Defense vs Knockdown Resistance?

[Knightmage Bael]

Basically title.

Taking, for example, Stygian Omen, when enhanced with Vermundian or Dwarven style, Vermundian seems to offer much greater defense but with hardly any knockdown resistance, whereas Dwarven Style sacrifices defense but offers quite a bit more knockdown resistance.

Which one would be better, given certain circumstances I imagine a lot could be said - but I mean generally speaking.

[Angel]

if i remember correctly dwarven is almost always the best smithing style except for magic weapons like staff and magic bow

[Fat Bastard]

Dwarven is the only enchant you should go for. Even for staffs and magick bows since spells contribute to knockdown threshold as well.

[godsblade]

im not sure what you mean by vermundian offering much greater defence since it seems to be pretty much on par with dwarven defence, unless you meant battahli which has the highest physical defense/attack upgrades (vermundian is all-rounder)

generally speaking the total bonus to knockdown resistance is far higher than the amount of magical/physical defense you are losing by switching to dwarven so for melee weapons and all armor it makes more sense to go for dwarven (magic weapons also benefit from knockdown power so it might be useful for mages with high levin but for sorcerers meteoron is going to kill most things instantly anyways)

you specifically mention stygian omen but in total you gain around 200 knockdown res in return for sacrificing like 30 defence which is honestly extremely minimal

you also stop gaining knockdown resistance/power as you level far earlier than the other stats + the bonuses from dwarven are so big its not really "worth" giving up all the knockdown resistance for a tiny bit of extra defence

attack-wise it doesnt really matter as you will end up killing most things pretty fast but defence-wise you will probably notice the knockdown resist stat being more clutch

[Grr. [SG CMD] Majah Lazah]

Dwarven

[AirSniffer]

Mage staffs : Elven
Everything else: Dwarven

[Wenz Lightning]

Originally posted by Archmage_Bael:

Basically title.

Taking, for example, Stygian Omen, when enhanced with Vermundian or Dwarven style, Vermundian seems to offer much greater defense but with hardly any knockdown resistance, whereas Dwarven Style sacrifices defense but offers quite a bit more knockdown resistance.

Which one would be better, given certain circumstances I imagine a lot could be said - but I mean generally speaking.

Defense in dwarven style is still good but sacrifices in weight stats (weight increase).

[Vinnolo]

dwarven on everything, the knockdown bonus/defense is king and the stat difference with battahl/elven isnt that big to make them worth it

[Migromul]

Originally posted by Fat Bastard:

Dwarven is the only enchant you should go for. Even for staffs and magick bows since spells contribute to knockdown threshold as well.

...but you don't need knockdown, when attacks one-shot the mobs, because of high damage... So I can't agrree, that you need KD for magic weapons, especially not (archi)staffs. And even not on mage-staffs. the Frigor-spell has such great KD, that it's just not nessecary.

Also: Dwarfen has the same physical damage-growth than vermundian, but makes the item more heavy. Bathal-style has the most physical damage-growth, but also makes the item more heavy.
Vermunidan and elven make items lighter, however. For all pure magic weapons, only elven is recommended imho. For hybrid-weapons Vermundian is the way to go, except you want KD. then dwarven. But imho, that's not nessecary for daggers. Vermunidan for enchanted daggers and Bathal for physical ones.
Swords - including two-handers - is another topic. The warrior has KD from its skills and augments available, so KD isn't realy needed, imho. They're very heavy weapons, however, so it may be a considereation to do elven (for enchanted only ) or vermundian enhancements. Maces are KD-weapons, so the more the better! (e. g. only dwarven for them, although a vermundian one to get it lighter again, may be a considereation.)

Also: it's not nessecary to focus. You can also do a mix, to get some KD, but also more additonal magic or physical damage, by mixing the enhancements. It may also be a consideration, because some enhancements need realy rare materials, while the others have easier ones.

But the game is so easy, that it doesn't realy matter, imho. You'll get the most out of dragonforging, But not the damage is, what makes the difference, but the WEIGHT... And so, the most important weapons and gear you should DF are those, which are the most heavy imho.

[miki]

Depends on what class and skills are used.

But usually it goes like this:

Warrior = All Dwarven

For Thief the Battahl craft on daggers like Dragon's Vein is good, For Heaven's Key daggers you can go Dwarven and use the implicate skill to a great effect.

