Versatility — when should I start to use it?

[Argo]

Hello everyone!

I'm playing Archon and slightly below e800 for now. So, just wondering, at which moment I should start to put AP in Versatility? First of all, I needed to match BiS items requirements — done. Then I had to reach certain attribute milestones for decent bonuses — done. Now I have 10 lvl Innate Aptitude, 230 Insight (because of Netherfist) and 200 Wisdom (because of Easymind Hat). The question is: should I start to spent my AP into Versatility at this moment already or it will be better to max all other attributes first (excluding Dominance ofc)?

Thanks a lot!

[Scoobydeux]

I plan to max everything else first, *** including Dominance *** . Each of them benefits you in some ways, Dominance focusing on a weaker approach for many of the classes, but it does contribute, builds up the value of autoclicks, and when you hit 250, provides a sizable profit bonus. Versatility is intended as a dump stat, it provides an increasing bonus, but nothing else. If you do use it early, I am curious how you fare.

[Argo]

Interesting decision...

It seems, there are only two milestones in Dominance, that gives profits for Archon (at 150 and at 250 attributes). They only depend on number of autoclicks, but not on autoclick profit. So, before 150 milestone Dominance gives clearly nothihg to Archon. And I doubt that 150 milestone bonus beats 150 Versatility pure bonus, but I have not tested it yet. Probably at 250 Dominance resulting multiplication of 150 and 250 Dominance milestones bonus will be better than 250 Versatility pure bonus, but I am too far from this for ckecking it by myself.

Correct me, if I'm wrong.

[JazzyJ]

My first thought is to agree Dom sounds like a waste. How many autoclicks do you have after how many days/hours as Archon, and what %profit do the perks give you? I would think you would have to be doing very long runs for the perks to be worth it.

However, before investing in Vers you should be maxing out your other stats BEFORE gear/memory bonuses. E.g. your stats should read "250 (+x)". Overdriving your useful stats will almost always be better than Vers. The only stat I would question is Wisdom - is it worth pushing it to 300+ including gear rather than Vers?

Also, why max IA? Are there no other worthwhile memories for you? I only have 2 points in IA because there was literately nowhere else useful to dump them.

[Argo]

Thanks, I thought the same.

For me, maxing IA is not necessary, but it is helpful in most cases at early game, when you need to reach some item requirements. In late game +70 AP (only +70, because +10 in Dominance looks dead weight) can give you a lot of raw profit through attributes overcap, which you can reach much earlier. 55k Memories looks cheap for that, when you farm over 250k Memories in two weeks realm.

[JazzyJ]

That sounds good until you compare it to Commissar's. In my testing I found Commissar's to be superior to the Spellbook. At e800 you should be getting at least 30AP from Commissar's so that's 210 useful AP. Obviously the optimal memory spending depends on how many memories you have in total (along with plenty of other factors). Are you limiting your realms to 2 weeks? I have settled on a 8 week cycle. I currently have 949K and I will be earning 1.5M+ when I realm this coming weekend. The recent changes made to the memory calculations definitely favours longer realms.

[Argo]

I have not tried Comissar's on Archon yet, but it's looks like a good idea. It seems that Archon have secondary biggest pet level after Oni, so Comissar's can be very useful. But in that case maxing IA looks even more potent. Yes, 70 AP is still 70 AP, but bonuses that they give with Comissar's will be significantly stronger due to higher overcap. I'll try it soon.

About realms, yes, I try not to stay on same realm too long. Bonuses, that you can acquire through Memories can push you a lot further. As I said, I get 250k+ Memories in two weeks. And I am curious, how you will get so much Memories even in two months, because I thought that time multiplier for Memories is limited by 10? If it is not true, probably I should reconsider my realms strategy.

[PseudonymousBosh]

Maxing wisdom on archon seems to be the clear correct choice over versatility, thanks to fire with fire.

[JazzyJ]

Sorry, I got my numbers wrong. I will be getting 1M+ so we are on about the same rate.

[Argo]

Checked how Commissar's works at +33 AP (413 level PC). Unfortunately, it did not perform well for me. Spellbook is still stronger with same 25 enchant level. It was approximately 8-10 times more efficient than Commissar's.

[softi]

I went for Spellbook too for a long time, though after testing black vortex seems to do considerably better. I suggest you try it out on the next realm.

[pac230]

If you're not getting your profit from clicks, Dominance is still useful for D150 and D250, boosting profits based on auto-clicks. These can get to around 200% and 400% without going out of your way to do it (especially for Archon with all the clicks your pet gets). Combined, that's x15. Not bad.

However, if you were to instead put those 240 points (assuming 10 from Memories) into Versatility, you would get about x70 profits, by my estimate. Much better.

So even if you can reach those Dominance bonuses, you would need to get them extremely high to beat Versatility here.

Of course, all your other stats except Dominance are better than Versatility, so they should be maxed out (to trained 250 before bonuses) before any points go into Versatility.


Note that this situation is different with Wisdom (the following doesn't apply to Archon, for whom Wisdom is always a highly profitable stat anyway). Wisdom's 150, 200 and 250 bonuses are so strong that they generally beat Versatility, even if the spell shards are no use to you at all. (This might not always be the case for the likes of Shaman, that don't get so much use out of Wisdom 200's Incantation bonus.)


As for Commissar's, it is very good when you first get it in helping you to reach bonus milestones in more stats. Later on, once you can get more attributes more easily (Memories, legendary items, etc) and can reach the milestones in your main attributes much more quickly, it is always surpassed by other off-hand items.