Dwarven Axe VS Khopesh VS Bastard Sword

[Justicar]

hahahahaha, you tell em man

hey POSTERS,

here's an idea.

Quit being self righteous boobs and explain to me what I did wrong.

Quit acting like a bunch of know it all self-righteous _-_-_- and say, "hey you need to add str and PA into the mix to see the khopesh shine."

I haven't been playing since I was a little zygote like you guys, I have a life. So I don't know everything there is to know about this game. I was posting what I KNEW (see my signature if you want proof).

You my friend are just being rude. instead of criticizing me as a person, give me what I need to know. Don't talk about me, saying I am demonstrating a lack of knowledge and how I am stupid. OF COURSE I AM, I don't eat this game for breakfast 24 hr/day

[gfunk]

just of some perspective, the range of damage modifiers for all builds in my twf thread are:

+28 to 57 main hand (avg 44.0 for the builds listed)
+24 to 47 main hand (avg 35.6 for the builds listed)

you could remove inspire heroics and prayer to come up with a more common damage modifier for non-raiding:

+20 to 49 main hand (avg 36.0 for the builds listed)
+16 to 39 main hand (avg 27.6 for the builds listed)

Those are numbers at lvl 20 though, so +30 is probably a good average to use as a generic number for average builds at lvl 16.

The other thing that comes into it is enhancements to crit multipiers and range. This might make 1 weapon better for some classes than others. for example, heavy picks are slightly better than dwarven axes, which are better than bastard swords for kensai fighters (at +30 damage modifier) but the same is not true for a stalwart defender (At the same damage modifier, obviously I'm not adding anything extra for dwarven racial axe enhancements here, thats not the point):

formula:
[(normal damage) * (normal range/20)] + [(crit damage) * (crit range/20)] = average damage

for a kensai fighter:

heavy pick (kensai get +1 to crit range and +4 to crit damage)
(4.5 +30)*16/20 + (4.5 +30 +4) *4) *3/20)=50.7

dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*16/20 + (9 +30 +4) *3) *3/20) = 50.55

bastard sword:
(9 +30)*14/20 + (9 +30 +4)*2) *5/20) =49.80

in this example, you can see that the bastard sword is the worst weapon, and the heavy pick is the best (by a narrow margin)

if you add in a bloodstone, the difference increases:

heavy pick (+10 with bloodstone + kensai crit damage)
(4.5 +30)*16/20 + (4.5 +30 +10) *4) *3/20)=54.30

dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*16/20 + (9 +30 +10) *3) *3/20) = 53.25

bastard sword:
(9 + 30)*14/20 + (9 +30 +10)*2) *5/20) =51.80


for a stalwart defender:

heavy pick:
(4.5 +30)*17/20 + (4.5 +30) *4) *2/20) = 43.13

dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*17/20 + (9 +30) *3) *2/20) = 44.85

bastard sword:
(9 + 30)*15/20 + (9 +30 )*2) *4/20) =44.85

The bastard sword is now just as good as the dwarven axe, and both are better than the heavy pick, however:

with bloodstone:

heavy pick
(4.5 +30)*17/20 + (4.5 +30 +6) *4) *2/20) = 45.53

dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*17/20 + (9 +30 +6) *3) *2/20) = 46.65

bastard sword:
(9 + 30)*15/20 + (9 +30 +6 )*2) *4/20) = 47.25

the bloodstone makes the bastard sword a better weapon in this case.

But wait! the story is not yet over, because many mobs have FORTIFICATION! this means that much of the critical power of a weapon is lost! For example a 50% fortification level (harry on normal, dev confirmed) means that 50% of critical hits are resisted and damage is instead rolled normally. This essentially cuts the crit range of all the weapons in half giving:

for a kensai fighter:

heavy pick
(4.5 +30)*17.5/20 + (4.5 +30 +4) *4) *1.5/20)=41.74
dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*17.5/20 + (9 +30 +4) *3) *1.5/20) = 43.8
bastard sword:
(9 +30)*16.5/20 + (9 +30 +4)*2) *2.5/20) =43.43

previously, the bastard sword was the worst weapon, but against 50% fortification it now pulls ahead of the heavy pick

with bloodstone:

heavy pick (+10 with bloodstone + kensai crit damage)
(4.5 +30)*17.5/20 + (4.5 +30 +10) *4) *1.5/20)=43.54
dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*17.5/20 + (9 +30 +10) *3) *1.5/20) = 45.15
bastard sword:
(9 + 30)*16.5/20 + (9 +30 +10)*2) *2.5/20) =44.43

