Requests from a Master Weaponsmith

Would've been nice if they'd have left anything saleable. I used to sell arrowheads, hammers, and axes since they were the only things that stacked, now I just do writs if I do anything. I didn't level through tier 7, just went far enough to do adornments, but haven't seen much interest. I still have stacks of imbuing extracts I've never had a use for, that's how much demand I've seen.

I made an adamantine weapon with no stats right after KoS came out and figured they didn't really care about weaponsmiths anyway. Even tin weapons have something on them. The new MC weapons look ok, but of course they're the only thing of value.

I recall selling a LOT of imbued fulginate weapons once upon a time, but that was when walking to school was uphill both ways in the snow with no shoes. I think they were assault axes (which no longer exist) and executioner's axes primarily. The DR on the executioner's axes haven't kept up in the later tiers, and common ore? Please.

Meh, crafting? I think they'd prefer you play LoN.

Re-itemization of previous tier weapons is highly important to build a proper foundation to move the Weaponsmith craft forward and make it viable and a desired profession as well as making the products they sell worth while. They have done this with Armorers and Tailor's MC. The purpose of showing the screen shots is to plainly show how inconsistant and sloppy the weapons are from tier to tier. Not only in stats, but also in delay, damage rating, and damage. A huge issue with some of the one handers is the change from dual wield. We had a ton of weapons that were specifically designed to be a dual wield weapon, with others designed to be one handers, when the change was implemented it made a lot of the dual wield weapons less desired due to lower stats and damage. Even some of the HQ dual wield weapons are subpar now compared to MC one handers. Right now as you've seen from some the screens I posted, there is no consistant progression in the Weapons.
Domino said in BeTa she was allowed to do more with T8 weapons so this is most likely the reason we saw a huge change in stats, delay, damage rating, etc. However! I still feel damage ratings in Tier 8 don't match up to previous tier Legendary as I feel they should. Most tier 7 Legendary average around 71.4 to 74.9, with some a bit higher than that. Tier 8 Mastercrafted is averaging between 67.2 to 69.5, which is too low (damage ratings averaged for 1 hander weapons). I would much rather go with a weapon that has a quicker delay but has a higher damage rating, rather than a slower delay with lower damage rating.
TBH though, Tier 7 EoF Legendary weapons are easily attainable even for the casual gamer/solo gamer and because of this, you will not see many running around with Tier 8 weapons, because of a few reasons, one being damage rating, the other being proc or % to crit. No one will want to upgrade to a T8 MC with no % to crit, I know I wouldn't. Especially melee DPS! They will upgrade to a T8 treasured looted/quested drop with equal to or greater % crit chance. Why? Players are not going to take less than what they already have. Some will probably be allured by the high stats, but as some of you already know, it's not always about the greater stats.
Firstly though, create a solid foundation to be followed for all weapons that have recipes. Tiers that are missing recipes need to be added. Previously flagged dual wield weapons needs some adjustment to be on par with one handers. Stats need to be more defined to be easily identified weapon for certain class's. (i.e. Mace = Priests, Dirk = Mage). By placing emphasis on the role of the weapon that is being crafted makes it easier for players to choose the best type of weapon for the spec they are going for. Especially since AP's practically allow for most class's to have a dual purpose, (i.e. Battle Priest, Melee Warden, etc).
Second, revisit the way imbues work on Weapons. With the introduction of Adornments the imbue was to be removed, however there was a huge up roar from the community regarding this so they were left in. I personally think these Materials need to be looked into and possibly changed to allow for more variety in the Weapon. Something I suggested in a previous post was to have 'elemental type' materials would be interesting. Or even just addt'l recipes using some of the vendor trash loot or items used for illusions, such as Vampire Teeth. Adding this to a recipe would give a 'Life tap' or a Spectral Essence (non-L&L one) gives an addt'l % damage to Undead.
Third, revisit Weapon graphics per tier. In all the blade of the weapon should be fairly consitant, however handles, grips should vary per tier. Handles should become a bit more ornate as you go up in tier. I don't expect them to look like Epics, but a little more pizazz would be nice for a good awe factor.

