Leveling weapons

[Bubba Ho Tep]

Ok guys, I think this levelling weapon stuff is kinda messed up for everybody...You know, choosing the rights things to invest on and all, in order not to spoil a perfect good weapon and a not cheap weapon level deed. So I called some friends and asked them to help me out making a guide with our personnal impressions...But that's just what they are, our oppinions, not a perfect guide.

FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT TIP IS: read stratics page on magic item properties. Then read the following oppinions, think about it, chat it out with some friends, and have some fun with your weapon.

My thoughts on it are based on my experience with my bow. Some of it apply to hand-to-hand weapons, some doesn't.

I chose a Horselord because it'll get me a total of 495 points to spend, against 295 from a crafted one. Even if gets only to lvl 50, it will still get me 100 points more than a crafted one (245 for a looted weapon lvl 50 and 145 for a crafted one).
And a Horselord is a very popular choice, easy to buy. A great choice also is Nox Ranger's Heavy XBow, which is a a xbow with great bonuses, but lame specials - and the Horselord does happen to have great specials, mainly the armor pierce one.
-> Doom arties in general have one problem: double cost for any bonus. Stamina reg for instance usually costs 1 point per level, but for doom arties, it costs 2 points.

Here's what I think about spending the points:
Stamina determines your swing speed. So you might consider raising dex bonus and stam bonus, which are cheaper than SSI, to shoot faster. Go to stratics, find horselord (or your weapon of choice) page and play a little with values in the calculator they have available for speed and damage.
Then consider that Horselord has a great special move, and you'll need mana for it...so mana leech or mana reg might also be interesting. This goes too, for instance, for blaze of death, which have the great whirlwind attack.

About actually hitting stuff: you can get either hit chance increase and/or lower defense chance...LDC gets you chance to drop the target defense for 25% for the duration of 5 to 10 seconds. So a 25% to 33% value should be enough to always have the target with lower defense. HCI will get your base hit chance increase, as in: you have a 50% chance to get the target naturally; with 10% HCI, you get a 55% chance - your normal 50% plus 10% of it, which makes 5 more (hope it isn't too confusing).

About damage: if u do want to invest on a spell u use lightning; higher circle spell available, therefore more damage than the others options. And avoid get an area effect. Area effect will atract everybody on screen to you, from chickens and sheeps to succubus and ballies, since you'll damage them. And "all guard" won't get your pets to attack them, since you started it off (and they never attack your target in these situations where you began the fight).

About hp bonus and hp reg, you get enough of that with other items, such as crimson cincture of bracelet of health. Remenber, you are using a bow, not a hand to hand weapon. If a pet tanks the target, or if you get it in stone circle, you will only have to endure spells.

Self repair is a waste. Use repair deeds from legendary (and legendary only) crafters. They might even raise your weapon durability.

Hit dispel seems quite useless for me. Hit lower attack, on the other hand, is a nice thing to have for your tanks, but should be invested on in a later time. Bonus mana is bogus too. Bonus str gives you little hp (half the points of str; with the max bonus str - 8 points - you get 4 hp) and little damage (1 point up every 10 points of str), so it's not that important.
Don't even consider bonus int; bonus spell damage and mana is not worth the high cost.

I'm not sure about def chance inc and reflect phys dam...ain't gonna use them myself, but they do are nice. But my oppinion is that I souldn't get hit in first place. Of course it doesnt work nearly as often as I'd like, but trying too does get me a lotta less wounds.

To end with, a tip from polar bear (fingers): I'm not gonna raise stamina reg anymore. It's a cheap thing (one point per level), and your swing speed is based on your stamina (which drops when you get hit), and not only your dex. But Divine Fury will get all of your stamina back, so I'll just save me some useful 10 points (cap is level 10 for it).

But most important of all still is: READ STRATICS PAGE ON MAGIC ITEMS PROPERTIES yourself, and think about all of it.

[Tigerstorm]

Then consider that Horselord has a great special move, and you'll need mana for it...so mana leech or mana reg might also be interesting. This goes too, for instance, for blaze of death, which have the great whirlwind attack.

Agreed, I long waited to get one now can't get off my hands... (Except when I accidently cast recall instead of sacred..)
Yes mana leech and mana regen is good, but if you really aim for the highest possible.. MY suggestion would be to get a looted bow with near 40% mana leech on it, saving A LOT of points...

About actually hitting stuff: you can get either hit chance increase and/or lower defense chance...LDC gets you chance to drop the target defense for 25% for the duration of 5 to 10 seconds. So a 25% to 33% value should be enough to always have the target with lower defense. HCI will get your base hit chance increase, as in: you have a 50% chance to get the target naturally; with 10% HCI, you get a 55% chance - your normal 50% plus 10% of it, which makes 5 more (hope it isn't too confusing).

