Equipment with hidden bonuses

[swerve]

Is there a comprehensive list of equipment with hidden bonuses available? I have read posts from people that talk about a hidden bonus to subweapon damage from the retro gear, and there's one robe that has a hidden MP recovery bonus (I think). Are there others?

[codehunter87]

The Fuma Gear has hidden bonuses, such as increased MP Recovery for the Helm and Armor, and the Greaves match the speed of the Winged Boots while having better stats. You also might mean the Robe Decollete for the girls. And I THINK Retro Boots give you speed equal to the Mercury Boots.

Not sure what else though.

[redfoxxie]

- Retro Gear increases subweapon damage. Fuma Gear's INT bonus for most part negates the bonus though.
- Fuma Gear has increased MP recovery on each.
- Robe Decollete has increased MP recovery on it.
- Some weapons have hidden status effects, like Muramasa can Curse and Milican's Sword petrifies.

Not quite hidden bonus but anyhow, many weapons have a D,F,Attack move which might make the weapon considerably better. For example, Moon Rod, Claimth Solais, Shotel.. There's plenty.

EDIT: There's a good few gears which have bonus modifiers on them though for most the description states that well enough. For example, Staurolite indeed increases Cross damage and Bloodstone indeed makes Dark Metamorphosis heal better.

Then there's of course a bunch of items which description might not clearly state what it actually does. For example, Daikoku Raiment description says "A Japanese coat that increases your luck". What it actually does is increase the money dropped from candles and alike.

[swerve]

Does the brilliant mail give a damage bonus above and beyond the INT bonus?

[redfoxxie]

Brilliant Mail does increase subweapon damage, though Retro Armor is basically a buffed up version of it. Retro does most damage, by about 3-4 damages per maxed out Cross compared to Fuma. Fuma has INT bonus and MP regeneration boost making it usually the best choice for whippers when talking about damage per second and convenience.

In other words, nearly always, Fuma set > Retro Set if you really don't want that ~10 damage more by sacrificing all mana regeneration bonuses. Retro Cloak is worth it if you won't prefer Bishamon Raiment.

[swerve]

That's mostly what I've read, but what if you're doing a lot more damage via whip/etc.? Wouldn't people who relied more on the whip and/or martial arts be better off wearing the Retro set to get the additional STR?

[chaosjohnson]

Unfortunately, the additional STR only applies to subweapons.

[redfoxxie]

Feb 10, 2012 13:47:58 GMT -5 swerve said:

That's mostly what I've read, but what if you're doing a lot more damage via whip/etc.? Wouldn't people who relied more on the whip and/or martial arts be better off wearing the Retro set to get the additional STR?

That logic would be correct if Fuma set didn't give exactly the same STR bonus as Retro set does. While at it, Fuma gives more INT than Retro does, due to that offsetting the fact it does still slightly less subweapon damage than Retro does, but has hidden MP regen bonus.


To compare Fuma/Retro, here's all of their stats.

Fuma's Helm: DEF+10, STR+6, INT+6
Retro Helm: HP+10, MP+10, DEF+10, STR+6, INT+3, LCK+5

Fuma's Armor: MP+30, DEF+25 STR+8, INT+8
Retro Armor: HP+30, MP+30, DEF+29, STR+8, INT+4, LCK+5

Fuma's Greaves: STR+4, INT+4, DEF+8, Winged Boots speed
Retro Boots: HP+8, MP+8, DEF+8, STR+4, INT+2, LCK+3, Mercury Boots speed

It seems Armor parts have more effect to the subweapon/MP regen than Helm does. Not sure if Boots/Greaves give any effect at all other than their speed.


That being said, Retro set has more HP, DEF and LCK on it. Fuma set has more INT and more speed with Greaves. Overall for me it seems Fuma set is better to run the stage with though Retro might not be a bad idea to switch before the boss if you have Manna Prism (intended typo) and spam the hell out of the boss. Otherwise the MP regen of Fuma set simply lets you spam more and outsets the lil less dmg. For whipping, both sets perform the very same though having more DEF and HP from Retro set makes you more beefy and one could theoretically soak more dmg by one or few hits. LCK could also help with grinding items if one believes in LCK theories.

[swerve]

So I thought I'd post my observations in this thread after roughly 100 hours of gameplay across Fuma and the whippers related to the Fuma vs. Retro discussion.

Ultimately the MP regen bonus on Fuma gear outclasses the Retro set over time for raw damage output if you can leverage it effectively with your playstyle. The INT and individual per-hit damage modifier of anything seems measurably less impactful when compared to the ability to get extra reps of subweapons in on anything that doesn't just outright die in a couple of hits. Your hit rate on any whip user's whip is somewhat limited, while multihit subs like the r.boomerang and r.firebomb take down 100-120 per hit, which means you're effectively adding 20ish damage per subweapon hit per MP per second (if that makes sense) to your raw damage output by focusing on regen over other stats. My standard setup now that I have most of everything maxed is full Fuma set (the Greaves really just for mobility) plus Chaos rings, and I find that more effective than trying to use A-rings or anything else to nudge a couple more points onto my per-hit damage (whip or sub).

The only real exception to this is the use of spiked boots on Richter, which has a comparatively large impact to kick damage (not to mention having no real penalty to MP regen in the first place). This takes a little getting used to since it decreases your mobility, but is totally worthwhile in maximizing the damage output (the increase is significant) of an already high-damage attack.

The next step at this point is to get good enough at no-hit runs to see how berserker mail works into this, since it may offset the 0.6MP/sec regen bonus if I can manage to use it and not die.