The bloodstone decreases the difference, but the order remains the same

for a stalwart defender:


heavy pick:
(4.5 +30)*18/20 + (4.5 +30) *4) *1/20) = 37.95
dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*18/20 + (9 +30) *3) *1/20) = 40.95
bastard sword:
(9 + 30)*17/20 + (9 +30 )*2) *2/20) =40.95
with bloodstone:

heavy pick
(4.5 +30)*18/20 + (4.5 +30 +6) *4) *1/20) = 39.15
dwarven axe:
(9 +30)*18/20 + (9 +30 +6) *3) *1/20) =41.85
bastard sword:
(9 + 30)*17/20 + (9 +30 +6 )*2) *2/20) = 42.15

so, why does the bastard sword have a bad reputation? 3 reasons:
1) it takes a feat (vs the heavy pick which doesn't, or the d axe that dwarves get)
2) it has no racial enhancements (so the d axe pulls ahead)
2) its not a khopesh

The khopesh is just a brute of a weapon. Here are the numbers for it:

for kensai fighter
khopesh
(5.5 +30)*14/20 + (5.5 +30 +4)*3) *5/20) =55.98
khopesh with bloodstone
(5.5 + 30)*14/20 + (5.5 +30 +10)*3) *5/20) =58.98

Stalwart defender:
khopesh
(5.5 + 30)*15/20 + (5.5 +30 )*3) *4/20) =47.93
khopesh with bloodstone
(5.5 + 30)*15/20 + (5.5 +30 +6 )*3) *4/20) = 51.53

So vs. no fortification, the khopesh is the best of all of the weapons in any of the 4 configurations that I have listed. Thats why its popular.. its the carte blanche best weapon for almost all builds at typical damage modifiers

However, VS 50% fort:

for kensai fighter
khopesh
(5.5 +30)*16.5/20 + (5.5 +30 +4)*3) *2.5/20) =44.85
khopesh with bloodstone
(5.5 + 30)*16.5/20 + (5.5 +30 +10)*3) *2.5/20) =46.35
Stalwart defender:
khopesh
(5.5 + 30)*17/20 + (5.5 +30 )*3) *2/20) =37.28
khopesh with bloodstone
(5.5 + 30)*17/20 + (5.5 +30 +6 )*3) *2/20) = 42.63

In this case, compare the khopesh vs the bastard sword and dwarven axe for the stalwart defender (without bloodsteon) and it starts to fall behind. It picks up its lead again if you add in the bloodstone. Its also still the best weapon for all the kensai fighter scenarios, however the difference is muted at 50% fort. Obviously, at 100% fort, the weapons with the best base damage are the best (dwarven axe + bastard sword). The fortification level for which higher base damage weapons beat the khopesh is variable, but generally ranges from 50 to 75%.

Buy Wait! the story isnt over... sigh...

We didnt add in weapon effects, which still land even if the target is crit immune. Im not going to put in all the math for this.. it would get way to messy for most people to follow. Instead I'll just put in the average effects damage for triple positive weapons, with all dps tiers (i should point out that at some point, the 3rd tiers of these weapons were changed, which causes endless confusion. compare the images in these two links:

old: http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i195/Aundymeister/SupremeTyrantLongsword.jpg
new: http://images.quickblogcast.com/82681-72328/green_steel.jpg

The difference is that the old version is missing some extra crit damage coming from good blast, which previously only added damage on a 20. Incidently, the old version is still listed as the type example on the stone of change thread.)

