Axe of Famine

[Astraghal]

Anyone know how long the the Life-Devouring property lasts when it procs and whether or not it works on red or purple named mobs?

[Astraghal]

Negative levels aren't being removed from me when the Greater Restoration procs, has anyone else experienced this?

[Brennie]

I have a question:

Why, with all the new cool named loot from this new quest, is the *SECOND* named Dwarven Axe in the game such utter rubbish?

What does a Dwarf have to do around here to get a darned DPS oriented named Dwarven axe?

[TheDearLeader]

Anyone know how long the the Life-Devouring property lasts when it procs and whether or not it works on red or purple named mobs?

One minute on Strength-Sapping.

Three Minutes on Life-Devouring.

Have not checked Red/Orange names. I imagine it works on Reds at least, though. Strength-Sapping does.

Negative levels aren't being removed from me when the Greater Restoration procs, has anyone else experienced this?

Not had a chance to test this yet.

I have a question:

Why, with all the new cool named loot from this new quest, is the *SECOND* named Dwarven Axe in the game such utter rubbish?

What does a Dwarf have to do around here to get a darned DPS oriented named Dwarven axe?

It is a +5 Dwarven Axe with increased base damage (same as Green Steel) that take less time than it would take to do the 5 Vale Quests enough times to make a Green Steel D-Axe blank. Add to it the fact that it has the ability to drop a mob's Strength and Dex by 12, which stacks with Ray of Enfeeblement/Waves of Exhaustion, and is a *penalty*, instead of damage?

Assuming that it does work on Red Names, since we know Strength Sapping already does - that's means it is possible to lower a Red Name's Strength 24~29 points - this is enough to put most mobs into "Helplessness" State. If they are not a caster class, they will no longer cast, and they will take 150% damage from most incoming sources of damage, to include spell damage.

This item + WoE also lowers Dex by 18, meaning that their armor class is 9 less than normal.

I can see this becoming useful in places such as Epic Big Top, where Malicia has a rather high AC, manageable Spell Resistance, some unpleasant casting abilities, and enough HP to make the combat prolonged enough to see both effects possibly proc.

If you can make something helpless in such a manner, you're helping the party more than using dual Lit IIs.

[kraaal]

The greater restoration is not proc'ing correclty for me ... no negs are being removed.
Tested this in quests and PVP.

[sweez]

Didn't they make red names immune to stat-dmg based helplessness?

[wax_on_wax_off]

Didn't they make red names immune to stat-dmg based helplessness?

Yes, I believe it is impossible to make a red name helpless through stat damage as of U9.

Additionally, I believe there is a cap of a maximum of 10 points of stat damage that can be done to red and/or purple named (this existed before but it was possible to make a red named beholder helpless on account of them having less than 10 base strength perhaps?)

[Astraghal]

The greater restoration is not proc'ing correclty for me ... no negs are being removed.
Tested this in quests and PVP.

I found out the hard way yesterday solo'ing In the Flesh on elite on a Fighter.

My Silver Flame Talisman and Mantle of the Worldshaper both ran out of charges and I started copping negative levels.

So I waded in with the Axe of Famine praying for a proc as I got more and more negs.

It was proc'ing but I never had any negs removed and ended up with 18 negative levels.

Other than that, it works really well when there's a lot of incoming stat damage.

If it did work by removing negative levels as Greater Restoration is supposed to, it would be an excellent beholder fighting weapon.

[Kourier]

Yes, I believe it is impossible to make a red name helpless through stat damage as of U9.

Additionally, I believe there is a cap of a maximum of 10 points of stat damage that can be done to red and/or purple named (this existed before but it was possible to make a red named beholder helpless on account of them having less than 10 base strength perhaps?)

There is a difference between penalty and damage. Ray of Enfeeblement, Exhaustion/Fatigue, Strength Sapping, Symbol of Weakness, and this new Life-Devouring are all penalties.

You are correct - strength DAMAGE never renders a red or purple named harmless and they have damage wards preventing more than 10 stat damage. I don't think there are any such limits on penalties though.

Edit: Major bummer that the greater restoration doesn't restore negative levels - my recent forays back into von3 have made me beholder-shy.

[Caeldos]

If it did work by removing negative levels as Greater Restoration is supposed to, it would be an excellent beholder fighting weapon.

I have a feeling it may be the restoration effects that do not work properly. Fought a beholder or two yesterday and caught some negs. A friendly cleric tossed a greater restoration on me a few times.

Didn't help with the negs.

[TheDearLeader]

I have a feeling it may be the restoration effects that do not work properly. Fought a beholder or two yesterday and caught some negs. A friendly cleric tossed a greater restoration on me a few times.

Didn't help with the negs.

Was easy as pie to test.

Went to a PvP Pit. Negged a FvS.

I scroll Greater Restoed them back to full, no problem.

Please don't cry wolf.

[lugoman]

Anything that would be noticeably impacted by stat damage would die pretty quickly to dps anyway. The restoration effect is very limited in where it would be useful.

[sirgog]

This weapon has a niche purpose, but it is the best weapon in the game at that purpose.

