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A-EftP - Optimal weapons?


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Aloha!

 

I've been puzzling over what weapons are best.

 

There are a number of decent-looking swords or other weapons I've found so far, and I wonder which are actually best.

 

First, are Ever Rotting Bow (weak but inflicts acid?) or Bow of Storms (weak but inflicts lightning?) worthwhile for their bonuses? Their bases is less than even some of the generic longbows, but I wondered about their bonus effect.

 

Discipline Blade

Singing Rapier

Seeking Rapier

Nephil Warblade

Radiant Shortblade

 

I've collected a number of these short swords and was wondering if anyone had crunched numbers on which give the best bonuses / do the most overall damage.

 

Is the Molten Spear with it's gymnastics bonus worth giving to my mage or priest? One has the Lave-fired Spear for its bonus to magical damage, and the other is carrying the Vampiric Knife for its defensive bonus.

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The bonus effects are really, really weak compared to previous games. Even aicd from the mage spell, which is supposed to last 3 rounds, seems to usually last just 1, doing about 20 extra damage. Not worth it. And on the bows it only attempts to apply those effects half the time.

 

For those 5 swords, it will depend on your setup. They are all excellent, though.

 

The ones that boost Strength and Melee Weapons are better if you are dual wielding than if you aren't. The Discipline Blade is nice for getting Adrenaline Rush early. One of them has a Parry bonus which is terrific for your first character. I think the Nephil Warblade is the weakest overall, while the Radiant Shortblade (high bonus level) and whichever rapier has the Blademaster bonus, are probably the most damaging.

 

And Gymnastics really sucks. It is possible to build up a lot and rely on it for bonus actions, but there are better options.

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In the long run, do you find Mercuric Leather's +1 AP bonus worth using on priest when the defense it offers is so much less than other available armor? Ditto on the Quicksilver Sandals? And if I only one AP boosting item available to give a character, is it worth it? Or are they only effective if I've got multiples (to boost AP above 9)?

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Two purchased points in gymnastics will give your priest about a 19% chance of an extra AP each round (if I'm figuring that correctly). You may consider that worthwhile with one AP-boosting item.

 

Personally, I like my priest to have 10 AP every round for blessing, shielding, healing, curing, and kicking butt.

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If you want your priest to have 10 AP every round, don't give your priest gymnastics. tongue

 

I ended up deciding to give my priest 2 +1 AP items. I haven't even bothered with that on my wizard, though. The priest has multiple buffs, heals, and can usually target Divine Fire well without moving. The wizard on the other hand has only one in-combat buff, and the majority of his attack spells are cones that require repositioning to be most effective.

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The mercuric leather's low armor is okay in the early-mid game, but a serious liability later on. Even with the mercuric chain, I found that the equipped character took substantially higher damage (I never found the mercuric plate).

 

The quicksilver sandals are much more worthwhile. Other than the radiant boots (which provide no other bonuses), and the gazerskin sandals (unique, and only available very near the end of the game), boot defense caps out around 8%. That's only a 6% armor difference; compare a piece of variously enchanted plate (34%) to the 10% armor on the mercuric leather or 16% on the mercuric chain. It should take no great leaps of reasoning to intuit that a 24/18% variance in armor makes a lot more difference than a 6% variance.

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The Mercuric Plate requires no fighting to get to, but you do need Dispel Barrier level 3 and either the Orb of Thralni or the giant's key.

 

Someone wearing Mercuric Chain will take approximately 25% more physical damage than someone wearing enchanted plate. This is not acceptable for a front-line fighter, but I don't see how it's such a deal-breaker for a magic-user who does not expect to take as much physical abuse.

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Quote:
Someone wearing Mercuric Chain will take approximately 25% more physical damage than someone wearing enchanted plate. This is not acceptable for a front-line fighter, but I don't see how it's such a deal-breaker for a magic-user who does not expect to take as much physical abuse.


Well, and 12.5% more damage from fire/ice/magic, which seems problematic given the tendency of bosses and high level enemies to spam powerful elemental attacks.

Also, while a deficiency in physical defense is not as much of a liability for a caster, a lot of the harder battles in the game (e.g. the darkened area in the final gauntlet, Grah-Hoth, the entirety of the royal spire) involve the party being some degree of surrounded, making it very difficult for casters to avoid pulling some amount of aggression from melee enemies.

That said, I think it also depends a lot on the character. I think it makes more sense to use a mercuric chain/leather on a mage than on a priest. Magi, even with a few levels of swordmage, can only wear so much heavy armor, so mercuric plate is pretty much out. Likewise, having a mage go down (in a standard 2 fighter-mage-priest party) is problematic, but not as devastating as losing the priest. Especially in the late game, when the priest can res the mage easily, while the mage has to use expensive and limited scrolls to do the same thing. Since Triumph originally mentioned mercuric leather for his priest, I was mostly thinking about applicability for priests, but I'll agree that it's a legitimate choice for a mage.
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  • 8 years later...

I feel that the remakes have become kinda like "get closer, Adrenaline Rush, spam AoE" so the earlier you get AR, the better. Bonus effects like acid or poison damage are not really worth it mid-late game (maybe except Lightning because its damage is actually decent). 

 

I always give Discipline Blade to my priest, so as to get AR and spam heals/cures/Divine Retribution, and all the Mercuric stuff to my mage to use at least two spells without AR. My other two characters are beefy tanks that are resistant to melee/magic and keep my magic users safe. 

 

Anyway, whichever remake you play, the late game becomes "kill or distract everybody before it's their turn" 😁 

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