Found a cool sword

[Nasarog]

In the Forgotten Caves in Drombach...

Any more finds like this around?

[Spawnling]

I guess you are talking about Mehyt's Kopis.
Yeah, I'm currently having fun with the Strongblade (1 extra attack if target bleeds, burns or is poisoned), Inquisition Shield (target burns) and Legion Helm (target bleeds) for 3 attacks in a row with bleeding oil is kinda fun.

List of all legendary and rare weapons that can be upgraded what they do & where to find:
https://wartales.fandom.com/wiki/Named_and_Legendary_Items

[Arctuhris]

Clink's Sword is one of only two legendary weapons I've found (or heard of) that isn't a boss drop, a relic-reconstruction or an arena reward. The other is in Belerion, but I won't spoil it (unless you reply and ask me to). Almost all the best weapons are the purple legendary weapons from the tombs, the area boss fights, and the arenas. The one exception, IMO, is the gold 1-handed sword that does +40% dmg. against foes with no armor mitigation. Until reaching 100% crit on my Fighter, I prefer that to Clink's, but once you are level 12 with 100% crit with Unstable Oil on Clink's with Bulwark *and* the bonus -50% to opportunity attacks recieved and +50% to damage given, I think the increased bonus to strength from Clink's with the opportunity attacks outweighs the 40% bonus on the gold sword. But, honestly, they're pretty close, they just each do more damage in different situations, but I find I get 2-5 opportunity attacks per turn going through all my engages and disengages, so I think at higher levels, a legendary sword is better. I personally prefer Clink's because I don't need the Valor Points from Mehyt's Kopis, and I like the disengage after the triple hit, as I use improved visibility on my fighter's helmet, so the disengage gives him Fury for the next opportunity attack if he is engaged by an enemy. Mostly, though, since I use Unstable Oil, three smaller attacks means three chances for opportunity attacks from the Unstable Oil.

[Nasarog]

It was Clinks sword.

Originally posted by Bankipriel:

Clink's Sword is one of only two legendary weapons I've found (or heard of) that isn't a boss drop, a relic-reconstruction or an arena reward. The other is in Belerion, but I won't spoil it (unless you reply and ask me to). Almost all the best weapons are the purple legendary weapons from the tombs, the area boss fights, and the arenas. The one exception, IMO, is the gold 1-handed sword that does +40% dmg. against foes with no armor mitigation. Until reaching 100% crit on my Fighter, I prefer that to Clink's, but once you are level 12 with 100% crit with Unstable Oil on Clink's with Bulwark *and* the bonus -50% to opportunity attacks recieved and +50% to damage given, I think the increased bonus to strength from Clink's with the opportunity attacks outweighs the 40% bonus on the gold sword. But, honestly, they're pretty close, they just each do more damage in different situations, but I find I get 2-5 opportunity attacks per turn going through all my engages and disengages, so I think at higher levels, a legendary sword is better. I personally prefer Clink's because I don't need the Valor Points from Mehyt's Kopis, and I like the disengage after the triple hit, as I use improved visibility on my fighter's helmet, so the disengage gives him Fury for the next opportunity attack if he is engaged by an enemy. Mostly, though, since I use Unstable Oil, three smaller attacks means three chances for opportunity attacks from the Unstable Oil.

Do tell...

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Bankipriel:

Clink's Sword is one of only two legendary weapons I've found (or heard of) that isn't a boss drop, a relic-reconstruction or an arena reward. The other is in Belerion,

It's a joke weapon, but Bog Thunder is just from a resource delivery quest in Ludern. You get an off-hand called Progress in Drombach if you side with the Alazarians in Ludern, if you want to consider non-shield offhands as weapons. That's about all there is that isn't from one of those sources you listed other than the two you already mentioned.

Originally posted by Bankipriel:

Almost all the best weapons are the purple legendary weapons from the tombs, the area boss fights, and the arenas. The one exception

There are actually a lot more exceptions than that! Every weapon type has some stand-out non-legendary weapons. These are just the ones I know of on short notice.