Nope it's not, makes perfect sense to me. I personnly prefer HCI, cause the more you hit, the more your mods chances kick in...

About damage: if u do want to invest on a spell u use lightning; higher circle spell available, therefore more damage than the others options. And avoid get an area effect. Area effect will atract everybody on screen to you, from chickens and sheeps to succubus and ballies, since you'll damage them. And "all guard" won't get your pets to attack them, since you started it off (and they never attack your target in these situations where you began the fight).

yup area effect is a no no....

About hp bonus and hp reg, you get enough of that with other items, such as crimson cincture of bracelet of health. Remenber, you are using a bow, not a hand to hand weapon. If a pet tanks the target, or if you get it in stone circle, you will only have to endure spells.

Self repair is a waste. Use repair deeds from legendary (and legendary only) crafters. They might even raise your weapon durability.

I like to put HP regen and since it's stops at 6. It ain't that much of a waste of points to me if i was to caculate what I want in all....hp BONUS yes is a waste....self repair, waste also...

Hit dispel seems quite useless for me. Hit lower attack, on the other hand, is a nice thing to have for your tanks, but should be invested on in a later time. Bonus mana is bogus too. Bonus str gives you little hp (half the points of str; with the max bonus str - 8 points - you get 4 hp) and little damage (1 point up every 10 points of str), so it's not that important.
Don't even consider bonus int; bonus spell damage and mana is not worth the high cost.

I'm not sure about def chance inc and reflect phys dam...ain't gonna use them myself, but they do are nice. But my oppinion is that I souldn't get hit in first place. Of course it doesnt work nearly as often as I'd like, but trying too does get me a lotta less wounds.

Ok, last quote..doing good...

Bonus anything is pretty much useless in my opinion. Str, maybe not that bad.. DCI, well if u have a horselord, you should stay far...same thing as reflect physical...

I personnly have a Horselord. maybe not aiming for the perfect build but..

Planning on getting

FCR 3 (For casters, its a good place to have some as this + good hive boots caps you, leaving fantasy in rings/bracelets)
HCI 10 or 15% (with headband will do 22-27%)
Mana regen 6
Stam regen 6 (already started, and will just round it up with mana and hp regen)
Hp regen 6
Hit lighting 20%
Mana leech 20%
Swing speed 20% (with headband, will be 50% total)

and when i'll get that i'll have not many points left, so i'll see..


OH !!!

-Hit life leech is almost a waste also to invest in, as you can vampire form (necro) your way to a easy 20% leech per hit.

-LMC (lower mana cost) and LRC (lower reagent cost) , you can get EASY on clothing, so no real use on a leveled wep...

- The resists are also a no no, come on now...with the ingots we have not to hard to get a near 70's suit..

AS for now, this is a long post.

I'll come back..eyes are sore...

[fingers]

I chose a Horselord ...

Horselord is truly a nice weapon, for it's damage ouput, it's armor peirce special, and even if it's supposed to be a slow weapon, headband of power, high max stats (300-350) allows you to swing at max speed (1.25 shots per second, I beleive). So max speed weapon with max damage, clearly a winner. Not to mention that archery being a ranged attack, you don't sustain as much damage as a melee skill, therfore need to repair your gear less often;-)

On the negative side, archery doesn't let you parry, disarm, bleed. And it's one target at a time to level your weapon. I think that if you find the right spawn, any weapon with whirlwind attack will gain levels many times faster than a bow.

About actually hitting stuff: you can get either hit chance increase and/or lower defense chance...

I beleive hit chance is capped at 45% and damage increase 100%. This should be easy to obtain with your jewels and head gear. Also, if you have bushido and you perform lightning strike (no mana cost), you have 50% hit chance no matter what hit chance you have from your gear (and 1/4 chance to perform a critical hit, at 120 bushido). HLD is really fun to have, as it will make you hit almost everytime, even when the monster you are fighting is harder to hit.

About hp bonus and hp reg, you get enough of that with other items, such as crimson cincture of bracelet of health. Remenber, you are using a bow, not a hand to hand weapon. If a pet tanks the target, or if you get it in stone circle, you will only have to endure spells... Bonus str gives you little hp (half the points of str; with the max bonus str - 8 points - you get 4 hp) and little damage (1 point up every 10 points of str), so it's not that important.