However, consistant progression and re-itemizing is the key to allowing Weaponsmiths to go forward and will give a larger foundation in which to build on.

They Should treat this no different way then they did the other Tradeskill Itemizations. Start with Current highest Tier and work Back..

They Did this with Jewlry and Armor.. Because the Problem is, The past tiers are a mess, Mob and Balance wise. I realy Don't Expect the Lower tiers to be realy striaghtened out for some time now.. Timourous Deep equipment kinda Tipped alot of scales. So thier Best thing get a overall Template of where the Current Tiers should be at, and Go back wards. This way afterwards when they get back to balanceing things out, they will have something to go by and keep track of.

Right Now Looking at Tier 1, and doing comparisons with old work and TD is like night and day.

Honestly I do not see how we can possibly rescue this class by revamping all weapons. I don't particularly enjoy being a throwing weapons grinder, granted I know it will make us useful. I more enjoy making a weapon nice to look at and nice to use. The only ways I see for improving the weaponsmith class is:

1. Make us a fluff crafter - we craft awesome looking weapons for an appearance slot. Maybe limit the weapon to the same type as you fight with to help with the whole graphic glitches of having an appearance 2hander and fighting with a 1hander. I for one would love to get that awesome looking axe in one of the loading screens. Problem I see is we need someone to make loads and loads of new graphics. :-(

2. Revamp the weaponsmith craft, give a set point of stats and let us customise weapons, tailor make them to others people's specs. Maybe have us make many separate baubles (+slash, +str, +haste, +resist, etc.). Make it so we can apply them to any weapon however we cannot surpass the set number of points for a tier. Having this system will soooo be the hardest to implement but this is the best way to please us as well as the player base as I see it. We will have some weird combinations though...

We need something unique that cannot be replaced easily (easily in the fact that we should have a hard time choosing between 2 weapons not 1 being vastly superior to another)

Istar@Mistmoore wrote:

Wait a minute... They've reitemized jewelry? When?

piesang wrote:

I agree, Even if the Weapons are complety redone, Im unsure if any gains would be recieved since its just realy 1-3 slots ....

piesang wrote:

First thing I'd like to see, and want to stress is Consistancy. Screens I've shown already detail the up and down and lack luster crafted weapons are. Damage rating is lower than the the tier of the weapon, delay jumps up and down, stats disappear then reappear, power and health fluxate - disappear - reappear. There is a ton of inconsistancy that needs to be addressed before the Weaponsmith craft can even remotely be able to move forward.

Rashaak wrote:

Sorry, I should rephrase: let us tailor make weapons to people's specs. I did not mean tailor's can ;-)

piesang wrote:

Ah, sorry, I misread the statement initially. Anyways...I would say no to that option for the reason that if Weaponsmith were given this option, then it would have to be across the board for all other crafts as well. Which would end meaning an entire revamp of the crafting system, and even though a complete revamp would probably be the best way to go...I serously doubt it would happen.

