poison or fire?

[tools guy-kun]

just unlocked B tier in the Smithing, so I'm debating on which elemental B tier weapon I should beeline for.

light's stun is neat, but it doesn't give you much opportunity to do tons of punish damage/attacks on them.

fire does this, since burning enemies fall to the ground which opens them up for a ton of attacks, dealing extra damage. this could be great CC in most scenarios.

however... the damage from the poison stacks are pretty damn good at whittling down health, at least the grunts. I could probably just run wild dancer, stack some poison on an enemy and dodge their attacks until they die, but CC is also pretty important, which poison lacks.

haven't tried lightning yet but I'd imagine it works like fire.

if you were to choose between poison or fire, which would you go for?

[T]

I feel that thunder is the best, while the stun is shorter than fire, enemies take increased damage from all sources while stunned from thunder. Poison works against boss mobs but the damage is poor.

I guess poison might be good if you stack element seals, but I have not tested it myself.

[tools guy-kun]

Originally posted by T:

I feel that thunder is the best, while the stun is shorter than fire, enemies take increased damage from all sources while stunned from thunder. Poison works against boss mobs but the damage is poor.

oh? I didn't know that. I shouldn't have brushed it off so easily, then. I'll nab a firefly and test it out, then decide between fire or that because what you just said about poison being minimal on boss mobs sort of turns me away from it.

if anything I'd use poison just for style. thanks friend.

edit: yeah I'm going thunder. lol. not only is it cool as hell but that extra damage is huge. hope the stun works on boss mobs as well, at the very least mini bosses.

edit 2: IT DOES

[T]

Tested elemental seals a bit.

2 gold elemental seals (+150%) makes poison proc on a single attack, however the damage seems unchanged.

Even with 3 gold elemental seals thunder will not proc on a single attack.

1 bronze seal (25%) is enough for thunder to proc on 2 attacks.

I tested these on various trash mobs outside the blacksmith (premium adventure ishin difficulty if it matters).

[ImHelping]

Poison basically tickles, the only reason I've got a poison sword is because it was faster to get a new anti-armor trait sword with poison than one with a more direct element. and also doesn't cost 100 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ryo, it was more budget friendly to make.

Expecting it to kill people off leads to a lot of enemies standing back up with no visible health on their bar and trying to stab me in the back at BEST.

Any extra damage is better than no extra damage. But I'm definitely team anti-armor trait so far.

It SAYS 20% vs armor, but in practice it feels more like "What armor bar?" even in rank 3 bandit caves (literally everything has armor in bandit caves, even ninjas). Or when the game gives you six pity acid bullets before a twin giants with armor meters boss.

"Hmm, I took off their entire armor bar in one swing. Maybe armor isn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥"
*deals two whole damage with regular handgun ammo to someone with armor*
"

[tools guy-kun]

Originally posted by T:

Tested elemental seals a bit.

2 gold elemental seals (+150%) makes poison proc on a single attack, however the damage seems unchanged.

Even with 3 gold elemental seals thunder will not proc on a single attack.

1 bronze seal (25%) is enough for thunder to proc on 2 attacks.

I tested these on various trash mobs outside the blacksmith (premium adventure ishin difficulty if it matters).

how do you get these seals, exactly? seems like you have a decent amount stored. is it all just crafting the weapons that have them and then disassembling them, then save scumming if you don't get the seal(s) you want?

poison sounds like a special case, considering it doesn't offer any form of CC/stun. if the DoT remains unchanged despite being boosted by seals, then it's most likely designed to have its proc chance altered/boosted by seals rather than the effectiveness overall. regardless, getting a poison stack on each attack sounds real powerful at hindsight, despite the boss damage reduction.

[tools guy-kun]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Poison basically tickles, the only reason I've got a poison sword is because it was faster to get a new anti-armor trait sword with poison than one with a more direct element.

yeah, it was the first one I could've crafted too over the fire and lightning one. maybe it being the easiest to make has something to do with poison being the least effective over the other elements?

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by tools guy-kun:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Poison basically tickles, the only reason I've got a poison sword is because it was faster to get a new anti-armor trait sword with poison than one with a more direct element.

yeah, it was the first one I could've crafted too over the fire and lightning one. maybe it being the easiest to make has something to do with poison being the least effective over the other elements?

Oh you can make other element swords as easily and for the same cost as just poison.

You just can't get element+anti armor without extra investment and grind. (and the top row of swords with early missile cutter with anti armor only, gives that up in exchange for "now you have 14% extra chance to guard break, wow!").

They unlock poison+armor break sooner with the blacksmith grind than "REAL element + armor break". AND half of those cost half as much as the last poison sword too.

Thunder+anti armor is 50 ryo before discounts for 995 base damage. and uses generic gold chunks and and a marksman's fan I've got a pile of.

the 990 final poison and anti armor sword costs 110. and needs tears of the dragon super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rare material.

