My first Yumi leveling..

[Kevan]

I acquired a looted wep turned yumi which has 38 Fireball/HLA/HLD and 52 HML. I'm lowly geared overall in my slots. I should have my GOC chest in a week or so.

As such, I'm considering DEX as a possibility since this is not an endgame weapon. I'm nowhere near 220 Dex at the moment.

Anyone support/disagree with the following leveling (in order)?

HML to 60 (24 points)
Fireball to 60 (88 points)
Lightning to 60 (240 points)
SDI to 20 (40 points)
STR to 8 (32 points)
DEX to 8 (32 points)
Bonus hits to 8 (32 points)

That would leave me with 12 points left over to add to HLD or HLA?

Anything glaring that I'm doing wrong here?

[Gaara]

I'dd say add fireball to 40-50, lightning to 40-50 and add life leech to 40-50 Mana leech is ok at the number it is, 50 is more than enough for it. And i wouldn't add any SDI (or not even str/dex/hit points) because it is a weapon, and weapon's primary purpose is to do damage. Relayers are for all the stats and stuff. Though if you end up with a few extra points, adding some str or hp is not a bad thing. Dex is pretty useless on a weapon later on after all the relayers/220 dex if you choose to go that way...

In my opinion a good weapon should have atleast lightning, fireball, mana leech and life leech when done. HLD/HLA is good to have but i wouldn't add it if the weapon did not have it already... If there's room for more i'dd pick magic arrow/harm

Peace, Gaara

[Ilsanor]

I'd agree with Gaara - the best things that you can put on your weapons are ones that increase your damage output. That is Hit spells (lightning, FB/harm, magic arrow - in order of desirability), hit areas for WW weapons, Life Leech (for mortal strike and such) and Mana Leech (for Specials). HLA is good for limiting your damage taken and mostly nice on WW weapons, since you need to get surrounded by many enemies for them to be successful. HLD is good on single-attack weapons (bows) since it increases the chance for next shot to hit (and you probably want to hit with all your shots in this case) - for WW weapons it's not that important. Both HLA and HLD are optional - good to have, but by no means a stat I actually look for in a weapon. Likewise for stamina leech - good to have, but divine fury works just as good. I tend to avoid any non-combat stats on weapons like the plague, since you can put those on relayers. You can't use your relayers to increase your DPS though (at least not much - SDI, strength and DI only).

[Kevan]

So you guys would say:

Hit fireball 50 (48 points)
Hit lightning 50 (200 points)
Hit LL 50 (150 points)

I'd still have 102 points. Should I take lightning/fireball further? A weak level of magic arrow? Or something else?

Thanks for the advice so far.

[Ilsanor]

I'll basically quote myself from few topics down: (regarding difference between a weapon with either 60/60 hits or 40/40/40)

DPS wise it's mostly the same - damage for lightning is 30-34, fireball 12-32 and harm is 23-29. But since harm is cold damage, it might be better to spread damage across types (ener/fire/cold instead of just ener/fire). All in all - it's all circumstantial and matter of personal preference - you wouldn't notice the difference between the two.

For 60L/60F average dmg is 25,2 - 39,6; For 40L/40F/40H it is 26-38.

Oh, and DO NOT use Magic Arrow - it's a lower damage kind of Fireball. They both deal Fire Damage, but MA deals significantly less (14-18)

I'd still have 102 points. Should I take lightning/fireball further? A weak level of magic arrow? Or something else?

Personally I'd leave the ML the way it is, pump the 3 hits to 60/60/60 first and ~50 LL. If any points are left over then I'd work on HLA. You could theoretically add Hit Stamina Leech instead of pumping HLA to ease up on the casting of Divine Fury, but If you have 4/6 FC/FCR the casting is near instantaneous. That's a matter of personal preference.

[Gaara]

So you guys would say:

Hit fireball 50 (48 points)
Hit lightning 50 (200 points)
Hit LL 50 (150 points)

I'd still have 102 points. Should I take lightning/fireball further? A weak level of magic arrow? Or something else?

