Rapier - artefact or forged

Klendathu

I've heard differing things from different people regarding the rapier for a bard for PvP. Some people say soulpiercer is the way to go for to hit and loldmg, others say the speed is too low. Before I go and splurge 1600 cr on an artefact rapier to find it's bobbins, here's a handy poll. I don't care if you're an active combatant, ever been a bard, or whatever, just trying to canvas opinion from a broad spectrum of forum users

Mishgul

Whether soulpiercer is better or not, it's convenient. It won't decay, it won't get stolen.

Getting a forged rapier that will outdo a soulpiercer is difficult. You can always get the soulpiercer runed before every fight if you have the relevant friends to make it as good as a forged rapier in terms of afflicting potential, but you could do that with a forged rapier too to just be over the top.

Soulpiercers are above the boundary that you need to do well as a combatant, but forged rapiers can potentially make combat easier if you get the right ones.

Sena

You can't get weapons runed anymore (unless you're a runewarden and they're runeblades), can you?

Also, one thing to keep in mind is that in the long run (several RL years), top-end forged rapiers aren't necessarily much cheaper than soulpiercers. Some can go for 100+ credits, for a weapon that will decay.

Aelios

Mishgul said:

Whether soulpiercer is better or not, it's convenient. It won't decay, it won't get stolen.

Getting a forged rapier that will outdo a soulpiercer is difficult. You can always get the soulpiercer runed before every fight if you have the relevant friends to make it as good as a forged rapier in terms of afflicting potential, but you could do that with a forged rapier too to just be over the top.

Soulpiercers are above the boundary that you need to do well as a combatant, but forged rapiers can potentially make combat easier if you get the right ones.

Sena said:

You can't get weapons runed anymore (unless you're a runewarden and they're runeblades), can you?

Also, one thing to keep in mind is that in the long run (several RL years), top-end forged rapiers aren't necessarily much cheaper than soulpiercers. Some can go for 100+ credits, for a weapon that will decay.

No, unless you're a Runewarden, weapon runes don't take effect until the blade is Empowered.

A forged rapier with incredible stats will be far easier to come by. For 200 credits, you can score yourself a NEW rapier akin to an 70/154/243 or similar. For as low as 10 credits (I've bought one), you can buy the same rapier as mentioned before, but with around 30 months remaining or so if you find it. Store it in a bag of stasis or shop, and it's good for 2 months to almost forever, if you mind it.

In my eyes, a Soul piercer is not worth 1600 credits. Let's examine: 

Soulpiercer (Level 3 Artefact Rapier)

Pros

1.) It never decays.

2.) You will never lose it.

3.) The damage is awesome.

4.) The To-Hit is awesome.

5.) Customization options are available.

Cons

1.) Speed leaves a bit to be desired.

2.) It costs 1600 credits. ($480 in credits)

3.) You can't sell it without taking a 30% loss.

4.) Trade In value is 1055 credits. ($316 in credits) - net loss of $164 if you decide to sell it.

=========================================================

Forged Rapier

Pros

1.) It costs you (at most) 1/8th of a Soulpiercer.

2.) You can sell it for relatively what you paid for it

3.) Speed possibilities are far higher in Forged weapons.

4.) If you find stuff with low months, you can get an epic rapier for almost nothing.

5.) You're not "bound" to a swordsman class.

Cons

1.) To-Hit will always be sub-par to Soulpiercer

2.) Damage will always be sub-par to Soulpiercer

3.) You can accidentally drop it / lose it / have it stolen.

Sena

Aelios said:

2.) Damage will always be sub-par to Soulpiercer

Assuming songblessed rapiers don't have a different damage formula (they might): The damage stat (and thus the damage per hit) will usually be lower on a forged rapier, but the total damage output can be pretty similar* because of the higher speed. Then afflictions (and accentato for bards) tip the balance in favour of fast rapiers for dealing damage.

*To match soulpiercer DPS against a player with 6k health (the higher the health, the more of an advantage the speed stat has over the damage stat), a 70 damage rapier needs 247 speed. 239 speed will get it to about 95% of soulpiercer DPS. So it's nearly impossible to actually match the raw damage of soulpiercers, but you can get pretty close, and that's before considering afflictions and such.

