How is black star armor a noob trap???

Buncha bull right here.  All of Valencia, all of Kamasylvia - minus Ash Forest and Gyfin UG, huge majority of Dreighan = 22 or more grind spots.  Each of these spots offering comparable silver to end-game locations, like Elvia Birhagi, Elvia Giants, and even rivaling Elvia Hexe on a good hour.  Difference between 240 AP (2 weeks gameplay) Tuvala and 300+ APK (2 years+ gameplay) being around 100m in silver difference or so in many spots.  Look on Garmoth.com global numbers and you'll see -- Tuvala gear even beating 300+ AP 390+ DP spot in some spots when it comes to income.

Let that sink in -- 240 AP VS 300.  IDK if you realize this (I'm not holding my breath), but that's a MASSIVE difference in time investment between these two AP ranges.  One range taking literal weeks, on many occasions, to get and the other taking literal years, on many occasions, to get.

Ash Forest is an end-game spot -- guess what, freaking Manshaums makes more silver than Ash.  Centaurus, even more.  240 AP spots VS 300+ AP spot.  LMFAO Pollies = 160 AP spot making the same silver as Ash Forest (300+AP spot) ~20 mil silver difference on average, globally.

You're so off it's not even funny.  Propaganda 100%.  Literal TRI Tuvala making around the same silver, give or take ~100mil, as 300+ AP.  Just look at the numbers.  Noobs who aren't even a year in the game have everything going for them in today's game and don't even know it.  Thanks for proving that.

Blackstar Armor at PEN is = to C10 Boss gear, minus bonus monster DR.  Cannot be enhanced further, aside from Fallen God / Labreska, as of now.  Well, there is Obsidian BS upgrades, but IIRC, it's not worth it unless someone strictly PVE forever and ever.  PVP or PVX players, not worth the cost, IIRC.

"Noob trap" may not be the most PC-friendly way of putting it, but the point is it's not worth going for, considering Cron costs, and silver sacrifice for better gear when going for Obsidian upgrades.  Least in the majority of cases.

There's also the fact that its extremely unlikely to ever succeed at going pen, where you can buy pen boss pretty cheap now.  So while people are stuck at forever tet black star, eventually here comes fallen gear that all you need is boss pen+c10+flame to keep progressing.

This is different though. If we do get another tier of weapons, It's based on c20, unlike c10 for armor. 

Many people just focus on AP and forget DP requirements. 

Given how zero the mob AI in this game, you can do any spot even naked.

Obviously if you want chill afk grind and facetank them, then you need DP.

You can still get knocked to the ground even though you were out of harm's way which could lead to a lot of problems if you're around a lot of goblins especially as a shai. Kids and goblins don't go well together according to every magic-fantasy anime ever. (That was a joke, goblins don't knock back)

AP isn't that important in elvia because you need the young fairy buff but outside of Elvia you absolutely need accuracy which is very expensive to get. There's no point in AP if you always miss but of course without AP you will either jump around in a circle for an hour to kill mobs or they will be invulnerable to your attacks :'(

In other words, once you reach 270AP~ish / 330DP~ish it goes from 0 to 11 really quick in terms of your requirements for the next step. It's painful. The DP isn't so bad but the added AP and Accuracy which are accessory based is very time consuming. The enhance RNG / mechanic is atrocious.

Yeah, thankfully you can just get 100% resist in PvE on those spots where PA thought random cc will going to give challenge lol

:thinking

I can tell you as a awk ranger you still want DP while you grind especially in elvia. Honestly I wouldn't be doing elvia right now if it wasn't for perilous star plus 320ish dp minimal. I have knock down resist gems mobs still can stun lock you  especially at beraghi if they get you in a skill hole at times.

Dp should never be overlooked. Also fairly positive the APs listed on the map for zones are in general  meaning with kutum. But they don't say that anywhere. I actually invested into a c3 pen Akum set before I took  a break from the game last year. Since then I mean its gotten me good dp value for cheap. Slowly swapping everything out for boss now that garenteed PEN is a thing with just doing dailies and such.  And just got myself a tet awakening blackstar with a bit of luck now smashing a bow for the same. Bottom line is I needed DP to grind the newer content efficiently . Some classes probably have it easier but awk ranger is the most enjoyable grind for me so

: shrug