How should I spend my Durgan Steel?

[omgFIREBALLS]

I bound the Pargrunen spirits to the forge, and I'm a terminal kleptomaniac so it's safe to assume I'll pick up every iron ingot in the game. That should mean we can assume I'll have the maximum amount of steel at my disposal. The party:

 

Fighter #1 - tank

Paladin - offtank, mostly supporting with auras, Lay on Hands and exhortations

Barbarian (Watcher) - Carnage. I guess that sums her up. I've already forged up her Tall Grass after a recommendation I read here. This is the only steel I've spent so far. I've also put Burning Lash on it; hopefully not a big mistake. There's still enchantment space to pimp it up to legendary.

Fighter #2 - bringing the single target damage. Sporting a few soulbounds, guessing eventually a certain hammer, so don't see myself needing to pimp up a weapon for him.

Cipher - doing cipher stuff. Has Stormcaller.

Priest - a buff turret pretty much like the one from AndreaColombo's guide. I'm all set to pimp up her Unforgiven.

 

I guess what I really want to do is reinforce armor for pretty much everyone, but which armor suits are worth the steel?

Edited March 21, 2016 by omgFIREBALLS

[hilfazer]

Generally Durgan should be used on weapons with attack speed bonus to capitalize on it or weapons with on crit effects.

 

Don't use Durgan steel on anything with reload as the bonus to attack speed will be almost totally wasted.

 

With Cipher in the group i'd use durgan on Rain of Godagh field warbow, but since you have Stormcaller you should probably stick to it, people say it's uber awesome.

[Crucis]

Fireballs, using Durgan on armor is worthwhile, IMO.  As someone pointed out when this was a concern for me, while you might change weapons from time to time, once you find the best sets of armor, you tend to stick with them, even if you switch them between party members.  And durganizing armor is cheaper than doing it for any 2H weapon.

 

As for durganizing weapons, hilfazer is correct.  Weapons with on-crit effects tend to be the ones that get the most out of durganizing, as you have probably noticed with Tall Grass.  Durganizing a weapon increases its chance of getting crits, therefore weapons with on-crit effects will gain the most value from this.  The Hours of St Rumbalt great sword is also a great weapon to durganize (and increase its basic enchantment to Exceptional or Superb), since it has an increased crit damage multiplier and an on-crit Prone effect, same as Tall Grass.

[omgFIREBALLS]

Cheers. The thing is, I don't know what the best sets of armor are. Any you might particularly recommend? For the barbarian, DPS fighter and cipher primarily.

[rheingold]

Great weapons (off the top of my head) that are worth durgan steel. You may or may not use them with your classes though.

Tall grass

Hours of st rumbalt

Tidefall

Vile loners lance

We toki

Rain (warbow from ranger bounty)

Persistence

Cloudpiercer

Leadsplitter

Lenas er hunting bow

[ottffsse]

Great armour :

 

Wayfarer hide

Sanguine plate

 

Those 2 are top for a barbarian. Others are:

Vengiatta rugia

Blaidh Golan

Gwisk glass

Tidebringer robes

(white crest armor and coat of ill payment)

Coat of ill payment less so now though as retaliation got nerfed)

 

I don't really use scales or half plate but if you can get to 0 recovery in those while wanting protection the best are

 

Pikes pride

Osrics breastplate

 

Shields :

 

Little savior

Baradher *spelling that shield with bash you get on first level of durgans battery.

Outworn buckler *if you have a spare ingot and a paladin in the party.

[ottffsse]

Best weapon for a barb may be strike hard (durganized) + Unlabored blade as that way it is really easy to get to 0 recovery. Or spelltongue + Unlabored blade.

 

And rheingold also forgot drawn in spring dagger (highest damaging single hand weapon).

Edited March 21, 2016 by ottffsse

[Elric Galad]

Sabra Marie should worths it too.

[Crucis]

Great weapons (off the top of my head) that are worth durgan steel. You may or may not use them with your classes though.

