For Arcane Blade, is Golden Three-Edged Sword endgame power?

[kingvictory2003]

Shortly upon entering Tol Falas, a skeletal warrior charged me holding this gleaming golden sword aloft. After smashing its skull, ribcage and pelvis (in that specific, logical sequence) in short order, I was the sword's owner. That's when I realized its odd stat requirements aside from strength--26 Willpower and Cunning.

So before I blow too many points on those stats, is the thing endgame power? The +40 light and dark damage is impressive to be sure, and the 40-60 base damage isn't bad, but I just can't see that kind of damage competing with a mithril greatsword's 60-100 or so damage. Amplify the base damages with the 100% or so increase from Weapon Mastery, and it seems as if it's a no-brainer.

Am I mistaken thinking this way? If Arcane Blades had Flurry, then the Golden Sword would perhaps be a match, but with the hard-hitting single strikes, it seems it loses out pretty quickly. As I also intend to spec dirty fighting for some good backstabbing action, the high base damage from mithril weaponry will be best for mega crits.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Thanks!

[Final Master]

Looking at them without taking into account class and talent options, I would say that Golden Three-Edged Sword 'The Truth' is vastly superior. It deals extra damage per hit, 40 of it being Light, and 40 of it being Darkness. This is important for a couple of reasons. 1) Unless an enemy resists both light and darkness, it is 80 damage flat tacked onto each blow and you can increase this damage by any residual talents/items that increase that damage type. 2) It helps you get in damage against things that resist Physical damage type. Another reason why Golden Three-Edged Sword 'The Truth' is vastly superior is the extra ability to stun or confuse on hit. This is checked with each hit, so if you have a talent that hits more than once, or multiple enemies, each hit has a chance to stun or confuse. I'm a bit fuzzy as to if it gets stunned if it can be confused as well, but stun is checked first.

Lets look at base damage with unmodified stats of 10 (and hacking to wield the weapons).

A plain mithril greatsword has the possibility damage range of 58-66, while Golden Three-Edged Sword 'The Truth' is a flat 40. MGS has 4 apr and 5 crit, TES has 1 apr and 7 crit. So, without the tacked on damage, the MGS on average will do more damage against unarmored and armed enemies with a greater flux to armored enemies. However, with the extra 80 damage (which is 120 now) TES out does in both now.

They both 'weigh' the same and they both have a damage modifier of 1.2 strength.

Taking into account we are talking about Arcane Blades in particular, lets look at some of their available talents.

Looking at the Enchantment tree in particular, it favors neither MGS or TES, nor do any of their fighting talents help in increasing light or darkness damage. Sunder Armor though makes the apr value of MGS void when compared to TES. Dirty Fighting amplifies this even more that TES is greater than MGS when taking into account the low damage of dirty fighting and cripple. Backstab is the only talent that I see that may swing MGS in favor, further increasing crit chance, and with the higher base damage it dealing more damage.

If you are capable of achieving the stats for TES without hindering current improvement (of which you already need cunning and str (and possibly will if you are a spell casting kind of AB), you should be well on your way of wielding TES already. However if it goes against your current build in a dramatic fashion, and you are already level 30+ (and thus kind of set in stone a bit), and you can't sway it into easy wear with stat buffs (see Inner Power for the easy mode way to wield it), then don't bother. It's a great weapon, I would say ideal for non shield holstering Sun Paladins, but it IS a slight bit iffy for AB. I however would say that I would build my AB with TES in mind.

[teachu2die]

yeahhh...i would say chance to stun alone is prob worth more than even a 50% increase in damage output...the 80 additional damage makes it a no-brainer.

[edge2054]

The chance to stun is pretty low really.

On the other hand that stat requirements should be pretty easy to meet with an AB.

[Grey]

26 Cu seems a little tough for ABs to me. Cunning is the only stat I don't pump on Arcane Blades - every other stat is vital. Still I think the sword works quite well with them - physical hit, 2 damage types, chance of status effect, with Frost Hands and a chance of Flame on top. Would love seeing all that go off :-D

[kingvictory2003]

Hey guys,

Thanks for all the replies--I'll definitely hang onto it, especially for those durned black 'K's, those eternal night obsidian black-dark whatever pain-in-the-butt-physical-immune guys.

