Weapon Balancing

[Numo]

Venomous Dagger in new alpha testing...
Hardened iron sword is most likely the weapon of choice for someone entering into the snake caves. The jewel of the cave is The venomous dagger. Unfortunately it underperforms.

May i suggest:

ap 4
ac 15
ad 3
(effect minor protection from poison) or reduced duration

[Nate]

I never use a weapon.

My level 10 character can farm the gargoyle caves (well, he was level 10 before I cleared it the first time). So far, everything dies when I attack 5 times a round for over 20 damage per hit (with a reasonable hit rate). At level 5 I took the bonus to HP skill upon level up (sucks that it doesn't apply to the level it's chosen). At level 8, I took the bonus to hit rate. At level 12 (which I hit in the caves), I bumped my hit rate again. The gear I use is the jewel for -AP costs (neck), and then as much hit rate and base damage increasing gear as I can pile on, with DR/block gear being a distant consideration. Every level I select to raise my damage by 1 for the basic leveling process.

I honestly don't see the point of any of the weapons (except maybe the quickstrike, if my hit rate fails to keep up later in the game). If you calculate damage per hit and number of hits, then contrast that number to any weapon in the game, you can easily tell how awful most all of the weapons are. Early on, without a doubt, using no weapon is the way to go (after one or two levels of increased base damage are in place). Maybe the game changes when I get to higher levels? Somehow I doubt it, because the only thing that would cause multi-hits to be worse than a limited number of big swings will be high DR monsters (since DR punishes each hit, a DR of 2 vs a 6 attack round is -12 damage for the round. That makes 6 hits for 20 deal 108 versus 1 hit for 120 dealing 118, for example). Even then, high enough BD is just going to push through (particularly once you get a good critical hit rate in there, as a 6 swing attack round means 6 chances to critical).

Compare these two:
Weapon with 5AP cost, 10AP available, deals 10 damage (two attacks per round - so 20 damage per round).
No weapon with 2AP cost, 10AP available, deals 4 damage (5 attacks per round - so 20 damage per round).

Level up, raise Base Damage by 1.

Weapon with 5AP cost, 10AP available, deals 11 damage (two attacks per round - so 22 damage per round).
No weapon with 2AP cost, 10AP available, deals 5 damage (5 attacks per round - so 25 damage per round).

This is just a low level example, and already it's better to fight unarmed. As more and more Base Damage raises come into play, as well as the additional of two more max AP, the situation gets incredibly lop-sided. As mentioned, my level 10 is hitting for between 100 and 150 damage per round (factoring in criticals, damage variation, and misses). If I changed from weaponless to something like a sword, that would drop to a range of around 30-40.

To add insult to injury, a weaponless build saves you a bunch of cash too (something particularly important early when you want to save for the Jewel). If you ever added another -AP cost item, my weaponless character would see a 100% increase in damage. No other build would (quickstrike dagger is just weaponless with more accuracy - I consider it more brass knuckles than anything).

The weapon system really needs some work, I think.

[nyktos]

great post!

welcome to the Boards!!!

[Pyrizzle]

Great first post! Welcome to the forum!

[mrkenneth]

this is an interesting topic wherein i can learn more from all who posted in this forum.

[lady black]

Welcome to the forums! Are you new to the game also, or have you been playing without posting to the boards?