6x hcw maul versus my 6x maul

[beldannon5]

i have a 6x perfect maul with unbalance flares t5 enscorcelled
i picked up a 6x hcw maul.

I have got an opinion from roblar and ososis and was just curious what others think would
be the better weapon to continue with

[nocturnix]

Get the perfect HCW with premie points, then you have a boss weapon. Or get it enchanted a few times first, then HCW then even more bosser.

[drauz]

Get the perfect HCW with premie points, then you have a boss weapon. Or get it enchanted a few times first, then HCW then even more bosser.

Can't buy crit weighting with premium points. Only crit padding for armor.

[SonoftheNorth]

I'd say HCW because it works on every hit and flares are only every few swings.

[nocturnix]

Can't buy crit weighting with premium points. Only crit padding for armor.

Ah true, nm then.

[hello]

What was Roblar's suggestion? Probably should go with his advice.

[beldannon5]

oh I am pretty sure Roblars and Ososis's advice was good advice, but people like ardwen and others troll er check these boards so was curious
for some unedited opinions.

[Ososis]

My vote was HCW mainly because you can aim it, whereas flares are random spots. Mauls 100% crush is just begging for head shots, and the HCW adds one, maybe two ranks to a hit, making it even easier to get a rank 6 crush kill.

As a blacksmith, it pisses me off that they basically ruined forged weapon value, but it is what it is.

PS, add knockout flares next DR for just a gross amount of head murder. Not sure if weighting is added to knockout flares, but even if not, knockouts are just brutal. I have a knockout maul if you have any interest in playing with the flares.


EDIT
Fucking dwarves. :) maybe you can ambush the lower shin?

[hello]

oh I am pretty sure Roblars and Ososis's advice was good advice, but people like ardwen and others troll er check these boards so was curious
for some unedited opinions.

well, for whatever it's worth, I think it depends on how you hunt and what kind of endrolls you usually get. If you're getting sub-150 endrolls consistently then I don't think the HCW will help you all that much compared to that odd flare perfect ensorcell.150-210 or a little over and yes, the HCW is superior. Anything over that and you're back to CW not being much help.

[drauz]

well, for whatever it's worth, I think it depends on how you hunt and what kind of endrolls you usually get. If you're getting sub-150 endrolls consistently then I don't think the HCW will help you all that much compared to that odd flare perfect ensorcell.150-210 or a little over and yes, the HCW is superior. Anything over that and you're back to CW not being much help.

Don't you have that backwards? The lower end rolls would end up higher on the crit table and possibly get a crit kill where you wouldn't have gotten one. With the higher end rolls you would already be in the range of highest crits possible so the crit weighting wouldn't be as worth while, but the flares would be added damage that the weighting can't keep up with.

I am by no means a guru on this subject, maybe Whirlin wants to chime in. He's pretty good at this sort of thing.

[Ososis]

150-210 or a little over and yes, the HCW is superior. Anything over that and you're back to CW not being much help.

What are you basing this on? As warriors we hit 200 end rolls more often than McGyver makes alts.

EDIT
iirc it takes an endroll of over 500 to guarantee a crush crit kill to the head.

[hello]

Don't you have that backwards? The lower end rolls would end up higher on the crit table and possibly get a crit kill where you wouldn't have gotten one. With the higher end rolls you would already be in the range of highest crits possible so the crit weighting wouldn't be as worth while, but the flares would be added damage that the weighting can't keep up with.

I am by no means a guru on this subject, maybe Whirlin wants to chime in. He's pretty good at this sort of thing.

If he's hitting 110, 120,130,140 the HCW, especially randomized, won't get him to death crits even on the head. Between roughly 150 to 210's I found the situation to change with death crits to the head being more frequent and consistent. With a non CW compared to CW beyond the low 200's+ the CW becomes more and more meaningless.

Also, if you're doing Reim once a day, which some people are doing rather than the more traditional route, CW is severly diminished in usefulness.

[hello]

What are you basing this on? As warriors we hit 200 end rolls more often than McGyver makes alts.