For Fighter many weapons benefit from Battahl craft greatly, but on shields you want Dwarven. Battahl craft is also good for Fighter armor.

For Magick classes Elven is generally good.

For Archer you can either take Dwarven or Battahl.


Vermundian craft is strictly for early game and shouldn't be used beyond that.

[Fat Bastard]

Originally posted by Migromul:

Originally posted by Fat Bastard:

Dwarven is the only enchant you should go for. Even for staffs and magick bows since spells contribute to knockdown threshold as well.

...but you don't need knockdown, when attacks one-shot the mobs, because of high damage... So I can't agrree, that you need KD for magic weapons, especially not (archi)staffs. And even not on mage-staffs. the Frigor-spell has such great KD, that it's just not nessecary.

Also: Dwarfen has the same physical damage-growth than vermundian, but makes the item more heavy. Bathal-style has the most physical damage-growth, but also makes the item more heavy.
Vermunidan and elven make items lighter, however. For all pure magic weapons, only elven is recommended imho. For hybrid-weapons Vermundian is the way to go, except you want KD. then dwarven. But imho, that's not nessecary for daggers. Vermunidan for enchanted daggers and Bathal for physical ones.
Swords - including two-handers - is another topic. The warrior has KD from its skills and augments available, so KD isn't realy needed, imho. They're very heavy weapons, however, so it may be a considereation to do elven (for enchanted only ) or vermundian enhancements. Maces are KD-weapons, so the more the better! (e. g. only dwarven for them, although a vermundian one to get it lighter again, may be a considereation.)

Also: it's not nessecary to focus. You can also do a mix, to get some KD, but also more additonal magic or physical damage, by mixing the enhancements. It may also be a consideration, because some enhancements need realy rare materials, while the others have easier ones.

But the game is so easy, that it doesn't realy matter, imho. You'll get the most out of dragonforging, But not the damage is, what makes the difference, but the WEIGHT... And so, the most important weapons and gear you should DF are those, which are the most heavy imho.

Mobs are not the name of the game. But in any case, here's how it goes:
Every enemy has 2 types of knockdown resistance. 1 for Stagger and 1 for Blow. Every stagger ranks up as you deal knockback damage ranging from small staggers to extra large (LLL) staggers which eventually ends up at the enemy being knocked down. For bosses that's where the threshold ends. For mobs going over that threshold will make them blown (ragdolled).

The benefit of knocking an enemy down goes like this:
A knockeddown enemy in either form drops out of battlestance. Results in a 1.5 damage multiiplier (and +10% if you've ambuscade) which highly surpasses any miniscule bonuses you gain from enchanting your gear for damage. You can also achieve this with smokeshroud for mobs.
A knockeddown enemy lies still which makes it easier to reach or aim at it's weakspots (%5 from lethality which Levin hits regardless) and you gain a 1 time 1.5 crit attack opportunity for melee vocations. It's actually how a fighter is intended to deal most of it's damage.
A knockeddown/staggered can't hurt the party.

Now all those goodies aside. The ammount of damage/defense stat improvement you get from either elven/batahli is so incredibly miniscule when you compare it to what you get from adding knockdown power/ressistance to those already improved stats by dwarven enchanting it just doesn't make an ounce of sense to go for the others. A fully Dwaven enchanted Dragon's Flight + dominance + 2 vehemence Rings nets you over 1.3k of knockdown which means you can knock every non-dragon monster in the game with just 1 charged Heavensward Sunder/Mountain Breaker.

Weight is also a non-issue since dragonforging cuts the total weight by half and you should be nomming those golden trove beetles on your way to Battahl/Agamen anyways. If you're still concerned about the weight just enchant 1 point of vermundian and it will equalize all the weight gained by 2 dwarven enchantments. Yet again weight still plays to non importance even for stamina regen. There's no shame in playing with light or medium load. A single harspud raborant nets you in 600 stamina gain and weighs only 0.05. That's half the max stamina a character of medium weight (64>) gets without vocation corrections and augment bonuses.

Since most people are complaining that the game is too easy and becomes easier after you reach 200 because all base stats are capped by that point, try out Custom DIfficulty Tweaks and pick either a preset or fine tune on your own and reduce damage taken values to around 0.10 (and maybe play around with stagger a bit). You're really gonna appreciate what knockdown does.