I've just read all of the previous posts. There are some good ideas here, and they've inspired me to give some ideas on the subject.
First: make most weapons more consistant throught all tiers. Same delay, same general stat progression, same usable classes, same graphic.
Second: add some "one off" recipe for "expansion flavor". This way you can look just a bit like the mobs from this expansion. These weapons would not follow into the next tier. Also used to bulk up the weaponsmith's recipe book.
Third: Make weapons consistant on bonuses. Either all player made weapons should be 2 stat or 3 stat weapons with a HP/Power bonus appropriate for tier. I'd suggest stat actually come in pairs, and these pairs be combinations of str, agi, int, wis only. Eliminate stamina from the consideration. Wisdom should only be placed on weapons that priests can wield (swords, spears, and all manor of blunt objects). Try to spread str/int to all of the damage types as this will be a popular choice. Avoid agi/int as this would be an unpopular choice for all classes. I'd even suggest avoiding agi/wis for the same reason, which leaves only agi/str weapons for agility. This seems appropriate as this would be popular with fighters, most scouts would reach for str/int.
Fourth: Slow crafted weapons down, but keep the same DPS. One handed weapons should have a 2s, 2.5s, 3s and 4s delay option averaging between 2.5 and 3s. Two handed weapons should go from 3s to 6s, with an average falling at 4.5s. This makes them more desirable in consideration of weapon crits and haste.
Fifth: This is purely my own thought. Consider introducing x7 MC recipes for each tier. There doesn't need to be one for each weapon, just a sampling of weapons to make sure that all classes can equip at least one. Tailor each weapon for an archatype (i.e. different proc effect). Spread stats out to include stamina on all of these weapons. In keeping with archatypes I'd suggest that Fighters be given a hate proc, Scouts be given a deagro, Mages be given a power incease, and Priests be given a ward on target. As an alternative to proc effects, maybe unique activatable powers with long re-cast timers (30min, 1 hour)? Something like a feign death weapon, an invisability dagger, a rez stick, or a call to Nektropos Castle spell. These would be fit very well with the second idea of one-off recipes. I think this sort of thing should have to include a dropped component from an appropriate dungeon/instance.
please note: if the fifth suggestion was fully followed, you would have people buying weapons just to carry around for the clicky effect. That probably means at least one extra sell per expansion.

Sapphirius wrote:

Well they re-itemized rings at least three times, the last time being in LU24.
Apart from some rings and some of the new RoK recipes (which are not all made by jewelers) MC jewelry is in almost as bad a state as weapons.
Spells and strength rings and T7 handcrafted resist jewelry (T8 is not as good) mean jewelers are better off than weaponsmiths.

Terron@Splitpaw wrote:

*ponder*
If your talking about the imbue effect, that happened a LONG time ago.
Anyways...I believe all crafting professions need some work done to them. (aside from carpenter and provisioner of course ).

All right ... here are some very preliminary thoughts just to let you know what kind of ideas are floating around in my mind at the moment.

First, progression.

Clearly an issue. We did deliberately change the progression with T8 because, frankly, some of the stats and stuff on lower level weapons made no sense at all. Voulges, for example, were designed to be a two-handed weapon and the art department (aka Lotus) was horrified to discover our voulges had been wielded one handed till now, so various reasons like that resulted in changes in T8.

What I would like to do is look at the selection of weapon types, damage types, and stat combinations available in T8 and identify and fill any any obvious holes where there's something clearly needed. ("Needed" meaning actually a reasonable proportion of the customers might want it -- while there might be some crushing-damage-melee-tank-spec'ed-illusionists out there somewhere who would really like a weapon statted specifically for that, I don't think that kind of thing is an itemization hole that we really need to fill in this discussion.)

Once we can identify any clear flaws or entirely missing items in T8 and get those addressed, I'd then like to take the T8 set we end up with and simply scale it backwards down to level 1. So we'll always know that a ritual dagger is a 1-h piercing weapon with mage-desirable stats, for example (or whatever we end up with). Damage type and delay general stats and name will be consistent all through.

Second, effects.

Fyreflyte did an awesome job itemizing new and cool effects on the treasured and legendary loot. Unfortunately, he didn't have a hand in the itemization of crafted weapons, which just followed the same progression pattern as in lower levels, and received only the same old imbue effects. While those effects can be nice, it's not out of the question that we could add some different effects too. What kind of effects would be desirable, without making MC weapons disproportionately desirable, is another question to discuss. Fyreflyte's very busy, as always, but if I can lure him out to lunch or something I may be able to pick his brains and see whether he has any spare effect ideas that are sitting unused. If there are particularly desirable effects on the treasured weapons that anybody has seen it's possible those could be scaled up or otherwise borrowed, so feel free to list those. I'm not sure if a set bonus might be possible (e.g. use two MC weapons, get a set bonus effect) but I could check into that also.

Prior to RoK weapons didn't have nearly so many cool effects so I'm not sure to what extent effects like this could be scaled back down to lower tiers, but one can always enquire.

Third, recipes.