Ernam

@Aelios' post was dead-on, but my two cents, having played a bard and owned SPs.

>230 speed rapiers are "essential" for affliction combat for knights, almost entirely for the purpose of exceeding the DSL/herb balance "barrier", typically at the expensive of dramatic drops in accuracy, if not both accuracy and damage.  This isn't the case for bard (because they're much faster, and also have access to stun), so that leap from 5cr to 100cr for 3 extra speed stat makes no sense.

While really high SP damage isn't essential to bard combat, it does open up a few decent strategies, and also helps keep bard viable in group (albeit still limited to melee) combat.  The bashing DPS is also worth considering as a non-dragon, which will be greatly improved by a SP.  I can also promise you that when you find yourself fighting that damn 19 dex serpent with trans avoidance, speed, weaving, and mounted, you'll appreciate the crazy to-hit.  (it's also nice for DKs)

The downsides of the SPs are no joke though - the big ones being that they (like most offensive arties) do limit your future class changes (without trading in), and also, which I'm surprised nobody mentioned, the upcoming changes to knights (and their weapons?) may impact rapier stats (both artie and forged).  I'd be a little nervous about buying raps of either kind right now.

Personally though, I'd just buy a nice, fast (230ish), forged rapier with as much to-hit as you can get, unless you're just rolling in credits to burn.  IMO 1600 credits would be much better spent on other things as a bard, like an artie mount, RoF, Lupine, tuning fork, and tanking arties (although bards are already relatively famous for being very hard to kill).

Sena

Ernam said:

@Aelios' post was dead-on, but my two cents, having played a bard and owned SPs.

>230 speed rapiers are "essential" for affliction combat for knights, almost entirely for the purpose of exceeding the DSL/herb balance "barrier", typically at the expensive of dramatic drops in accuracy, if not both accuracy and damage.  This isn't the case for bard (because they're much faster, and also have access to stun), so that leap from 5cr to 100cr for 3 extra speed stat makes no sense.

While really high SP damage isn't essential to bard combat, it does open up a few decent strategies, and also helps keep bard viable in group (albeit still limited to melee) combat.  The bashing DPS is also worth considering as a non-dragon, which will be greatly improved by a SP.  I can also promise you that when you find yourself fighting that damn 19 dex serpent with trans avoidance, speed, weaving, and mounted, you'll appreciate the crazy to-hit.  (it's also nice for DKs)

The downsides of the SPs are no joke though - the big ones being that they (like most offensive arties) do limit your future class changes (without trading in), and also, which I'm surprised nobody mentioned, the upcoming changes to knights (and their weapons?) may impact rapier stats (both artie and forged).  I'd be a little nervous about buying raps of either kind right now.

Personally though, I'd just buy a nice, fast (230ish), forged rapier with as much to-hit as you can get, unless you're just rolling in credits to burn.  IMO 1600 credits would be much better spent on other things as a bard, like an artie mount, RoF, Lupine, tuning fork, and tanking arties (although bards are already relatively famous for being very hard to kill).

In response to the bolded, Sarapis's posts after hearing about rapier stats would seem to indicate that artefact rapiers are only going to become a better choice with the changes, probably becoming entirely superior to forged rapiers even for knights. As for forged rapiers, it doesn't seem very likely that the changes will be soon enough to be a concern, they'll probably be close to decaying by then.

(Also you're still muted.)

Darroth

I remember you Klendathu. Big ass ashuran dragon monk. Get soul piercer.

Valaria

Sena said:

Ernam said:

@Aelios' post was dead-on, but my two cents, having played a bard and owned SPs.

>230 speed rapiers are "essential" for affliction combat for knights, almost entirely for the purpose of exceeding the DSL/herb balance "barrier", typically at the expensive of dramatic drops in accuracy, if not both accuracy and damage.  This isn't the case for bard (because they're much faster, and also have access to stun), so that leap from 5cr to 100cr for 3 extra speed stat makes no sense.