EDIT
iirc it takes an endroll of over 500 to guarantee a crush crit kill to the head.

It's to hit rank 9, once you reached that anything more is redundant.

Further, if you're going that high on endrolls the perfect's DF modification and AvD bonus begin to actually matter. Again, 150-250 or so go with the HCW, lower or higher than that and consider using the flare.

[drauz]

If he's hitting 110, 120,130,140 the HCW, especially randomized, won't get him to death crits even on the head. Between roughly 150 to 210's I found the situation to change with death crits to the head being more frequent and consistent. With a non CW compared to CW beyond the low 200's+ the CW becomes more and more meaningless.

Also, if you're doing Reim once a day, which some people are doing rather than the more traditional route, CW is severly diminished in usefulness.

It could be the difference in knocking it over though.

[Ososis]

It's to hit rank 9, once you reached that anything more is redundant.

I don't think you are taking into account armors and natural crit padding. But anecdotally, if weighting was worthless past a 200 endroll, I wouldn't think all these warriors would be dropping 100's of millions to add it to their weapons, and roblar would not be swinging a 45pt weighted handaxe if fire flares were better at a fraction of a fraction of the price. I would love some math folks to confirm that though of course.

[beldannon5]

Yes numbers would be good

[hello]

It could be the difference in knocking it over though.

Good point, although this thing also has knockdown flares apparently so for those shots that barely hit he could trigger a Knockdown. Honestly, I found dire situations is where flares actually shine, the clutch flare where you're almost dead low on health but still in berserk and it stuns or crits etc.

[Ososis]

It could be the difference in knocking it over though.

Watching some of the new weapons in action, knock downs and stuns basically incapacitate a creature constantly. best defense is a good offense. Killing it is great, but keeping it from hurting you is better (and included in killing).

[hello]

I don't think you are taking into account armors and natural crit padding. But anecdotally, if weighting was worthless past a 200 endroll, I wouldn't think all these warriors would be dropping 100's of millions to add it to their weapons, and roblar would not be swinging a 45pt weighted handaxe if fire flares were better at a fraction of a fraction of the price. I would love some math folks to confirm that though of course.

Not sure about natural critter crit padding, this new? But if you're consistently hitting 250'ish or beyond, you'll be at the cusp of hitting rank 9's against chain especially with a perfect in vanilla calculations.I try to avoid at all costs hunting things in plate, and it's a tad rare to see a lot of critters in plate.

[Ososis]

Not sure about natural critter crit padding, this new? But if you're consistently hitting 250'ish or beyond, you'll be at the cusp of hitting rank 9's against chain especially with a perfect in vanilla calculations.I try to avoid at all costs hunting things in plate, and it's a tad rare to see a lot of critters in plate.

You swing a gleaming vultite battlesword at a thunder troll!
AS: +195 vs DS: +49 with AvD: +42 + d100 roll: +4 = +192
... and hit for 53 points of damage!
Strong slash to the thunder troll's right hand cuts deep.
The thunder troll is stunned!
Roundtime: 5 sec.
Note that the critical location was determined to be the right hand and that the damage type shown is slashing. The damage factor of a two-handed sword against a thunder troll's armor is .500, so the +192 endroll does 46 raw damage. The message given is a level 4 critical. The critical multiplier against the hand is 5, so the expected critical level is 9, but the troll is protected by natural critical padding and critical randomization reduced the critical level to 4. A level 4 slashing critical to the hand does 7 extra damage.

Category: Combat Mechanics


What train are you currently at? I imagine natural critical padding (which I think is based on CON stat?) would be greater at cap than at like 50th train.

[hello]

You swing a gleaming vultite battlesword at a thunder troll!
AS: +195 vs DS: +49 with AvD: +42 + d100 roll: +4 = +192
... and hit for 53 points of damage!
Strong slash to the thunder troll's right hand cuts deep.
The thunder troll is stunned!
Roundtime: 5 sec.
Note that the critical location was determined to be the right hand and that the damage type shown is slashing. The damage factor of a two-handed sword against a thunder troll's armor is .500, so the +192 endroll does 46 raw damage. The message given is a level 4 critical. The critical multiplier against the hand is 5, so the expected critical level is 9, but the troll is protected by natural critical padding and critical randomization reduced the critical level to 4. A level 4 slashing critical to the hand does 7 extra damage.