With the mastercrafted armor upgrade, armor was always a lot more consistent and cookie-cutter than weapons so the existing armor was simply upgraded. The weapon changes suggested above however would significantly change the items if they are applied as suggested above. Someone's crushing weapon might change to piercing, stats and even 1- or 2-handedness might change. I don't think we can simply change the stats on existing weapons because of this, customers may be left with totally unusuable weapons, or weapons that don't do anything they bought them for. So this change would require a new set of weapons to be created (excepting 70-80) and recipes from that point on would change to make the new weapons, but the old ones would remain the same. (This would be similar to when the mastercrafted armor was changed by Beghn around the KoS expansion.)

Fourth, ammo.

It is indeed my intention to add the recipes in for weaponsmiths in all level ranges, just haven't had time to do it yet.

There's a lot more to think about and a lot more that could be said on this topic but that should at least outline four big areas regarding weaponsmiths, and my thoughts about the best way to proceed. Comments on the above, in particularly the first one, are welcome.

Well I don't know exactly where +spell damage and +healing fall in the "1 or 2" topics, but I'll say what I mean.

Basically, if you're going to be putting weapons in to fill gearing holes, how about making the mage and priest ones very beneficial for mages and priests? Which by that I mean ditch the "regular" imbue proc, and instead put on things like +spell damage or +healing. Perhaps have +spell damage on the mage ritual dagger by default, and then imbuing it would add an on-spell damage proc, rather than one triggered off of stabbing, as mages are less likely to be in melee. And the same idea with priests, in that they would have +healing, with a groupwide heal (or ward, or whatever, think creative) as the effect on them while casting a healing spell.

Similar ideas can come for the crusader classes, who may want to go blunt and have a "normal" damage proc, but with some +spell damage on it too. Or maybe even go for variants, where some items will have a better pure proc, and others will have better +spell damage, depending on what the player wants to go for. Mix this in with the desire for certain stats, again balancing those against the strength of the rest of the effects to give more choice.


My suggestions probably mean an expansion in the number of weaponsmith recipes, but I wouldn't think that the weaponsmiths out there (I don't have one) would object much to that either, though it would be a greater burden on entering the actual new items.

Eriol wrote:

A different variation on that would be to either have the proc on a hostile or beneficial spell (as applicable) rather than a melee hit. OR have the the proc effect be a reduction in cast time for a period of time (another handy thing for a caster).

Of those two, as a coercer, I'd rather have a damage proc off a hostile spell for the imbue even if that proc was the same as the melee version currently on imbues. Partly because there are so few damage procs for spell casting in RoK itemisation and its a good way for a 'chanter to increase DPS

Oh... and please please please, no proc power or proc overheal. There are waaaaay too many of those items in RoK itemisation. The first is one of the things obsoleting coercers. The later is.. well.. too overdone. For the power procs... I would have thought the intent of item procs, etc, wasn't an effort to make one class less useful or less desirable but should be something to add an enhancement no matter who uses it. A damage proc is beneficial to any damage dealing class, a power proc eliminates the need and utility of power maintenance classes.

*steps off her soapbox*

Rijacki, I think we're both on the same general idea that crafted weapons should move away from the idea of "some probably-relevant stats and a damage-on-hit proc" and more toward the variety of things that we see in actual drops and quest rewards, especially in Kunark, since there's an abundance of new decent loot. Obviously there's going to be variation in desires, but overall I'd rather adventurers see mastercrafted as something slightly-better-than the normal quest rewards, with only the legendaries out of the 5-mans, and the END quest rewards (end-of-questline legendaries, not the intermediary treasured results) being better. Right now I honestly think the perception (and reality) is that all weapons are the same with merely different graphics and wield styles. Varying the effects (a LOT) could add some needed distinctiveness. Perhaps (BIG perhaps) not having every type of effect on every weapon, also tightening the association between a specific effect and a style of weapon, though that's just a random idea that occurred to me. I'm sure via # of recipes that WSs wouldn't mind having an all-types, all-effects type arrangement!

