It seems to me way back when they changed the recipe for hardened steel, that I was using it less and less. Since I was right there getting black ice, I’d immediately make a hardened steel pick and go right to star metal. Last couple plays with sorcery and mass gather, I skipped harden steel all together.
So has hardened steel become obsolete?
Not saying I don’t use it, I just use it more as a throw a way; literally, like arrows/hatchets/spears for thralls.
Nope.
The tinker’s bench requires it.
Some thrall armors too like Hyperborean Slaver
It’s a bit of a side-effect of what they’ve been doing over the years with the downright stupid (and I don’t often use that word) XP rate…
Basically they sped the game up to the point that pretty much everything is obsolete… you can max your character out in like 2 hours… if you want you can even pick up a black blood pick at level 5… for some darfari sorcerer skulls… etc…
If you play at a reduced XP rate (which is what “normal” used to be) then all the knowledge recipes make a whole lot more sense. For example a general player xp rate of 0.2x seems like an actual “fast” progression where things still make sense, steel, hardened steel… and all the standalone weapon recipes that most people just skip over etc.
So if you play the game at the current “official” rates?.. then yes, it’s pretty much obsolete.
Said basically the same thing when they introed the headhunter wagons.
Although, surprisingly, I am still finding modded hardened steel tools in the loot I raid…
So it’s an array of possibilities. Found it, repaired and modded because that is all they had. It changed hands throughout time (legacy loot). Or it’s lack of game knowledge.
I put all mine in the tinker bench pretty much.
Hardened Steel itself, no.
It is good for tinkering (as was mentioned) and several other accessories and repair jobs.
There is no Starmetal truncheon.
However, this one does agree that using crystalized outer dark as a component was not the best adjustment.
As for the gear itself…
Once it is obsolete the question becomes whether there is a Black Ice version of the weapon.
Hardened Steel Shortswords, for example, are only useful as illusions.
Hardened Steel Greatswords become Black Ice Greatswords, and one could do far worse for gear for one’s property people.
On Siptah, they can be throw onto the delving bench and have a chance of finding a useful recipe. Most delved weapons are extremely over priced compared to vault or voidforged weapons, and if you have the Eldarium to delve, you most likely can clear vaults and cash in frags at the tower, however there are a few real gems available.
I still use hardened steel for weapon and tool upgrades.
Starter storage fridge is still built with it and at least we don’t have to know hardened steel to make it.
Shoot, you can make hardened steel bars as soon as you have steel bars and black ice at any level afaik.
Is it obsolete? No. Is it more valuable than Steel? Absolutely not.
Whenever I get a new character to 50, I will make around 500 Hardened Steel Bars. These are for the crafting benches that I require them for and for a few other things. After that I will NOT sacrifice steel for more hardened steel. If I need hardened steel I’ll kill NPCs for it and break down dropped weapons for it.
When I delve, depending on the map, I might prefer to use Star Metal as it is more common outside the Exiled Lands (can’t really delve there normally). Star Metal is easier to obtain since I can just get a few hundred ore and immediately craft it. For Hardened Steel I need to convert Steel. Steel isn’t as easy to get since I’m not usually killing the stuff that drops it very often. I don’t even use steel for steel reinforcements for this reason (I convert iron reinforcements directly to steel reinforcements, and sometimes convert those directly to bars, but that takes time).
Totally agree with you. If you can go North to get Black Ice to make hardened steel pick then you make it only once, to get some Star Metal which is in no way harder to get than this Black Ice. If you’re lucky enough to get some hardened steel dismantling looted weapons then you don’t need much more. This recipe doesn’t make sence for me (just like Obsidian which is totally useless in the EL). Hardened steel should not require “end-game material” and Obsidian weapons and tools should have really end-game stats to be of any use.
Perfected Heavy armor is great starter thrall armor.
Repair kits
This. Playing on offical PVP x2 rates with friends is vastly different then playing single player 0.2 xp.
On PvP servers we used to skip steel and hardened steel all the time and went straight to star metal.
Now we skip iron, steel, hardened steel, star metal and obsidian…
Edit: Talking about tools and weapons. The resource bars itself are still used.
Let’s see…
Lemurian Trident, Black Ice Broadsword, Telith’s Lament, Telith’s Sorrow, Tier 3 benches, Tool Attachments, Saddles, Kingslayer Polearm…
I’m probably missing more, but yeah, Hardened Steel is far from obsolete.
In regards to tools and weapons absolutely and it always has been. Since release I have never crafted a single hardened steel tool or weapon. I’ve always progressed from iron directly to star metal. It’s only ever been of use to craft benches or in the tinkers table for me. Since they changed farming star metal to t4 picks I just use mass cull to get my initial load and go from there. It’s always seemed an unnecessary step to me.
I’ve played since Conan exiles dropped. Before they changed the recipe; due to PVP TOS violations, hardened steel was the next step in weapons and armor till you got north/made explosive arrows.
So hardened steel is not obsolete, but as far as weapons and tools it’s pretty much skip able. Especially with how easy it is to obtain black blood tools now.
Do you think changing the recipe back to steelfire+brimstone would make it a more useful step between steel and starmetal?
Not to throw this off topic, but when they introed the head hunters wagons and bounties I knew it was going to throw the game balance off. Now that you can pretty easily go from stone tools and weapons to black blood tools and legendary weapons the game has a easier button.
No.
For me the issue isn’t needing Blackice, its needing Steel. If we needed Steelfire and Brimstone, it would exacerbate the issue even more.
Like I said before, if it wasn’t the fact that T3 benches needed a crap ton of it, I wouldn’t even bother to craft it myself, but loot it from NPCs (as you don’t need much).
Why do you think steel is hard to get? Just buy supply materials from the Khitan Slavers and you can get up to 1k steel for 5 obolus coins.
They weren’t always there and likely won’t always be there.
The possibility. it’s random. I got 750 azure seeds 