Thunder-Forged Weapons - a formal introduction

[DrOctothorpe]

Many of you have had a good glimpse at the Thunderholme weapon-smithing system when the forge was made available on the Lamannia server a few weeks back. I'm posting the details of that system here to ask you kind souls for some targeted feedback. What we're looking for, first & foremost, are the small, critical points that would make the difference for you: what's broken, what's missing, what needs a tweak to get over the line. Full disclosure: I can't make promises about what will get into Update 21 - the time to release is growing short - but we will work hard to get this shiny in the end.

Now, to introduce it properly...


Thunder-Forged Weapons
- Use the Dwarven forge within Thunderholme to craft them
- A fast travel NPC in the Thunderholme public area will take you to the forge (no Astral Shard usage required.)
- Forge a "base" weapon then upgrade 3 times
- There are multiple choices for each tier
- The first tier and some options in the second tier can be crafted with ingredients found in the adventure area, without needing to run the Raids. The Raids drop ingredients for crafting all tiers.

Ingredients
Thunderholme Ingots - Found on the landscape & in large numbers in the raids
Dragon Scales (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, common
Phlogiston (Red & Dark) - Found in raids, uncommon
Commendations of Valor - extra Commendations are found in raid chests

Drop rates of all these items increase with difficulty level (Normal, Hard, Elite).


Tiers now come with clearer inherent benefits:

Baseline Tiers
Tier 0 (Initial Item): +9, 3.5[W], Metalline Damage Types, Orange Augment Slot, ML22 - Unbound
Tier 1: +10, 4.0[W], Epic Bane of Dragons (5d6), ML24 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 2: +11, 4.5[W], Greater Epic Bane of Dragons (upgrade from 5d6 to 8d6), ML26 - Bound to Character on Acquire
Tier 3: +12, 4.5[W], Colorless Augment Slot, ML28 - Bound to Character on Acquire

Tier 1 – Ingots Only
Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

Touch of Shadows
On Hit 8d6 Negative Energy Damage

Dwarvencraft Potency
Universal Spell power +100

Dwarvencraft Combustion, Nullification, Radiance, Devotion, Glaciation, Resonance, Corrosion, Impulse, Magnetism, Reconstruction
+150 Spellpower to Fire, Negative, Light, Positive, Cold, Sonic, Acid, Force, Electric, Repair/Rust Spell Power. (For 2-handed weapons: +1 Unique bonus to Spell DCs)

Touch of Flames
On Hit: 10d6 Fire Damage

1st Degree Burns
5d6 Fire Damage + Stacking 1% Vulnerability 3 sec, max 20 stacks (triggers once/2 seconds) (stacks with other sources of vulnerability)

Tier 2 - Ingots and Scales
Dragon's Blessing
On friend-targeted spell cast: 5% chance AOE Healing Effect (~100HP) centered on target (AOE is size of Mass Cure spells)

2nd Degree Burns
On Hit: 10% chance to slow 50% (No Save) for 10 sec (non-bosses only)

Dwarvencraft Focus
Universal Spell DCs +2 exceptional (Stacks will other sources) (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Dwarvencraft Spell Penetration
Spell Penetration +7

Paralyzing Fear
On Hit: 10% chance to Paralyze (DC 50 Will Save vs. Fear) for 5 sec

Wrath of Flames
On Hit: 5% Chance AOE 10d20+400 fire damage – DC 50 Reflex Save for half

Wrath of Shadows
On Hit: 5% chance AOE 8d20+220 negative energy damage – DC 50 Fortitude Save for half

Dragon's Edge
Armor-Piercing 35% + On Crit: 8d10+25 Bleeding Damage

Dwarvencraft Abjuration, Conjuration, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation Focus
+6 Spell DCs in respective Focus area (For 2-handed weapons: +1% Unique bonus to Spell Crit)

Red Augment Slot

Purple Augment Slot


Tier 3 - Ingots, Scales, and Phlogiston
Eternal Scorching Light
On Light / Fire Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Eternal Chilling Darkness
On Negative / Cold Spell Damage : +50 temp SP 30 seconds (triggers once/45 seconds)

Crippling Flames
On Crit: 10d20+125 Fire Damage + On Vorpal: Negative Level (DC 50 Fortitude Save)

Burning Emptiness
On Vorpal: 5d12+50 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Crit: 8d20+100 Negative Energy Damage

Mortal Fear
On Hit: 8d8 Force Damage (DC 45 Will negates) + On Vorpal: Phantasmal Killers (DC 45 Will/Fortitude Save vs. Fear)

Dwarvencraft Fire, Void, Radiance, Healing, Ice, Sonic, Acid, Kinetic, Lightning, Repair Lore
Spell Crit +22% in the respective Lore (For 2-handed weapons: +2 Weapon Enhancement Bonus)

Dwarvencraft Lore
Universal Spell Crit +17%

Body Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Fortitude Save -5, Sunder Attempt

Leg Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Reflex Save -5, Trip Attempt

