I’m interested in what people think are the best weapons. I still don’t have a Legendary weapon, but I’d like to take one up to Legendary in the not too distant future. Since Relics are now a thing, that seems like it might actually be possible. However, since Glyphs are still as rare as unicorns, I’m probably only going to be able to create a Legendary item once every month or two (assuming the RNG gods smile upon me). So, I better get it right.
What do you think? What’s the best weapon and why?
Dwarven Hammer. Provides improved ability to do any level content once you can generate enough mana. Combined with Savior’s Helm and Dwarven Necklace, you greatly decrease restarts upon death when doing those needed Challenges.
I agree with @Sibelios for the weapon, Dwarven hammer all the way. I also use Saviour’s helm. My preferred necklace is Elven charm and Elven boots, because I always play Paladin. I also got lucky and managed to pull a Legendary Guard’s armor, which helps!
Edit: Just to clarify why, using Savior’s helm generates 3 Big V gems (mine is Rare). Provided at least one is yellow, for me, then matching it gives a Stun chance with the Hammer (Yellow). That is usually enough time to gather enough Yellow mana to play the second round properly.
I was initially targeting the Hammer, but then saw a comment from Tacet in another thread:
That weapon is among one of the weaker ones on that list. The condition is likely to only happen once per board. Even at mythic, it will fail 10% of the time. At epic, it is just a coin flip on if it will stun or not. Stun doesn’t stack anymore as of a few days ago, at which point it was the strongest weapon in the game.
No one argued or countered his comment, so it seemed like the premise was accepted.
Is it pretty universally accepted that the Hammer is the best weapon? If not, what are the other weapons in the running and why?
I personally haven’t used hammer since version 0.34. The damage output of it is very slow and there are a lot more consistent ways of of stunning that aren’t chance based. Even once I got the best colored hammer of red in epic (due to dwarven ring synergy), it still wasn’t particularly consistent compared to other methods.
Weapons I currently use the most in 0.36 are:
Longsword: Epic version is 60 power for matching the color.
Twinblade: Epic+ version gets crit every few turns, particularly good in red and in any mission where a cast can’t 1 shot but a crit can 1 shot.
Sickle: Only useful in green, but makes Shaman playable.
Tome: Makes getting full mana on turn 1 a lot more consistent for 200+ mana spells.
The place that drops hammer is a good place to farm though, but not because of hammer.
Not sure what this means. Certain weapons give additional Power (Longsword) or have other dmg production means (Sickle creating more Skull gems, twinblade increasing crit output), so these do potentially decrease match time but it can just as easily contribute to overkill. Damage output is the same for all weapons at all rarities at all levels, ignoring Abilities.
The primary means to stun (a complete row of matched gems) is chance-based, since the production of gems from mana-producing spells is random so the possibility exists that a stun will not result even after all spells are cast and gems are manually matched. What are the other consistent ways? Blackjack? Nice if you are an assassin, but still chance-based. Poison Spirit? Still chance based and basically the same odds as Hammer provided you are running green spells. Cockatrice Juju? ok, not chance based but have fun running a Blue Shaman. The benefit of spells over the hammer is that you know if the enemy has been stunned before moving to the gem-matching phase. But they are not necessarily more consistent than the hammer, just different timing.
The reason why the Hammer in my opinion is the best weapon is that most people playing the game currently do not have @Tacet’s gear options. For many, being able to complete the highest difficulty Challenges is most important, not decreasing match time by 5% or more by adding additional damage. Having the most stun options is valuable in that sense and is most useful by all. Having both barrier and stun running as options means that you can choose in any given turn whether you have to be careful or can choose more risky maneauvers (perhaps you have barrier in place, but weren’t able to complete a full row-match stun, and then Hammer triggers, you still have barrier in place for the next turn to have more freedom to take actions and more likely not get one-shot in the middle of a long dungeon Challenge run).
TL;DR: I value board control more than damage output when recommending an all purpose best weapon. Obviously Mastery (color) matters so a Green Dwarven Hammer is less useful to a Paladin but that is true of virtually all weapons.
