Hidden Blacksmiths

[Uzul]

There are 6 hidden blacksmiths in the game, three forge things according to the recipes studied by the player and exchange resources for similar ones. Three more are making random legendary items. It seems to me that this has long lost its relevance. There are many ways to get a legendary item much easier in the game.
Perhaps it would be worth changing the skills of blacksmiths? Raise/replace forging bonuses? Or give them the opportunity to forge any item at all, even if the player does not have a recipe for it? This would give a new and practical meaning to the search and trips to the blacksmiths.

[Kaulu]

I still like the AoM blacksmith as it can't randomly make FG items, so if I'm after a specific ring, like Black Matriarch, for example, it's got better odds.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Uzul:

Raise/replace forging bonuses?

the forge bonuses are good, it's a gamble tho, which i think is kinda fair (easily compared on the effectiveness of legit crafted item vs GDstashed maxed forge bonuses 100% of the time)

Originally posted by Uzul:

Or give them the opportunity to forge any item at all, even if the player does not have a recipe for it?

that is literally what the celestial smiths does? grants you the opportunity to craft any epic or legend item in XY pool, so you're asking it to be changed to something it already does

if anything i think the AoM/FG undead smiths should have their resource trading tweaked
Necropolis smith is fair, 1:1+iron cost, but the expansion mats cost a bunch like 6:1

*Celestial smiths also got renewed use in patch 1.2 for tonic crafting

[Uzul]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

that is literally what the celestial smiths does? grants you the opportunity to craft any epic or legend item in XY pool, so you're asking it to be changed to something it already does

No, I suggest giving them the opportunity to forge specific items of the player's choice, instead of random ones. So that, for example, it would be possible to complete a full set with forging bonuses. A legal opportunity. And let it be expensive.

[Neit]

First of all, there are different kinds of hidden blacksmiths in GD, some are regular blacksmiths, only hidden out of plain sight, with the bonus that they can exchange crafting materials. One hidden blacksmiths only crafts specific quest item. Then there are 3 celestial smiths crafting random items.

Bonuses from blacksmith might be small, but they still be useful, health regen, DA or OA offered by celestial smiths are stats that are always useful. Even in small amounts they can work well in tandem with other bonuses from your gear/devotion/skills and you are still getting more powerful version of an item that can ever drop (well, usually, if you for example get DA bonus and your random roll on DA is terrible then you basically just got regular item drop).

I actually have more issues with blacksmiths that are present in towns, as most of them offer somewhere between 2-7% resistance bonus to specific resist, however still stacked against other two bonuses, so you might not even get it at all when you want it, but you can get when you want to avoid it, as it would be unnecessary overcap.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Uzul:

No, I suggest giving them the opportunity to forge specific items of the player's choice, instead of random ones. So that, for example, it would be possible to complete a full set with forging bonuses. A legal opportunity. And let it be expensive.

it's supposed to be random, otherwise it loses all purpose if you just go directly acquiring whatever you want at will
direct set obtaining is what transmuting is for, so you can either get that, and not have the craft bonus,
or attempt it at random but get the craft bonus
what you want sounds unreasonably stacked to me, while also basically negating multiple systems in place

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Neit:

I actually have more issues with blacksmiths that are present in towns

i think the issue is simply either shared bonus among several smiths, or the discrepancy between values of certain types of bonuses, so some just has very minimal desirability where others have very high, so in total you might want like 5/25 of the total pool - which then means any blacksmith that has total 3/3 undesirable just never gets used

[Neit]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

Originally posted by Neit:

I actually have more issues with blacksmiths that are present in towns

i think the issue is simply either shared bonus among several smiths, or the discrepancy between values of certain types of bonuses, so some just has very minimal desirability where others have very high, so in total you might want like 5/25 of the total pool - which then means any blacksmith that has total 3/3 undesirable just never gets used

During leveling, especially on SC, it does not really matter much which bonus I get, even the random resist is something I can usually benefit from and I will replace the item in several levels anyway. However on endgame gear, I usually want to minimize the chance of getting bonus I can't benefit from, especially on more expensive endgame items that are "forever", which in 80% cases means just using Duncan.

And that's kind of the point, I would love using different blacksmiths in different situations, based on build I'm playing, or based on stats I would like to boost. If the bonuses were all guaranteed (which probably wouldn't fly for balance reasons) or it would be possible to pick the one you want, this would be actually possible, even the resistance bonuses would suddenly be viable craft bonus for endgame gear.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Neit:

which in 80% cases means just using Duncan.
.

aeh what? he has like the worst bonuses ever? 😅

[Neit]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

Originally posted by Neit:

which in 80% cases means just using Duncan.
.

aeh what? he has like the worst bonuses ever? 😅

Well I usually hope for DA, as that's the stat you can't miss with, physique always helps, and a lot of builds I play can actually benefit from energy regen. His bonuses might not be the best, but even the worst case is still usable, if I could hand-pick the bonus I get, I would probably use the others way more often.

Other smiths usually have at least one resistance bonus, which as I said feels like a miss most of the time, worst offender here are the Black Legion smiths, getting 2% aether or chaos resist as random proc on 94 item is just not worth it.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Neit:

getting 2% aether or chaos resist as random proc on 94 item is just not worth it.

that's because those smiths are worthless
but duncan's energy regen is basically more worthless, i think i've only ever seen a single build where it actually had some utility, and regular resist would atleast have some slight general by comparison
likewise, 4-12DA is nothing, heck on a low physique build you get that min DA from the physique bonus on top of the health etc, and on a high physique build you get more da than the max DA bonus
imo angrim has 2/3 useful, where duncan shares the only useful with angrim
and in most cases a char likely benefits more from CC res bonuses or even heal increase etc. probably making Egellon and Kaylon the two best bonuses with 2/3 good ones and their 3rd a bit more usecase specific, with Ignus or Gaius being sorta like "peak" rng greedy potential

[Uzul]

I was referring to a more than common situation where there are 3\ 4 parts of the set, but the latter does not fall and there is no recipe for it. And you need to spend a lot of time on grinding, without a guarantee of results. (I am not considering transmutation, it also does not give any guarantees if you transform parts of other sets in the hope of getting a part from the right one). And so there would be a guaranteed opportunity to complete the build. This is at least a more interesting option than using a stasher.

[Uzul]

if the cost of crafting was in the region of 250-500k per item, plus some rare materials, then this would not allow mindlessly crafting sets, but it could help out if necessary. On the same forum, every tenth, imho, topic is devoted to the search \ exchange \ purchase of a necessary, but missing item. That is, the request is relevant.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

congratz, you just brought GDstash into the game, and effectively removed RNG from an APRG, all for the cost at a fraction of a relic/you can obtain in a single SR run

[Uzul]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

congratz, you just effectively brought GDstash into the game, and effectively removed RNG from an APRG, all for the cost at a fraction of a relic/you can obtain in a single SR run :ccthumbsup:

or you may not get it for 20 runs. And in general, it's not surprising that many players don't spend time on game methods of getting things. But on the other hand, there are several useless NPCs in the game, which may have been relevant at the start of the project, but now they are not.

[Uzul]

and for some reason, with the latest patch, nothing prevented the developers from introducing a 100% chance of dropping MI-items into the game. And why would they need it, with the most remarkable RNG before that.