[Migromul]

Originally posted by Fat Bastard:

Originally posted by Migromul:

...but you don't need knockdown, when attacks one-shot the mobs, because of high damage... So I can't agrree, that you need KD for magic weapons, especially not (archi)staffs. And even not on mage-staffs. the Frigor-spell has such great KD, that it's just not nessecary.

Also: Dwarfen has the same physical damage-growth than vermundian, but makes the item more heavy. Bathal-style has the most physical damage-growth, but also makes the item more heavy.
Vermunidan and elven make items lighter, however. For all pure magic weapons, only elven is recommended imho. For hybrid-weapons Vermundian is the way to go, except you want KD. then dwarven. But imho, that's not nessecary for daggers. Vermunidan for enchanted daggers and Bathal for physical ones.
Swords - including two-handers - is another topic. The warrior has KD from its skills and augments available, so KD isn't realy needed, imho. They're very heavy weapons, however, so it may be a considereation to do elven (for enchanted only ) or vermundian enhancements. Maces are KD-weapons, so the more the better! (e. g. only dwarven for them, although a vermundian one to get it lighter again, may be a considereation.)

Also: it's not nessecary to focus. You can also do a mix, to get some KD, but also more additonal magic or physical damage, by mixing the enhancements. It may also be a consideration, because some enhancements need realy rare materials, while the others have easier ones.

But the game is so easy, that it doesn't realy matter, imho. You'll get the most out of dragonforging, But not the damage is, what makes the difference, but the WEIGHT... And so, the most important weapons and gear you should DF are those, which are the most heavy imho.

Mobs are not the name of the game. But in any case, here's how it goes:
Every enemy has 2 types of knockdown resistance. 1 for Stagger and 1 for Blow. Every stagger ranks up as you deal knockback damage ranging from small staggers to extra large (LLL) staggers which eventually ends up at the enemy being knocked down. For bosses that's where the threshold ends. For mobs going over that threshold will make them blown (ragdolled).

The benefit of knocking an enemy down goes like this:
A knockeddown enemy in either form drops out of battlestance. Results in a 1.5 damage multiiplier (and +10% if you've ambuscade) which highly surpasses any miniscule bonuses you gain from enchanting your gear for damage. You can also achieve this with smokeshroud for mobs.
A knockeddown enemy lies still which makes it easier to reach or aim at it's weakspots (%5 from lethality which Levin hits regardless) and you gain a 1 time 1.5 crit attack opportunity for melee vocations. It's actually how a fighter is intended to deal most of it's damage.
A knockeddown/staggered can't hurt the party.

Now all those goodies aside. The ammount of damage/defense stat improvement you get from either elven/batahli is so incredibly miniscule when you compare it to what you get from adding knockdown power/ressistance to those already improved stats by dwarven enchanting it just doesn't make an ounce of sense to go for the others. A fully Dwaven enchanted Dragon's Flight + dominance + 2 vehemence Rings nets you over 1.3k of knockdown which means you can knock every non-dragon monster in the game with just 1 charged Heavensward Sunder/Mountain Breaker.

Weight is also a non-issue since dragonforging cuts the total weight by half and you should be nomming those golden trove beetles on your way to Battahl/Agamen anyways. If you're still concerned about the weight just enchant 1 point of vermundian and it will equalize all the weight gained by 2 dwarven enchantments. Yet again weight still plays to non importance even for stamina regen. There's no shame in playing with light or medium load. A single harspud raborant nets you in 600 stamina gain and weighs only 0.05. That's half the max stamina a character of medium weight (64>) gets without vocation corrections and augment bonuses.

Since most people are complaining that the game is too easy and becomes easier after you reach 200 because all base stats are capped by that point, try out Custom DIfficulty Tweaks and pick either a preset or fine tune on your own and reduce damage taken values to around 0.10 (and maybe play around with stagger a bit). You're really gonna appreciate what knockdown does.