Tall grass

Hours of st rumbalt

Tidefall

Vile loners lance

We toki

Rain (warbow from ranger bounty)

Persistence

Cloudpiercer

Leadsplitter

Lenas er hunting bow

 

The Rain of Godagh Field warbow always seems a bit lacking for a Superb weapon, mostly because its only special effect is Speed.  A good effect to be sure, but somehow it seems a little weak compared to Borresaine or Cloudpiercer when you factor in their effects.  I suppose that RoGF might be a nice warbow for a bow user you don't expect to be a critical hit producing machine.  But I think that for a character who does produce a lot of crits, a bow that takes greater advantage of those crits with some on-crit effects would be more advantageous.  And even more so when you durganize it.

[Teioh_White]

Great weapons (off the top of my head) that are worth durgan steel. You may or may not use them with your classes though.

Tall grass

Hours of st rumbalt

Tidefall

Vile loners lance

We toki

Rain (warbow from ranger bounty)

Persistence

Cloudpiercer

Leadsplitter

Lenas er hunting bow

 

Most of those are top flight weapons, only a few I'd take off or add on.

 

I wouldn't use it on Leadsplitter myself, not that it doesn't help, but it doesn't take great advantage of the speed increase. Maybe if it was one ingot, but two of the 9/12 total ingots is rough.

 

Cloudpiercer is better now with extra room (Legendary comes so late the biggest impact it has on the game is tons weapons which were lacking before due to no SuperbLash are suddenly amazing). But it still has to compete with other bows, of which if falls short. It's great in my 6 ranger teams, but generally, you won't get far enough down the list to need it.

 

Other than that, I'd just add most of the speed weapons work great with Steel, as they give increasing returns the more speed you can stack. So, Speed weapons with other good effects like Strike Hard, Blade of the Endless Paths, Spell Tongue, and Daeynis Rapier are all good choices.

 

Additional top flight non-speed weapons are Drawn in Spring, Purgatory, and Cladhaliath.

[Aranduin]

Great weapons (off the top of my head) that are worth durgan steel. You may or may not use them with your classes though.

Tall grass

Hours of st rumbalt

Tidefall

Vile loners lance

We toki

Rain (warbow from ranger bounty)

Persistence

Cloudpiercer

Leadsplitter

Lenas er hunting bow

 

I think Blade of the Endless Paths is a great choice.

[KDubya]

Another great shield to Durgan is Old Gerun's Wall - Superb large Shield with 25% hit to graze, -8 accuracy and +28 deflection. With Durgan you get 10% ranged reflection, +15% hit to graze and -15% weapon attack speed. This makes a total of 40% hit to graze. Add in a Paladin Zealous Endurance and you get to 55% hit to graze.

 

A typical acc=deflection you'd take 0.675 damage

 

0-15 miss

15-50 graze

50-100 hit

 

0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.5*1 = 0.675

 

With the shield you'd get

15%  miss

35% graze

20% hit>graze

30% hit

 

0.15*0+0.55*0.5+0.3*1 = 0.575 a reduction of 14.9%

 

Add in the Zealous endurance and you get

15% miss

35% graze

27.5% hit>graze

22.5% hit

 

0.15*0+0.625*0.5+0.225*1 = 0.5375 a reduction of 20% damage

[Crucis]

KDubya, I've gotten kind of down on large shields of late.  The -8 accuracy penalty is awfully harsh.  If I use a shield at all, I tend to prefer medium or small shields and accept the trade-off of less DEFL for a reduced Accuracy penalty.

[KDubya]

I like to use it with Devil, she has high accuracy while running Reckless Assault and the big shield gets her a huge deflection and reflex boost. Fighters or Monks could also use as they have good accuracy. Everyone else should avoid.

 

With that particular shield the huge hit>graze is really nice, now if it came in a small shield version I'd be all over it.

[Dr <3]

I don't understand how Dawn in spring is the highest DPS weapon, i thougt it was rimecutter ( have a lash and annilation and speed, Dawn in spring can not have a lash)

[omgFIREBALLS]

Hmm, I guess I was wrong to assume I had weapons covered just by having soulbounds. Can't they compete with durganized weapons?

 

(still taking suggestions for armor!)

[kvaak]

Raiment of Wael's Eyes. Either that crit just got downgraded into a hit or you got +20 free deflection. I'd probably use 6 of these if I could.

 

As far as plain damage goes most classes are better off with non-soulbound weapons but Barbarians can get an insane amount of procs off e.g. the Grey Sleeper via carnage and a ranger using Stormcaller with Driving Flight + Twinned Arrows is a chainstunning lightning machine gun.