Unfortunately, the pugilist legendary weapons are awful. One is an inferior version of the Bandit's Katar (drop, Outlaws) (roughly half the damage). The other is outperformed by the Brotherhood Cestus (drop, The Brotherhood) unless combat lasts to Round 4+.

For 1H swords, The Strongblade (rare) is actually the strongest, far outperforming Clink's Sword when built around. Just two hits from it is roughly equivalent to using Clink's. I had a build in my most recent run that would always get at least three and almost always get all four hits out of Strongblade while using Unstable and Bleeding (the damaging one, not Whetting) oils, which utterly eclipses every other 1H Sword in the entire game. Also, Gladius of the Eye (drop, Inquisition) is a 1H sword with an AoE attack.

For 2H swords, Fredegund and Claret (rares) are competitive with Prosperity depending on your build and the circumstances in battle (Prosperity's bonus damage is very limiting). Claret is useful despite its lower stats and modifier because its Daze works as a safeguard to limit the downsides of using the Defensive Riposte passive or to take a 0 damage hit to trigger a Riposte buff.

For 1H axes, Nepti's Axe basically reigns supreme overall due to its large AoE attack, but for single target damage Traitor's Axe (rare) is the best due to its effect allowing you to force oils to proc.

For 2H axes, Enlil's Great Axe has competition in Mutiny (rare) due to the latter's AoE actually being 360 degrees and that it applies vulnerability on any survivors if it hits more than one enemy. Enlil's (or Splitter) are far better for single target damage, though.

For 1H maces, Erkeshet's Mace really is basically king of single target damage, but Purgatory (rare) has an AoE attack.

For 2H maces, nothing compares to Dagan's Hammer for AoE, but Rogue (rare) has a very high STR coefficient with an added bonus of applying Destabilization on tanky enemies which makes it very strong for single target.

For bows, there's actually a lot of great choices. The Indomitable One is easily the best legendary bow due to its line AoE attack that can be extended by Aim, but Pirate's/Ihrian Bow (both drops, Pirates and...I don't recall the other faction's name) compete with their 3m diameter AoE attack. Despite their low stats, Fugitive's Bow (drop, Outlaws) and Alazarian Bow (drop, Alazarians) are both great for crowd control and debuffing.

For daggers, there are a lot, too. Elderguard (rare) is an obvious one for its unique 3-target AoE, which is good for spreading damage and debuffs across multiple enemies that aren't in range of most other AoEs. Ringleader's Dagger (drop, Outlaws) can be nice for its AoE poison effect. The Inquistion rare dagger (can't remember the name) can be good in certain fights due to hitting for each buff an enemy has. Traitor's Dagger (burglary quest reward) is in the competition for strongest single target dagger because it ignores Guard entirely, but...there's only one of it and it's not upgradable, scaling to your level when you find it on Adaptive or only level 5 (this still the case?) on Region-Locked.

For polearms, the legendary Liberator has competition in (I can never recall its name, darn it) that one rare spear dropped by Edoranians that has an attack that hits 4 times, due to its multiple hits interacting well with Oil mechanics. Crocksting (rare) has one of the few line AoE attacks in the game, making it the best (and only) AoE polearm in the game and generally worth using over any other polearm overall.

[Arctuhris]

Lol, I totally forgot about Bog Thunder XD

But, I stand by my other quoted statement. There's 1 or 2 exceptions for each weapon, which means that most of the best weapons are the legendaries. On a team of 8 with no duplicate weapon styles, there is only 1 non-legendary weapon I would bother using (unless I ran a Warrior, which I wouldn't on a team of 8, as you're right, Mutiny's larger 360 AoE is often better then Enlil's Great Axe), and it's the PIrate's Bow, which is a good call out. That thing is super OP, especially if you give your Archer the Arena Belt item that allows for a second Primary Attack.

I'm curious now to go re-check Strongblade, but the last time I did the math, I found the Strength loss on Strongblade to not be worth it. But I could definitely be wrong there. By endgame, between my Hunter, my Vangaurd, my Halberdier, and my Cutthroat, there's hardly anything left for the rest of the party to do, so it's been a while since I ran the numbers on Fighters and Warriors (the later of which I found really disappointing at level 13, since even with Penetrating Oil, they aren't as versatile at clearing heavily armored enemies as a Vanguard with Dagan's Hammer).