effects damage with normal improved crit:
bastard sword
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
2.1 … good burst on crit (3d6*4/20) tier II
2.1 … good blast on crit (3d6*4/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
15.4

khopesh
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
2.8 … good burst on crit (4d6*4/20) tier II
2.8 … good blast on crit (4d6*4/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
16.8

dwarven axe
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
1.4 … good burst on crit (4d6*2/20) tier II
1.4 … good blast on crit (4d6*2/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
14.0

heavy pick
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
1.8 … good burst on crit (5d6*2/20) tier II
1.8 … good blast on crit (5d6*2/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
14.7

with kensai III improved crit

bastard sword
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
2.6 … good burst on crit (3d6*5/20) tier II
2.6 … good blast on crit (3d6*5/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
16.5

khopesh
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
3.5 … good burst on crit (4d6*5/20) tier II
3.5 … good blast on crit (4d6*5/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
18.2

dwarven axe
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
2.1 … good burst on crit (4d6*3/20) tier II
2.1 … good blast on crit (4d6*3/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
15.4

heavy pick
7.0 … holy
3.5 … good
2.6 … good burst on crit (5d6*3/20) tier II
2.6 … good blast on crit (5d6*3/20) tier III
0.7 … good blast on 20 (4d6 %1/20) tier III
16.5

ok, thats a bit tough to see at a glance... here is a summary table:

reg … kensai III
15.4 … 16.5 … bastard sword
16.8 … 18.2 … khopesh
14.0 … 15.4 … dwarven axe
14.7 … 16.5 … heavy pick

Once again the khopesh shows its dominance, this time it is better than all other weapons in both scenarios. Combining this with the earlier base weapon data we get (best in each catagory is bolded:

vs no fortification:
kensai . kensai w/ bs . stalwart . stalwart w/ bs
67.15 … 70.75 ......… 57.83 … 60.23 … heavy pick
65.95 … 68.65 ......… 58.85 … 60.65 … dwarven axe
66.25 … 68.25 ......… 60.25 … 62.65 … bastard sword
74.18 … 77.18 …...... 64.73 … 68.33 … khopesh

VS 50% fortification:
kensai . kensai w/ bs. stalwart . stalwart w/ bs
58.19 … 59.99 ...….. 52.65 … 53.85 … heavy pick
59.20 … 60.55 .....… 54.95 … 55.85 … dwarven axe
59.88 … 60.88 …..... 56.35 … 57.55 … bastard sword
63.05 … 64.55 …..... 54.08 … 59.43 … khopesh

now, the khopesh is better in all situations, except for the non-crit improved melee fighting a mob with 50% fortification and not using a bloodstone. I'm not going to add it in, but you can imagine that once again, as fortification increases, the weapons with higher base damage will eventually overtake the khopesh and heavy pick (only the cross over point will be a bit higher when you include weapon effects.

whew..

[gfunk]

PS: I do feel the OP does deserve some sort of apology for people correcting him the way they did... While we do understand (and as does he now) that he was initially incorrect... lack of knowledge of all facts of DnD or DDO in any case does not reflect nor bare any warrant on ones true intellect. One may correct instructively, constructively or destructively the later of which 't is not bloody nice.

I agree, people are rude however we are talking about the forums here. remember what they say about the forums:

"You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious"..

or was that somewhere else.. hmm

[Asketes]

Thanks for the info guys!

GFUNK awesome work and thanks for taking your time to post and write all that up!


I didn't know good blast was changed. that's awesome! more dps.

So how much late game do you think is 50%+ fortified?

hehe

[gfunk]

So how much late game do you think is 50%+ fortified?

hehe

well, there are alot more pieces of data and scenarios to consider. I put in the triple pos damage because I wanted to bring up the discrepancy in weapon effects, however I probably should have included mineral II effects to provide people with a comparison that means something to them (i.e. beating up harry).

The problem is, that lots of people have different configurations of mineral II's. Personally I favor: tier I as positive damage , tier II acid damage and tier III as an insight or other non-damaging effect. Other people like to put acid first. Other people like thier tier III portion with a damaging effect.

Then you have to consider if the mob you are fighting is immune to any of the effects... acid is a common one for end game, but holy loses out vs mobs that aren't evil (in which case a "good" tier II would be better). When fighting Harry, you won't tend to do very much acid damage, so you would lose alot of the benefit of the khopeshes higher crit power with regard to the bursting damage. This would tend to equalize the weapons a bit more.

