[Guide] Yellow/JoH Options - SD Reduction, SD Bypass, SD Ratio increase

[Phantomel]

Hello fellow OldSquaders!

I have decided to make a guide about Yellow options you can put on excellent weapons and armor and share my knowledge with you.

What do these options do and how do they help you in PvP?

 

 As you all might or might not know, the most important thing in PvP is considered to be the SD. What is SD, how do we increase it and how does it work in PvP?

-SD is represented by the yellow bar that is near our HP pool. It can be increased directly by our stats(The more resets and stats you have, the more your SD increases).

-In PvP by default, when you receive damage, 90% of it goes into your SD, and 10% goes into HP. When you run out of SD, all the damage goes directly into HP.

Keep in mind that if you don't have a sturdy HP pool you might die even if you have SD left, so try to get a good amount of HP so you don't die before your SD pool depletes.

Also there are some hidden mechanics of the game hidden behind SD, but I will speak about them later.

 

Now let's see how yellow options can help your character in PvP

I will start with SD Ratio Increase(One of the two yellow options viable on high reset/high stat servers). How does it work and where/why should you use it.

-Keep in mind that currently, on OldSquad, you can have up to a maximum of +3 SD Ratio increase on set pieces and shield instead of +5 as it was by default.

SD Ratio increase is the counterpart of SD Reduction rate on weapon(Basically they counter each other)

Earlier I've said that 90% of the damage goes into your SD pool and 10% into your HP. What this option do is, it increases the SD Absorbtion beyond 90% of the default one. So basically, If I equip one set piece that has SD Ratio increase, I will receive 93% of the damage into my SD pool and only 7% into HP.

Now, if I manage to get SD Ratio increase on 4 pieces, it means that all the damage I will take will go into SD, leaving my HP unharmed. Why is this such a huge thing?

Remember when I said about the hidden game mechanic behind SD? Basically, when your characters suffer HP damage, your character have a chance of getting a stutter, being unable to attack/use skills for a brief time. For BK for example(but not only), that stutter can make a huge mess as it can be the difference between a succesfully done combo and a failed one. A failed combo means that you lose a huge amount of damage which can be decisive in a duel.

So, the main reason of using SD Ratio increase is the fact that if we manage to get 100% SD Absorbtion, it prevents our hp pool from taking damage, which translates into being able to dish massive amounts of damage in a short time by having uninterrupted attacks because we get rid of that stutter.

However, compared to Damage Decrement Increase it does NOT reduce the damage you take.

This option is especially good if you have lots of SD potions on your hand so you can replenish your SD pool(Basically use SD pots instead of HP pots)

There are other ways to prevent the animation stutter effect as well.

Horn of Uniria, Horn of Dinorant, Horn of Fenrir and Dark horse will prevent you from get stuttered in PvP as well, however, the Dark Horse is available only for DL, the Fenrir is pretty hard to get and the other 2 get destroyed very fast in PvP. Also keep in mind that BK can NOT use cyclone and VRF can NOT use Chain Drive(Main PvP skills), so SD Ratio increase is the only viable way for them to get rid of the stutter effect.

However, this option can be countered very easily with SD reduction rate and SD Bypass options, and because the option is currently nerfed down(You need 4 items to reach 100% instead of 2), I would say that it is not a viable option, or it can be very situational at most(For BK's for example, that are not able to equip a pet, and only when they fight enemies that dont have SD Decrease ratio on weapon, so basicly just in duels).

 

Next, I will speak about SD Reduction rate % and how does it work in PvP
 

As I said before, SD Reduction Rate is the opposite of SD Ratio increase - so, the damage absorbed by the opponent's shield in PvP translates into HP damage according to the value of SD Reduction Rate that you have. For example, if you have SD Reduction Rate 10%, your opponent will take 80% damage into SD and 20% damage into HP.

Considering that you can get 13% Maximum ammount of SD Reduction rate on Staff, the maximum SD Reduction Rate you can get is 26% - Which translates into 64% SD/36% HP damage done.

This option is especially powerful on high attack speed characters and very effective against characters that have a low HP buff, therefore being prone to dying before their SD runs out.

However, I will advise you to NOT use this option against high hp pool characters such as VRF or BK, since them having huge HP pools translates into them surviving even longer in PvP. Why do I say this?

BK and VRF are probably the only characters that can survive a good amount of time even if they run out of SD. So basically how you want to play against them is drain their SD to 0 very fast and burst them down directly into HP pool. This option does exactly the opposite therefore it makes them survive longer(Less damage into their SD - They sustain their HP pool with HP pots anyway - They live longer).

 

Last, but not least, probably the crowned king of yellow options in PvP(at least on high stats server), SD Bypass, or SD Ignore Rate

SD Bypass grants each attack a chance to completely Ignore the opponent's SD and deal full damage to their health.So, if your weapon has SD Bypass 10% - You will have 10% chance for each hit to translate directly into HP, which deals huge damage. In short, this yellow option is RNG dependant, but considering that on high stats servers you have very fast attack speed, it means that this will proc a lot.

**SD Bypass DOES work with reflect option - So if you have a set item with Reflect option equiped, that reflect also has a chance to benefit from the Bypass you have on weapon.

This yellow option is viable and good on all classes, but especially benefit the classes with high burst damage on one hit(Such as BK combo, DL Horse, SM Nova) because they actually have chances of one shotting people.

This option is much better when PvP-ing against high HP targets, but as I described the matter earlier for SD Reduction, this one can be problematic against BK and VRF as well - If you're not lucky enough to hit bypass after bypass, they will sustain their HP pool and their SD will drop even lower(The bypass hits do no damage to SD pool), so they will live even longer than if you would have SD Decr.

The safest choice - especially if you are a 1 weapon class as DL is, is by far SD Bypass, while MG/Summ can also chose to use 2 SD Reduction weapons because they have huge burst and can kill others before their SD drains even without bypass.

 

For set pieces, there are more situations:

-For CS, you will chose Damage decrement increase every time - Since 99% of CS you will have 0 SD anyway and the SD Ratio increase option will do nothing for you.

-For BK's especially, in 1v1's, go SD Ratio increase if the opponent has no Bypass or Reduction, that will translate into smooth, uninterrupted combos which almost every time means you will win.

Mainly, in most of the cases, DDI is the best choice by far for all classes, but SD ratio increase can situationally be very very good

 

Thank you for reading, and I hope you got the chance to learn something

Best regards,

Phantomel