That purpose is debuffing the To-Hit of a rednamed (or lower) monster that you *almost* have enough AC to AC tank.

If you want to test it out, go into eVON1 on a highly geared defender (85ish AC). The first rednamed minotaur has a To-Hit of around +89, so you'd need an AC of around 96 (not currently sustainable on all but gimped builds) to notice frequent misses, and ~105 to be hard for him to hit.

Have an Arcane exhaust Angog (-3 to-hit, +86), Ray of Enfeeblement him (~-4 to-hit, +82), then smack him a bunch with the Axe. When the boss fails a Strength Sapping save (average: 20 swings), the to-hit drops another 3, and your AC starts to hold up more. When Weakening starts to stack on them (epic rednameds ignore 90% of incoming stat damage effects and cap at 10 damage to any single stat, but they are not blanket immune), you can get his to-hit lower still by 5 points. In the unlikely event that the Life-Devouring proc goes off and Angog rolls a 1, even better.

With just the arcane debuffs, the effective AC range on Angog is about 88 to 100. With the Axe as well, that becomes 80 to 92 (77-89 in the 'stars aligned' case where Life Devouring procs).


I'm not recommending an AC tank strategy for that boss (circle kiting him on a caster while killing him with 3-stacked Niac's Biting Cold and Eladar's Electric Surge is much quicker), but this weapon certainly has a niche use.

[Brennie]

This weapon has a niche purpose, but it is the best weapon in the game at that purpose.
(...)
I'm not recommending an AC tank strategy for that boss (circle kiting him on a caster while killing him with 3-stacked Niac's Biting Cold and Eladar's Electric Surge is much quicker), but this weapon certainly has a niche use.

This is my problem though: this is only the second named Dwarven Axe put into the game. And yet, it offers only an *extremely* limited niche use which, in anything but those extremely niche circumstances, will likely be an entirely unnoticeable effect.

That's cool though, I'll just use my Daxe using dwarves to go farm some other named Dwarven Axe that's more DPS oriented. Except that they don't exist! Outside of greensteel crafting (Which is well worth the time investement, but on an entirely different level of grinding than farming for a typical mid-level named weapon) you *have* to rely on randomrolled Daxes to work for you.

I'm a bit snippy, but that is my beef in a nutshell. Devs, please make standard good all-round named weapons first, and THEN fill in the gaps with niche weapons for limited usage.

[sirgog]

This is my problem though: this is only the second named Dwarven Axe put into the game. And yet, it offers only an *extremely* limited niche use which, in anything but those extremely niche circumstances, will likely be an entirely unnoticeable effect.

That's cool though, I'll just use my Daxe using dwarves to go farm some other named Dwarven Axe that's more DPS oriented. Except that they don't exist! Outside of greensteel crafting (Which is well worth the time investement, but on an entirely different level of grinding than farming for a typical mid-level named weapon) you *have* to rely on randomrolled Daxes to work for you.

I'm a bit snippy, but that is my beef in a nutshell. Devs, please make standard good all-round named weapons first, and THEN fill in the gaps with niche weapons for limited usage.

Yeah, another one or three named D-Axes couldn't hurt anyone. (Except the mobs you whack them with).

[Astraghal]

I actually found this weapon quite good for solo'ing some of the Necropolis quests, where you get a lot of incoming stat damage.

I also found it useful for solo'ing the end fight of The Dreaming Dark, it procs often enough that you can keep the stat damage off and be able to Silver Flame heal without going helpless.

[Zeruell]

There is a difference between penalty and damage. Ray of Enfeeblement, Exhaustion/Fatigue, Strength Sapping, Symbol of Weakness, and this new Life-Devouring are all penalties.

You are correct - strength DAMAGE never renders a red or purple named harmless and they have damage wards preventing more than 10 stat damage. I don't think there are any such limits on penalties though.

Edit: Major bummer that the greater restoration doesn't restore negative levels - my recent forays back into von3 have made me beholder-shy.

I believe that wax_on_wax_off and sweez were referring to this:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=310019

Though it's interesting that the actual U9 release notes don't include that particular entry...

[Asketes]

What does a Dwarf have to do around here to get a darned DPS oriented named Dwarven axe?

Take the khopesh feat?

[Astraghal]

This is my problem though: this is only the second named Dwarven Axe put into the game. And yet, it offers only an *extremely* limited niche use which, in anything but those extremely niche circumstances, will likely be an entirely unnoticeable effect.

That's cool though, I'll just use my Daxe using dwarves to go farm some other named Dwarven Axe that's more DPS oriented. Except that they don't exist! Outside of greensteel crafting (Which is well worth the time investement, but on an entirely different level of grinding than farming for a typical mid-level named weapon) you *have* to rely on randomrolled Daxes to work for you.

I'm a bit snippy, but that is my beef in a nutshell. Devs, please make standard good all-round named weapons first, and THEN fill in the gaps with niche weapons for limited usage.

Dwarves are an F2P race, don't expect Turbine to put any resources into them.

[Astraghal]

Appears to be working correctly now.