I used to run around with 107 hp. I would say I die 95% less often since i run over 240 hp. The first points i spend on a levelable weapon is on strenght and on hit points. Also, +8 strenght and +8 hit points gives 20 hit points. So strenght give 1.5 hit points per. And it does make you hit harder. Monsterous grizzle armor ignores a full 70's suit for 191 hp, petrified eles, plat eles and etheral eles hit for around 210 hp. A balron in fel will hit you for 140 hit points. All of the above will one shot most of the players. So I beleive Str and HP are a great investment on weapons.

I'm not sure about def chance inc...

If you are melee, you want to go as close as possible to 45 Defence chance and 120 parry. Yet again, jewels will often take care of that, but if you need a few points to get to 45 DCI on your weapon, I say it's a good investment. Last time I went mining with my gargoyle axe, I popped 25 plat elementals and only got hit 4 times.

All in all Bubba Ho Tep made a very good post, with very valuable hints. I am surprised about that 495 exp points for the Horselord though, I was quite sure it was considered as a doom weapon and that I saw a few players spend 200 Ed's to remove the doom flag from it...

[Bubba Ho Tep]

you can vampire form (necro) your way to a easy 20% leech per hit.

A really great hint that I had no idea of...

On the negative side, archery doesn't let you parry, disarm, bleed.

As weird as it seems to imagine, you do parry blows with your bow. I mean, at least I raise the parrying skill using my Horselord, and I also seem to avoid some blows (that white glowing effect in you char). Can you picture an archer using his bow in a close combat, shooting and parrying blows?

Also, +8 strenght and +8 hit points gives 20 hit points. So strenght give 1.5 hit points per. And it does make you hit harder.

I never understood this calculations. I had the impression that at some point Str would give you more than 0,5 HP per point; but I have 125 str and 112hp base, without any items. (50 base plus half my str score)

[Harabakc]

Whirlwind can't hit for 200-300 a shot. I prefer the Hanzo, MUCH better starting stats. The only advantage the Horselord has is reptile slayer, and you have to spend a ridiculous amount of points getting it up to the Hanzo level in the first place.

And yes, you parry with no weapon or any weapon.

I'll say one thing up front, don't underestimate base stats.

[fingers]

Whirlwind can't hit for 200-300 a shot.

On my full screenshot (not as blured) i count 850+ damage for one swing. 0 mana cost.

And at a champ spawn, with more foes surronding me, you can multply by 3 or 4, yep, thats right, several thousands per swing.

[Harabakc]

Every time my bow string gets pulled it's 150-340 depending on what I'm shooting at. And champ spawns are horrible exp, even with spell leveling, they were horrible exp.

[fingers]

Well everytime i swing in area mentionned above, 850+ damage. And its not a spawn area. I do crushing blows for 200-250 on single targets. I did say that Yumis are awsome, i just think you dont have a whirlwind weapon to say its not as good:-(

Now, lets say you hit that lizardman for 300 hp while he has a total of 50hp. Meanwhile, i whirlwind 20 in one swing and they are all dead. Who is getting the most xp and tokens here?

If i go at barracoon and decide not to use pets/trees, everytime i swing all on screeen goes down and i get one white candle. do that with your yumi?

[Sorgon]

Well I must say that for AoE's Polar has the best weapon I have seen. And Hara's bow is well just SICK. I have seen this in action and all I could say is wow....kind of like a machine gun with arrows/fireballs/lightning wow just wow.

[Harabakc]

Which bow? The Hanzo is up as good as the Pwnerer now.

I've got about 6 levelable weapons, and honestly, if I'm fighting a bunch of easy junk I don't bother with the bow.

[Melkor]

Hi there. I have 37 hit lightening, can i begin to add say hit fire as well and get 2 magic attacks? what do you think? Also, what is the highest lvl for a hanzo bow? thanks.

[fingers]

Hail, yes you can have two magic attacks and they will occasionnally hit both at the same time. Personally, on yumis, i like mana leech because it lets me chain the special move armor peirce, wich can add up to say 100 damage, while if you add 50 fireball, you will get aa 7-10 add damage every two hits.

[Cyric]

What is a good melee weapon to level that's not craftable. At the moment, I've been leveling a crafted plat katana. Is there an artie that I should be on the lookout for that is a better choice? Don't get me wrong I like my katana, but the durability is lower than I like (120).

[fingers]

For an artie, each attribute that you give it costs double leveling points. For my part, i love weapopns with crushing blow and whirlwind attack. Mace, diamond mace, scepter and ornate axe are a great choice. Notice that if you have lumberjacking, the ornate axe deals additionnal damage, wich the base damage is already pretty high (18-20).

[amadman]

Cyric - If the durability is your only issue then you can increase that with powder of fortifying.


Isn't that double cost only for doom arties ?