charisma or Bonus Talents with gear/stats etc. into your Build. *Free up Talents to increase your hitchance with. * have maximum damage working every round instead of not having it available or missing when it does activate. *Cause any Talents they have to reduce your Bonus Talents to be neutralized.

BASIC VS BONUS DAMAGE

Damage is Damage is Damage.

Your 250 Damage is stronger than your Opponents 200 Damage all day long whether it is Basic or Bonus. There is no such thing as 1 Basic Damage is worth 2 or 3 Bonus Damage. It doesnt work that way. It IS important to recognize a few facts and take a look at the differences there are between the two when we have to make a decision about about what kind of Damage will work best for us when we are planning our Build based on what we have to work with at the moment.

BASIC DAMAGE REVIEWED:

Basic Damage is active in full strenght in every hit you make regardless of your opponents Endurance,which does not affect it. It can be acquired in small increments through the activation of certain types of Merchants Items and is an expensive and desirable Value when deciding upon a purchase. It is less often availabe than other values offered by the Merchant such as Force, Defense,etc. due to its potency. The game provides you with a Basic value of 50 Basic Damage to start you off with.
Here are some attributes:
*Basic Damage works automatically and does not require that you do anything.
*Basic Damage cannot be increased by Training Skills.
*Basic Damage cannot be reduced by your Opponents Skills.
*Basic Damage does not require Trained Skills to function.

*Equipment that reduces yours/their Basic Damage (Minus on Opponent) is less available through Merchants items/is expensive compared to other values offered in equipment/is only available in small increments with an increasing ratio of quantity as Level increases. The higer you go in level the more Minus Basic Damage you can buy on certain Items at the Merchant such as: Oltarian armor Level 181 Basic damage (on opponent): -9. Or acquire through Talent selection, such as the Level 144 Talent "Clever evasion" with a value of -12 Basic Damage (On Opponent).
*Basic Damage is availabe as an option when selecting Talents at 1/2 of the amount of Bonus Damage.
Example: Sharp Aim +6 Basic Damage/Claws +12 Bonus Damage.
* Basic Damage gives full Value in every round of Battle when it is gained through a Passive Talent.
* Basic Damage gives full Value when it is a feature of an Active Talent that is activated,
for however many rounds the Active Talents is supposed to work for.Usually 2 or 3 rounds.
*As you go up in level acquiring Basic Damage from Talents and Equipment, there is no need to adjust your Skills to support it.

BONUS DAMAGE REVIEWED:

Bonus Damage has the exact Value that is determined by how much support it has from your Stats, in your present Build. The value of each single Bonus Damage is relative to your account on a percentage basis. So not only does the actual Value change from player to player- it changes every time you raise or lower your Force in some way. Your Force determines how much Value each of your Bonus Damage is actually worth , by being able to support a higher or lower percentage of ALL your collective Bonus damage. The game provides you with a Basic value of 150 Bonus Damage to start you off with.
Here are some attributes:
*Bonus Damage works only as well as you apply all your resources to utilize it.
*Bonus Damage cannot be increased by Training Skills.
*Bonus Damage can be strongly reduced by your Opponents Skills (Endurance).
*Bonus Damage does depend heavily on your Trained Skills to function. (Force/Dexterity)

*Equipment that gives you and your opponent the ability to reduce Bonus Damage
is fairly common in the Merchants Items And Talents at all levels and available in larger quantities.
The higher your level the higher the amount available becomes.
Such as: Lord of the Flesh Level 200 Passive Talent -60 Bonus Damage(On opponent)
Hazzad Boots level 97 Bonus damage (on opponent): -14
* Bonus Damage gives only a percentage of full Value in every round of Battle when it is gained through a Passive Talent.
* Bonus Damage gives only a percentage of full Value when it is a feature of an Active Talent
that is activated,for however many rounds the Active Talents is supposed to work for.Usually 2 or 3 rounds.
*AS A RULE:

As you go up in level acquiring Bonus Damage from Talents and Equipment, it is a good to adjust your Skills to support it. Otherwise you will be not using as much of it as you could be. Planning ahead to adjust your Build to support the added Bonus Damage is smart BiteFight play. You have to consider how much Force you will need to support it and how much you will need to raise Your Dexterity (if at all,maybe you have enough for now) and how you are going to do that. Before you can make those adjustments you also have to consider what other impact these changes may have. You might need to change an Item that is badly needed for Endurance. That has to be compensated for as well. Adding Bonus Damage and hoping it works out OK is just lazy.
The Exception to the Rule-
You are already in good shape with your Force/Dexterity and are satisfied with the percentage of return value
you are getting from your Bonus Damage as a whole and are just adding more because you can.

MINUS BONUS DAMAGE REVIEWED:
Minus Bonus Damage Equipment works on a percentage basis.