Category: Combat Mechanics


What train are you currently at? I imagine natural critical padding (which I think is based on CON stat?) would be greater at cap than at like 50th train.

Interesting. No, I'm not at cap just getting past mid levels. Wow, if a thunder troll has 2 or 3 points of crit padding and it scales all the way to cap, do capped critters have like exceptional+ crit padding? If so, I can see the draw for crit weighting especially weighting beyond just heavy. Whats the padding like up at cap?

[Whirlin]

Not sure about natural critter crit padding, this new? But if you're consistently hitting 250'ish or beyond, you'll be at the cusp of hitting rank 9's against chain especially with a perfect in vanilla calculations.I try to avoid at all costs hunting things in plate, and it's a tad rare to see a lot of critters in plate.
No, it's not new. Perhaps you should make a new account and ask about it.

Characters gain natural weighting based on their Dex Bonus, However this phantom crit weighting is limited based on the specific weapon, some having relatively low limits (like, +2). There may be additional factors in the dex crit weighting limits, however I did not have enough time to go through all of them. Many creatures (anything boar-class for instance) have naturally Crit padding.

B is right though. If you're in a situation where you're going to have a base critical rank 9, having additional crit weighting means nothing. It the equivalent of like having flares on a weapon where the critter died from the swing when the weapon would have flared.

That being said, the 250 rough estimate is only true up until Brig (248), Going up to Hauberk, and it's a 315, or 429 in plate (Note: I noticed recently that Blood Loss is mathed out as ROUND(Endroll*DF) whereas Critical Base Damage is Calculated at ROUNDDOWN(Endroll*DF), which I have not reflected in my spreadsheets... so the values may be off by off by a couple points).

While we're talking about effectiveness, there's also going to be some anomalous behavior when you're swinging a HCW weapon against a critter in plate. There will be a 9%ish chance that the crit weighting will have no effect. This would be due to the critical divisor being 11. So if you only did 11 damage for a Tier 1 critical, +10 = 21, still not enough for a Tier 2 critical... so the HCW didn't actually provide any bonus. Is that enough to say that the flares will be better in the other 91% of the times? Well, without knowing the exact distribution of flare critical outcomes, and the overall likelihood based on your playstyle that a flare will occur, then no... no we can't.


Wait... I haven't answered the question.


If you're aiming your attacks, I would lean towards the HCW. If you're not aiming, I would stick with the flaring, T5 until you can get a T5 on your HCW, at which point, I would swap over to the HCW.

Why? The crush tables are pretty garbage for anything except head/neck... you're very unlikely to get a random death critical to the Back/Abdomen/Chest/Eyes due to critical randomization and the randomness of the lack of aiming, so the crit weighting would likely be a little nice-to-have additional critical damage, perhaps some more knockdowns/stun duration, but overall I would not consider that to be sufficient to overcome the flares and ensorcell effects of your weapon (which can also provide similar bonuses), even if they are a more roulette-y and less consistent.

I have a damage simulation spreadsheet on the wiki that's publicly available. Simply input your weapon type, whether or not you're aiming, and the target's information, and it'll spit out the overall aggregated chance of all potential critical outcomes based on weapon type, and chance for death crits. I'll be updating it for that truncate rather than round function shortly.

https://gswiki.play.net/Whirlin%27s_Weapon_Comparison_Spreadsheet

[hello]

No, it's not new. Perhaps you should make a new account and ask about it.

Characters gain natural weighting based on their Dex Bonus, However this phantom crit weighting is limited based on the specific weapon, some having relatively low limits (like, +2). There may be additional factors in the dex crit weighting limits, however I did not have enough time to go through all of them. Many creatures (anything boar-class for instance) have naturally Crit padding.