Though back to my original point, I think this really is an opportunity to add a lot to the WS class, and crafted weapons in general by adding in the effects that are right now only on quest rewards and drops and to remove the feeling that all WS items are (quite literally) the same outside of look.

DominoDev wrote:

Just wanted to Reply, thanks for the update on the progression of looking into this... When Get chance will look at the weapon Procs/stats on Kunark items as i go along...
As I said, I would like to see the weapons to be actually desirable to those being lvl 70-80 range, but agree they should not be overly desirable.. Aka, Its will be wrong if, said player is ditching VP Weapon over an MC crafted one... But I see it wrong if Person is Ditching MC over a HoS one.
A good outline Proposal I think would be good on these is..

• 3-4 base Stats, Geared toward Class's
• 1-2 Focus stat... Some weapons Geared for offense, Some for Defensive ... AKA, Parry, Block, CA, DA
• comparable resists to other MC items
• Compareable Dmg Rateigns to legendary of that tier.. Maybe a little lower..but not a night and day difference
• 1-2 Effect/ability geared towards Class Def, offense.

I can only realy Speak for an SK, since that is my main.. Our stats that we look for are a mix of (STR,STA,INT,AGI)
Offensive we look for are (Double attack,Melee Crit,DPS,Haste,Spell Damage)
Defensivly We look for (Deflection, Parry, Block)
Effects wise (Very Important !! ) We look for procs that trigger off of Spells ... Not combat arts..The new Targ shield that came with the chromatic essences is a very nice item but the proc is on Combart art damage which means we can barely use it ;((.
Theres some other neat effects out there will get some others as i can.
edit.. I like the Set gear idea! but as an sk am limited to one weapon.... Maybe the set could be weapon/shield.. or weapon/shield/symbol-bow... or with charms.

Thank you Domino for your willingness to work with us. You seem focused on revamping the fundamentals, which I find very encouraging. I thought the stuff I posted on page 1 would be good places to start some dialog from, but nobody really took me up on it, which is rather disappointing. But you've refocused us with what you've said you're willing to do and it seems to be in line with what I was suggesting/asking for. I spent some time last night talking in the global channels and my server channels to get a better feel for play styles and what people would like to see to make weapons more desirable. So let me revisit and expand upon what I said before.

Long post, sorry.

Progression

I think there is a set of clearly identifiable play styles that weapons should be tailored for (see below). I think weapons should only have two stats, to allow those stats to be higher, making weapons more situational and more clearly beneficial. Each play style should have all three damage types (slash/pierce/crush) available when possible. And 2H weapons should be the stat-equivalent of 2 x 1H weapons, with a damage rating/spread noticeably higher, or they will just never be up to snuff.

Keeping damage rating consistent, I think is a no-brainer. You pick a Damage Rating for a tier, and you base the other stuff off that. One thing I got from talking with people last night is that almost no one wants a fast weapon -- even priests & mages. Also, stats are fairly secondary for lots of the melee types. The pure damage a weapon does is the primary concern. Backing this up is the fact that pretty much the only melee-centric weapons I've sold since RoK release are the ones with 4.0 delay. Giving all the weapons a higher delay, and varying the damage spread will allow the weapons to be more closely tailored for each play style. This is noted for each play style below. I list suggested delays in a range (3.5 to 4.0 is the most common range I list, for instance). Piercers could be fastest, and crushers the slowest. (So you could go P-3.6, S-3.8, C-4.0 for 1Hers in a given play style where I list 3.5 to 4.0 as the range, for example.) The spread could then be adjusted slightly larger for the faster weapon to equalize it a bit. For people that care about crits, the spread needs to be in the 1:4 or 1:5 range to be desirable (someone correct me if I'm wrong there). So there's a range to play with to vary the spread some for the different speeds. The crusher (slowest) could have the tightest range (closer to 1:4) and the piercer (fastest) could have the widest range (closer to 1:5). This provides different considerations for picking different weapons, but keeps them close enough that they all remain desirable.