While really high SP damage isn't essential to bard combat, it does open up a few decent strategies, and also helps keep bard viable in group (albeit still limited to melee) combat.  The bashing DPS is also worth considering as a non-dragon, which will be greatly improved by a SP.  I can also promise you that when you find yourself fighting that damn 19 dex serpent with trans avoidance, speed, weaving, and mounted, you'll appreciate the crazy to-hit.  (it's also nice for DKs)

The downsides of the SPs are no joke though - the big ones being that they (like most offensive arties) do limit your future class changes (without trading in), and also, which I'm surprised nobody mentioned, the upcoming changes to knights (and their weapons?) may impact rapier stats (both artie and forged).  I'd be a little nervous about buying raps of either kind right now.

Personally though, I'd just buy a nice, fast (230ish), forged rapier with as much to-hit as you can get, unless you're just rolling in credits to burn.  IMO 1600 credits would be much better spent on other things as a bard, like an artie mount, RoF, Lupine, tuning fork, and tanking arties (although bards are already relatively famous for being very hard to kill).

In response to the bolded, Sarapis's posts after hearing about rapier stats would seem to indicate that artefact rapiers are only going to become a better choice with the changes, probably becoming entirely superior to forged rapiers even for knights. As for forged rapiers, it doesn't seem very likely that the changes will be soon enough to be a concern, they'll probably be close to decaying by then.

(Also you're still muted.)

if that what indicate there will be update to that artefact, then i hope so because it would make it my worth to purchase those updated artefact rapiers.... however, right now, Forged high-end rapiers are only thing that worth my time in most of situation.

Tesha

You want a high speed rapier with decent tohit, somewhere above 50/146/235, if possible. You usually have to choose one stat on a rapier to settle for crap with, and I'd recommend letting that stat be damage; accentato scales with int and enough speed lets you hit with accentato absurdly fast (~1.5ish for ~1000ish damage) with just prefarar/accentato and cantata rebounding/shield. I used a 247 runed up to 257, which isn't possible anymore, but you might be able to find a 243 or so if you offer enough credits. I sold my 247 at 200 credits.

Exelethril

@Aelios : I think a 70/154/243 rapier is probably worth much more than 200 credits these days due to scarcity(300-400 credits, maybe). I still can't find any viable rapiers so I'm stuck with two 104/164/225s for bashing and a 88/168/249 in a stockroom, hrrngh.

Aelios

Exelethril said:

@Aelios : I think a 70/154/243 rapier is probably worth much more than 200 credits these days due to scarcity(300-400 credits, maybe). I still can't find any viable rapiers so I'm stuck with two 104/164/225s for bashing and a 88/168/249 in a stockroom, hrrngh.

@Exelethril - That's, unfortunately, due to the commodity prices more than anything. People just can't afford to make the thousands of rapiers they did before. Stuff isn't cheap!

Valdus

Aelios said:

Exelethril said:

@Aelios : I think a 70/154/243 rapier is probably worth much more than 200 credits these days due to scarcity(300-400 credits, maybe). I still can't find any viable rapiers so I'm stuck with two 104/164/225s for bashing and a 88/168/249 in a stockroom, hrrngh.

@Exelethril - That's, unfortunately, due to the commodity prices more than anything. People just can't afford to make the thousands of rapiers they did before. Stuff isn't cheap!

And the fact that rapiers take fucking forever to make a decent one.

I've had the forging script running for IRL days before seeing anything above 227.

You don't even really make a profit considering the sheer quantity of ingots you have to buy, anyway. I would have zero problem making a Smith alt and just forging for 6 months in order to sell for credits and trans his skills and buy some artifacts, but the bottom line is that if I just spent the credits I'd be cashing in for gold in order to buy the comms I'd be better off in the first place.

People just don't value Smiths enough and just think "400 credits for a rapier? WTF dude you're over charging."

Exelethril

@Valdus : Yeah, no one really takes time into account as a factor. I don't forge because I don't enjoy the risk/time associated with it.