[Spawnling]

The craftable 2H Maces aren't that bad either. They have 70% Strength + 50% if enemies still have Armor = 105% damage vs Dagan's Hammer 3x35% = 105% damage. So if you are not using Oils that trigger on hit, they are pretty decent and stronger than Rogue (95%).

[Doom_Cookies]

Everyone forgets about Bog Thunder. :P

Originally posted by Bankipriel:

[...] PIrate's Bow, which is a good call out. That thing is super OP

Lol, yes. Everything just falls to pieces in a wide radius when you crit with it, which, come lategame, should be always.

Originally posted by Bankipriel:

Warriors (the later of which I found really disappointing at level 13, since even with Penetrating Oil, they aren't as versatile at clearing heavily armored enemies as a Vanguard with Dagan's Hammer).

I actually came up with a hilarious Executioner build that uses Nepti's and the basic bomb from Alchemy in the offhand that is hilariously effective at killing absolutely anything aside from bosses, if you're curious. This post is already too long, so let me know if you're interested and I'll outline it for you.

Originally posted by Bankipriel:

I'm curious now to go re-check Strongblade, but the last time I did the math, I found the Strength loss on Strongblade to not be worth it.

I'm feeling kind of bored atm, so I'll do the math for you to take a gander at.

This is long math nonsense. Just skip the rest of the post if anyone's reading this and you don't care about the specifics.

It ultimately depends on whether you're building for AOOs and need to spread out damage or not. Clink's AOOs will do about 10% more damage, but its base skill will do far less damage than a optimized Strongblade. In a scenario where all the damage dealt is meaningful damage, Strongblade has a far stronger damage potential.

Clink's has like 12 more STR all said and done. It does a total of 60%-120% STR, or an average of 90% STR, across all three hits. The Strongblade does 70-90% STR, or an average of 80% STR, per hit up to four hits, for a total average of 320% STR if you make all four hits.

With my 2-hit Strongblade example, assuming we have Unstable Oil + Belt, Clink's will have an 87.5% chance of its base skill activating AOO at 160% damage with 12 more STR (which is roughly 10% more STR than without at max) whereas Strongblade will have a 75% chance. We can get an average damage value in terms of STR coefficient for both, and add that to their base skill's damage. And we can do the same for Final Blow (assuming Duelist - 105% STR average). Then, we'll take into account the extra 12 STR as a 10% damage bonus (it's actually lower in most cases) to turn these coefficients into vague "damage values" (I'll label them as D) that we can use to compare.

Clink's: 335% STR, 368 D
Strongblade: 385% STR, 385 D

Due to the STR difference, every AOO adds 16 D in favor of Clink's. At 2 AOO in a turn, Clink's reaches 384 D. It surpasses Strongblade with 3 AOO in a turn, reaching 400 D.

But... You can build to have Strongblade hit 4 times by doing a few weird things. This does not come without opportunity cost, of course - mostly in regards to defenses. 1: Equip a Poisoned Throwing Knife. 2: Take Defensive Riposte at level 10, and Class Specialization at level 12 to get level 10's Second Weapon (rather than grabbing Exort). 3: Use a Legendary Weapon as your second weapon with the Acidic and Whetting oils and Strongblade with Unstable and Bleeding oils. 4: Use Unstable Oil Concentrate belt. 5: Apply Intimidating Effigy (+10% damage per debuff on target) to helmet.

Typical turn against bosses looks kind of like this. Attack with Poisoned Throwing Knife to apply Poisoned, and probably Bleed and Burning. If one of the two is not applied, use Final Blow. If both are already applied, switch to Strongblade and use Final Blow. Use Strongblade's base skill. Disengage as needed in between, of course.