I see 50% stun rate from the hammer throughout the dungeon. I’ve never felt the balance was wrong. Yes the damage is only at base level, but the hardest challenge is to get through the first round without being whacked. Once I’m running I don’t really care if it takes 5 mins or 4.5 mins
Just as an aside, I don’t think this as useful as one would think. Let’s say you are using an Epic Tome which adds 10% of your Power to your Mastery. That likely translates to an additional 50-65 Mastery for a “end game” player currently. Given that the most you are probably getting from a gem match is 14 mana per gem (which requires about 500 mastery), it is actually more likely that the bonus from the Tome will translate to a much smaller bonus (due to rounding) as you would need about another 200 points of Mastery to give you a full +1 mana/gem gain. Likely you will end up with a much smaller gain (perhaps around 5-7 mana) and again that’s a 7 gem match including a Big V Gem.
My point in this is to say, there are lots of interesting weapons that give interesting results under certain scenarios but would I recommend the Tome to someone as the best weapon (and consequentially, which weapon to expend rare resources on)? No.
Most the builds I run have around 1,000 power base, so epic is around 100 mastery. This is a turn one mastery increase of around 20%-100% depending on specifically colored gear. It is used mostly for the damage increase than the mana accumulated, but I wouldn’t advise ever using a spell above 200+ without it. Currently I only run spells under 140 though as most the higher ones aren’t realistic in the current state of the game without a lucky starting board.
And here lies a problem with recommendations. My best power base is 446, and it will be a while before it gets much better. By which time .37 will have been released and everything will change again.
I have to work with the tools I have, and stuns are the only chance I stand of winning anything VI+. So, hammer all the way
I’m going to chime in here, @Sibelios as someone who does not have anywhere near @Tacet’s gear options! haha But, even so, I still find the speed boost via longsword to be much more valuable to me than a stun, right now. This is, strictly speaking, in the slow quicksand hell that is 36.
With my other gear (and citadel) I can reliably get a workable start in 1-5 tries in a difficulty x dungeon. The average is about try number 3. So yes, I have to restart a couple of times. But that is a relatively quick thing. Slogging through the battles with my damage not scaling in any way? Not much of a quick thing.
I’m putting it this way because for me, personally, the insanely slow pace of harder battles is enemy number one. Every time I do one, I question why I am playing this game!
But not everyone has the same pain point. I think whatever cures your pain point is the best option!
I wonder how much the game mode being played most impacts which weapon is “best”
If you are working on Level X dungeon runs, then scaling damage would seem pretty key due to the time taken (because restarts for a good board are quick), where as perhaps at say L60 Dungeons, surviving the first hit is more valuable (since the actual run doesn’t take 20+ minutes), and at L50 or Normal, then other effects have a chance to be utilized since survival is less of a relative priority and the battles are quick
If you focus on PVP or Events, then its a whole different story
It also matters what you actually have in your inventory. I own an Epic purple longsword and a rare blue one, but the rest of my gear doesn’t work well for those colours. Maybe if I had a yellow longsword my opinion would be different!
I’m also lazy, and can’t be bothered to keep switching gear. For me, the hammer works on all levels, if somewhat slow on the X’s.
That is part of what I mentioned about our individual pain points. If you were unlucky getting gear to create the big gems necessary to proc the hammer? You likely would be using a different weapon.
Since you are talking about yellow mana, I assume you are talking about paladin. I have a an epic/35 yellow longsword and two rare dwarven hammers (one red, one green). Assuming I have the shards to level up one of those rare hammers to their full 25, which weapon sounds best for my paladin?
It would depend on how big an issue surviving the first hit is for me. If the hammer is the only chance to do that, it is the best. Otherwise? Maybe not?
Agreed. Which kinda means it’s hard to recommend ‘the best weapon’ at all. Many factors come in to play. For me, I use the hammer because it’s appropriate (and I have it!). I’m trying to get a yellow longsword at the moment. I will use this for any dungeon where I can survive two rounds. For all harder ones I’ll use the hammer.
Does that mean the hammer is better or the longsword? It really depends on my other items, and which aspects of the game I want to play.
And as I said before, putting too much effort in to one type at the moment risks being disappointed when .37 comes out, because they are sure to mix everything up again