B is right though. If you're in a situation where you're going to have a base critical rank 9, having additional crit weighting means nothing. It the equivalent of like having flares on a weapon where the critter died from the swing when the weapon would have flared.

That being said, the 250 rough estimate is only true up until Brig (248), Going up to Hauberk, and it's a 315, or 429 in plate (Note: I noticed recently that Blood Loss is mathed out as ROUND(Endroll*DF) whereas Critical Base Damage is Calculated at ROUNDDOWN(Endroll*DF), which I have not reflected in my spreadsheets... so the values may be off by off by a couple points).

While we're talking about effectiveness, there's also going to be some anomalous behavior when you're swinging a HCW weapon against a critter in plate. There will be a 9%ish chance that the crit weighting will have no effect. This would be due to the critical divisor being 11. So if you only did 11 damage for a Tier 1 critical, +10 = 21, still not enough for a Tier 2 critical... so the HCW didn't actually provide any bonus. Is that enough to say that the flares will be better in the other 91% of the times? Well, without knowing the exact distribution of flare critical outcomes, and the overall likelihood based on your playstyle that a flare will occur, then no... no we can't.


Wait... I haven't answered the question.


If you're aiming your attacks, I would lean towards the HCW. If you're not aiming, I would stick with the flaring, T5 until you can get a T5 on your HCW, at which point, I would swap over to the HCW.

Why? The crush tables are pretty garbage for anything except head/neck... you're very unlikely to get a random death critical to the Back/Abdomen/Chest/Eyes due to critical randomization and the randomness of the lack of aiming, so the crit weighting would likely be a little nice-to-have additional critical damage, perhaps some more knockdowns/stun duration, but overall I would not consider that to be sufficient to overcome the flares and ensorcell effects of your weapon (which can also provide similar bonuses), even if they are a more roulette-y and less consistent.

I have a damage simulation spreadsheet on the wiki that's publicly available. Simply input your weapon type, whether or not you're aiming, and the target's information, and it'll spit out the overall aggregated chance of all potential critical outcomes based on weapon type, and chance for death crits. I'll be updating it for that truncate rather than round function shortly.

https://gswiki.play.net/Whirlin%27s_Weapon_Comparison_Spreadsheet

Well, that's probably as good as you're going to get. Also, recognize that some things are immune to crits (undead) and also when aiming shots you'll always have a 5% failure rate no matter what. Furthermore, you can't aim shots when berserking and as a dwarf you'll have trouble hitting heads.

One thing I would like to know as an aside, is the +6% DF increase to Perfects. I know the AvD bonus is essentially an additional +3 to enchant but the DF scales with the endroll and a 300 endroll on maul vs. plate is like 90 raw versus 96 raw with a perfect, does it really matter? I'm beginning to think not really?

[Ardwen]

Honestly, I don't think it matters which, you are using a maul not a dagger, you shouldn't need a maul to be either perfect or weighted to kick asses and take names. Assuming you add the t5 to the hcw they won't be all that amazingly different overall.

[hello]

Honestly, I don't think it matters which, you are using a maul not a dagger, you shouldn't need a maul to be either perfect or weighted to kick asses and take names. Assuming you add the t5 to the hcw they won't be all that amazingly different overall.

This is probably the most useful answer. But, this being a game you can mathmatically know which of the two is better.

[beldannon5]

I am 92 trains. This is aome interesting stuff. As of right now berserking is my main action. Some very interesting stuff to consider

[Donquix]

The total endroll you require for the weighting to be literally meaningless because the perfect bonuses counteract it is:
((10 / (DF * .06)) - 3) + 100

So unarmored:
(10 / (.55 * .06)) -3 + 100 = ~400

That's for a total counteraction though. If your endroll was 200, way more expected, you'd still effectively have SWCW + the flares. Also mind you would do a TAD more raw HP damage, because the perfect maul is doing the crit with real damage, not phantom. so a few more hp. wooopie. That's on unarmored which....fuck, if you need help killing shit without armor and using a maul, you're doing something wrong.

plate:
(10 / (.3 * .06)) -3 + 100 = ~650
the perfect bonus helps less with the weaker DF, making the weighting better by comparison.