Thanks for the advice so far.

I would maybe go for hit harm if you can get it to something like 25-30 with that point count...

[Johnny Warren]

As such, I'm considering DEX as a possibility since this is not an endgame weapon. I'm nowhere near 220 Dex at the moment.

I would add the stats you were talking about in your original post. The str, dex and hp. Ideally you want your weapon to have only dmg output however the stats will help keep you in the field killing more and lvling faster than more damage will. Once you have insta heal and lots of hp you can worry about making a really good damage weapon.

Don't be too precious with your early weapon. You will end up leveling many weps to 100 in the long run, just whack on the stats and enjoy the higher survivability.

-JW

[Kevan]

JW,

That's kind of what I was leaning towards in the first posting. I want to maximize the weapon as far as being a great mid-level weapon, but I don't anticipate using it for very long once my gear dramatically improves. I figured I was trying to outline a good mid-level weapon layout that could help round out necessary stats for a player still building their character.

Without a good 220 dex and high HP suit I can't use the weapon in close enough quarters to benefit from Hit Harm. It's a bit of a conundrum.

Thanks for all the help guys. Whichever route I go it's all been very helpful. I think I have enough feedback to figure it out!

[Gaara]

As such, I'm considering DEX as a possibility since this is not an endgame weapon. I'm nowhere near 220 Dex at the moment.

I would add the stats you were talking about in your original post. The str, dex and hp. Ideally you want your weapon to have only dmg output however the stats will help keep you in the field killing more and lvling faster than more damage will. Once you have insta heal and lots of hp you can worry about making a really good damage weapon.

Don't be too precious with your early weapon. You will end up leveling many weps to 100 in the long run, just whack on the stats and enjoy the higher survivability.

-JW

I'dd say the yumi is kinda end gameish
Off topic: JOHNNY WARREN spotted

[Ilsanor]

I'd agree with Gaara (again!) - the Yumi may not be uber (it'd need to be 46's or 58's for that), but it's good enough to keep as a late game weapon. The few points you get for placing stats on it will probably not matter very much (and not at all in the long run) - there are other ways to bump stats (Angel Form, Bless, Potions if you have high Enh Pot). Good weapons on the other hand are hard to come by. Just consider this - someone thought this weapon was good enough to use a 200ED Weapon Type Change deed on it. That itself says a lot about the value of the weapon. Wasting it just because you need 8 dex or 8HP NOW! (do you really?) is IMO something you will regret in a few months.

Not sure if Hit Harm actually works the same as the spell - ie. is the range from the caster counted for a bow. Perhaps someone has done some testing might chime in on that.

[Gaara]

Harm is better for close range so maybe magic arrow after all?

[Kevan]

OK now you guys have me thinking.

Another question in that case: I've heard HLL is overrated, is there truth to that? Also, does SDI affect HLL? Or does 120 tactics affect it vs 100 tactics?

[Alex]

Get 120 in the associated combat skills. Def makes a difference.

Ppl dont add SDI since u add it to relayers instead and spend the points on hits or leeches. dex is good for mid level players to add, later on its useless since u are over 220 dex with relayers (takes a while though).

[Ilsanor]

HLL is debatable, depending on what you fight. Some monsters (most notably the ones introduced by +V's storyline in Umbris, Sgail) use the special Mortal Strike (or something equivalent) that renders normal healing (bandies, spells) impossible for a few seconds. HLL is the only way to regain health in such a situation and with a WW weapon it can be a life saver (less so for single target weapons). For other targets it's usefullness is diminished - you will heal more DMG using bandies than HLL (since bandies can be used as fast as 4 times per second with 220 dex (yeah, that's insta-heal), HLL has a *chance* to go off on each hit (which is capped at 1 per 1.25 seconds max). So for early and mid game (and some late) HLL is hardly useful since even a sub-220 dex will still heal you faster.

No, SDI does not affect HLL (or ML and SL). It affects Hit Spells and Hit Areas.

Tactics affects damage, and since HLL's effect is tied directly to damage done...