"Poison just sucks when the player uses it" is a constant issue in games both digital and tabletop. And, as you can see, is not a case of "Poison is cheaper so deserves to be worse"

Fire+anti armor costs the same as the final poison, but uses two phoenix feathers I already have somehow. So I could make the fire+anti armor on ACCIDENT more easily than if I had wanted the final poison+anti armor on purpose.

Thankfully, the penultimate poison "Now with armor break" is 20 ryo range. still twice as much as penultimate "Just fire" for 10 ryo, but hey still able to make it without insanity grind.

Cost and grind is also why I have not upgraded the starter sword. That does get armor break too, but the upper ranks are 50 ryo and then 250 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ryo on top of being locked behind blacksmith grind even harder.

EDIT: Oh right. speaking of blacksmith grind.

Feels like it does not give a ♥♥♥♥ how far down a crafting tree a sword is, only rank.

For example, a grey ♥♥♥♥♥♥ bundle blade is worth the same meter as a grey keen blade. A blue keen blade is worth the same as a blue higher rank sword. etc. crafting weapons gives you ♥♥♥♥ all meter too,

This also means donating crafted weapons is a massive net loss. Selling fifty ♥♥♥♥♥♥ 1,000 mon swords or spears = 5 ryo has so far been worth more far more meter than 5-10 ryo worth of crafted weapons.

This does not mean cheap swords are "overpowered", you still get a little baby amount. It just means expecting crafting to let you level blacksmith well is trash unless you had so much spare money, materials, and hammers to get them at least blue grade (green is barely more than grey) that using them up is faster than buying 100+ ♥♥♥♥♥♥ spears over and over to donate.

Getting to "Unlock early types" wasn't too bad. But I have been putting off grinding level 15 blacksmith C types for a reason.

Because early on, even blowing 10 ryo for "Literally 100" will not even let you go from level 7 to 10. and you have to select every individual sword. Just wiggling my D-pad 200 times.

Level 10 unlocks MOST things, I get the feeling bothering with the rest is mostly for completion hunters because yeeeesh.

[Napalmburner]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Because early on, even blowing 10 ryo for "Literally 100" will not even let you go from level 7 to 10. and you have to select every individual sword. Just wiggling my D-pad 200 times.

I actually spent probably 10-15 minutes just running to and from the arms dealer near the blacksmith and donating hundreds of leather breastplates.
Majority of that time was spent mashing arrow keys (faster than D-pad for me)

It was horrible. But at least now I can craft the Amon sword-

Nvm i'm not grinding 500 hours with these horrid drop rates

[tools guy-kun]

Originally posted by Napalmburner:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Because early on, even blowing 10 ryo for "Literally 100" will not even let you go from level 7 to 10. and you have to select every individual sword. Just wiggling my D-pad 200 times.

I actually spent probably 10-15 minutes just running to and from the arms dealer near the blacksmith and donating hundreds of leather breastplates.
Majority of that time was spent mashing arrow keys (faster than D-pad for me)

It was horrible. But at least now I can craft the Amon sword-

Nvm i'm not grinding 500 hours with these horrid drop rates

I think I'm just gonna make a macro for that ♥♥♥♥. I already made one for the chicken race bets. now that is a surefire shortcut to carpal tunnel, especially when you gotta save scum 70% of the time.

[T]

Originally posted by tools guy-kun:

Originally posted by T:

Tested elemental seals a bit.

2 gold elemental seals (+150%) makes poison proc on a single attack, however the damage seems unchanged.

Even with 3 gold elemental seals thunder will not proc on a single attack.

1 bronze seal (25%) is enough for thunder to proc on 2 attacks.

I tested these on various trash mobs outside the blacksmith (premium adventure ishin difficulty if it matters).

how do you get these seals, exactly? seems like you have a decent amount stored. is it all just crafting the weapons that have them and then disassembling them, then save scumming if you don't get the seal(s) you want?

poison sounds like a special case, considering it doesn't offer any form of CC/stun. if the DoT remains unchanged despite being boosted by seals, then it's most likely designed to have its proc chance altered/boosted by seals rather than the effectiveness overall. regardless, getting a poison stack on each attack sounds real powerful at hindsight, despite the boss damage reduction.

I already had 3 elemental seals found from random trash mobs in the town,
then I looked around in my inventory and found 2 random weapons with seals which I disassembled,
and I temporarily used 4 Kiwami seals that I got from the deluxe edition,
so 9 in total.
I had to savescum a few times and place seals in different orders/slots to circumvent the random seed.

I want to make myself clear with what I posted before, it's not that poison does less damage against bosses it's just that I feel that the damage is inadequate when compared to alternatives. However, poison does work against bosses(like the final boss of the battle dungeon) unlike other elements such as thunder.