I say it depends how you hunt. If you aim your shots more often than not, HCW. If you berserk, i like the unbalance + perfect.

[hello]

I am 92 trains. This is aome interesting stuff. As of right now berserking is my main action. Some very interesting stuff to consider

Yeah, this is actually kinda fun, never got into the mechanics that deep but it's interesting. Like the guy above me is saying, all depends on what you hunt. Undead go for the flare, aiming head shots go for the CW, doing a lot of MoCing/berserking I would say tossup?

Donquix makes an interesting point about Perfects, 200 endroll is basically SWCW, guess the answer is simple.. perfect HCW plus script flaring?

[Donquix]

Yeah, this is actually kinda fun, never got into the mechanics that deep but it's interesting. Like the guy above me is saying, all depends on what you hunt. Undead go for the flare, aiming head shots go for the CW, doing a lot of MoCing/berserking I would say tossup?

Donquix makes an interesting point about Perfects, 200 endroll is basically SWCW, guess the answer is simple.. perfect HCW plus script flaring?

lol, yes. the answer is always perfect + bane + 10x + tons of crit weighting + script flares + enhancive :D

You should stop fucking around with these bullshit 6x weighted/flaring pieces of shit.

[Roblar]

Alot of good points.

Undead noncorp however, would require a paladin bond or undead bane, because of the unbalance flares (well for either but it was being used in the pro flaring maul camp).

I had told Beld that is was close as is and like Ardwen mentioned the difference is minimal, especially as you can ensorcell the CW one. Some did great maffs though.

I'd point out also the upside is best for the HCW. While I would be sad (as I am on mine with the only regret being it beginning pre-forging) at the forever loss of perfect forging bonuses. You can T5 the HCW maul and further add weighting to it, which you cannot add higher Stovel type levels of flares at future services to raise the floor and ceilings of flare intensity. That and the fact of random flare benefit versus a more present weighting benefit. But, as others mentioned, overall it depends on your total weapon choice/stytle, target's armor, aim, etc.

[hello]

Roblar and Ardwen's points are best, although non-mathmatical, they bring literally decades of first hand experience.

As a very interesting aside has anyone done any research on flares themselves? Specifically, which of the various flares out there are best determined by flare rate, intensity, damage type, critical table etc. I was hoping for a ranking of some type.

[Donquix]

Roblar and Ardwen's points are best, although non-mathmatical, they bring literally decades of first hand experience.

As a very interesting aside has anyone done any research on flares themselves? Specifically, which of the various flares out there are best determined by flare rate, intensity, damage type, critical table etc. I was hoping for a ranking of some type.

flare rate is almost universally the same.

people like to wax poetic about this flare is better then that, but really the difference is so slight between almost all the flares, in terms of the "normal" flares (special, hard to find script flares can obviously be different) with a few exceptions:
steam is probably he worst, it's just not a great crit table
lightning is on the better side (but again, they're all pretty much the same) but will kill you in some areas
fire is a good general purpose flare as it works on most things, and you get the troll benefit. in exchange there are the random firey things, especially on teras, it doesn't work on
unbalance and grapple have a higher knockdown chance. unbalance more-so but some things may be immune to unbalancing still but grapple will still hit them.
all the things like disruption, disintegrate, vaccuum, etc. are all nice because basically nothing is immune to them so they make a good all purpose flare.

for the more unique flares:
blink is awesome but better for semis / mutant pures. rogues/ warriors / monks really don't have a lot of great options for them
coraesine is fucking amazing. hnnnngh. you know what's better than +10 weighting or a few extra damage from a perfect? hitting the thing again for free a bunch. It is obviously rare for a reason.
kroderine is fun but the fucking level limit
bubble is actually pretty great for a THW. you're killing shit regardless, get some free defense.
there's a ton of random scripted stuff like the poleaxe flares, knockout, briar flares, etc. they're fun but the benefit is generally that it's a SCRIPT flare, they're pretty much just flares.