Laying T8 out completely, and then scaling it back to redo the lower tiers seems the obvious right way to approach this, BTW.

Effects

The first thing that should happen here is Gleaming Strike should proc off all attacks. I've said this before, and others have as well. There is no reason not to do this. It is one of the simplest, single changes you can make to give weapons more desirability pretty much across the board. And it is absolutely not unbalancing.

• For pure melee types the dps from the proc will not change.
• Hybrid types are currently not getting the full benefit of this proc. To allow a crusader or bard to proc as often as a warrior or melee scout would not be unbalancing, it would be equalizing.
• Mages and priests are currently getting nothing (or next to nothing) from this proc. My 74 wizzy is still using the Grizzfazzle staff because of the nice proc on that weapon. The 72 ritual dagger would be pretty much equivalent to the Grizz staff if the proc were changed in this simple way. Making a 72 MC weapon equivalent to a 65 Legendary weapon seems perfectly acceptable to me. The plasma wand from Unrest is still clearly better. Every fabled weapon I looked at last night (including Soulfire) is still clearly better. (I'm talking proc only, of course.)

Changing the proc like this is not unbalancing.

Beyond the proc, adding some effects like you have on other MC gear would be great. Anything Fyreflyte could allow you to add to your list of possibles would also be great. +skill effects were suggested by some I've talked to, as well. Each play style below will have a note about this.

One last thing to say here is restating what I laid out in your adornment thread. Freeing up adornments to allow them to be applied to any slot would let anybody put +STR, or whatever they want, on any weapon. Simply categorize the adorns, and limit how many adorns for each quality level from each category you can have active (3 treasured, 2 legendary, 1 fabled from each category, etc.). That way you would, for example, only be able to stack up 3 treasured stat adorns, 2 legendary DPS adorns, yadda yadda. Use whatever categories would work best to prevent overpowering. Freedom here gives choice and customizability not only to weapons, but to your entire character. This is a clear desire repeatedly stated by players, and the adornment system seems like it could be changed to provide this rather easily.

Ammo/Consumables

Not much to say here except to beat the dead horse by repeating myself. Our consumable adorns aren't very desirable. They're too expensive to make. Oh... and I became a weaponsmith to make weapons. I'll leave it at that.

Play Styles

I've tried to cover every major base here, and I spent some time talking with different people about each category to be more informed. But I'm sure there will be gaps. Like I said on the first page, please feel free to correct or expand my list.

The suggested stats are in order of importance (65%/35%, for instance, or something more 50/50 would work situationally). I can imagine needing to adjust the numbers from what current weapons have to allocate itemization points as more effects are added, etc. so I've left numbers off. Delay and spread are more important for some play styles than others. Effects are just basic suggestions and purposely incomplete (there's all kinds of room here, and will completely depend on how itemization works, and what you get back from Fyreflyte).

I've pigeon-holed current weapons with each Suggested Weapons section, as you said you're open to changing them even in drastic ways if needed, but they're very loose recommendations... I just thought I'd give it a shot. Some play styles don't have any 2H weapons listed. This is just my take, but I don't think they're needed for every play style. (The existing lineup of 36 Incarnadine weapons divided up fairly well, but I had to disregard their current stats almost completely as they're aimed at only a couple stat sets, really. Also, I couldn't find a home for Pitchatka, Kukri, and War Axe. And there are some ?'s where I didn't have a weapon to fill the slot.)

Tanking
» Focus: No-brainer
» Stats: STA / AGI
» Dmg: 1H- 3.5 to 4.0, medium spread
» Effects: anything defensive (parry, block, defense, aggression)
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Dirk, S-Long Sword, C-Mace; (2H) NONE

Scout DPS
» Focus: Scouts, tanking in offensive, brawlers
» Stats: STR / AGI
» Dmg: 1H- 3.5 to 4.0, medium spread
» Effects: offensive stuff (+CA, +weapon skill, melee crit, deflection, etc.)
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Rapier, S-Crescent Axe, C-Fistwraps; (2H) NONE

Melee DPS
» Focus: Off tanks, brawlers, scouts; pure melee
» Stats: STR / STA
» Dmg: 1H- 3.5 to 4.0, medium spread; 2H- 5.5 to 6.0, larger spread
» Effects: offensive stuff (+CA, +weapon skill, melee crit, deflection, etc.)
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Katar, S-Falchion, C-Knuckles; (2H) P-Trident, S-B@stard Sword, C-?

