Equipment Choices (Lv40 and Lv50)

Hi guys. This is an article that I will be writing some of my insights in relation to getting what kind of equipment, especially in light of the upcoming Lv50 patch. If you are filthy rich, I suggest you can ignore reading this article.
D


Before I start, I would like to highlight the following:

B = Rare Rank
A = Epic Rank
S = Unique Rank
L = Legendary Rank
For example, if I mentioned 40A, this would mean Lv40 Epic gears.

Information 1: 40A<40S<50A<40L<=50S<50L

If you have understood what the above equation is suggesting, you should probably realise that the current SDN gears we have on DN SEA are not something that is worth your time to invest on. Having Lv50 within the next few months (PLEASE don’t ask me what is the exact date, because I am NOT a GM), would mean that the Bishop Nest is coming up probably together with Lv50 like what happened during the Lv40 update. I believe with 50B+10 and above, you should be able to clear Bishop Nest normal with some effort. This is definitely much easier compared to getting the current 40S gears which are heavily overpriced.

Information 2: Manticore/Apocalypse Free Material Event previously

Do you still remember this particular event? Now players with full Manti/Apo sets are very common. So is it still worth the effort to get Bishop set asap? I guess for rich players you can get them first. For common players, you can sell the materials off high and wait for the next free Bishop materials event (if it is ever going to happen…)

Information 3: L rank gears characteristics

The pros of L rank gears are:

Gears will not drop in grade from +1 to +10. From +11 onwards, there will be a drop in grade, but it will always fall back to +10 max. This means that having L rank gears +10 is quite easy compared to normal A/S enhancements. Materials will still be consumed per enhancement though. However, beyond +6 there is still a chance of breaking, so Jellies are definitely something that you need. So there will still be a need for Jellies in the long run.
Looks cooler than the other equipment (for sure?)
The cons of L rank gears are:

Gears cannot be sealed, and hence un-tradeable. In other words, you can only obtain L rank gears if you have gears good enough to clear the Dragon Nests Core (HELL) mode.
In addition, you will have to obtain 2 different set of gears. Because if you want to upgrade your current Dragon Set into the next level, you will require the current set + advanced materials from the next Dragon Nest. For example, you need a Sea Dragon Heels and some Green Dragon Scales in order to convert your current Heels to Green Dragon Heels. Through this process, your current Dragon gears will be resetted to +0 and with no code potentials. This means that if you don’t have a second set of gears, your equipment will be lousier than the average player. It would be recommended to have at least 2 different sets of equipment (1 L rank, 1 normal), or simply save enough funds before you convert your Dragon gears to the next stage.
It will take you very long to obtain a full set, because only about 3 pieces will drop during one run. It may take you almost half a year to assemble an entire CLEAN set.
Information 4: DN China’s patch for their SDN gears

From my research, I actually realised that there was a patch for cDN that converted the existing players’ 40S rank gears into 40L rank gears! Would this happen in DN SEA too? IF it would, getting a full set of Dragon gears now would be recommended but it would still be subjected to your current gold amount.

Information 5: The “Dragon Nest” weekly resets

From my research, the Hell version of Dragon Nest (a.ka Core Mode) can only be done with 1 run per week. For Normal? 2. Oh wait… so is our SDN version now the Core (unnerfed) or Normal (nerfed)? Our SDN gears are S rank (obtainable from Normal mode), but we can only do once per week? DN China players suggest 50A+10 for Core, while 50A+7/8 for Normal. So ours is probably the nerfed SDN instead of the unnerfed one since we can complete it with 40A+9 and above, but why we can only complete 1 run per week? Have we been trolled by Mr Addison Kang??

Verdict: For now, just stick with your current gears and don’t upgrade anymore beyond 40A+10 because they are sufficient to clear the current SDN. You should know what happened to the Minotaur and Cerberus Sets when lv40 was out. The only difference is that we have the SDN S rank gears now which is affecting many players’ decisions. Personally I would just go for the Totem set, but the critical factor here is when.

Thanks for Reading! Hope it helps! =)