Best Materials for Weapons/Armour/Sheilds?

[General Profit]

Over the course of playing thea I have learnt what materials are very good for each purpose but what do you think is the optimal material or materials if you had it to make said weapon/sheild/armour out of?

Here is what I have found to be best:

Light Armour- Just Dragon leather

Swords- Ancient wood/Moonstone

Piercing Weapons- (Including axes for elves) Moonstone/Ancient Wood

Blunt Weapons- Moonstone

Sheilds- Enchanted Bones/Dryad Wood/Dragon Bones

[dergefata]

Basically, if you can put diamonds in it, put diamonds in it; if you can make it out of mithril, make it out of mithril. Done.

That said, I still think the best axe for elves is dragon bone + ancient wood. The big leech from dragon bone weapons means you can use your elves as damage-soaking tanks because they'll heal up 20-30 health each time they get to hit, and since they're piercing, they'll get to hit first; so that second round, when you've got a badly wounded elf, they can pull themselves off of death's door by stabbing things. That's pretty handy. Give them good mithril armor and they can easily survive one hit from a Rocker or Dragon or a couple orcs or dwarven bandits. If you've got a 12-card hand limit you have to plan on getting hit sometimes.

[General Profit]

Originally posted by dergefata:

Basically, if you can put diamonds in it, put diamonds in it; if you can make it out of mithril, make it out of mithril. Done.

That said, I still think the best axe for elves is dragon bone + ancient wood. The big leech from dragon bone weapons means you can use your elves as damage-soaking tanks because they'll heal up 20-30 health each time they get to hit, and since they're piercing, they'll get to hit first; so that second round, when you've got a badly wounded elf, they can pull themselves off of death's door by stabbing things. That's pretty handy. Give them good mithril armor and they can easily survive one hit from a Rocker or Dragon or a couple orcs or dwarven bandits. If you've got a 12-card hand limit you have to plan on getting hit sometimes.

When I tested making a 2h axe I found that moonstone gave substantially more damage and instead of perception magic when compared to mithril, I never actually considered using dragon bone/ancient wood 2h axes for the leech poison combo I think I will give that one a shot

Gotta be really rich in mithril to afford mithril heavy armour but I am pretty sure you are right for the heavy/medium armours I usually don't tech into heavy/medium armour although I probably should in the late game

I did actually forget about diamonds whoops :S

[aardvarkpepper]

re: elf two-hand axes: Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone. Ancient wood / moonstone *does* give more base damage which increases piercing damage off deployment. But Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone does a good bit more *total* damage (including the Leech). If you're fighting something nasty, then you'll want that higher damage.

As to pikes, I would still do Ancient Wood / Moonstone, because going Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone doesn't substantively increase overall damage; the Leech is "nice" but it won't help against huge monsters, where the piercing damage on deployment just might.

==

Light Armor: If I remember right Fur Leather increases Dexterity which increases Stealth which if you have it decently high (at least as high as your villagers' level) lets you do First Action, which can make a big difference. Like, do you *really* want your low-Strength Crafter to run around with your party? (Oh but it enables so many different challengs) - yes. Yes it does. But if you have say a Gatherer with some randomly high Dexterity, do you want to forego First Action with it? hmmm.

Apart from that Scaled Leather used to be quite nice for shielding bonuses, Spidersilk for lightweight protection.

At higher difficulty settings, you make whatever you can to give you just that little edge (in which case you pretty much use fur leather, and/or whatever materials you have on hand)

But at lower difficulty settings, I would not screw around with light armors at all. (edit - well, unless pumping materials in to get research points. But if you're running a tight game (which you will, the more experience you have), you want to use Construction (ok) you want to make gathering and crafting tools (ok) you want to make weapons (ok) you want to make food because 5 foods on parties gives lots of bonuses including +1 movement which is super handy. Will you really have time to spend on armor you don't really need? considering you do find armor? (even though a lot of that armor is pretty horribly bulky . . . okay maybe I would make SOME light armor . . . but if I'd researched as far as dragon leather I'd be well past that point in the game at which I'd be making light armor with it.)