Ernam

Well, as harsh as it may sound, forging isn't "working", as no creative power or even attention is required.  So (having played trans knight five times), I honestly don't see the (lack of) profit as a problem.  Since ratting requires actually looking at your screen occasionally, even that should be (and probably is) more profitable.

On another note, most classes don't have attacks than can be directly improved by taking a trip to the ol' weapon shop.  So as much as "top 0.0001%" forged weapons go, there really is no room to complain.  The class is balanced around "decent" weapons.  Anything above and beyond and you're effectively buying artefacts... without buying artefacts.

Since most artefacts can't be forged, yet forged knight weapons can easily be comparable or even "better" than level 3 weapons (one out of every 10 forged flails, for example), I think the pure fact that you even have the option to make your basic attack faster, or do more damage, simply by paying gold, should be something every knight is highly appreciative of.

I know it's an age-old debate, but frankly I think people just expect too much out of non-artefact stuff.  I don't expect a forged dirk to out-perform a Thoth's fang, so I don't see why rapiers would be different.  Can't wait to see the changes to forging, personally.

Alaskar

Out of curiosity, does anyone ever try augmenting weapons or armor? Does anyone know the success rates, or how it determines which stat is raised?

Sena

According to Clementius in 2007, there's about a 50% chance of an item surviving 7 augments, and a bit less than a 1/50,000,000,000,000 chance to reach 30. Aliath was testing augment on darkbows for a while too, which you can see here.

I don't know how it chooses which stat is increased. I would guess each option is equally likely.

Daslin

lol just saying here. I spent a day forging rapiers, came out with something like 4 229s, 1 230, and a 235. And by day, I mean I stockpiled steel and just forged for near 24 hours.

Aerek

The Soulpiercer's damage coupled with Accentato is not to be understated. Straight damage strategies will have trouble with artefacted opponents, but speaking for my largely unartefacted self, I have a hard time handling ArtiBard damage even as a Runewarden with 4500+ health, Algiz, and fullplate. You'd probably make 80% of the game weep tears of impotent rage, and grinding would be a breeze.

However, If you really want to unlock the full potential of the class in combat, I think you'd need a forged rapier. A basic, basic Bard lock setup requires 2 jabs inside of 4 seconds (restoration salve balance) to complete, which is only possible with a 1.9 jab speed or faster. A Soulpiercer's 228 speed isn't exactly slow, but I'd expect it to come out right at 2.0-2.1 with Nimble, which is just slow enough to make it not the greatest choice.

Given that, I'd cast my official vote for a forged weapon as the ideal choice, but at the end of the day, I think you'd just have to ask how into 1v1 combat you are. If you only have a passing interest in it, and mostly you take part in group fights or hunting, I think a Soulpiercer would probably be great for you. If single combat is really what you're into, though, you'll probably get bored with 'Piercer damage strats, and will want to find a faster forged weapon.

Edit: I always forget you guys have Canticle. If Canticle can reduce a Soulpiercer's balance time below 2 seconds, Soulpiercer would become fast enough for all the Bard tactics that I know of, plus its insane damage. Really hard to say in that scenario, so it'd be something you'd have to test thoroughly before making a decision.

Aelios

@Ernam said:

Well, as harsh as it may sound, forging isn't "working", as no creative power or even attention is required.  So (having played trans knight five times), I honestly don't see the (lack of) profit as a problem.  Since ratting requires actually looking at your screen occasionally, even that should be (and probably is) more profitable.

You could say the same for fishing, or bashing, or virtually any in-game method. The fact of the matter is, you - and everyone else - want decent armour and decent weapons. SOMEBODY has to make them. I know you would be one of the first people blowing me up with tells in the event your armour fades, wanting some nice gear. In order to make said gear, people refuse to buy anything that's Poor-Fair quality (as to be expected). Good quality gear doesn't casually populate, but the returns aren't that bad. Excellent gear, however, comes up maybe once every 6 hours of forging? In 6 hours of doing anything else, I could harvest around 50k on the low end. More realistically, 75k. That Excellent gear that I made might sell for around 50k or so, but it doesn't take into account the steel or leather. Let's take a look!

