Advice needed on SW setup

Hi all - I've just started playing again in the last few months after taking a break.
I'm a mage at lvl 44, with 780-1031 base dmg and playing pve.

I've almost all legendary or unique items but I wanted a bit od advice on how to set up and choose between items.
For example, the damage points included in one item -- i.e. +20 damage or something, is important or is something I can overlook in choosing between two different ones?
And the Combact Value is my reference value or I shouldn't bother about it?

Another question - is it worth it to combine 4 legendary? Or is it just a waste of money/time?
And about the uniques of lower levels, they're worthless when I have a better item?
For example a staff with lower dmg and lower level of the one I'm at now, should I sell/melt it?
Lastly, about the resistance levels - what's their importance in choosing between items?

Thank you all for your help

 

Hi I'm also a SW, lvl 47 currently. I may not be very experienced at the game, but there are a few things I've learned here and by consulting with my guild mates.
For example there is a calculator, just google "dso dps calculator". You can use it to easily determine a weapon's power, if that's what you're interested in.
Combat Value is not a reliable way to build your character around, as you're probably read here or hear from other people.

About the gear - uniques may be good but it's possible to create much better legendary items. That said, it is advised you start crafting for better items only after you've reached lvl 50 because the gear you get then will be lvl 50 already and won't require additional GoP to upgrade to your lvl, your drops will be lvl 50 and will therefore have higher sell value, so farming for gold to use in crafting will be somewhat easier. There are also PW maps where the crafting ingrediants are more often found than in regular maps. Btw, combining 4x legendary is especially not worth it before lvl 50 as it's very expensive.

Speaking of uniques, the ones found in Stalgard areas might be the first ones worth collecting. I've found all previous ones lacking, for example, the unique set in Atlantis might be good for a defensive build, but it offers no significant DPS increase, while the Automated unique set does the opposite + increases your mana pool and is at a higher lvl (so again, less GoP needed to maintain it at your lvl).
I usually melt all the uniques I find unless the're reeeeally good. You should never sell uniques though, because their melt value is much higher that the coin value.

Can't help you about resistances, I'm keeping mine at around 30%.. Generally I try to upgrade my defensive stats only when I see the mobs are becoming too dangerous to handle. Otherwise, everything goes to upping my damage potential, because it saves time when stuff is killed faster.
Another thing - I'm keeping some low-def, but high travel speed% boots with me, for when I have to farm lower lvl maps for daily quests or fighting Destructor and it helps greatly

I hope I have given some useful advice, older player may correct me of course
Have fun!

 

Hi, thank you for your advice
Thank you for the website, I'll check it out What I meant for the weapon, or item is like this: I have two different focus crystal - one with +30 damage and the other with +40 armour.
Should I consider the damage points the most important feature and go with that?
Or for example, between two boots, the second one has higher armour or life points but no damage points, while the first one has +20 or +30 damage... should I stay with the first one from the dmg or not?

For example: I dropped the Automated Shoulderguards and I have a 4% increase of mana, but the legendary pauldrons I have have similar values plus +32 damage. What do I do? lol

Ok, so basically melt all the uniques of lower levels, get rid of legendary of lower levels unless they're good and wait for lvl 50.

For the resistance my question was similar to the damages, I'm at 45% now, I dont know if you can see the attached images. Example, I have a belt with a +164 on all resistance values - but other belts I drop have no resistance values, but maybe higher armour. Choice?

Thank you for your help

P.S. - what about critical hit rate VS % critical damage? I have one ring with 212 critical hit rate, and another with +15% critical damage. What's the difference and is there a preferable between the two?

 

These answers are very general.

Ignore CV.

Crafting 4 legendaries is a waste of time, gold and glyphs unless you are following the methods discussed in the crafting threads.

Most endgamers that do pvp are getting their resistances from diamonds and cloak (especially if using either warlord set, new dragan set, or one the twin queen set cloaks).

I melt virtually all low level uniques unless they're actually better than my level 50 gear.

To get more specific ideas as to gear and build I would look at the show what you have threads for spellweavers.

 

Well, 4% mana isn't much, but it's worth keeping the item in case you get other matching items to complete the set, which would give you a +60% if I'm not mistaken. With all those +4% items and the bonus +60% it would almost double your mana, effectively increasing your ability to spam spells and kill faster.
But for now, it's probably better to keep the +32 damage, because 4 more mana isn't significant IMO

 

At lower levels where you don't have the skill "Frozen Sphere" dps calculators are more relevant. Once you reach level... 49?... where you can unlock the 3 and 5 point talents for FS, you have the choice of opting for a fully speed-less SW. This means that dps calculators will be largely irrelevant because they will always tell you your dps decreased, when in fact FS does not depend on your attack speed.

Also, this: https://board-en.drakensang.com/threads/attack-speed-breakpoints.69613/
^ use it to determine if a change in speed is an actual change or just a change on paper

Crit rate is what you need to get in order to be able to start doing crits (the yellow numbers where you do more dmg). Crit dmg increases the amount of dmg that happens when you do crits.

Build crit rate before crit dmg. Crit dmg is useless if you don't have crit rate.

Completely agree. Your skills typically cost 25-50, if not 100 mana points. 4 points won't even make a difference at present time. XD