Anyways, as to which mobs are crit immune at end game the most important ones currently are Elementals. I hear that there will be some shadows in the new mod, so Undead might be another important crit immune endgame mob to consider (plus the skeletons in the subterrane, but they have DR/blunt so thats a whole other problem). I hear there is a named iron golem in the explorer area in mod 9.. maybe there will be other Constructs as well.

And finally, there are always raid/end bosses to consider and its a bit hard to say what the devs might do there but I would suspect that any raid boss we have will possess at minimum 50% fort, some level of acid and fire resistance, possibly DR/ to some weapon types/materials, and possibly evasion.

The combination of all those factors further complicates our analyses of weapon superiority. It's safe to say that khopesh will always treat you pretty well, but other weapons might be situationally superior, or they might be easier to come by. The other thing to consider is the possible addition of named weapons in mod 10. Some people postulate that there will be a holy avenger longsword, and who knows what else they might throw in? Maybe another brutishly powerful weapon like the deathnip, or perhaps they will try and give love to the unwanted weapons and put in a named shurikan and warhammer. I think its wise to wait a couple months (or more?) for the next mod before making any expensive decisions on weapon types.

Personally, I have saved enough ingredients to switch my fighter from duel bastard swords over to duel khopeshes as I feel that they will serve me better in a wider range of scenarios when I switch to kensai. (before the changes to fighter crit range, the difference was not as great and I had been using bastard swords for flavor and because they seem to drop like mad out of chests. I get one pretty much every day I play, but I hardly ever see any khopeshes drop. I personally am suspicious that the dev's gave bastard swords a higher drop rate to encourage their use). I'm going to hold off crafting the khopeshes until I find out for sure there will be no named bastard swords.

[Kaldaka]

It only gets better for the khopesh the more you start adding to base damage.

What he said ...

[QuantumFX]

PS: I do feel the OP does deserve some sort of apology for people correcting him the way they did... While we do understand (and as does he now) that he was initially incorrect... lack of knowledge of all facts of DnD or DDO in any case does not reflect nor bare any warrant on ones true intellect. One may correct instructively, constructively or destructively the later of which 't is not bloody nice.

The only thing that I'm sorry about is that the OP has such a fragile ego. Critique sucks, but he decided to post without verifying his math. Then he decided to act like a drama queen the moment he perceived a threat to his conclusion. (You notice I never insulted him but he decided to go on his little whine fest anyway.)

[Asketes]

The only thing that I'm sorry about is that the OP has such a fragile ego. Critique sucks, but he decided to post without verifying his math. Then he decided to act like a drama queen the moment he perceived a threat to his conclusion. (You notice I never insulted him but he decided to go on his little whine fest anyway.)

I pity you bud.

I acted not as a drama queen, but as someone who was spit in the face by a bunch of "know it all's" acting like lunatics.

I don't have a fragile ego; the fact that it is counter productive to be hostile towards a poster who is putting his findings up for critique, is what bothers me. It does nothing but to waste my time and the reader's time.

You may want to go back to school there kid, my math is and was, flawless. Where I went wrong was not "knowing" to implement str and/or power attack into the damage.

[Junts]

I pity you bud.

I acted not as a drama queen, but as someone who was spit in the face by a bunch of "know it all's" acting like lunatics.

I don't have a fragile ego; the fact that it is counter productive to be hostile towards a poster who is putting his findings up for critique, is what bothers me. It does nothing but to waste my time and the reader's time.

You may want to go back to school there kid, my math is and was, flawless. Where I went wrong was not "knowing" to implement str and/or power attack into the damage.

That's cool, but this math has been done about 60 times on the forums and is readily available if you use the search feature, picked over and critiqued to the point where nothing's left out.


The initial responses to your post weren't even particularly hostile, and your response was needlessly defensive. However, it needed to be corrected because it advanced an inaccurate and misleading conclusion (that bastard swords were better than khopeshes) that causes needless problems later when some poor newbie reads your thread, believes it and shows up in the shroud with two ****** bastard swords and won't listen to anyone suggesting they get a real weapon.