The weaker your Opponent is,the less Bonus Damage they have,the better it works, because of the higher percentage you are able to reduce them by. The stronger they are - the less percentage you are able to reduce them by. So where it is most needed -it is the least effective. I would say this is good as a rule of thumb-assuming that if their hitchance is high due to Dexterity the working factor of the ratio to your Defense is still in effect and has to apply. That means that Minus Bonus Damage Equipment only works as well as it can based on the support you give it.
EXAMPLE:
MY:
Bonus Damage: 112.52
Force: 144
Endurance: 79
OPPONENTS:
Bonus Damage:195.49
Force: 145
Endurance:135
Im taking 7.77 of his Bonus Damage with -12 Bonus Damage
He is taking 6.20 Bonus Damage from me with -12 Bonus Damage
7.77 is 64.75% of the -12 Bonus Damage
6.20 is 51.67% of the -12 Bonus Damage
I am taking a higher percentage of his Bonus Damage. Why?
(A real Question I asked myself.)
Answer:
Im not taking a higher percentage of his Bonus Damage.
Im only getting a higher % return on -12 Bonus Damage
than he is getting from me.
7.77 is 3.97% of 195.49 Bonus Damage
I take a greater amount because he has more Bonus Damage,
I take a lesser percentage because his Endurance is higher
compared to my Force.

6.2 is 5.51% of 112.52 Bonus Damage
He takes less of my Bonus Damage because I have less available percentage wise.
He takes a greater percentage of my overall Bonus Damage because my Endurance
is lower compared to his Force.

GETTING THE BEST VALUE OUT OF YOUR DAMGAGE CHOICES/ PART 2:
Now that we know how Minus anything works- lets take a HARD, PRACTICAL look at Minus Gear.
SIMPLE:
The more Endurance you have compared to an opponents Force the more effective your minus bonus damage equipment/talents/aspects will work.
The more Defense you have compared to an opponents Dexterity the more effective your minus bonus hitchance equipment/talents/aspects will work.
That is taken care of by using that capacity to enable the gear that give us the base skill that amounts to the same effect. Example - instead of using minus bonus/basic hitchance gear we might find it preferable to activate a high Defense item . That would give us expanded health as well as reducing the potency of their dexterity. It really depends on your build.

FORUM CHAT QUESTION:
Anon2127:

Do we have any word yet on how much endurance mitigates bonus damage yet? I know from here how the basic % used is gotten but that doesn't help much with picking between the straight up - bonus damage gear or the lesser - bonus damage gear with the added endurance.. Depending on how much the endurance counts that could be a huge difference in effectiveness.
Great Question-

Technically, Endurance itself,stat by stat does not exactly mitigate/reduce your damage in a 'specific' amount. The % Gap in between your Endurance and your opponents Force is the operating principle that determines how much % of his bonus damage he is able to utilise and apply.You can Block how much Damage he is able to inflict by raising your Endurance and narrowing the gap between his Force and your Endurance. This number is not quantifiable as it changes from player to player. There will never be an equation saying 1 Endurance = .50 Minus Damage because that number fluctuates with every factor that needs to be considered/your Endurance and your opponents Force. The same is true of Plus and Minus Damages . Those Values fluctuate also.

So when you have fully understood all this info, you will pretty much be the only person who can answer that question for yourself because its not just a question of how you change your Build- It is also how you will change your opponents build. And you are the only person who will be looking at the values of your various opponents Build in your battle reports, on which you will base your decisions. You will want to take into consideration how much % of Bonus Damage you already have that you are able to use. If that % is low adding more will just increase your Damage exactly by how much you can use-not much.
So using that opportunity to raise your Force and Dexterity in balanced measure to increase the use of the Bonus damage you already own might be the better answer. If you are taking severe Damage, then Endurance will be desirable. The less Endurance you have and the more Damage you are taking the more impressive the results will be. Everytime you raise a stat by a quantity of one you close up that gap a little more and it adds up to Blocking a greater overall percentage of the Damage your opponent is able to inflict.

The challenge with planning your Build is that it is difficult to have everything we need, all at the same time,and still keep improving it. We only have a limited number of options to use to do that with as well, so we have to decide carefully. Without the correct understanding of the operating principles, it is impossible to achieve maximum performance from our account. S0- it may seem that I am being technical and picky about the words and terms and just splitting hairs but what I am trying to do is communicate and transmit a Basic Concept. Once a player has fully grasped this one Basic Concept, (The Gap)every single question about Talents/Equipment and training Basic Skills at any level becomes clearer and can be figured out by the player themselves with some very reasonable Math. Thank you for the question.

ADVANCED NOTE:

Because some different opponents may have some equipment that has Minus Bonus Value on you, the number calculated might actually give you a closer idea of how much they are able to reduce your Damage if you ignore it instead of trying to calculate it in. Minus Bonus works on the same percentage Gap as everything else. This Formula was given to a Calculus expert for his opinion. Here is what he said:
EXPERT OPINION:

"A simple formula wont be completely accurate because the subtracted value (Minus Bonus) will always be intangible and undefinable having been built into the equation itself. It is still close enough that it works whether you factor it in or not. Neither way will ever be precisely correct, but are good enough for a reasonable approximation and therefore the simplest formula will have to suffice."
(Translation: It works just fine and its the only one we have to work with.)
*END ADVANCED NOTE.

Heres how I see it:

"You dont really need the numbers to see where your in trouble and figure out how to fix it. You just have to know how the game works. This is how it works. Plain and simple. It works on The GAP.

You dont need a Formula to choose a Helmet,a Talent or to train a Skill. You just need to see where there is the most need for improvement and know how to add and subtract your Stats and what they will be if you upgrade a certain Item or Talent. And to be able to read your battle reports and see if you got the job done well enough with your upgrade. But if you want the numbers to feel sure -you have a Formula.

If you run your numbers and your opponents numbers through the Formula and compare, you will see that they closely reflect the numbers your Battle Reports are showing"