Sword of Shadows versus Random Generated Swords

[Varashad]

Does a Sword of Shadows inflict more damage than a +4 Shocking Burst of Pure Good + Icy Burst greatsword assuming that the mob has 0% fortification, 0 DR and 0 resistances/weaknesses to elements and is evil aligned? I've google searched for these kind of calculations quite a bit, and keep coming up empty, which makes me wonder if they aren't done yet?

[Cardtrick]

It just depends on too many things to give a straight answer. What's your build? Do you have any means of altering critical profile (improved critical, seeker, kensai III, frenzied berserker II, etc.)? What's your damage bonus?

The reason this matters is that the sword of shadow's benefits come from its outstanding critical range, which multiplies many sources of bonus damage. It means that the more powerful the character is, the more benefit you get from a SoS. If you could have a damage bonus approaching infinity, all that would matter on a weapon is it's critical multiplier. Conversely, if you have a damage bonus of 0, non-multiplicative weapon effects (like pure good and elemental bursts) will be far more important than critical multiplier. The point at which one weapon beats the other depends primarily on your damage bonus, seeker damage bonus, and critical profile.

[cru121]

Assuming no seeker, no DR, no fortification, evil foe, improved crit, Sword of Shadow is better if your bonus damage is at least 16 (e.g. 10 from power attack and 6 from 18 strength).

Vs. 50% fortified foe, SoS comes ahead at 44 bonus damage.
Vs. 100% fortified foe, the other weapon is better.
If you have seeker, SoS is better earlier.

If you don't have improved crit (no fort, no seeker), SoS becomes better with 40 bonus damage.

(all this ignores glancing blows and assumes you have no class feature that augments your critical, and assumes you can hit on a 2, and that all crits are confirmed)

[Wraith_Sarevok]

It's not just the fact that it's better vs. most other weapons in the game (yes, Lightning Strike greensteel might come close). It's the fact that you're eventually going to epic it anyway. And once you do, you'll discover that all the other weapons you've been using as your main are now obsolete.

So why waste time grinding/crafting another weapon when this one is the omega? I just stuck to my universal DR breaker (Min II or Epic Antique Greataxe) and later the regular SoS until I could upgrade it. And yes, my damage was lower than other barbarians that had the eSoS, but it wasn't drastically lower. I was still able to tank and hold aggro in ToD on all difficulties. I was still able to top the kill score in several epic quests mostly due to my build.

This is coming from your average non-elitist player who plays casually, started as a guildless F2P PuGer back in U2, and doesn't live on this game 24/7 or gold farm it. Am now one of the most powerful barbarians on Khyber and regularly asked to run quests and tank bosses. The weapon doesn't make the warrior. You'll save yourself a lot of time and effort by sticking with those other weapons until you can get this one.

[ChemE]

I just got through leveling my barb, coarch, to 20 and got lucky and pulled the sos at 10. I tried almost all combos against it including some festival icy burst ga and gs like you describe. I also had enough mats saved to make a lit 2 falchion at lvl 16 as soon as I got my shards. Simply put for a FB barb there is no better weapon until you get something really great at level 19 or 20. This sword was meant for max str barbs. It one shotted stuff as much as lit 2 with its crit pprofile and x3,4,5 or 6 multi. This weapon to a barb never actually starts feeling week like carnifex does at 13 or your holy pure good weapons do at say 15. It scales up with high str builds do to its damage and profiles. I have epic sos on my 2hf kensai 3 Sorrowanddoo and with a crit range of 14-20 its crits for 500-550 damage almost every time.