By the time you use the base skill, your chances of having 2, 3, and 4 attacks are as follows: 6% 2 hits, 38% 3 hits, 56% 4 hits. There's a 25% chance you'll apply all the debuffs with the Throwing Knife and be able to use Final Strike with Strongblade to fish for the OOP, and a 75% chance you'll have to use Final Strike with the other weapon to apply remaining debuffs. We did lose out on Zeal, but we also gained a fair bit more damage from the helmet stamp over what would be available via helmets to Clink's and 100% crit chance is achievable regardless, so it should roughly even out. We also have Bleeding oil padding out our damage further. I haven't played on Extreme because I don't like the VP cost change, so I can't really say how that'll add, but on Expert that's about 75 damage per proc on the average human unit, or very roughly 50% STR in the form of a coefficient. I don't think damage bonuses apply to that oil, though.

Calculating all that in terms of D without any disengages (So, Knife -> Final Strike -> Base Skill)...

Strongblade: 801 D
(I really hope I got that long-ass math formula right. Probabilities inside probabilities makes my head spin.)
Edit: Accidentally calculated with Final Strike at 150% STR rather than 105%. Fixed.

There's just no way for Clink's to catch up.

BUT. The opportunity costs are pretty big, and there are downsides. No more useful offhand since you need the Throwing Knives which means no Shield for another attack/passive and lower defenses. If you weren't using Zeal but were already using Class Specialization for a different level-up perk, then you lose out on that. Damage suffers greatly when an enemy dies before all the attacks are made - if you need to switch targets in the middle of the turn or some of the attacks from Strongblade end up as overkill, you lose out on quite a lot.

All this is why I explained the 2-hit math above, to demonstrate that at worst you can expect it to perform similarly to Clink's.

[Nasarog]

Some really, really good info here. Thanks!!!

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

But... You can build to have Strongblade hit 4 times by doing a few weird things. This does not come without opportunity cost, of course - mostly in regards to defenses. 1: Equip a Poisoned Throwing Knife. 2: Take Defensive Riposte at level 10, and Class Specialization at level 12 to get level 10's Second Weapon (rather than grabbing Exort). 3: Use a Legendary Weapon as your second weapon with the Acidic and Whetting oils and Strongblade with Unstable and Bleeding oils. 4: Use Unstable Oil Concentrate belt. 5: Apply Intimidating Effigy (+10% damage per debuff on target) to helmet.

Could you swap acidic for poison oil and use the inquisition shield to initiate? This would add guard and an additional disengage (50% attack of opportunity).
Or is there a reason why you'd prefer posion dagger (e.g. VP efficiency.)

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Could you swap acidic for poison oil and use the inquisition shield to initiate? This would add guard and an additional disengage (50% attack of opportunity).
Or is there a reason why you'd prefer posion dagger (e.g. VP efficiency.)

Come to think of it, you could do that. I don't see why not, other than the VP efficiency you mentioned.

When I played the build, I wasn't actually building for AOO, so I just adapted what I had into an AOO build since that's the context that best supported using Clink's over Strongblade and the sort of build Bankipriel used. My build was actually very different in many ways, although the one I outlined is probably much stronger. I was using the one helmet stamp for +25% damage against poisoned enemies, and that - alongside extra crit - was my main reason for using the Knife. I never found one of the shields this run and only ever found one Intimidating Effigy stamp which was prioritized for another unit. There were also other differences, such as me using Whetting Oil Concentrate for the belt to ensure at least two debuffs because my whole team was very debuff focused.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Could you swap acidic for poison oil and use the inquisition shield to initiate? This would add guard and an additional disengage (50% attack of opportunity).
Or is there a reason why you'd prefer posion dagger (e.g. VP efficiency.)

Come to think of it, you could do that. I don't see why not, other than the VP efficiency you mentioned.

When I played the build, I wasn't actually building for AOO, so I just adapted what I had into an AOO build since that's the context that best supported using Clink's over Strongblade and the sort of build Bankipriel used. My build was actually very different in many ways, although the one I outlined is probably much stronger. I was using the one helmet stamp for +25% damage against poisoned enemies, and that - alongside extra crit - was my main reason for using the Knife. I never found one of the shields this run and only ever found one Intimidating Effigy stamp which was prioritized for another unit. There were also other differences, such as me using Whetting Oil Concentrate for the belt to ensure at least two debuffs because my whole team was very debuff focused.

