Why mundane? Why is this a thing?

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

What is the reason for the existence of mundane? As far as I can tell, it's only really used for putting on cheap weapons to make the damage scaling from someone with max stats ludicrous.

I can't see how this would help anyone trying to progress through the game's normal play, PvE with a spattering of invasions and Jolly Cooperations. Scale the weapon off your worst stat? Why? Are you trying to make a weapon with terrible scaling do better damage? That's what raw is for.

Someone please explain how the game is better because of the mundane smithing modifier.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

That's the worst and it doesn't make any friggin sense.

[Dejie]

I think that it was a silly thing that FROM overlooked. Maybe they thought that mundane builds would be hard to achieve because of having to level every one of your stats, but they didn't realize that it would become insanely powerful for multi-hit weapons (I'm looking at you, Avelyn), nor is it hard to achieve due to how easy levelling is (seriously, when you finish Dark Souls 1, you should be around SL60-100, but when you finish DS2, you'll be around SL120-180).

Originally posted by TUPAC SERBIA:

Just as an example, because I'm too lazy to search wikis - a mundane dagger with lowest stat at 30 has 260 ATK (55 + 205).

57+200. You were close :3

Avelyns get an AR of 170 at +10. So if you mundan'd it, it would get 85 base AR and +200 with 30 as your lowest stat. That is insane. Meanwhile, if you make it raw, you only get like an AR of 195. 90 damage difference is ridiculous for something like a machine gun.

And yeah, mundane daggers are ridiculous. Having 40/40 in STR/DEX would get the standard dagger an AR of ~200, but if you mundaned it, it would make it have an AR of 257. 57 damage isn't much, but if you consider its huge crit multiplier, it could make the difference between a one shot and barely surviving.

[Nichtswisser]

I got a normal dagger that does around 250 damage with mundane, raw does not come remotly close to that, and my lowest stat is only 26! Weapons like santiers spear, avelyins, or the dragon greatsword got no scaling at all, mundane + high SL can make them scale like cracy.

[axelmonster]

I think it's meant for NG+ and beyond mostly, and obviously for weapons that don't already have good scaling.
It makes weapons that would be almost worthless otherwise actually useful. What's the problem with that?

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Originally posted by axelmonster:

I think it's meant for NG+ and beyond mostly, and obviously for weapons that don't already have good scaling.
It makes weapons that would be almost worthless otherwise actually useful. What's the problem with that?

Would santier's and avelyn's be crap without mundane scaling to go with them? Would everyone just stop using them?

It piles on the damage and I don't know of any weapons that go from crap to acceptable because of mundane that couldn't be improved almost as well by the raw modifier.

And if there were a few, I don't think it's worth making the game overall worse to have it, especially if those weapons could have been made better in the first place.

[axelmonster]

Originally posted by ᴿᴺᴳ Hand's Hermit Permit:

Originally posted by axelmonster:

I think it's meant for NG+ and beyond mostly, and obviously for weapons that don't already have good scaling.
It makes weapons that would be almost worthless otherwise actually useful. What's the problem with that?

Would santier's and avelyn's be crap without mundane scaling to go with them? Would everyone just stop using them?

It piles on the damage and I don't know of any weapons that go from crap to acceptable because of mundane that couldn't be improved almost as well by the raw modifier.

And if there were a few, I don't think it's worth making the game overall worse to have it, especially if those weapons could have been made better in the first place.

But it requires a very substantial stat investment to get anything out of it. Sure, weapons without good scaling benefit from raw as well, and it's much better at lower levels.
If you want 20 in all stats, you'll end up around SL130-140 depending on starting class (127 as deprived), and that is around the point you reach NG+ anyway.
I agree that it's maybe a flawed infusion, but it's nowhere near completely broken. Not like the elemental upgrades in the first game, where you could have a zwei with over 600 AR at SL 6 (lowest possible SL for two handing a zwei as pyro).