So after taking a break from Conan, all the hype about 3.0 got me back into the game.
I’m using my old Siptah character on an Exiles server minus any gear. Fun building back up but one thing that has me scratching my head is the Ancient Pike.
The Ancient Pike is relatively cheap to produce but when I compare it’s stats with other spear weapons such as hardened steel or Dragonbone, it appears to do more damage (for example 50 vs 46 for the Dragonbone). Am I missing the obvious? When I played in the past I don’t remember using the Ancient Pike and instead using Dragonbone till I found appropriate legedaries.
One minor edit – the wiki shows the Ancient Pike at 48 — the 50 must be coming from my blacksmith. Still seems pretty strong (and cheap to make) vs the other “good” spears.
yeah I’m picking up legendary ones left and right, including life-blood that have a lower dmg than the ancient pike… and they all go into a chest to put on a wall display later, such a waste.
Well, apart from the excellent chance of getting tetanus if you scratch yourself with any ancient weapon, just grab up a couple of spears and compare their collective stats to the Spear. All legend weapons have special stats over and above (or under and below in some cases) in addition to their hit and hit chance figures. Some special weapons even make unique sounds, animations and levels of coolness.
ps Pikes are kind of nice because they have reach and nothings better than reach if, say, you have a large arachnid or feral bunny at the other end of it!
After the Siptah update crafted weapons are more powerful than legendaries. In exile lands we have too many op crafted weapons. The lemurian weapons , the obsidian and the dragon bone become really powerful in a tier 3 bench with the correct blacksmith. Worth to mention that more black ice weapons exist now. I didn’t fix khari still (after the update) but I believe that they follow the same logic.
Last but not least the religion weapons are very powerful too making the chase for named priests worthy. Maybe the excuse for pvp balancing is good but I find it really handy on pve too. Now I don’t care to break my axe, I can repair it and ancient lemurian axe is a beast, so I don’t spend endless hours killing the priest for a yogs touch .
This one would prefer legendaries to be at least numerically equivalent to some of the best crafted gear if they don’t do anything interesting. Gives side eye to Tulwar of Amir Khurum
The weightless items are good. The glowing weapons are good. A weapon that is also a harvesting tool? Good. But some weapons are just… Not even vaguely good. Outperformed by crafted gear made by a nameless tier 3 smith. Tragic.
This isn’t a request for a nerf, just a parity adjustment for legendaries. If a Legendary is just a stat stick, it should be at least as good as Vault gear made by a tier 3 crafter. While they shouldn’t be the only path to power, they should be a viable one, and not just a small handful of corner cases.
I do agree from the pve side. A lot happened that I didn’t like…
Purge crafters?
Legendary weapons?
Legendary armor pieces?
Thralls depending rarity and locations?
Yet before the nerfs we had non correct behavior as well, meaning…
The purge alchemists were no better than the witch doctor…
The purge and all the other cooks had one less recipe from the lone fisherman…
The legendaries were in two categories and still are actually best - worst.
Purge thralls like Cimmerian beast Tamers were no better than main spawns, Berserkers - Teimos. Maybe they were getting better hp than Berserkers but their damage outcome was horrible.
Legendary armor pieces were giving vital solutions to problems you mainly had with the weather conditions and ofcurce way more benefits than the crafted ones. Not to mention that the redeemed silent legion crafting was way more rare than sword of Crom because you needed purge armorer. I cannot count, simply cannot, the number of purges, maybe even 1k, if not very close. My purge Armorers 2 and in servers I participated for days and then left.
Yet let my express my experience on pvp servers…
Po here’s your Yog touch, oh thank you Stelios yet I am afraid to loose it so I’ll leave it in the base. No Po use it, if you’ll loose it I’ll get you another one. I know Stelios but what will happen if a strong opponent has one from me? I can’t risk it…
So people in pvp servers were afraid to use good weapons (not all of them), their fear for an uneven battle from a rare piece was always there. Now they can all fix it. All you have to do is find the correct blacksmiths and keep them safe, the rest is easy.
