When should you forge weapons?
 

When should you forge weapons? What are some strategies used?

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

when you have dudes to wield them, you should forge them

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

when you have guys to use them effectively more like. Ranged weapons like the Thunder Bow, Fire Bola or Staff of Corrosion are a great way to get some use out of commanders that otherwise just sit there, like Legatus Legionis. Flame/Frost brands turn cavalry commanders into effective spearheads - or even good thugs, if they can self buff.

A lot of weapons are more specialized in use however, or only really useful when used by a supercombatant.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Frost Brand and Fire Brand at Construction 4 are good as they effectively attack a whole "square" of units and not just one unit in the square. They clear mobs of weak units quickly.

There are some anti undead or anti demon options, good if you know you will be facing them, especially vs SC undeads.

Generally if you have a commander who has some innate survivability give them one of the brands and a shield (vine shield is a good one). Stick these guys (or gals) in with the regular troops and they increase the rate of killing. If your concerned about survivability then forge survivability gear, Pendants of Luck or armor. The idea however is to churn out as many of these guys a possible so the cheaper (in gem costs) the better. These guys wont take down an army but protected from too many attacks by being amongst your troops they do a good job of trying. Examples are the Niefelhiem giants (big, beefy and can be blessed), those Tir na Og guys (glamor and awe) or Banes (undead so no encumbrance and come with good armor).

I have not checked if the latest CBM has made whips better.... If not just stay away from them.

Dual wielding and 2-handed weapons are fun but having a shield is often much better.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

when you need to smash something!!!!

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

These are incredible weapons, that remain useful until the endgame. That said, the Stone Sword and the Shadow Brand are both significantly better than them. You can sometimes get away with giving these to standard commanders, but usually you want to summon something (Unless you have something really impressive. Glamour goes a long way, as stated, and Niefel Jarls are borderline SCs). Often, this means Banes, and later Bane Lords.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Do keep in mind that for shadow brand, if antimagic (Or army of lead / Ulm equivalent) is a staple on the opposing side it won't be all that effective since the damage is MR resistible, otherwise their large AoE gives it great killing power against average or weaker MR troops.

Stone sword should ideally be wield by stone beings, like a GoRed gargoyle, otherwise you're liable to turning yourself into stone (big AoE that can hit yourself) if you fail an unlucky MR check, barring that you want really high MR and just pray Murphy don't rape you.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Yeah, that is the downside. Still, multiple square AoE is glorious, and the best chaff killing method this side of a fire shield (which might need to be a Banefire shield in some cases) or blood vengeance. Or whatever it is the Seraph has going for it on top of its fire shield.

As for the second point, I agree entirely, outside of terminology issues. Gargoyles do a pretty good job, and are often the best bet. The obvious exception is certain national spells - If you are playing MA Agartha, don't use a Gargoyle. The Marble Oracle is where its at.

Coming back to the fire shield: There is an item called the Charcoal Shield. Anyone with one gets a fire shield attached to them. Not only does it add quite a bit to survivability, it cuts down chaff incredibly quickly. A fun combination (if not incredibly useful in multiplayer) involves a commander with terrible defense, Charcoal Shield, and Blood Vengeance. It stands there, and everything dies when they get near it. Bonus points for using a blind, mute mage with this strategy.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Good way for losing your forged items rather quickly, I might add.

Another good way to get leverage out of fire shields and blood vengeance vs chaff is mistform. Any hits that get through will only do 1 damage.

That is why Dakini are usually that good. Just give them a shield an some mr, and they are good to go.

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Dakini

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

As a general answer to the OP, and speaking as a newb, I do find that a lot of lower level weapons seem pretty pointless: by the time I put it on a commander it's often worse (or little better) than the "in-built" it's replacing. (Doesn't stop me forging, though, I do it for fun:) ) Is that about right?

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

One thing I thought about with early game forging is, as a strategy, it can help your thugs get above 6 in their defense vs generic types they might face. I believe that the difference between attack and defense must be rolled on a die 6, and each time a 6 is rolled then another roll is done and added. Thus for attack and defense differences between <0 to 7 it only relies on a single die roll but above 7 you need two rolls in your favor to score a hit (the first to get a 6 and the second to be greater than 1). Thus the odds of getting hit start to go down greatly. And then if you get over a difference of 13... Given that some thug chassis have high base Def (the Vanheim commanders start with around 22-24?) then an Ice Sword and quality shield can push their def into a realm where your average melee type wont hit them this side of the next ice age.

Perhaps thats a reason to forge early, or perhaps an over analysis? :p

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

It depends on your SC duty against other SC, or flanked by bodyguard troops, defense is very good. Against masses of troops, it's value diminishes compared to protection, awe or luck. Every time you are attacked, your defense goes down. When you are surrounded by 12 jaguars with 3 attacks and W9 bless, your defense drops from 30 to 0 before half the jaguars have attacked.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Sharpness weapons are nice to attack high prottection enemies. Some of the swords that give you att or def are good agaisnt units with high defense too. But at the lower research, often your combatants need a good shield and a good armor much more than a sword. It depends on the SC, though

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

That assumes all of them get to attack. Awe and Fear are your friends in this case. Well, that and the eye shield.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Which is exactly what I said: defense has diminishing returns against masses.of troops, while other forms of protection, such as Awe, Luck, or Protection, dont.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Protection is good against normal troops, but once squads of enemies start using armour piercing or negating attacks, its effectiveness is greatly reduced. You're unlikely to encounter massive squads with these sort of attacks, early game, unless you're up against an opponent using certain bless strategies.

I'm fond of regeneration and reinvogoration on thugs. Iterative probability proofing vs. critical hits in order to better protect a gem investment. Reduces affliction chance too.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

It has diminishing returns, yes. Coupled with Awe or Fear though, it remains highly valuable - particularly if the incoming attacks aren't very good. Which can sometimes be arranged, what with Darkness and all.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Yep. Against heavy hitter SC, high defense is better. Against masses of trops, high protection is better. Against low Morale troops, Awe is better. Against non-magic weapons, Mistfom is better. And Luck is solid (but not the best), against anything.

It really depends what is your SC for. The best is a mix of everything. But i'll rather have a SC with Prot 30 and defense 10, than a SC with Defense 30 and prot 10. That's why awake E9 Cyclop with Prot 29 is a wonderful SC god to start expanding from the get go, and a W10 Fathers of serpents with Defense 29 and prot 5 can't. There are way much more mundane (and common) ways to ignore high Defense, than to ignore prot.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Etherealness is also great for avoiding mundane (non-magical) damage. I tend to think of it working best when combined with high defense. Mistform on the other hand, as well as any hit from a magic weapon, gets popped by high damage hits from mundane weapons. For that reason I tend to think of it working best when combined with high protection.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

I agree, Mistform needs some prot to back-up. Etherealness is great when combined with other form of evasion (be it high defense, Awe, Luck, Glamour, or a combination of all of them). Even Twist Fate works great with Etherealness.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Either that or Mistform is backup. Between Mistform, Awe, and even half decent prot (as in, 12 or so), you can get surprisingly far. Take a look at what a Harbinger can manage by just casting Mistform, and being under a decent earth-nature bless, while equipped with a frost brand. Add in even Rainbow Armor (which isn't all that great from a protection angle, though the magic resistance is always nice), and you have a borderline SC.

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Even minimal Regen helps a lot if you have Mistform up. A normal human will go down pretty quickly even from 1 hp a round, but if he's regening that hp...

Re: When should you forge weapons?
 

Well, late game most serious armies will have magic weapons. These pop mistform instantly. So remember that.