Splintmail : Best of 200 sets

Total Steel required : 3600.      ||    Total Steel used through smelt-throughs : about 2160.

Total Leather required : 1000   || Total Leather used through smelt-throughs : about 600

Cost for 2160 steel = 432,000 gold (at 200 per)  | Cost for 600 leather : 21,000 gold (at 35 per)

Total cost to make the gear : 453,000 gold + 6 hours time standing in a room "Playing a Computer Game" forging.

Scalemail : Best of 200 sets

Total Steel required : 1200.      ||      Total Steel used through smelt-throughs : about 720     

Total Leather required : 1000   || Total Leather used through smelt-throughs : about 600

Cost for 720 steel : 144,000 gold (at 200 per) || Cost for 600 leather : 21,000 gold (at 35 per)

Total cost to make the gear : 165,000 gold + 6 hours time standing in a room "Playing a Computer Game" forging.

The mechanics work exactly the same for rapiers, however rapiers are a LOT harder to come by for Good / Excellent statistics.

On another note, most classes don't have attacks than can be directly improved by taking a trip to the ol' weapon shop.  So as much as "top 0.0001%" forged weapons go, there really is no room to complain.  The class is balanced around "decent" weapons.  Anything above and beyond and you're effectively buying artefacts... without buying artefacts.

What identifies "decent" ? A rapier that is 70/150/223? Better? Worse? The fact of the matter is that every Tom, Dick, and Harry want AT LEAST a 70/150/227, if not better in speed, let alone damage. Those don't just casually pop up. They're rare enough in their own right that I'd be willing to bet you on the regular that I'd have a better chance of forging 250 rapiers in a row that aren't those stats than I would of having one come along that does.

Since most artefacts can't be forged, yet forged knight weapons can easily be comparable or even "better" than level 3 weapons (one out of every 10 forged flails, for example), I think the pure fact that you even have the option to make your basic attack faster, or do more damage, simply by paying gold, should be something every knight is highly appreciative of.

I know it's an age-old debate, but frankly I think people just expect too much out of non-artefact stuff.  I don't expect a forged dirk to out-perform a Thoth's fang, so I don't see why rapiers would be different.  Can't wait to see the changes to forging, personally.

See, that's just it. Stat wise, you can forge a dirk that's better than a fang. What a fang offers, however, is dstab speed that's - what - 23% faster? If I could DSL 23% faster with a Soul Piercer, the argument would be different. But that's now how Knight is designed. Artifact weaponry is (to an extent) joke compared to other weapons such as an Artifact Bow or Dirk. The only way to get the speed needed to steadily afflict anything is having a 227 minimum and never missing balance or hinder. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if Knight had a method to get around parry - but considering either they have to have Broken Arms, be Proned, Paralyzed, or otherwise hindered - the only viable option is afflictions. (Unless you want to spend around 30 seconds breaking arms to get 2-3 hits in on a static-parry leg)

Sorry, know the thread is about Bards but I had to reply to this and give some air to the situation. 

@Aerek brings up a good point about Canticle - one I hadn't considered. Worth a look at least!

Klendathu

Aelios said:

Sorry, know the thread is about Bards but I had to reply to this and give some air to the situation. 

You raise some useful and interesting points about forging, go right ahead!

Caladbolg

Ernam said:

Well, as harsh as it may sound, forging isn't "working", as no creative power or even attention is required.  So (having played trans knight five times), I honestly don't see the (lack of) profit as a problem.  Since ratting requires actually looking at your screen occasionally, even that should be (and probably is) more profitable.

On another note, most classes don't have attacks than can be directly improved by taking a trip to the ol' weapon shop.  So as much as "top 0.0001%" forged weapons go, there really is no room to complain.  The class is balanced around "decent" weapons.  Anything above and beyond and you're effectively buying artefacts... without buying artefacts.

Since most artefacts can't be forged, yet forged knight weapons can easily be comparable or even "better" than level 3 weapons (one out of every 10 forged flails, for example), I think the pure fact that you even have the option to make your basic attack faster, or do more damage, simply by paying gold, should be something every knight is highly appreciative of.

