Magic Items under CBM

[Squirrelloid]

Disagree with Amorphous re: Wraithsword. I would never forge one. Ever. Shadow Brand or Dusk dagger are both vastly preferable, and cost fewer gems to boot. Sure, they both require 2 paths, but you must have gems *somewhere*. And generally you're going to be using your d gems for other things, so chances are its d you're short on and something else you have in excess quantity. Heck, if it must be d gems, I'd take a bane blade over a wraith sword since its 1/5 the price!

2h weapons need to be better than 1h weapons to make up for the fact that you can't use a shield, even if that shield is the one you came with as stock gear. Wraithsword is just useless.

Now, I accept that the 2h sword of sharpness has a place. Its also better than the 1h sword of sharpness, as it should be. But wraith sword is expensive, late in research, and inferior to a large number of other weapons. For its cost it should be the best weapon for some task. Its not.

Other weapons that could use improvement:
-Implementor Axe
-Enchanted Pike (not sufficiently better than Enchanted Spear or Enchanted Sword, consider 12 damage)
-Sword of Swiftness (consider 16 base damage to even plausibly compete with frostbrand)

[Jarkko]

If you have a Fomorian King with Water, then you *definitively* do not want to craft a Wraith Sword for him. You want a FrostBran for him, and even with zero water gems, you'll get ahead by first alchemising the death-gems to water-gems... Why would you want to lose the shield on Fomorian King so that you could be wielding an inferior weapon?

That already tells just how bad the Wraith Sword is. Never seen one used by a player under Dom3 (but there are other things I never see which others think are common, so that doesn't prove anything ).

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Disagree with Amorphous re: Wraithsword. I would never forge one. Ever. Shadow Brand or Dusk dagger are both vastly preferable, and cost fewer gems to boot. Sure, they both require 2 paths, but you must have gems *somewhere*. And generally you're going to be using your d gems for other things, so chances are its d you're short on and something else you have in excess quantity. Heck, if it must be d gems, I'd take a bane blade over a wraith sword since its 1/5 the price!

Neither of those provide you with reinvigoration, so they are not suitable replacements for a Wraith Sword.

If all you are after is damage, a Wraith Sword is not what you need, but there are other situations.

Now, I accept that the 2h sword of sharpness has a place. Its also better than the 1h sword of sharpness, as it should be. But wraith sword is expensive, late in research, and inferior to a large number of other weapons. For its cost it should be the best weapon for some task. Its not.

If you want lifedrain you have to choose between Wraith Sword, Blood Thorn or Standard of the Damned, but that last one is in form of an item spell.

Other weapons that could use improvement:
-Implementor Axe

I do not really see it. It seems more of a speciality weapon to me. The help to pillaging is huge, and the fear does not hurt. It is not the best for fighting, but then, that does not seem for what it is primarily intended.

-Enchanted Pike (not sufficiently better than Enchanted Spear or Enchanted Sword, consider 12 damage)

The Enchanted Pike has always seemed a weapon intended to be utilized as a repel-weapon. As such, it seems to me that boosting attack or defence would be a better choice.

-Sword of Swiftness (consider 16 base damage to even plausibly compete with frostbrand)

I find this one occasionally useful, but if you really need to boost it, why not increase its attack instead? Reasonably you want this weapon for lots of attacks - probably in order to overcome high defence.

Originally Posted by Jarkko

If you have a Fomorian King with Water, then you *definitively* do not want to craft a Wraith Sword for him. You want a FrostBran for him, and even with zero water gems, you'll get ahead by first alchemising the death-gems to water-gems... Why would you want to lose the shield on Fomorian King so that you could be wielding an inferior weapon?

That already tells just how bad the Wraith Sword is. Never seen one used by a player under Dom3 (but there are other things I never see which others think are common, so that doesn't prove anything ).

Again, this does not solve the reinvigoration issue.

If all you are looking for is high damage numbers, it does not make any sense to even attempt to fix the Wraith Sword. Just remove it along with any other weapons with special abilities that do not directly detract from the hp of your opponents.

If you need reinvigoration and you insist on wielding a Frost Brand, fine, but you have to get the reinvigoration from somewhere else, because the sword is certainly not solving the issue. So where do you get it, the gems for it and the needed slots?

As long as that is not done, the statement that the brand or any other weapon is superior in comparison to the Wraith Sword is not really worth anything.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

Neither of those provide you with reinvigoration, so they are not suitable replacements for a Wraith Sword.

If all you are after is damage, a Wraith Sword is not what you need, but there are other situations.

If you want lifedrain you have to choose between Wraith Sword, Blood Thorn or Standard of the Damned, but that last one is in form of an item spell.

Reinvigoration: there are plenty of non-weapon ways to get this, none of whom require you to make attacks to get the reinvigoration. And if the option is a crappy weapon and reinvigoration or a good weapon and reinvigoration from elsewhere, especially when a good weapon + an item of reinvigoration is << the cost of a wraithsword, well, i'll take the two item solution every time.