You'd do a lot of service by updating your initial post with the correct findings, strength/pa numbers, etc to display the assorted points at which khopesh is not the best weapon in the game (all 5% of them).

[gfunk]

A long time ago I made a post concerning some math matter where I was missing some assumptions that were probably not obvious unless you had a good deal of experience with the game. I also got some resposes that were rather curt.. they didn't say "hey, your an idiot", but they were written in a rather blunt and condescending in tone. When I remarked that perhaps it would be more constructive to respond in a more courteous manner, I was also made fun of for my "fragile ego", and told to grow up by a couple of the posters.

I learned then, that internet forums are not a place where everyone values civility. I find it hard to believe that people might communicate that way in real life, but perhaps I am living in a bit of a bubble existance.

In my world, people don't bluntly say "things like Wrong, you fail to understand the fundamental aspects of this rather basic concept", they will instead say "I think that you are mistaken, here is why I think so...".

Here on the forums, not everyone seems to agree with what I think is a good communication manner... I know, I know.. its crazy..

In the end, I try not to fire back at people who I view as discourteous... it only provokes them. And besides, other people have a very different idea about what "polite" is so they might not even know that you are finding their words offensive.

[Thanimal]

In the end, I try not to fire back at people who I view as discourteous... it only provokes them.

Very solid advice. But BOY is it hard to implement!

[gfunk]

That's cool, but this math has been done about 60 times on the forums and is readily available if you use the search feature, picked over and critiqued to the point where nothing's left out.


The initial responses to your post weren't even particularly hostile, and your response was needlessly defensive. However, it needed to be corrected because it advanced an inaccurate and misleading conclusion (that bastard swords were better than khopeshes) that causes needless problems later when some poor newbie reads your thread, believes it and shows up in the shroud with two ****** bastard swords and won't listen to anyone suggesting they get a real weapon.

You'd do a lot of service by updating your initial post with the correct findings, strength/pa numbers, etc to display the assorted points at which khopesh is not the best weapon in the game (all 5% of them).

Not everyhing has been picked over, and many of the threads have misleading and incomplete information. Bastard swords are actually nearly as good as or better than khopeshes for some (lower str without crit improvement) builds, even vs. Harry, and that information is often buried in the rampant bastard sword bashing on the forums.

[Asketes]

A long time ago I made a post concerning some math matter where I was missing some assumptions that were probably not obvious unless you had a good deal of experience with the game. I also got some resposes that were rather curt.. they didn't say "hey, your an idiot", but they were written in a rather blunt and condescending in tone. When I remarked that perhaps it would be more constructive to respond in a more courteous manner, I was also made fun of for my "fragile ego", and told to grow up by a couple of the posters.

I learned then, that internet forums are not a place where everyone values civility. I find it hard to believe that people might communicate that way in real life, but perhaps I am living in a bit of a bubble existance.

In my world, people don't bluntly say "things like Wrong, you fail to understand the fundamental aspects of this rather basic concept", they will instead say "I think that you are mistaken, here is why I think so...".

Here on the forums, not everyone seems to agree with what I think is a good communication manner... I know, I know.. its crazy..

In the end, I try not to fire back at people who I view as discourteous... it only provokes them. And besides, other people have a very different idea about what "polite" is so they might not even know that you are finding their words offensive.

Well spoken Gfunk, I shall take your words into strong consideration.



AFTER THIS NEXT POST

(next post is in no way intended to be cruel or disrespectful to Junts, but it comes off a bit strong. hehe

[Asketes]

That's cool, but this math has been done about 60 times on the forums and is readily available if you use the search feature, picked over and critiqued to the point where nothing's left out.

I agree with you Junts, this math HAS been done a bunch of times, but the search function isn't as clean cut as hoped (it's as good as it can get given it's functionality). Searching for Crit DPS, or best weapon, or best weapon dps, or critical dps, weapon damage all brings up tons of posts that have nothing to really do with what I was looking for.

The initial responses to your post weren't even particularly hostile, and your response was needlessly defensive.

