Vorpal vs raid loot

[Himkano]

I know this is the Paladin thread, and may not be the perfect fit, but it's the forum I know and trust, and my character which uses a bastard sword is a Paladin. Si have tr'd a few times, and had some raid box bastard swords waiting for my at lvl 24 ish. However, I found a +4 vorpal bastard sword of deadly +5 (lvl 12), and it seems like no other weapon dps (even the high end raid stuff, can match 1000 damage every 20 swings or so), but I lack the knowledge and understanding to accurately determine at what point another weapon becomes better than vorpal (I've also got a keep Kukri of advanced vorpal, which seems like something it might be worth dropping bastard swords for)

I looking for help, advice, formulas, whatever (also, I'm basically playing the sword and board pally (with tower shield swapped for stunning blow), because that's what the character started as, and now that he's at end of TR, I'm putting him back, but considered one more, as PDK. I know dps would suffer going CHA instead of strength (the same way it would going int on a rogue pally, but by how much (might it be worth the trade off for a pally using bastard sword and shield to get the PDK line)?

[Omgitzme]

I think you misread something or i did.
Vorpal description says it is instant kill if below 1000 health or else 100 damage, not 1000 damage.
A weapon with a 2d6 effect instead of vorpal would do more over time that is if you are fighting a stronger mob
or something that cannot be vorpalized.
Though if you need like 20+ hits to finish the last 1k hp on regular ones then go for vorpal .
Sovereign vorpal even increases that cap to 3k hp i think.

[adrian69]

I know this is the Paladin thread, and may not be the perfect fit, but it's the forum I know and trust, and my character which uses a bastard sword is a Paladin. Si have tr'd a few times, and had some raid box bastard swords waiting for my at lvl 24 ish. However, I found a +4 vorpal bastard sword of deadly +5 (lvl 12), and it seems like no other weapon dps (even the high end raid stuff, can match 1000 damage every 20 swings or so), but I lack the knowledge and understanding to accurately determine at what point another weapon becomes better than vorpal (I've also got a keep Kukri of advanced vorpal, which seems like something it might be worth dropping bastard swords for)

I looking for help, advice, formulas, whatever (also, I'm basically playing the sword and board pally (with tower shield swapped for stunning blow), because that's what the character started as, and now that he's at end of TR, I'm putting him back, but considered one more, as PDK. I know dps would suffer going CHA instead of strength (the same way it would going int on a rogue pally, but by how much (might it be worth the trade off for a pally using bastard sword and shield to get the PDK line)?

Alright, let's see if I can give you an idea with the basics. Other things factor in, however, a paladin lacks them compared to kensei, barb, or ranger, except against evil and it's not big and all that gets complicated when explaining.

I am assuming you are pure vanguard at 20, with 6 cores, for the 30% attack speed and two handed fighting feat line, or some of it, for glanicing blows.

Vorpal (Off With Its Head!) works when you roll a natural d20, so it is a 5% chance 1/20=.05. And forces something to die if it is under a 1,000 HP or take 100 damage. Vorpal can be great throughout heroics and early non EE epics, but you'll only be procing 100 damage in EE and mid-late epics usually. It is better to roll vorpal and it die when it has 80%+ health and not when it is already close to death.

Anyway, I think S&B get 4 hits in it's attack sequence, and that means out of 5 sequences you have the probability of rolling at least one vorpal strike. Double Strike increases your effective chances by one every 10%.

You'd be better to stay away from on crit affects on a bastard. Tendon Slice may be nice. As for that +5 deadly. You can get that on some googles or gloves.

[Himkano]

I know it doesn't technically do 1000 DMV, but if it can kill something with 999 hp in one swing, it's the same thing. I might be influenced by fact that I don't fight a lot of things over 1k hp that I know of (I only had one guy reach lvl. So at 28, then took break, the. Tr'd twice. I have a +4 BS , deadly + 5, and it has *2 hase damage. So the formula would be something like (2(1d10)+9)*17+(2(2d10+9)*3+999 or 100. I could have it wrong, but the first set of numbers is DMV from all non-crits, the second set is from 3 non vorpal crits (17-19), and the last number is vorpal.

I am trying to find a break point, to determine how many holy burst, flaming, etc have to be on the weapon to be worth more than vorpal. Any thing more than 20 hits on less than 1k hp, or pal is obviously better. But I have seen things to suggest that if it takes more than 10-14 hits, vorpal is better. Then if vorpal is better, it it worth taking enhancements to add cha to strength, is it it worth power attack? If vorpal is clearly better, most of the time, then That opens other build options. But if nightmare is better than vorpal hands down, then I have to build differently

[Himkano]

Alright, let's see if I can give you an idea with the basics. Other things factor in, however, a paladin lacks them compared to kensei, barb, or ranger, except against evil and it's not big and all that gets complicated when explaining.

I am assuming you are pure vanguard at 20, with 6 cores, for the 30% attack speed and two handed fighting feat line, or some of it, for glanicing blows.

Vorpal (Off With Its Head!) works when you roll a natural d20, so it is a 5% chance 1/20=.05. And forces something to die if it is under a 1,000 HP or take 100 damage. Vorpal can be great throughout heroics and early non EE epics, but you'll only be procing 100 damage in EE and mid-late epics usually. It is better to roll vorpal and it die when it has 80%+ health and not when it is already close to death.

Anyway, I think S&B get 4 hits in it's attack sequence, and that means out of 5 sequences you have the probability of rolling at least one vorpal strike. Double Strike increases your effective chances by one every 10%.

You'd be better to stay away from on crit affects on a bastard. Tendon Slice may be nice. As for that +5 deadly. You can get that on some googles or gloves.