People on pvp servers do not afraid anymore to use legendaries because they are common now, not op. They are still valuable, yet not so. This is good my friend @LostBrythunian because, now on pvp everything is special and at the same time none. Now all they care is to fight and less to loose and this is fun . That’s why I don’t care that much anymore for the pve loss, all the players should be equally happy in this game.
Closing off topic with something that it is only speculation and nothing more…
The “wipes” hide more than we can see and understand here. I know that there was a black marker between players for some special items that after the server transfers, this black marker was in its best. I am speaking about weapons before the nerfs that had humongous damage outcome and they were sold between players for crazy amounts, I’ve been present in one of these transactions. The greatest “why” and “cry” in here is because some “guys” lost their business …
Yet, you know… Don’t take me seriously, I am a fool, you know .
You know the only thing legendary about that wall hanger is how it manages to lack any use.
It’s stats aren’t bad, at least it isn’t a melee weapon with an accuracy bonus…
There are a few of those, at least one of which is two handed…
But it’s just not really worth using unless one finds it before they get a good crafter and before they can make hardened steel weapons.
On Exiled Lands Hardened steel weapons can become black ice blades
On Siptah, one can use them to delves significantly better patterns (as well as junk).
But seriously, a fragment of power is better than that blade. Poor Amir Khurum. Such a noble figure, he deserves better. Perhaps after 3.0 it can give a bonus to some Authority related derived trait.
I think this thread is getting sidetracked. The OP has a valid point about the Ancient Pike - not in comparison to legendaries (which vary from pretty good to wall decorations) but to other craftable weapons. Ancient Pike is a vanilla recipe you can unlock with feat points without going out of your way to chase lorestones or boss drops or anything. It’s made of steel. And it has stats that exceed that of Star Metal Pike - better damage, higher armor penetration, better durability and even lighter weight.
It’s not the best spear ever - there are some legendaries, both found and craftable that are better than it - but it’s a steel weapon. (Yes, the recipe requires level 50 to unlock, but it’s still pretty much free to craft and repair.)
While it is a bit of a side trek, this one thinks the particulars of the ancient spear are a single facet of a more pervasive situation.
Yes, it’s stats are a bit bizarre for what it is and how it’s made.
However, weapon stats demonstrate fairly little rhyme or reason in general, and many become irrelevant by 60th level.
In this case, what does the ancient spear do past 60th level? Not much. Potentially it could arm a small garrison quick and cheap… If you trust your thralls to use pointed sticks effectively. This one does not. This one’s thralls are more likely to put their own or a comrade’s eye out with them than actually stick the enemy.
Compared to…
What does a Hardened Steel Spear do?
It either is the base for a Black Ice Spear or it gets thrown onto the delving bench.
Something this one has had repeated to them frequently is that trap choices are an important part of survival games. That having sensible or intuitive scaling would somehow detract from the discovery aspect of the game. This seems a fairly solid example of that.
It’s clearly for pvp reasons. Some folks join pvp servers without knowing a lot the game. We all know that the weapon damage outcome can do the difference in a fight, so the devs did really well because they give a fighting chance to the new players. It is some months after the merge that a player from 3728 to 3740 send me photo with this spear telling me that she doesn’t need to go for star metal because of this spear, however spear is not the best pve weapon. I couldn’t convince her to go out of her steel box. She plays years now yet she never managed to go north. Trust me @Kapoteeni, a lot of people play online for years now and they cannot go out of their box, I tried a lot and still trying for these folks, steel weapons, tools and armor pieces hold them back. Siptah seemed easier for them, it is the temperature, you cannot die there from temp effects. I find great happiness when I succeed to gain the trust of a player and he, she follows, my only issue is that I have to go one speed and most of the times they loose me . The reason that I hold sometimes my torch in daylights is this, it helps to others to locate me easier.
.
. That’s why I don’t care that much anymore for the pve loss, all the players should be equally happy in this game.
yet she never managed to go north. Trust me