==

Swords: Dragon Bone / Ruby. For some reason Dragon Bone / Diamond has I think a 7 Shielding Bonus and Dragon Bone / Ruby a 8 Shielding Bonus. To quote Theodor "Weird, I know!" But basically who are you giving swords to? Not your high damage characters, those folks are mostly getting pikes and armor. Probably you're giving someone shield and sword and they get a high Shielding bonus, which you can maybe boost a little more with some armor. But then what? You want them durable, right? So what's better than giving them a chunk of Shielding, plus Leech? Supeeerrrr durable. Well they'll still die to super big-nasties, but whatever, you probably only want one or two shield/sword combos in a 7-person party anyways. (why 7 people? because that's how many it takes to beat a lot of run-of-the-mill encounters without serious injury later in the game)

BUT there are a lot of other considerations. Like let's say you REALLY have some PUNY villagers? Well then you make - I think it's swords and shields made of dryad wood? Supeerrrr light. Now even your 100-weight toting Medics can have a fat Shielding Bonus! (woah)

Or if you're just clawing for early damage then you go Dark Wood early or Ancient Wood late.

==

Piercing Weapons: ermrmmmm I would say specifically "Pikes" because "Staves" have different material requirements? But if "Pikes" then yeah I favor Ancient Wood / Moonstone. Some might say Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone because though you don't get as much damage off deployment, you get some Leech, which helps wounded characters (theoretically)? But in my case, I think if you're up against a buncha wimps then you won't need Leech from Dragon Bone and though you Moonstone is overkill damage, so what? it's like "win moar" or "win a little less", not a big difference. But if you're fighting something REALLY nasty then you want every bit of damage you can muster off Piercing, because if the enemy survives it's going to one-hit-kill your villagers anyways. So then Leech really can't help at all, but Moonstone maaaybe might.

As to two-handed axes for elves, I would say Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone.

==

Blunt Weapons: I just don't build blunt weapons. Use what I find, sure. But build? No. If I recall correctly, Blunt weapons override the Piercing modifier on Elves, or I might consider it.

What about having better damage distribution? Well in the end, let's say you're at the point that you're building weapons and probably armor. Your first serious-ish weapons were probably pikes, which let you kill weak stuff anyways. Then maybe you got some armor. So now either you're fighting wimpies that you can roll over with just your pikes anyways. Or you're fighting big nasties in which case you want, well, pikes. More pikes!

I think I would run blunt weapons if I ran larger expedition parties as they *would* come in handy, but I always keep party numbers small, so I rely on usually 5-7 pikes and 0-2 shield/swords. I mean, you really need all the pikes you can muster. Lovely, lovely pikes. (a bit of shield/sword can come in handy sometimes too, lovely Shielding, but otherwise - pikes).

==

Shields - Dryad Wood for weight, Mithril for combined Shielding and pretty light weight, Enchanted Bone for Magic bonus. Never even tried Dragon Bone. Maybe it gives you a Leech bonus, but generally if I'm spamming Shields it's not because I want to build something durable. No, what with sword, shield, and armor, I already have plenty of protection, Leech probably won't make *that* much of a difference (it can still die to huge enemies where Leech won't help it and against smaller stuff generally they don't do a lot of damage what with the big Shielding and the hit point bonus off armor).

==

If I'm in a low-difficulty game I'd probably go blacksmith-spidersilk/wicker/nimblewood-cabbage patch-elven wood-ancient wood-pikes-staves-watchtower-palisade-quartz-obsidian-moonstone or something like that. Try to use swords and shields that were found, but if none were getting found, maybe research one-hand swords somewhere in there. Otherwise, you try to get elf attraction bonuses early and a smithy up.

Meanwhile you get materials for gathering tools and craft gathering tools after the smithy goes up (since you don't want Bad Quality items), then you harvest elven wood and ancient wood for later use.

Then you try making some credible-ish pikes (not using that precious Ancient Wood yet unless you have Moonstone). But eventually you get Ancient Wood and Moonstone then you have Leshy's Hair Pikes and you're golden (almost)

Then you start looking at the luxuries, like light armor - heavy armor, one-hand swords, shields, one-hand axes, two-hand axes, and different foods. Get silver into mithril, monster bone into dragon bone, then enchanted bone. Amber into Ruby into Diamond maybe Emerald or Topaz along the way I forget.

Well at that point you're basically doing endgame stuff. But then I do like this -

Almost everyone has Leshy's Hair Pikes (ancient wood / moonstone pike) unless you're an elf, in which case you have Dragon's Bane (ancient wood / dragon bone two-hand axes). Try to pop +4 Strength belts (dragon bone / mithril jewelry). Everyone has Concentration / +2 Gathering / +1 Crafting amulets (I think it's 8 Amber, though you'll need coal or wicker as a catalyst).