Mind Breaker
On Hit: 5% Chance Will Save -5, Hold Monster Attempt

Draconic Reinvigoration
On Damage or Spell Damage: 2% Chance regenerate 1 Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs (triggers once/100 seconds) + Passive: +1 use/rest to Action Boost, Rallying Cry, Smite Evil, Turn Undead, and Bard Songs

3rd Degree Burns
On Vorpal: 10d12+75 / 2sec Fire Damage for 10 seconds + On Hit: 10% Chance Stuns non-bosses 1 sec (DC 45 Fortitude Save)

Fire Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Fire Breath (3/rest)

Ice Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Ice Breath (3/rest)

Acid Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Acid Breath (3/rest)

Lightning Storm
On Clicky: 30d15+450 Lightning Breath (3/rest)



Craftable items list:
Bastard Sword
Battle Axe
Dagger
Dwarven Waraxe
Morningstar
Handwrap
Hand Axe
Heavy Mace
Heavy Pick
Kama
Khopesh
Kukri
Longsword
Rapier
Sceptre
Scimitar
Shortsword
Sickle
Warhammer
Falchion
Greataxe
Greatsword
Maul
Quarterstaff
Great Crossbow
Repeating Heavy Crossbow
Longbow
Orb (it's an implement, not a weapon, but we're putting it here all the same)

[Dandonk]

I cannot haz shuriken?

[Portalcat]

Glad to see that it's been clarified that the tier 2 Wyrmic Focus does stack with everything.

My DC caster stands to gain a lot from this, and will be farming like nuts. My Shiradi caster will get a smaller but still worthwhile boost.



The tier 3 dragon breath clickies are nice, and make it worth farming these out well beyond getting any weapons you actually need. Is the cooldown the same 1 min that it is on dragon breath from Draconic? If not, these are ridiculously good, and if so, then they're still very nice.

[LOOON375]

You should add the different shield types.

[die]

I noticed while down thier, there is no great axe's or great swords.

[Kambuk]

They need increased crit range.

Either give it to the base item or have a tier one effect that incresed the threat range and maybe a tier three effect that increases the multiplier.

If you can make it work as a tier 1/3 effect then you can add it to random loot as a Prefix/Suffix.

Kambuk

[Shorlong]

I noticed while down there, there is no great axe's or great swords.

They're there. I took a look at them last weekend. They are also in the list in the OP here.

[DrawingGuy]

I actually do look forward to these new weapons. Number crunching will go to show DPS profiles of procs vs better damage/crit profiles (which I believe most that have already been done favor damage/crit profiles), and that will ultimately dictate if any are farmed for that purpose.

Utility wise, there is no question that there are some great options here. Casters will eat these up, and you can make some nice Rogue utility weapons... the question is, will there be any more utility consideration for Two Handed weapons? Like how you grant Dwarvencraft unique DC, Crit and enhancement bonuses for two handed weapons, possibly granting giving Dragon's utilities two-handed bonuses as well:

Touch of Flames (closest "dragon" ability I see for Tier 1): 5% effect trigger on glancing blows

Dragon's Edge: 10% glancing blow damage for two-handed weapons

Draconic Reinvigoration: additional +1 use/rest for two-handed weapons


Single handed users can go for a weapon with utility AND one for DPS procs while two-handers have to flat give up an option to get that utility. Do think some slight perks are needed to make up for that.

[die]

They're there. I took a look at them last weekend. They are also in the list in the OP here.

hmm thanks I must of over looked them thanks

[count_spicoli]

Man now that stuff looks sweet. I also like the fact that you can get some parts in the wilderness. That will make running in the wilderness worthwhile. Wish that something similar had been done in stormhorns to make running around out there in that beautiful area more appealling. The only thing i can see is maybe the dcs are a liitle on the low side. I mean i have a high 60's stun dc on my fighter barb and landin those is no gaurentee in stromhorns and wheloon EE. So im not sure alot of those will work past EN.But all and all it looks great. Im already eyeing a falchon for my ftr barb.

[moo_cow]

First off very good stuff, and very good job on the items. I do however have a slight problem with two handed weapons for casters.

two handed weapon
- 150 spell power (+1 stacking dc)

- +6 dc of a school or +2 stacking dc's (both have +1% extra crit chance)

- 22% crit chance (+2 weapon enchantment)

two weapons
- 150 spell power (main hand)
- 150 spell power (off hand)

- +6 dc (main hand)
- +2 stacking dc(off hand)

- 22% crit chance (main hand)
- 22% crit chance (off hand)

So basically two handed weapons have an extra 1% crit chance,+2 enchantment, and +1 dc in secondary spell casting school. And two weapons gives you an extra 150 spell power, with another 22% crit chance for your other element. While both give you the same dc.

So there really isn't any incentive to go for a two handed weapon
- you get the same dc's as two weapons (however, your secondary spec will have +1 dc higher)
- you also can only spec in 1 element (which is a bad idea)

I just think there needs to be a boost if people are going to use two handers.

[Grizzt14]

Looks like a lot of the feedback and criticisms from posters in this thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...System-Details) from when the crafting system was first available nearly a month ago are still applicable to this version. Not impressed...