 

 

I don't understand how Dawn in spring is the highest DPS weapon, i thougt it was rimecutter ( have a lash and annilation and speed, Dawn in spring can not have a lash)

 

 

Edge of Reason all the way. Mister chop chop doesn't need speed to hit 0 recovery.

Edited March 22, 2016 by kvaak

[Crucis]

I don't understand how Dawn in spring is the highest DPS weapon, i thougt it was rimecutter ( have a lash and annilation and speed, Dawn in spring can not have a lash)

 

I think what it comes down to with Dawn in Spring is that it's a fast Superb (+12 accuracy) dagger (another +5 accuracy) with a wounding effect.  And because it has a base +17 accuracy bonus, it has a generally higher chance to get crits, which should mean even more damage for the wounding effect.

 

DiS isn't exactly a high alpha weapon capable of blasting its way thru high DR's.  But IIRC, wounding effects aren't affect by DR, though I could be very wrong on that.  And as a fast weapon, particularly if used by a high DEX character, you should be able to get a lot of attacks with it.  And if that user has really good might, combined with a high occurrence of crits, you should be able to get some damage past most DR's.  One could also take Vulnerable Attack talent to get a +5 DR bybass which would help, though at the expense of some attack speed.

[Kaylon]

 

I don't understand how Dawn in spring is the highest DPS weapon, i thougt it was rimecutter ( have a lash and annilation and speed, Dawn in spring can not have a lash)

 

I think what it comes down to with Dawn in Spring is that it's a fast Superb (+12 accuracy) dagger (another +5 accuracy) with a wounding effect.  And because it has a base +17 accuracy bonus, it has a generally higher chance to get crits, which should mean even more damage for the wounding effect.

 

DiS isn't exactly a high alpha weapon capable of blasting its way thru high DR's.  But IIRC, wounding effects aren't affect by DR, though I could be very wrong on that.  And as a fast weapon, particularly if used by a high DEX character, you should be able to get a lot of attacks with it.  And if that user has really good might, combined with a high occurrence of crits, you should be able to get some damage past most DR's.  One could also take Vulnerable Attack talent to get a +5 DR bybass which would help, though at the expense of some attack speed.

 

Things are really simple... Attacking with 0% recovery (think what it takes to reach that) is basically a 100% dps increase. Against high DR targets the wounding damage can be higher than your physical damage - that's more than 100% dps increase. 

[MaxQuest]

DiS isn't exactly a high alpha weapon capable of blasting its way thru high DR's. But IIRC, wounding effects aren't affect by DR, though I could be very wrong on that.

Against high DR targets the wounding damage can be higher than your physical damage - that's more than 100% dps increase.

Damn, and I always thought that wounding deals 25% from the final, post-DR damage...

Just checked ingame, and the results show that it takes x0.25 of pre-DR damage, and moreover, it also multiplies that value again with your might modifier.

(as for int, it only increases duration without affecting total damage)

 

 

 

Tested with Drawn in Spring against 20 DR

18 might, 16 int
33.6 - 20 DR = 13.6 slash + 10.4 raw over 9.8s
27.6 - 20 DR = 7.6  slash + 8.5 raw over 9.8s

18 might, 10 int
30.5 - 20 DR = 10.5 slash + 9.5 raw over 7.5s
26.9 - 20 DR = 6.9  slash + 8.3 raw over 7.5s

18 might, 3 int
36.6 - 20 DR = 16.6 slash + 11.3 raw over 4.9s
28.9 - 20 DR = 8.9  slash + 9 raw over 4.9s

10 might, 10 int
29.0 - 20 DR = 9.0 slash + 7.2 raw over 7.5s
28.1 - 20 DR = 8.1 slash + 7.0 raw over 7.5s
27.0 - 20 DR = 7.0 slash + 6.7 raw over 7.5s

10 might, 16 int
29.5 - 20 DR = 9.5 slash + 7.4 raw over 9.8s
28.4 - 20 DR = 8.4 slash + 7.1 raw over 9.8s
27.8 - 20 DR = 7.8 slash + 7.0 raw over 9.8s

 

If only it would generate bonus focus...