I wrote my above post while you were submitting yours. Thanks for input about ee, as I have very little experience in that. If a vorpal is likely to proc every 5 swing sequences, and that will insta-kill what I hit (assuming right vorpal for hp level) isn't that pretty good?

[adrian69]

I wrote my above post while you were submitting yours. Thanks for input about ee, as I have very little experience in that. If a vorpal is likely to proc every 5 swing sequences, and that will insta-kill what I hit (assuming right vorpal for hp level) isn't that pretty good?

I have been playing around with a level 13 Cold Iron Vorpal Falchion of 8d6 on crit with Ruby of Lightning and Level 11 Flametouched Iron 4d6 Force on hit of 4d6 Bludeon on hit with Ruby of Silver. I am level 14 soloing Reaper 2-4 (shorter easy quests only) and my threat range is 13-20 and no THF feats. I typically TWF>SWF and THF when mob size is 5+ anyway. To be honest, I don't see the vorpal as much as I would like and when it procs I've almost killed everything or it's health is 1-2 strikes from dying. Most things have around 600-1100 HPs. I did have one cool life-saving moment I cleaved and must have rolled 3 20s in a row and dropped the carnage reaper and two champions who would have no doubt killed me at that time. However, compared to the flametouched, I am swinging 2-3 more times at least to drop something. Vorpal may be best when you get to where HPs are 1500-2200. I'll retry there and see it is better. Atm, my opinion is dual-on hit affects are best for 17-20, dual on hit or on hit/on crit for 15-20, and on hit/on crit out side of reaper for 13-20 weapons, but dual seems to be better in reaper no matter vs reapers in the 1-4 skull range.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

vorpal makes sense to consider as adding 5 dmg per hit.

it most certainly is not 1000 every 20 hits, and thinking of it that way especially because of faulty logic is only going to confuse you.

the bottom line for vorpal is that because of the hp threshhold and the damage output levels that our characters are capable of, vorpal is really not very good. in heroics you fight plenty of monsters with less than 1k hp but it takes far less than 20 hits to kill them regardless (like...3 or less honestly for 95%+ of all heroic enemies). in epics most enemies will have well over 1k hp, thus being above the threshhold and once down to 1k hp are only 1 or 2 hits away from dying.

vorpal just doesnt have much opportunity to proc.

[Faltout]

I cleaved and must have rolled 3 20s in a row and dropped the carnage reaper and two champions who would have no doubt killed me at that time.

(reapers are immune to vorpal)

[Saekee]

vorpal weapons are best on fast firing low level weapons like repeaters against high DR mobs. In reaper settings and some champs you run into high DR, at least in my limited experience.

The other nice application of vorpal is a GxBow with tier 5 Mechanic which vorpals on 19-20, so from 12-19 you can really clear trash. This is why so many farm for Divine Artillery. But you are on a S&B pally.

If you are unsure of vorpal's full usefulness consider adding the Ring of the Stalker when it has Manslayer--it adds a vorpal instakill on humanoids on all equipped weapons. So you can skip the vorpal weapon against that type of mob anyway.

Some champs and all reapers are immune to death effects which includes vorpal.

There are weapons that proc a vorpal effect while still doing bane damage like the Mace of Smiting--those work well in heroics (so some smiting/disruption/banishing stuff, depending on situation and mob).

Vorpal is not really effective in epics.

[adrian69]

(reapers are immune to vorpal)

Then I one-shotted the reaper and no float damage showed, which has happened a few times since. Not sure why, though it shows in log.

[Annex]

Vorpal is not really effective in epics.

I've been experimenting with Epic Dice from Multitude of Menace which includes Sovereign Vorpal (3000 / 300 damage on 20). It works surprisingly well in lower level Epic dailies against anything vulnerable to Vorpal. Alas, the minimum level of 28 severely limits its usefulness but it works great for earning Heart Seeds in quests with lots of (demi)human(oids).

.....

One thing to consider about Vorpal--the damage output goes up as monster hit points go up. However, once monster hit points rise over the maximum for a Vorpal one shot kill, the damage curve starts to fall again.

Let's say you fight monsters with an average of 150 hit points but never over 999 hit points. A Vorpal hit may come at 100% health or 1% health, but on average, it will come on 50% health. Against those 150 hit point monsters Vorpal will average 75 damage when it goes off. Since it goes off one in twenty times, that equates to 3.75 damage per swing, on average. That's okay.

Now let's say you fight monsters with an average of 500 hit points each but never over 999 hit points. Now your Vorpal hits average 250 points of damage. Since it goes off one in twenty times, that equates to 12.5 damage per swing, on average. Not bad!

Suppose you fight monsters with an average of 800 hit points each but never over 999 hit points. Now your Vorpal hits average 400 points of damage. Since it goes off one in twenty times, that equates to 20 damage per swing, on average. Pretty good!

When monster hit points rise above the Vorpal threshold of one thousand, the math becomes more complicated. Now some of your big hits get reduced to 100 hit points and that will eventually drive the damage curve back down. I suspect Vorpal damage peaks when monsters average about 1300 hit points, which means the Vorpal strike will usually come at about 650 hit points. You will lose some damage to the threshold but gain some from meaty, 1300 hit point monsters killed when they are at below 1000 hit points from previous damage.

Of course, to really figure out the best weapon you need to take into account the full damage profile including critical hits and all special abilities, and that changes from character to character. However, I suspect Vorpal weapons perform much better, under the right circumstances, than some people think.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Just throwing it in, the vorpal effect on weapons (whatever level) also adds 0.5[W] to all attacks

I'd advise experimenting, and keeping a couple of weapons with the outright +Xd6 effects instead for things that can't be instakilled like undeads, constructs etc.