[moo_cow]

Looks like a lot of the feedback and comments from posters in this thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...System-Details) from when the crafting system was first available nearly a month ago are still applicable to this version. Not impressed...

I agree that there will be a few king 1 handers/two handers and the rest will never get used, that is needed to be fixed for sure. But the people saying these weapons aren't very good and esos is still king don't know how math works I guess.

[Kambuk]

Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

vs

Radiance
This Weapon is imbued with a brilliant radiant power that deals an additional 4d6 points of light damage and blinds the target on a successful critical hit.
No save against blindness effect

Blinding Fear seems very weak I can't seen anyone ever making this.
Needs to be a much longer duration and/or a much greater chance to be a consideration.


Kambuk

[redspecter23]

Blinding Fear
On hit: 10% Chance Blind 3 sec (DC 55 Will Save vs. Fear), 5 sec cool down

vs

Radiance
This Weapon is imbued with a brilliant radiant power that deals an additional 4d6 points of light damage and blinds the target on a successful critical hit.
No save against blindness effect

Blinding Fear seems very weak I can't seen anyone ever making this.
Needs to be a much longer duration and/or a much greater chance to be a consideration.


Kambuk

I agree it looks extremely weak, especially compared to radiance. Is there any chance that this is a typo and it's meant to be a fear effect instead? Similar to the mummy type fear that locks you in place and makes you vulnerable? That would seem a more suitable debuff considering the name, proc rate, save and duration. Either that or Turbine REALLY values short term blind effects quite highly.

[Portalcat]

First off very good stuff, and very good job on the items. I do however have a slight problem with two handed weapons for casters.

two handed weapon
- 150 spell power (+1 stacking dc)

- +6 dc of a school or +2 stacking dc's (both have +1% extra crit chance)

- 22% crit chance (+2 weapon enchantment)

two weapons
- 150 spell power (main hand)
- 150 spell power (off hand)

- +6 dc (main hand)
- +2 stacking dc(off hand)

- 22% crit chance (main hand)
- 22% crit chance (off hand)

So basically two handed weapons have an extra 1% crit chance,+2 enchantment, and +1 dc in secondary spell casting school. And two weapons gives you an extra 150 spell power, with another 22% crit chance for your other element. While both give you the same dc.

So there really isn't any incentive to go for a two handed weapon
- you get the same dc's as two weapons (however, your secondary spec will have +1 dc higher)
- you also can only spec in 1 element (which is a bad idea)

I just think there needs to be a boost if people are going to use two handers.

While all of this is true, there is a tradeoff in that you have to actually farm out two weapons versus one to do so. I'm guessing that it won't be a trivial number of runs to make a tier 3 weapon.

[Vellrad]

Its a small thing unrelated to items, but (at least for me) very important things needed to be clarified.

You keep to refering to thunderholme area as landscape.

Landscape, in all MMOs I played and heard of, is non instanced area shared by all players at once, where they kill roaming mobs, and complete quests with objectives of: 'kill X mobs of certain type and bring me Y of items they drop, while gathering Z of items lying on the ground'. There is no such thing in DDO, as every place where we fight monsters (except for mabar) is instanced for individuals, parties or raids.

So question is, are we getting private wilderness area we have in DDO right now, or standard shared MMO landscape area?

[Shorlong]

So far, it looks good. My biggest questions are:

Why is it better to take two one handed weapons instead of one two hander for casters? And I don't mean a little better, more like a LOT better...

Why have an orb but no shields? Why an orb at all?

Why no shurikens, hammers, darts, knives, axes, etc?

In the original version I saw, one of the ingredients listed was Commendations of Valor. I have been taking those in every end reward in preparation for this, has that changed? (Not complaining if so, I'll just use them for potions instead. More for clarification)

I have a few dragon souls from the Shadow dragon raid, I assumed that was an ingedient, has this been changed?

You say in the OP that certain options in Tier 2 do not require to run raids...which options are those?

[Shorlong]

Its a small thing unrelated to items, but (at least for me) very important things needed to be clarified.

You keep to refering to thunderholme area as landscape.

Landscape, in all MMOs I played and heard of, is non instanced area shared by all players at once, where they kill roaming mobs, and complete quests with objectives of: 'kill X mobs of certain type and bring me Y of items they drop, while gathering Z of items lying on the ground'. There is no such thing in DDO, as every place where we fight monsters (except for mabar) is instanced for individuals, parties or raids.

So question is, are we getting private wilderness area we have in DDO right now, or standard shared MMO landscape area?

Landscape is the same as wilderness in this instance. It is just like every other wilderness, except you can have a 12 person party as well.

[moo_cow]

While all of this is true, there is a tradeoff in that you have to actually farm out two weapons versus one to do so. I'm guessing that it won't be a trivial number of runs to make a tier 3 weapon.

Fair enough. I don't know how many ingredients these items take so I couldn't say. Currently though these ingredients are unbound(the ingots at least) so it might not take so long with a few characters. But in the meantime you could run 2 dc's lower getting your other weapon while still using a decent off hand weapon. In the end though when the cap is going to 30 and the end game expansion starts to come out a little more, people will have the weapons they already need.