As you said, the game is easy. E. g. in the end, you can enhance just as you want. Dwarven is one of the best, no doubt.
But I don't use mods, if it's not supported. (and DD II doesn't have official mod-support. Quite the contrary...)
I think, it doesn't realy matter, if a boss is Knocked down or not. Because you do such high damage, after reachen level 40+. Even dragons can be killed very quickly. Have a sorcerer with meteoron with you and you will kill in in two casts... And most sorcerers (at level 80+) don't even have an enchanted weapon... (although the dragons wit or what the post-game-staff is called. Has the vision as the staff you receive from Grigori in the first game...)

Now, if you go with two archers, that's another topic. Because Archers outright do the least damage of all vocations, except for trickster. At least, that's my experience. But perhaps pawns are much more effective as archers than I am... But for them a KD boss might be a significant difference, because of your abough reasons. (more damage, standing still and so on. I surely must admit, that thiese are strong arguments.)
Still, if I play a melee-vocation and want a ranged damage-dealer I prefer the archer more than the sorcerer, because the sorcerer spells almost always block my vision, and I HATE that! Even the normal damage-spells (e. g. of the mages) tend to block my vision, when I most need it...

On the other hand, I don't think weight isn't an issue. You will notice, if you reach average weight. (at least I do.) If you play a short character (as I do) it's nearly impossible to hold on on very light weight. But It's very much possible to have light weight. And some of the materials are very difficult to get. (like the medusa-bone for example.) because the monster that drops it, is rare and is a boss, e. g. has an at least 7 day-delay for respawn.

I didn't manage to enhance the wounded heart, for example, because you need warg-tooths for enhancement. And I encountered exactly 1 or 2 in the complete Pre-game. (I'm in post-game, now atm.) And I don't even have one of the tooths you need (so I can't even forge them...). Although my pawn is a forager and shows a postiion on the map, where I can get those, they aren't there... (but a lesser dragon instead...)

And before you don't have your gear max enhanced. you can't DF it... But I hope, it is easier now to get some of the materials needed, as I'm now in post-game. (e. g. unmoored world.) I'm just beginning, though.
I still prefer to enhance pure magic-weapons with elven only!

[Asphe]

Initially, I put Elven smithing on Staffs, Archistaffs and Magick Bows and everything else got Dwarven Smithing.

Now I put Dwarven smithing on everything, even Legion's Might. Of course, all armor should get Dwarven for the most Knockdown resist. But the way I see it, if a weapon does any damage to enemy mobs, it might as well add some to the Knockdown threshold.

Besides, Elven vs Dwarven for magick items?

e.g. Percipient Blade*, max Elven gives you 365 Magick, Dwarven gives you 360 (13% vs 11%) while Elven doesn't improve Knockdown at all, while Dwarven increases it by 35%

So yeah, might as well go all Dwarven. Going with Elven add a tiny bit to Magick. Plus regardless of smithing method, dragonforging gear cuts the weight in half so the only big difference is in Knockdown.

But really, look at the higher level pawns... do you see Legion's Might or... Frigid Finger? Dogma or Fury? For better Magick, you've got other options. For increased Knockdown, you have Dwarven.


*on my Arisen, nothing else changed but the weapon & smithing style

[The 5th Seraph]

Knockdown Res is better. It mitigates the likelihood of flinching, which gives you more opportunity to get away and not get pounded into the dirt... so you're more likely to survive.

[Migromul]

I still like a mix. Get one vermundian and the rest dwarven for armor. (to lighten it a bit.) It depends - of course - on the armor used. You don't need vermundian for an armor-piece that doesn't weight significantly. (over 5+) And DF isn't as easy as it sounds in the first place. As said, some materials are realy difficult to get, especially if you didn't reach unmoored world, yet.
KD is realy important. I think that's a bit a problem. The motto is sadly "there is never enough knockdown-power for weapons nor enough KD-resistance for armor". with the result, that the best option is only dwarven smithing. For more variatiy, especially for min-maxers, there should be a cap...
(I'm no min-maxer, so I enhance as I like. And sometimes, I just focus on damage.)

[Aurani]

Originally posted by The 5th Seraph:

Knockdown Res is better. It mitigates the likelihood of flinching, which gives you more opportunity to get away and not get pounded into the dirt... so you're more likely to survive.

This. So much this. Having about 400+ knockdown resist via dwarven smithing is a huge QoL upgrade. Funny enough even with the maximum possible knockdown resist on Warrior there are some weak-looking attacks that still guarantee stagger, like goblins throwing rocks/flasks.