I know it's an age-old debate, but frankly I think people just expect too much out of non-artefact stuff.  I don't expect a forged dirk to out-perform a Thoth's fang, so I don't see why rapiers would be different.  Can't wait to see the changes to forging, personally.

Sentinel's Bards Knights.. Anything that can get an item that is purely better, and while you don't have to pay attention to forge, fish rat or even bash for that matter, Your risking being shrubbed. And let's be honest, who actually forges with out automating it.

Ernam

@Caladbolg Lets be honest, who bashes using DOR.  Certainly not me!

[ On subject ]

Now that I have a fully artied bard (again) I can say that, without a doubt, forged rapier is WAY better than a soulpiercer.  These numbers are with Nimble and canticle:

Thoth's fang jab: ~1.3 seconds
SP (228 speed) jab: 2.1 seconds
forged (243 speed): 1.75 seconds

Anyone who's ever played an affliction class knows that the difference between 2.1 and 1.75 is pretty damn massive.  And the accuracy drop from the forged rapier is actually pretty minimal, thanks to songblessing.  Non-existent in some cases.  The only real difference is the damage, which for bard, is honestly pretty ignorable, since we have absolutely no hindrance, allowing people to simple leave the room if they get low on health, and ultimately screws over otherwise well set-up lock attempts.  As of now, I'm only using my SP for the relatively infrequent 4+ mental aff accentato (which even with SP and 20 str, is still actually somewhat weak), and lunges (requires songblessing for bard, and).  Note: forged damage rapiers are better than SP for lunge, too, technically.
 
Several thoughts come to mind having timed these results:

1)  Why the hell is SP so damn slow?  A $500 rapier should not suck this hard.
2)  Why does bard have no hindrance, at all?
3)  Why is a single jab dramatically slower than DSL?
4)  Why aren't there "speed" rapiers, akin to lashes, available?

Achilles

I remember when testing with Tesha awhile back that Bards don't lose any damage when targeting limbs, is that still the case?

Ernam

I don't know, but I don't see why it would matter at all.  For previously mentioned reasons, bard damage is at best meaningless, and at worst, something better off avoided (by the bard).  I'll test it next time I'm around though.

Achilles

without having played a bard before I still think a few well placed mangled limbs can help keep the target in the room a bit longer to lock or damage burst.

Antonius

Ernam said:

Several thoughts come to mind having timed these results:

1)  Why the hell is SP so damn slow?  A $500 rapier should not suck this hard.
2)  Why does bard have no hindrance, at all?
3)  Why is a single jab dramatically slower than DSL?
4)  Why aren't there "speed" rapiers, akin to lashes, available?

1. Artefact stats are based off of the average result from forging that weapon type, and the average speed on a rapier really isn't that great. Should get reworked as part of the weapon changes, but they may be a while off. I honestly wish they'd buff them sooner (I've basically resigned myself to not playing until that happens), but unlikely to see that happen.
3. It's not. Soulpiercer doubleslash is 2.2 seconds, doubleslash with 243 speed rapiers should be about 1.8 seconds; jab is exactly the same speed. You're getting slightly faster results with canticle - how much does that boost balance recovery speed by?
4. Because the whole point of rapiers is that they're fast. There's no real need to provide two options, the single option that's available should just be a lot faster than it is currently.

Also, lunge: Last I tested, Chivalry lunge was weapon stat independent. It's possible Swashbuckling lunge is different or something has changed, but I'd be surprised if that was the case.

Jhui

Ernam said:

2)  Why does bard have no hindrance, at all?

afflictions hinder, harmonics hinder, tremolo hinders, force can hinder, percussia hinders.

Strangely enough all of the above can be used at the exact same time (literally all 5 of these can fit without 1 second)


are you retarded or just not creative?

Zeon

wants easy button tentacle-esc hindering

Dunn

I run a 231 with good to hit and a 243 with shitty to hit that I change to when target is paralysed. I obtained both for 10 credits.  

Mizik

I'd be down to give them tentacles. They have vertigo song and balance less force.