Curious to see more testing numbers from the high tier parasite weapons

[Alashir]

flare rate is almost universally the same.

people like to wax poetic about this flare is better then that, but really the difference is so slight between almost all the flares, in terms of the "normal" flares (special, hard to find script flares can obviously be different) with a few exceptions:
steam is probably he worst, it's just not a great crit table
lightning is on the better side (but again, they're all pretty much the same) but will kill you in some areas
fire is a good general purpose flare as it works on most things, and you get the troll benefit. in exchange there are the random firey things, especially on teras, it doesn't work on
unbalance and grapple have a higher knockdown chance. unbalance more-so but some things may be immune to unbalancing still but grapple will still hit them.
all the things like disruption, disintegrate, vaccuum, etc. are all nice because basically nothing is immune to them so they make a good all purpose flare.

for the more unique flares:
blink is awesome but better for semis / mutant pures. rogues/ warriors / monks really don't have a lot of great options for them
coraesine is fucking amazing. hnnnngh. you know what's better than +10 weighting or a few extra damage from a perfect? hitting the thing again for free a bunch. It is obviously rare for a reason.
kroderine is fun but the fucking level limit
bubble is actually pretty great for a THW. you're killing shit regardless, get some free defense.
there's a ton of random scripted stuff like the poleaxe flares, knockout, briar flares, etc. they're fun but the benefit is generally that it's a SCRIPT flare, they're pretty much just flares.

Curious to see more testing numbers from the high tier parasite weapons

knockout flares on uac are pretty incredible. lots of kill strikes. i haven't ever used anything better.

[hello]

flare rate is almost universally the same.

people like to wax poetic about this flare is better then that, but really the difference is so slight between almost all the flares, in terms of the "normal" flares (special, hard to find script flares can obviously be different) with a few exceptions:
steam is probably he worst, it's just not a great crit table
lightning is on the better side (but again, they're all pretty much the same) but will kill you in some areas
fire is a good general purpose flare as it works on most things, and you get the troll benefit. in exchange there are the random firey things, especially on teras, it doesn't work on
unbalance and grapple have a higher knockdown chance. unbalance more-so but some things may be immune to unbalancing still but grapple will still hit them.
all the things like disruption, disintegrate, vaccuum, etc. are all nice because basically nothing is immune to them so they make a good all purpose flare.

for the more unique flares:
blink is awesome but better for semis / mutant pures. rogues/ warriors / monks really don't have a lot of great options for them
coraesine is fucking amazing. hnnnngh. you know what's better than +10 weighting or a few extra damage from a perfect? hitting the thing again for free a bunch. It is obviously rare for a reason.
kroderine is fun but the fucking level limit
bubble is actually pretty great for a THW. you're killing shit regardless, get some free defense.
there's a ton of random scripted stuff like the poleaxe flares, knockout, briar flares, etc. they're fun but the benefit is generally that it's a SCRIPT flare, they're pretty much just flares.

Curious to see more testing numbers from the high tier parasite weapons

Very cool. One thing is for certain, flares are a lot more fun to play around with. One addendum I may add is Paladin consecrate flares, which seems to flare a lot more than usual and sometimes twice in one go. Not sure what exactly the math is here but from the spell description the chance rate increases with each non-flaring attack (how much? not sure) and the double flares can reach 68% with enough Summoning lore. Something to think about if you ever think about turning paladin(don't do it.)

[Ardwen]

egads! We've been called old Roblar! I used to test flares a lot, before they streamlined them in the early 2000s there were a few very clear winners, stovel acid for instance was much better then almost everything else, the made basically all old basic flares the same level, with different crit types and styles at that point. Since then they have released lots of upgraded stuff, grapple being one of the more interesting. major flares added an even more complicated twist. I think honestly that with flares unless you have a creature with a particular weakness, trolls and fire for instance, grapple and unbalance type seem the most useful, anything that can knock down, stun or incapacitate the critter is beter then a basic flare I think.

[Maerit]

I am having some buyer's remorse myself regarding the flare discussion. I put KO flares on my 7x gloves, and those flares are great. However, I also added earth flares via PP, and spent a decent chunk of change to do this - the earth flares have been fairly lackluster. I'm almost feeling like it would have been better to either leave them blessable, or have the KO flares added to those 6x HCW gloves from DR.

However, I did some testing with the HCW gloves, and my testing indicated that I was getting super low end-rolls for UAC with jab/grapple and punch as a warmage, and that having more flares would result in more consistent / frequent damage. My gloves are mostly for setup and disable (hence the KO flares), while I usually round-house kick targets to death (now with HCW boots).

So I kind of wish I had had time to discuss these intricate questions prior to having the services done during the event. Unfortunately, the time constraints on getting the certificate redeemed and getting PP services completed created a need to be decisive.

Still 7x, KO and Earth flaring UAC gloves aren't bad. They're universally able to be used everywhere outside of hunting undead or demons, so I suppose that's something! And, with the right potion, they can technically be further enchanted by a wizard. Still just wondering if I missed the mark by not getting the HCW gloves instead...

[hello]

egads! We've been called old Roblar! I used to test flares a lot, before they streamlined them in the early 2000s there were a few very clear winners, stovel acid for instance was much better then almost everything else, the made basically all old basic flares the same level, with different crit types and styles at that point. Since then they have released lots of upgraded stuff, grapple being one of the more interesting. major flares added an even more complicated twist. I think honestly that with flares unless you have a creature with a particular weakness, trolls and fire for instance, grapple and unbalance type seem the most useful, anything that can knock down, stun or incapacitate the critter is beter then a basic flare I think.

And now they added parasite flares which seems very different and promising.

[hello]

I am having some buyer's remorse myself regarding the flare discussion. I put KO flares on my 7x gloves, and those flares are great. However, I also added earth flares via PP, and spent a decent chunk of change to do this - the earth flares have been fairly lackluster. I'm almost feeling like it would have been better to either leave them blessable, or have the KO flares added to those 6x HCW gloves from DR.

However, I did some testing with the HCW gloves, and my testing indicated that I was getting super low end-rolls for UAC with jab/grapple and punch as a warmage, and that having more flares would result in more consistent / frequent damage. My gloves are mostly for setup and disable (hence the KO flares), while I usually round-house kick targets to death (now with HCW boots).

So I kind of wish I had had time to discuss these intricate questions prior to having the services done during the event. Unfortunately, the time constraints on getting the certificate redeemed and getting PP services completed created a need to be decisive.

Still 7x, KO and Earth flaring UAC gloves aren't bad. They're universally able to be used everywhere outside of hunting undead or demons, so I suppose that's something! And, with the right potion, they can technically be further enchanted by a wizard. Still just wondering if I missed the mark by not getting the HCW gloves instead...

Crit weighting is super lackluster with UAC. It's like they intentionally hated on it. On the otherhand, not being able to bless said gloves are kinda problematic depending upon what you hunt. Do you need blessed weapons for demons as well? or just 8x?

[Donquix]

Earth is decent, but like you said of the "normal" elemental flares (fire, ice, acid, earth, vacuum, lightning) they're all pretty similar but if i had to rank them it'd go lightning -> fire -> ice -> vac/earth/acid. the later being the "safe" flares because next to nothing weak or immune to them. I think ice is better than people give it credit for btw.

But still, you got a damn nice set of gloves there. I probably would have left them blessable myself but i hunt a lot of undead. I always REALLY wanted ironwright flares on my warrior because i did small(ish) weapon TWC (sai and then later katars) which was fun, so for both the sai and the katars i had like 7 weapons i used. 1 fire, 1 ice, 1 earth, 2 lightning, 2 blessable perfect. I never even picked up bonding, i changed weapons so much. IW would have let me bond and have a generally applicable weapon. I would have eventually bonded to one of the perfects but it wasn't a priority. They really need to allow bonding to weapon SETS, aside from needing a god damn splitter.

the 200k price for IW flares is still, fucking ridiculous and not worth it btw :D

[hello]

Does anyone know the base flare rate for paladin 1625? and how much that base chance goes up by with each non-flare, got an idea with some crazy dual wielding nonsense.