You're using whatever armor you could cheaply craft with "leftover" material for a while, but with increased Strength, now everyone can carry Mithril / Diamond heavy armor.

Most everyone's got piercing, which is good, but *some* shielding can come in pretty handy sometimes. Plus, you can get random bonuses off gem swords / gem shields. So I build a load of dragon bone / ruby one hand swords, and enchanted bone / diamond shields. I think enchanted bone doesn't give the greatest Shielding bonus, but you already have huge shield bonuses anyways, and you also get +5 Magic, so that's pretty nice. Then you get incidental bonuses from gems, so maybe you get some swords or shields that give gathering or crafting bonuses, or whatever they give that's nice, divination, or sixth sense, or whatever nice thing, maybe more magic. If nothing "nice" just recycle them.

==

on HIGHER difficulties all that doesn't really work of course, gathering is just way too slow, especially with Realism On. But then, with Realism On, you're only gathering max one pack of any particular resource a turn anyways, so not everyone can really *use* gathering tools terribly effectively. Just a few, and some amber amulets, does nicely. Then you kit villagers out depending on what resources you have. It's like - yeah theoretically you might want Dragon Bone / Ruby swords, but if it's kind of early on and you know you're not going to get there any time soon, you might as well use some Dark Wood if you have it lying around.

[love to resign]

Gold deserves a mention when considering elite shields and armors. While it's Armor and Shielding are a fair bit behind something like Mithril, the amount of Will that it provides makes a huge difference in non-combat challenges. If your ultimate goal is to beat the Giants in a Social challenge, Gold makes a lot of sense.

[General Profit]

Originally posted by love:

Gold deserves a mention when considering elite shields and armors. While it's Armor and Shielding are a fair bit behind something like Mithril, the amount of Will that it provides makes a huge difference in non-combat challenges. If your ultimate goal is to beat the Giants in a Social challenge, Gold makes a lot of sense.

Gold and dryad wood are really great for low strength characters as well due to the weight

Originally posted by aardvarkpepper:

re: elf two-hand axes: Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone. Ancient wood / moonstone *does* give more base damage which increases piercing damage off deployment. But Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone does a good bit more *total* damage (including the Leech). If you're fighting something nasty, then you'll want that higher damage.

As to pikes, I would still do Ancient Wood / Moonstone, because going Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone doesn't substantively increase overall damage; the Leech is "nice" but it won't help against huge monsters, where the piercing damage on deployment just might.

==

Light Armor: If I remember right Fur Leather increases Dexterity which increases Stealth which if you have it decently high (at least as high as your villagers' level) lets you do First Action, which can make a big difference. Like, do you *really* want your low-Strength Crafter to run around with your party? (Oh but it enables so many different challengs) - yes. Yes it does. But if you have say a Gatherer with some randomly high Dexterity, do you want to forego First Action with it? hmmm.

Apart from that Scaled Leather used to be quite nice for shielding bonuses, Spidersilk for lightweight protection.

At higher difficulty settings, you make whatever you can to give you just that little edge (in which case you pretty much use fur leather, and/or whatever materials you have on hand)

But at lower difficulty settings, I would not screw around with light armors at all. (edit - well, unless pumping materials in to get research points. But if you're running a tight game (which you will, the more experience you have), you want to use Construction (ok) you want to make gathering and crafting tools (ok) you want to make weapons (ok) you want to make food because 5 foods on parties gives lots of bonuses including +1 movement which is super handy. Will you really have time to spend on armor you don't really need? considering you do find armor? (even though a lot of that armor is pretty horribly bulky . . . okay maybe I would make SOME light armor . . . but if I'd researched as far as dragon leather I'd be well past that point in the game at which I'd be making light armor with it.)

==

Swords: Dragon Bone / Ruby. For some reason Dragon Bone / Diamond has I think a 7 Shielding Bonus and Dragon Bone / Ruby a 8 Shielding Bonus. To quote Theodor "Weird, I know!" But basically who are you giving swords to? Not your high damage characters, those folks are mostly getting pikes and armor. Probably you're giving someone shield and sword and they get a high Shielding bonus, which you can maybe boost a little more with some armor. But then what? You want them durable, right? So what's better than giving them a chunk of Shielding, plus Leech? Supeeerrrr durable. Well they'll still die to super big-nasties, but whatever, you probably only want one or two shield/sword combos in a 7-person party anyways. (why 7 people? because that's how many it takes to beat a lot of run-of-the-mill encounters without serious injury later in the game)

BUT there are a lot of other considerations. Like let's say you REALLY have some PUNY villagers? Well then you make - I think it's swords and shields made of dryad wood? Supeerrrr light. Now even your 100-weight toting Medics can have a fat Shielding Bonus! (woah)

Or if you're just clawing for early damage then you go Dark Wood early or Ancient Wood late.