Deserter's medium hemlets have Intimidating Effigy.

Btw. what's a good second oil for Traitors axe (natural strike) apart from the attack of opportunity oil?

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Deserter's medium hemlets have Intimidating Effigy.

Btw. what's a good second oil for Traitors axe (natural strike) apart from the attack of opportunity oil?

That would explain it. I never really fought any deserters aside from the, what, one forced quest fight with them? I'm lucky I found that one, haha.

I actually went with Whetting and Bleeding Oils because the Bleed applies before it attempts to proc Bleeding Oil, meaning a free 20% (or 25% with that one Compendium perk) enemy HP in damage. He was the tank, so I didn't mind him not doing lots of up-front damage. Honestly, Unstable is probably stronger, though.

For the second oil... Well, Bleeding or Unstable are the two big oils that this Axe clearly benefits from the most given their dramatic effects and typically low proc chance. If you can find a source of Bleed before your base action, like the helmet stamp that gives you a skill to apply it, then absolutely Bleeding. Otherwise, your best bets are any of Misty, Infectious, Whetting, or Shielding, depending on your needs and how you have your Warrior built. Given a definite Unstable proc is already a huge boon, you can also decide to forego another on-attack proc and use other Oils like Perforating, Hardening, or The Brave's.

[Spawnling]

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Deserter's medium hemlets have Intimidating Effigy.

Btw. what's a good second oil for Traitors axe (natural strike) apart from the attack of opportunity oil?

That would explain it. I never really fought any deserters aside from the, what, one forced quest fight with them? I'm lucky I found that one, haha.

I actually went with Whetting and Bleeding Oils because the Bleed applies before it attempts to proc Bleeding Oil, meaning a free 20% (or 25% with that one Compendium perk) enemy HP in damage. He was the tank, so I didn't mind him not doing lots of up-front damage. Honestly, Unstable is probably stronger, though.

For the second oil... Well, Bleeding or Unstable are the two big oils that this Axe clearly benefits from the most given their dramatic effects and typically low proc chance. If you can find a source of Bleed before your base action, like the helmet stamp that gives you a skill to apply it, then absolutely Bleeding. Otherwise, your best bets are any of Misty, Infectious, Whetting, or Shielding, depending on your needs and how you have your Warrior built. Given a definite Unstable proc is already a huge boon, you can also decide to forego another on-attack proc and use other Oils like Perforating, Hardening, or The Brave's.

Another question, does Natural Strike's proc count for attacks of opportunity by let's say Alazarian shield?

[Nasarog]

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Originally posted by Doom_Cookies:

Come to think of it, you could do that. I don't see why not, other than the VP efficiency you mentioned.

When I played the build, I wasn't actually building for AOO, so I just adapted what I had into an AOO build since that's the context that best supported using Clink's over Strongblade and the sort of build Bankipriel used. My build was actually very different in many ways, although the one I outlined is probably much stronger. I was using the one helmet stamp for +25% damage against poisoned enemies, and that - alongside extra crit - was my main reason for using the Knife. I never found one of the shields this run and only ever found one Intimidating Effigy stamp which was prioritized for another unit. There were also other differences, such as me using Whetting Oil Concentrate for the belt to ensure at least two debuffs because my whole team was very debuff focused.

Deserter's medium hemlets have Intimidating Effigy.

Btw. what's a good second oil for Traitors axe (natural strike) apart from the attack of opportunity oil?

I like Explosive Oil.

[Doom_Cookies]

Originally posted by Spawnling:

Another question, does Natural Strike's proc count for attacks of opportunity by let's say Alazarian shield?

No, only the base action for the axe itself.

Originally posted by Nasarog:

I like Explosive Oil.

I've actually never used it because I assume enemies need to be touching for it to take effect, and I simply never see that happen. Does it actually have an AoE of like 1m or something?