Lifedrain: When has any thug or SC design required lifedrain to be useful, especially since its so trivial to counter? Seriously, cast Soul Vortex already if you want it that badly...

The only thug I can think of that cares about a weapon like this is the Skratti, who will take the Blood Thorn every time because blood slaves are cheap and expendable (and it takes fewer slaves than the wraithsword does d, and is 1h to boot!)

At 10d the wraithsword would still be overpriced for what it does.

You've still failed to show a reason anyone would actually build one of the things, especially when the alternatives are all better by any metric, including the exact features that might tempt one to make a wraith sword to begin with. When you stack on this that what a wraith sword does is not especially useful for thugs or SCs as they are typically geared, and the wraith sword saddles its relatively unimportant good features with an otherwise bad weapon at a ridiculous gem price, its pretty clear no one would ever bother to use it.

Again, this does not solve the reinvigoration issue.

If all you are looking for is high damage numbers, it does not make any sense to even attempt to fix the Wraith Sword. Just remove it along with any other weapons with special abilities that do not directly detract from the hp of your opponents.

If you need reinvigoration and you insist on wielding a Frost Brand, fine, but you have to get the reinvigoration from somewhere else, because the sword is certainly not solving the issue. So where do you get it, the gems for it and the needed slots?

As long as that is not done, the statement that the brand or any other weapon is superior in comparison to the Wraith Sword is not really worth anything.

Boots of the Messenger. 5n. A Fomorian druid forges it for 3n with a hammer (your pretender has E to make the hammer). Frost brand + boots of the messenger = 3w + 3n with hammers << 18d for a wraithsword, and vastly better at any function.

Alternately: FK casts Soul Vortex...

[Mardagg]

I have to repeat here,that u cant really compare partial life draining to reinvigoration/regeneration items.
Also,isnt the item spell full life drain?

-There are certain opponents where life drain doesnt work
-U have to hit first and then do damage for life drain to work

Coupled with the fact,that the stats of the Wraith Sword are pretty bad,this generally makes it far inferior as a choice for solving solely Reinvig/Regen issues vs the other items doing that.
Also,since its 2 handed you are missing out the 2nd hand slot for getting e.g. another misc slot(ring of regen).

Generally i want to make many 2h melee items and some 1h melee items a better choice by improving the stats and by slightly nerfing the fire/frost brand.
Its not my intention to just do a "simple" nerf here, even though they surely do offer too much for the price.

As it stands i would say,that nerfing the fire brand to say 6AP base damage and nerfing the frost brand to say 12 base damage, without improving the others,would still make them the top choice as an all around weapon, by far,and as such wouldnt change much except for some raider nations like you said,Eriu for example.
Thats a bad idea and therefore just 1 piece of the puzzle.
If you leave them as they are and just improve the other weapons u would have to make several 2h weapons actually very overpowered so that they are able to replace the brands in many situations.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

I do not really see it. It seems more of a speciality weapon to me. The help to pillaging is huge, and the fear does not hurt. It is not the best for fighting, but then, that does not seem for what it is primarily intended.

The task for which it was primarily intended isn't worth the investment and can't be made so. In order for people to make use of it, it therefore needs to be improved in other areas.

Has anyone ever used the imp axe to pillage? Apart from to test it?

The Enchanted Pike has always seemed a weapon intended to be utilized as a repel-weapon. As such, it seems to me that boosting attack or defence would be a better choice.

See above. It isn't possible to make repel worth the investment without breaking the item in terms of att and dmg. Also def has nothing to do with repel. If it had att 99 dmg 99 len 6 the repel would be better than awe 0 (anyone passing a non modified morale check will take 1 damage and ignore it, anyone else will take 1 damage and that particular attack they made will be stopped). Still worse than awe 1 though. If it had att 4 and dmg 15 (reasonable stats) then the repel would be much, much worse than awe 0. The actual attacking and doing damage with the weapon is always going to outweigh the repel side of it by miles, simply because of the way repel works.

Again, this does not solve the reinvigoration issue.

If all you are looking for is high damage numbers, it does not make any sense to even attempt to fix the Wraith Sword. Just remove it along with any other weapons with special abilities that do not directly detract from the hp of your opponents.

If you need reinvigoration and you insist on wielding a Frost Brand, fine, but you have to get the reinvigoration from somewhere else, because the sword is certainly not solving the issue. So where do you get it, the gems for it and the needed slots?

A one handed weapon and a reinvig item take the same number of slots as the wraithsword (2) and are cheaper and better.

Throwing out anything that doesn't do /exactly/ what the wraithsword does while being cheaper and claiming that means the wraithsword has a use does not make sense. Nothing else does exactly what the imp axe does - does that mean it would be fine at 25 death gems and 6 research too?