You have totally missed the point as to why the kopesh is better.useless, waste of my time, tells me nothing except (at the time) what seemed like an opinionated belief. Without telling me why, it does nobody any good and thus should never have been posted.

Besides pointing out the flaws in your calculations....
Run your numbers again with +10 for 30 strength and +5 for powerattack (although helpful, it banks on the idea that I know nothing and shows that the poster can't do math. my math was very correct, (1+1=2) math, not that I didn't add Str into the mix. I didn't know to do so)

The OP assumes that the weilder of the weapon is a gimp.

To OP ignores the following sources of precrit damage:
Strength
Enhancement bonus to the weapon
Power Attack
Favored Enemy
Bardsong

He also ignores the following sources of Crit damage
Burst damage
Seeker

The OP demonstrates a lack of knowledge about how crits operate. The kopesh amplifies damage twice as often as a Dwarven axe and twice as powerfully as a Bastard Sword. The sources of damage I outlined above are twice as powerful for the kopesh.

If you don't understand how this works: The crit profile of a weapon is (threat range) multiplied by (Crit multiplier -1). A Kopesh is 8 (4 for the 17-20 crit range and x2 for the multiplier) The Dwarven Axe is 4 (2 for the 19-20 crit range and x2 for the multiplier) The Bastard Sword is also 4 (4 for the crit range x1 for the multiplier)I already spoke about this one.

However, it needed to be corrected I wanted to be critiqued and corrected because it advanced an inaccurate and misleading conclusion (that bastard swords were better than khopeshes) (I specifically said that I want people to correct my info, that's why I post here. Not to hear peoples BS about their uberness and how I'm not. I want to have the right info so I can make proper decisions about toon building.)that causes needless problems later when some poor newbie reads your thread, See reason #3 to my reasons for not updating my initial post, then read #4. believes it and shows up in the shroud with two ****** bastard swords and won't listen to anyone suggesting they get a real weapon.

You'd do a lot of service by updating your initial post with the correct findings, strength/pa numbers, etc to display the assorted points at which khopesh is not the best weapon in the game (all 5% of them).

I prefer not to update my initial post.

here's why

1) this isn't meant to be like Cforce or Gfunk's (much appreciate) uber number cruncher "refer to" cure all post. (they are awesome though, what would we do with these guys, and some other knowledgeable people)
2) it allows people to see a really easy way to mess up calculating DPS
3) people should be reading through the post (if it's not long) to find the progression, this eliminates repeat information from trickling down
4) if they want to just read the first post and post, it's their loss
5) I will put a snipet at the very top saying something like: my initial findings were incorrect due to ignorant knowledge, having been informed of the proper way to calculate the DPS between these three weapons see post # X Already done, thanks for the tip Gfunk

Make sense Junts?

I do respect your posting though dude, you have a lot of good stuff and advice to give out.

[QuantumFX]

I pity you bud.

I acted not as a drama queen, but as someone who was spit in the face by a bunch of "know it all's" acting like lunatics.

No you were overreacting to a bunch of people who were giving you the equivalent to a /facepalm. While my responses were direct there was nothing there worthy enough for you to go off on your little rant.

I don't have a fragile ego; the fact that it is counter productive to be hostile towards a poster who is putting his findings up for critique, is what bothers me. It does nothing but to waste my time and the reader's time.

No. Posting a completely backwards assessment of damage is a waste of time.

You may want to go back to school there kid, my math is and was, flawless. Where I went wrong was not "knowing" to implement str and/or power attack into the damage.

No. Your math was misleading and not reflecting the realities of DDO. If it was “flawless” people wouldn't have had to come correct you.

[Junts]

Not everyhing has been picked over, and many of the threads have misleading and incomplete information. Bastard swords are actually nearly as good as or better than khopeshes for some (lower str without crit improvement) builds, even vs. Harry, and that information is often buried in the rampant bastard sword bashing on the forums.