==

Piercing Weapons: ermrmmmm I would say specifically "Pikes" because "Staves" have different material requirements? But if "Pikes" then yeah I favor Ancient Wood / Moonstone. Some might say Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone because though you don't get as much damage off deployment, you get some Leech, which helps wounded characters (theoretically)? But in my case, I think if you're up against a buncha wimps then you won't need Leech from Dragon Bone and though you Moonstone is overkill damage, so what? it's like "win moar" or "win a little less", not a big difference. But if you're fighting something REALLY nasty then you want every bit of damage you can muster off Piercing, because if the enemy survives it's going to one-hit-kill your villagers anyways. So then Leech really can't help at all, but Moonstone maaaybe might.

As to two-handed axes for elves, I would say Ancient Wood / Dragon Bone.

==

Blunt Weapons: I just don't build blunt weapons. Use what I find, sure. But build? No. If I recall correctly, Blunt weapons override the Piercing modifier on Elves, or I might consider it.

What about having better damage distribution? Well in the end, let's say you're at the point that you're building weapons and probably armor. Your first serious-ish weapons were probably pikes, which let you kill weak stuff anyways. Then maybe you got some armor. So now either you're fighting wimpies that you can roll over with just your pikes anyways. Or you're fighting big nasties in which case you want, well, pikes. More pikes!

I think I would run blunt weapons if I ran larger expedition parties as they *would* come in handy, but I always keep party numbers small, so I rely on usually 5-7 pikes and 0-2 shield/swords. I mean, you really need all the pikes you can muster. Lovely, lovely pikes. (a bit of shield/sword can come in handy sometimes too, lovely Shielding, but otherwise - pikes).

==

Shields - Dryad Wood for weight, Mithril for combined Shielding and pretty light weight, Enchanted Bone for Magic bonus. Never even tried Dragon Bone. Maybe it gives you a Leech bonus, but generally if I'm spamming Shields it's not because I want to build something durable. No, what with sword, shield, and armor, I already have plenty of protection, Leech probably won't make *that* much of a difference (it can still die to huge enemies where Leech won't help it and against smaller stuff generally they don't do a lot of damage what with the big Shielding and the hit point bonus off armor).

==

If I'm in a low-difficulty game I'd probably go blacksmith-spidersilk/wicker/nimblewood-cabbage patch-elven wood-ancient wood-pikes-staves-watchtower-palisade-quartz-obsidian-moonstone or something like that. Try to use swords and shields that were found, but if none were getting found, maybe research one-hand swords somewhere in there. Otherwise, you try to get elf attraction bonuses early and a smithy up.

Meanwhile you get materials for gathering tools and craft gathering tools after the smithy goes up (since you don't want Bad Quality items), then you harvest elven wood and ancient wood for later use.

Then you try making some credible-ish pikes (not using that precious Ancient Wood yet unless you have Moonstone). But eventually you get Ancient Wood and Moonstone then you have Leshy's Hair Pikes and you're golden (almost)

Then you start looking at the luxuries, like light armor - heavy armor, one-hand swords, shields, one-hand axes, two-hand axes, and different foods. Get silver into mithril, monster bone into dragon bone, then enchanted bone. Amber into Ruby into Diamond maybe Emerald or Topaz along the way I forget.

Well at that point you're basically doing endgame stuff. But then I do like this -

Almost everyone has Leshy's Hair Pikes (ancient wood / moonstone pike) unless you're an elf, in which case you have Dragon's Bane (ancient wood / dragon bone two-hand axes). Try to pop +4 Strength belts (dragon bone / mithril jewelry). Everyone has Concentration / +2 Gathering / +1 Crafting amulets (I think it's 8 Amber, though you'll need coal or wicker as a catalyst).

You're using whatever armor you could cheaply craft with "leftover" material for a while, but with increased Strength, now everyone can carry Mithril / Diamond heavy armor.

Most everyone's got piercing, which is good, but *some* shielding can come in pretty handy sometimes. