Weaponsmith Archive

Message Edited by NamedJughead on 10-09-2005 01:18 PM

You're either going to want to use the looted Knuckles of Katarn for the TK weapon (I don't know the stats off-hand, but for a TK weapon they're supposed to do decent damage and the SAC is reasonably low) or a low-SAC power Hammer. To my mind, a SAC capped (82) Power Hammer with damage of 470-1000 or better (before slicing) is the way to go. With a damage slice and a good damage powerup you should be able to easily get the min damage over 600 and the max over 1200. The SAC will still be too high to spam specials all willy-nilly, but you can still get by well enough if you mix in some melee hit attacks here and there. The other alternative is to get an 'Acklay' Power Hammer which can have great min and max damage and a MUCH higher SAC and use SAC pups. But unless the Acklay Bones are outstanding, the SAC capped one will get you more damage in the end. And if the SAC (on the Acklay Hammer) is above 115 or so, even with a SAC pup it will still be as high or higher than the first (SAC capped) one.

That said, SAC capped, 1000 max damage power hammers don't come cheap. But they would likely be the best compliment to your template, in my opinion.

By the way, I was just wondering (after looking at your forum sig) why you went with Novice Combat Medic instead of 4-0-0-0 or 0-0-0-4 in Doc?

Also, if your gonna use SAC powerups. Find a Human Artisan who has 14 experimentationn to make you some and buy from them. They can craft awesome powerups with 30% or higher bonus while still keeping the negative effects of the powerup below 7% possibly more depending on the resources and whether or not they can get the 15th free experimentation point results.

So for example, if you had a power hammer with 115 SAC, you could get a +33% power up which should drop the SAC to about 77, maybe 76 (depending on decimels), while at the same time the negative aspect of the powerup would only give you like a 7% hit to speed (at least I think the SAC powerup has a negative speed penalty...could be accuracy though, I forget). If it's accuracy, don't even worry about negative bonuses to accuracy because right now accuracy on weapons is broken and don't seem to affect your damage or hit/miss ratio.

As far as the power hammers go, they are easy to get the 1000 damage and capped sac value....Just find a good WS who can do it.....check the list of weaponsmiths (faq stickied at the top of weaponsmith forums) for 12 points WS on your server and ask them. Also put a post in your servers trade forum. Fair warning though, these weapons will probably cost you a lot. I personally sell my 1k damage PH's for 50k - 70k depending on the SAC and Speed, but that's custom orders....on a vendor, I may put them higher.

Just remember about slicing. You can slice speed, damage and critical hit chances....you cannot slice the SAC. whatever the SAC is on your weapon, that will be it's final value even after slicing. So generally, it's better to make sure your weapons have the lowest SAC possible or use SAC powerups after slicing.

Also, if your gonna be PVPing, then you really want to get the best SAC and Damage, however with the template you have, Kiting will be your greatest enemy since you only have a 5m attack range (10 with lunge attacks). IF your simply doing PVE, then SAC really isn't all that important in my experience. You can kill just about any mob using nothing but your basic hit.

However, if you need to get serious about all combat. Then you needt to pay a few visits to all of the combat professions forums for tips and tricks and learn how to best load out yourself with the proper gear, weapons, foods and buffs. Often times popping a 15 min booster blue spice will be enough to overcome a 82 Sac weapon....booster blue spices increase your action regen by 20% (as well has mind regen and health bar....health regen gets a -20% penalty).

Just remember, to be the most effective in either PVE or PVP, The weapon is merely just starters....often there are more important factors than low SAC and high Damage. But for beginners, you should stick with the low SAC high damage, some powerups and some basic buffs and food.

Oh Yeah, I beleive their is a PVP guide in the game guides forum that you may find useful....can't recall the name...but if you need to, find it and read it.....

Overall, though....the best thing you can do is learn from experience. THat way you can find how to customize your weapons to your playstyle. Not everyone needs a low capped weapon or high damage weapon....it depends on your template and knowledge of how to you all your abilities.

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WineGuyJr wrote:

Great explanation, HardwiredXMan. The only thing I'd like to add to it is that I wouldn't call it 'easy' to make the SAC capped, 1000+ max damage Power Hammers (assuming you're referring to pre-slice stats). It takes -13 or -14 Geo Cubes and (in my experience) 17 Max Damage or better Solidifying Agents, great resourcesand perfect (all 12pts need to be 'Amazing' successes...5 into SAC, 7 in damage) experimentation. In 15 attempts with loot components meeting those requirements, I've managed 3 such Power Hammers. 1 in 5 isn't bad, but not great...certainly its harder than double-capping many of the ranged weapons. But the real problem is that no one is camping the Geo caves anymore, so those components are comparitively rare. If there were as many people camping the Geo caves as there are BH's doing NPC missions, then it wouldn't be an issue. As it is, they (the components and the 'perfect' power hammers) are still rare.

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Good point....I wasn't really thinking of not having the components, but more so thinking of myself. I use to do the geo cave for weeks on end with my jedi and so I have loads of loot, so for me it's easy because I already have the stuff I need. If it comes to it, I'm on ahazi (2nd largest server population) and there are thousands of vendors with geo loot selling for cheap. Matter of fact, I just boughtabout 10acklay bones (180ishdamage or something, forget the speed) and they only cost me 50k each....not bad in my opinion....I normally don't buy geo loot but I felt that was a steal