I agree with you there; there's a lot of interesting dps math that people don't necessarily know about. I was surprised to learn that, for the holy/acid burst/2 con min2 i intended to craft for my bard (24 str, no pa, but bloodstone), that rapier was not, in fact, a very small dps dropoff, but rather -actually better dps- than a greataxe, due to the swingspeed differences and the relatively low strength/no pa bonuses being applied to boost the greataxe's damage - it was a question of 4-14 damage per swing vs a 17% improvement in swing speed -and- double benefit from the bloodstone dps .. the rapier was 3% better instead of the 5-8% worse i expected.

Of course its also fair to note that most of the gap made up by bastard swords happens when they're greensteel, too ..

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

nice calcs gfunk.

...but won't the dwarven axe enhancements push Dwarven Axe above all the other weapon types if all of them are taken and the fighter is wearing a bloodstone?

Garth

[gfunk]

nice calcs gfunk.

...but won't the dwarven axe enhancements push Dwarven Axe above all the other weapon types if all of them are taken and the fighter is wearing a bloodstone?

Garth

The khopesh is really tough to beat. Although some people have recommended the dwarven axe as the best damage, alot of peoples calculations don't include weapon effects (and they may have done them at different damage bonuses), and part of the reason that the dwarven axe loses out is because it is pretty far behind the khopesh on effects damage.

I've added in a row that has the +2 axe enhancements included and you can see that although the damage improves, its not enough to overtake the Khopesh in most catagories (except stalewart without bloodstone vs. 50% fort where it overtakes the bastard sword). Once again, the tables have been done considering triple pos weapons and a +30 bonus to damage (+32 for the improved d axe)

vs no fortification:
kensai . kensai w/ bs . stalwart . stalwart w/ bs
67.15 … 70.75 ......… 57.83 … 60.23 … heavy pick
65.95 … 68.65 ......… 58.85 … 60.65 … dwarven axe
68.45 … 71.15 …...... 61.15 … 62.95 … dwarven axe with +2 to damage (axe enh)
66.25 … 68.25 ......… 60.25 … 62.65 … bastard sword
74.18 … 77.18 …...... 64.73 … 68.33 … khopesh

VS 50% fortification:
kensai . kensai w/ bs. stalwart . stalwart w/ bs
58.19 … 59.99 ...….. 52.65 … 53.85 … heavy pick
59.20 … 60.55 .....… 54.95 … 55.85 … dwarven axe
61.40 … 62.75 …..... 57.05 … 57.95 … dwarven axe with +2 to damage (axe enh)
59.88 … 60.88 …..... 56.35 … 57.55 … bastard sword
63.05 … 64.55 …..... 54.08 … 59.43 … khopesh

Now, if we were to change our assumptions and lower the damage bonus, the dwarven axe would start to edge out the khopesh.

Similar to the Bastard sword, the dwarven axe starts to do really well with base damage vs. non critable opponents, however if the mob you are fighiting is prone to weapon effects, then the khopesh might still be close

avg weapon effects damage on a triple pos (all damage tiers):
14.0.. dwarven axe with normal improved crit (good damage)
15.4.. dwarven axe with with kensai III improved crit (good damage)
16.8.. khopesh with normal improved crit (good damage, 2.8 more then comparable d axe)
18.2.. khopesh with kensai III improved crit (good damage, 2.8 more then comparable d axe)

So when you are thinking about non-crit mobs like undead, the triple pos dwarven axe would be only 0.7 damage per hit ahead (9 avg d axe base vs 5.5 avg khopesh base is 3.5, less the 2.8 good damage difference is 0.7).

But, change the assumptions to a mineral II weapon, and the khopesh does not have nearly the advantage vs. (Say for example) mobs with acid immunity/resistance where you are only getting holy, and slicing damage (9.5 avg for all weapons):

vs. 50% fort:
kensai .. kensai w/ bs . stalwart .stalwart w/ bs
51.24 ...… 53.04 …... 47.45 …... 48.65 … heavy pick
53.30 …... 54.65 …... 50.45 …... 51.35 … dwarven axe
55.50 …... 56.85 …... 52.55 ...… 53.45 … dwarven axe with +2 to damage (axe enh)
52.93 …... 53.93 …... 50.45 …... 51.65 … bastard sword
54.35 ...… 55.85 …... 46.78 …... 52.13 … khopesh