Hybrid DPS
» Focus: Crusaders, bards, scouts; consideration for spell/proc damage
» Stats: STR / INT
» Dmg: 1H- 3.5 to 4.0, medium spread; 2H- 5.5 to 6.0, larger spread
» Effects: offensive stuff but with spells in mind (+spell & +CA, +weapon skill, recast reduction, melee crit, etc.)
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Leafblade, S-Tomahawk, C-Hammer; (2H) P-Halberd, S-Double Headed Axe, C-War Hammer

Mage DPS
» Focus: No-brainer
» Stats: INT / STA (or INT / STR, allow crossover with Hybrid DPS above?)
» Dmg: 1H- 2.5 to 3.5, medium spread; 2H- 4.5 to 5.0, larger spread
» Effects: anything offensive that helps spells
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Ritual Dagger, S-Battle Claws, C-?; (2H) P-?, S-Scythe, C-?

Battle Mage
» Focus: Mages that want to increase their survivability
» Stats: STA / INT
» Dmg: 1H- 2.5 to 3.5, medium spread
» Effects: ward procs, physical mit, +defense, etc.
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Stiletto, S-Short Sword, C-Scepter; (2H) NONE

Caster Priest
» Focus: No-brainer
» Stats: WIS / INT
» Dmg: 1H- 2.5 to 3.5, medium spread
» Effects: +casting, +healing, recast reduction, etc.
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Kris, S-Karabela, C-Morning Star; (2H) NONE

Melee Priest
» Focus: Melee-spec priests; reliant on high crit, so this category gets largest damage spreads, and should be priest-only
» Stats: STR / WIS (or STR / STA, allow crossover with Melee DPS above?)
» Dmg: 1H- 3.0 to 4.0, large spread; 2H- 4.5 to 5.5, largest spread
» Effects: DPS proc, haste proc, +weapon skill, etc.
» Suggested Weapons: (1H) P-Spear, S-Scimitar, C-Flail; (2H) P-Voulge, S-Executioner's Axe, C-War Maul


I think tailoring weapons to play styles is the very key to making weaponsmithing viable. And again, I feel that limiting weapons to two stats allows the stats to be higher, which makes weapons more situationally effective and more desirable.

Thank you for your consideration.

Some random thoughts about crafted weapon itemization.

Handcrafted should continue to have only stats.
The DR and stats of handcrafted should be just about equal to that of mastercrafted 10 levels lower.

1 or 2 stats per 1H weapon seems about right. Pairs of stats would probably give enough variety and distinctiveness. Quick and slow versions for some cominations would also help.
Maybe 3 for 2H weapons.

Mastercrafted should have something handcrafted does not - power and health as now with a little more at higher tiers seems right.

Mastercrafted should be somewhat biased towards soloing, since it will be pretty near the best you can get if you do not group, whilst it will still be third or fourth rate for raiding.

Two or three types of imbued ability are probably enough. The normal one is good for someone who is using the weapon to hit someone. Procing on hostile spells would work for mages. The activated proc of wands can be useful at low levels, but is not really useful beyond about T4. It could be replaced by the proc on hostile spells, or boosted to usefulness, which I'd prefer. They could be left for later since woodworkers are not in such a bad shape as weaponsmiths.

Maybe high level mastercrafted mage daggers could give +disruption, and the staff +disruption and +subjugation, whilst imbued mastercrafted wands could give + spell damage for spells matching the imbue type.

Plusses to slash/crush/pierce/parry and +CA damage would be good. Only one per weapon type to keep things simples, and consistent once they appear.

Perhaps whips could give a bouns to pets (maybe attack speed) and summoners be allowed to use them.