[Maerit]

But still, you got a damn nice set of gloves there. I probably would have left them blessable myself but i hunt a lot of undead.

Yeah, the character using them however, is a warmage - and he just bolts undead. I prefer to hunt the living on this character and went the GoS route as well. Though, now that he has HCP leathers + amazing Mage Armor, the incentive to having GoS has faded. I'll probably go Voln soon, and then I will be missing the bless option!

[Donquix]

curious why you wouldn't go fire as gos? I guess if you want to be sure you'll always be able to use them. I have the greater fire flaring on my monk and jesus when a fire champion spawned at duskruin and i didn't notice and i'm just like "RAWWWWWR MSTRIKE FUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUU....shit." it was pretty rage inducing but those are pretty niche cases.

[Maerit]

curious why you wouldn't go fire as gos? I guess if you want to be sure you'll always be able to use them.

I don't like equipment that can't be used everywhere basically. Fire is great, but it blows you up in the bowels, and this character is in the 50s, so he might be in the bowels soonish.

[Roblar]

for the more unique flares:
blink is awesome but better for semis / mutant pures. rogues/ warriors / monks really don't have a lot of great options for them
coraesine is fucking amazing. hnnnngh. you know what's better than +10 weighting or a few extra damage from a perfect? hitting the thing again for free a bunch. It is obviously rare for a reason.
kroderine is fun but the fucking level limit
bubble is actually pretty great for a THW. you're killing shit regardless, get some free defense.
there's a ton of random scripted stuff like the poleaxe flares, knockout, briar flares, etc. they're fun but the benefit is generally that it's a SCRIPT flare, they're pretty much just flares.

Curious to see more testing numbers from the high tier parasite weapons

Just pointing out blink and bubble are more scripted flares than true flares. You can add primary slot stuff so there go with the last few there of poleaxe, kockout etc. Parasite too. Alot of confusion happes with the name "flare" on many scripted abilties. I wouldn't compare them with the generally weaker (or situational) flare set in the rest of that good list.

[hello]

Pardon the intrusion but let me put this tidbit in as future reference.

Paladin Consecrate Flares :

Base chance for primary flare is 15% +15% for every attack without a flare. In theory every 6th attack is guaranteed to flare, but will most likely flare before then.

Base chance for secondary flare is (15% +15% for every attack) x (15% + (4% x every 3 bonus of Blessings lore))

[Roblar]

Crit weighting is super lackluster with UAC. It's like they intentionally hated on it.

It was, because UAC tiers provide the crit scaling itself.

[cwolff]

I can only speak anecdotally because I haven't recorded any information but I have the 6x enchanted hcw and a second set of the 6x plasma flares uac gloves. the criticalweight it's pretty awesome. I'm seeing a lot of stunts from jabbing but also I'm keeping in mind that the gloves are two x higher than my hand wraps. The plasma flares on the other hand are absolutely brutal.

[Donquix]

Just pointing out blink and bubble are more scripted flares than true flares. You can add primary slot stuff so there go with the last few there of poleaxe, kockout etc. Parasite too. Alot of confusion happes with the name "flare" on many scripted abilties. I wouldn't compare them with the generally weaker (or situational) flare set in the rest of that good list.

sure, just kind of adding them in the mix.

Also scripted flare: rot flares, and I still want to see a berserking warrior fully trained in necrolore dual wielding rot flare weapons :D

[hello]

"kockout etc.."

-Roblar

[Ososis]

Does anyone know the base flare rate for paladin 1625? and how much that base chance goes up by with each non-flare, got an idea with some crazy dual wielding nonsense.

Stop derailing this thread. It's not about you.

[hello]

Stop derailing this thread. It's not about you.

Sorry, I didn't want to start another thread. :(