now, the dwarven axe pulls ahead in most scenarios so this may be the situation that people are considering where they consider d-axes to be superior (but they will begin to fall behind again as damage bonuses increase beyond 30, remembering that some builds can get to the high 50's in buffed main hand damage bonus in mod 9). I'll point out (to those of you who know me and poke fun at my human fighter) that these numbers were part of the reason why my human fighter used bastard swords in mod 6,7,8 (i.e. the damage vs Harry was virtually identical to the khopesh when you were considering standard improved crit, and I wanted a bit of flavor to my build. For mod 9, my fighter will have a much higher damage bonus and kenai crit range, so I will switch over to khopeshes, though the difference certainly isn't a game breaker)

I hope that everyone realizes that the results are heavily dependant on what damage bonus you use to calculate your damage output, what mob you are fighting, and what crit enhancements you may have. Also, the racial attack bonus enhancements may be important to some builds.

These results are indicative at a typical lvl 16 damage bonus level, however everyone needs to consider their own build when they are picking their weapons. Also as Junts pointed out above, these are all results for greensteel weapons. Non-green steel versions of the bastard sword and dwarven axe do not do nearly as well against the khopesh because of the lesser difference in their average base damage.

The other thing I would like to point out is that all of the above weapons are doing fairly decent damage. The differences in damage in the last example (which would be the situation fighting harry) are rather insignificant for most groups. No one using any of the above weapons should be considered "gimpy" imo.

[Thucydides04]

I posted this in the petition thread as well. This is strictly just the numbers one could expect to put up swinging each weapon w/o any special equipment outside of str enhancers.

//

I was sitting in class bored today and considered the math behind Bastages vs. Dwaxes vs. Khops.

The results are pretty interesting if you are building a TWF DPSer and plan on using a feat to aquire the weapon proficiency.

Anyways, here are the results:

Consider the expected value of a swing with each weapon where the weapons are the same acorss the board (i.e. a +5 Basatge vs. +5 Dwaxe vs +5 Khop) where B denotes a Bastage, D a Dwaxe, and K a Khop. I also let x= strength dmg multiplier and y = the wpn modifier and allow for improved crit without any loss of generality.

E[b] = 0 + 15*(0.05*(5.5+x+y)) + 4*(0.05*(2*(5.5+x+y)))
E[b] = 6.325 + 1.15x + 1.15y damage per swing
E[D] = 0 + 17*(0.05*5.5+x+y + 2*(0.05*(3*(5.5+x+y)))
E[D] = 6.325 + 1.15x + 1.15y damage per swing
E[K] = 0 + 15*(0.05*(4.5+x+y)) + 4*(0.05*(3*(4.5+x+y)))
E[K] = 6.075 + 1.35x + 1.35y damage per swing

Notice that Bastages deal the same amount of damage as a Dwaxe regardless of strength multiplier. If you consider when there is extra damage due to a crit (like maiming) the Bastage will do 1d6 on crit vs. the 2d6 by the Dwaxe. But the Bastage is hitting critcally twice as often as the Dwaxe so its a wash again! Perhaps if you are considering a Dwaxe build, you may want to reconsider the Bastard Sword and save yourslef some plat equipping him. I know that with some attention to the AH I can equip a twf with a pair of vorpal, smiting, and disruption bastages for less than 50K plat.

Now, compare the results of both with the Khop, i.e. when is E[K] > (E[b]=E[D])
Consider the following:

E[K]?>E[b]

6.075 +1.35x + 1.35y > 6.325 +1.15x + 1.15y

Doing algebra yields:

x + y > 1.25

Now we know that for any combination of strength and weapon multipliers whose sum is greater than 1.25, the khopesh does more damge per swing than either the dwaxe or the bastage. This is pretty significant since any most dps builds start with AT LEAST 14 str. So, clearly there is no incentive to go the Bastard Sword route since it costs a feat (at least Dwaxes don't cost a feat if you play a dwarf). About the only good thing a Bastard Sword has going for it is its low cost.

[rezo]

It really comes down to is what the players thinks is the best weapon. Dwarfs like the axes and most others like the khopeshs. I myself like the scimitars for the crit. range. We all play the game the way we want to.