Value of Wither

I had questioned myself on the value of doubler 4 months ago. At that time, I was still 1-hitting, and Wither had no value there. Now that I have past the stage of 1-hitting (it stops at level 186), I had been getting Wither buffs. But what's the value of wither?

Without wither, I'll need 2 hits to kill a creature. With wither, when it activates, I kill the creature in 1 hit. A level 150 wither gives a 30% chance of activation. Is it worth getting a higher level wither? Does a level 155 wither make a big difference? Does the level 350 wither potion make a big difference?

If you face 10 creature without wither, you'd use an average of 20 stam. With a level 150 wither, on average, 3 of the 10 creature will require only 1 hit, while 7 of the 10 creature will require 2 hits, making a total of 17 hits. So the average hit per creature will be 1.7 hits.

The true value of wither is a little more complicated, since telling you the average hit still does not translate to something easy to measure and comparable to Adept Learner or Librarian.

Now, consider the case where you face an average of 3 creatures in a room on average. Without wither, you'd use 7 stam to kill 3 creatures (6 to hit and 1 to move). With a level 150 wither, you'd use an average of 5.1 stam (1.7 hit per creature as discussed earlier) to hit, and 1 stam to move into the room. Your effective gain is (7/6.1)-1. Expressed as percentage, that is 14.8%. This makes it comparable to getting a level 148 Librarian buff.

In terms of stam, that means if you used 1000 stam, you have gotten an additional 148 stam worth of xp and gold. This is like getting a level 148 librarian AND a level 148 merchant together!

Average \ Wither	150	155	160	165	170	175	350
0.5	8.1%	8.4%	8.7%	9.0%	9.3%	9.6%	21.2%
1.0	11.1%	11.5%	11.9%	12.4%	12.8%	13.2%	30.4%
1.5	12.7%	13.2%	13.6%	14.1%	14.6%	15.1%	35.6%
2.0	13.6%	14.2%	14.7%	15.2%	15.7%	16.3%	38.9%
2.5	14.3%	14.8%	15.4%	15.9%	16.5%	17.1%	41.2%
3.0	14.8%	15.3%	15.9%	16.5%	17.1%	17.6%	42.9%
3.5	15.1%	15.7%	16.3%	16.9%	17.5%	18.1%	44.1%
4.0	15.4%	16.0%	16.6%	17.2%	17.8%	18.4%	45.2%
4.5	15.6%	16.2%	16.8%	17.4%	18.1%	18.7%	46.0%
5.0	15.8%	16.4%	17.0%	17.6%	18.3%	18.9%	46.7%

Since everything is a percentage, its value really depend on the stam you'll be using. If you need to pay 30k more for a level 170 buff than a level 150 buff, and will be using 1000 stam. Assuming an average of 3 creatures in each room, you'll need to ask yourself will you pay 30k for (17.1-14.8 = 2.3) 23 stam?

With the blog entry on doubler, I had maintain a list of buffers. But really, I am just repeating what others had done better, so instead of listing the buffers here, I encourage players to use this tool provided by the Fallen Empire guild to find players selling the wither buffs (or any other buffs) :
http://fallen-empire.wzarlon.dk/find-buffers.asp?sorting=buffprice&skillbuffID=18