Also thanks for your breakdown of the specific stats, Final Master, but actually my current weapon, an Icy Mithril Greatsword of Massacre, reads a base damage along the lines of 66-102, which is significantly higher than 58-66.

So I'm going to try a bit of rudimentary math here:

-I'm assuming +100% for 10/10 weapon mastery (I have 8/10 and it's like +90%)
-I don't know the exact damage added by the strength modifier, so I'll ignore it for now, and I believe it's the same for both anyways.
-I'll discount Frost Hands for now, as the increase in damage of the Icy modifier is negligible.
-The massacre attribute on my mithril great sword is 23%. I don't know if the damage is compounded or just added in with the weapon mastery buff, so I'll just lump it in for now.

GTES: 40-60 base damage x 200% (weapon mastery) + 40 dark + 40 light = 80-120 + 80 = Average 160-200 damage per strike

MGS: 66-102 base damage x 223% (weapon mastery + massacre) = Average 147-227 per strike.

If weapon mastery and massacre are compounded:

MGS: 66-102 base damage x 200% (weapom mastery) x 123% (massacre) = Average 162-251 per strike


Wow, I guess the damage is closer than I thought. MGS has a slightly wider range with a lower minimum, but overall does more damage. If the percent increase to physical damage is compounded however, the MGS starts to pull ahead a bit more significantly. Again, this is really rudimentary as I'm not accounting for how strength bonuses work, mob armor etc.etc.. If would be really interesting for someone to do the calculations that really knows them though

I guess bottom line is that it's definitely up there powerwise, and I'll have to give it a few swings for sure. As I've only been to lvl 40 before getting killed by those big nasty D's in the Vor Armory, I haven't really experienced the endgame stuff, but I figure weapons won't get much more powerful than these.

[kingvictory2003]

Oh, I just realized where you got the 58-66 damage, Final Master--just saw it in the .lua file. I guess the damage displayed must incorporate some of the damage modifiers.

Maybe my math is really off, so I guess I'll just stick to empirical trials, i.e. go smash things with it when I get home.

[Repton]

Thanks for all the replies--I'll definitely hang onto it, especially for those durned black 'K's, those eternal night obsidian black-dark whatever pain-in-the-butt-physical-immune guys.

Eternal bone giants. My fighter met one once with 50% all resistance, and 45% physical resistance. Ack.

(I saw one with 50%/50% once, with an archer, but that was easier because I could pick it off with elemental arrows without getting whacked all the time)

[Final Master]

Ya, the .lua files give the unmodified (based on stat) range of damage, in other words, if you had a strength/magic score of 10. In game the damage range is auto modified to reflect the associated stat for damage.

Your further breakdown is more accurate, and because it is a double ego'd MGS, that does make it a bit harder of a choice, especially with the +% to physical being so high. I agree though, that some old fashioned bashing to find more solid results are in order!

Be sure to report back your findings please.

[kingvictory2003]

Level 44 now, and wielding a slime-covered mithril battleaxe of massacre. After spending level 36-38 with the GTES, I have to say it is indeed a bit disappointing in that its pure physical damage loses out to the mithril weaponry. Right now, I'm dealing out 350-600 per normal hit, and around the 800-1000 range with criticals. Probably the biggest I saw with the GTES is around 750. Nothing to sneer at, but that extra damage from the two-handed mithril weaponry can mean the difference between a two or three-hit kill--a big deal when fighting mobs of nasties that are best killed quickly.

Sorry that I don't have exact numbers, as I didn't feel like logging the damage of every strike and plotting it out If I ever have the urge, I'll do it, but for the time being, my qualitative feel is that it will perform in endgame, but not quite up to a standard double-ego mithril two-handed weapon. I believe this was Darkgod's intention as well, so that artifact weaponry is not the sole go-to for gearing up.