Edited March 22, 2016 by MaxQuest

[rheingold]

 

Great weapons (off the top of my head) that are worth durgan steel. You may or may not use them with your classes though.

Tall grass

Hours of st rumbalt

Tidefall

Vile loners lance

We toki

Rain (warbow from ranger bounty)

Persistence

Cloudpiercer

Leadsplitter

Lenas er hunting bow

 

 

 

The Rain of Godagh Field warbow always seems a bit lacking for a Superb weapon, mostly because its only special effect is Speed.  A good effect to be sure, but somehow it seems a little weak compared to Borresaine or Cloudpiercer when you factor in their effects.  I suppose that RoGF might be a nice warbow for a bow user you don't expect to be a critical hit producing machine.  But I think that for a character who does produce a lot of crits, a bow that takes greater advantage of those crits with some on-crit effects would be more advantageous.  And even more so when you durganize it.

Yeah, on hit crits are great especially for rangers. I just feel RoGF is seriously underated as a dps weapon though. Twinned arrows, driving flight. Durgan steel and a lash and it turns into monster. Sabra Marie is great except it always comes way to late for me, so it ends up pretty worthless....

[Dr <3]

Thks for the math to everyone!

[Crucis]

 

 

Great weapons (off the top of my head) that are worth durgan steel. You may or may not use them with your classes though.

Tall grass

Hours of st rumbalt

Tidefall

Vile loners lance

We toki

Rain (warbow from ranger bounty)

Persistence

Cloudpiercer

Leadsplitter

Lenas er hunting bow

 

 

The Rain of Godagh Field warbow always seems a bit lacking for a Superb weapon, mostly because its only special effect is Speed.  A good effect to be sure, but somehow it seems a little weak compared to Borresaine or Cloudpiercer when you factor in their effects.  I suppose that RoGF might be a nice warbow for a bow user you don't expect to be a critical hit producing machine.  But I think that for a character who does produce a lot of crits, a bow that takes greater advantage of those crits with some on-crit effects would be more advantageous.  And even more so when you durganize it.

Yeah, on hit crits are great especially for rangers. I just feel RoGF is seriously underated as a dps weapon though. Twinned arrows, driving flight. Durgan steel and a lash and it turns into monster. Sabra Marie is great except it always comes way to late for me, so it ends up pretty worthless....

 

 

Perhaps it is a little underrated.  However, many on-crit effects are particularly useful, perhaps more useful than a little extra damage.  Take Borresaine, for example.  Stunning an enemy for a few seconds is a very useful effect.  It's great against spellcasters since you effectively shut them down for a few seconds.    Heck, it shuts any enemy down for a few seconds, though of course, although some enemies are more useful to shut down than others.

 

OTOH, the only thing RoGF can do is normal damage.  Useful, but nothing really special.  I look at RoGF as a good bow for a non-ranger (and perhaps a non-rogue as well) to use.  Someone like, for example, Kana or GM, who you might have hiding behind the front lines using ranged attacks, but don't really have the same super high accuracy as a ranger or rogue might.  Someone who who could get their fair share of hits, but perhaps not nearly as many crits.  That person might be a good fit for RoGF.

 

As for Sabra Marie, it's a bow you can get before the end of WM1, so in theory you'd still have all of WM2, plus whatever remains of the main story line to use it.  Yes, it's still late, but not as late as it was prior to the release of WM2.

 

 

[Crucis]

 

DiS isn't exactly a high alpha weapon capable of blasting its way thru high DR's. But IIRC, wounding effects aren't affect by DR, though I could be very wrong on that.

Against high DR targets the wounding damage can be higher than your physical damage - that's more than 100% dps increase.

Damn, and I always thought that wounding deals 25% from the final, post-DR damage...

Just checked ingame, and the results show that it takes x0.25 of pre-DR damage, and moreover, it also multiplies that value again with your might modifier.

(as for int, it only increases duration without affecting total damage)

 

If only it would generate bonus focus...

 

 

Damn.  Thanks for reminding me.  I was going to give GM the Persistence hunting bow.  But now, why bother. 

 

[sims796]

Durgan question. There's a shield that provides reflection towards projectiles. Does Durganizing it override the reflection effect, or adds to it? The character sheet seems to indicate the former.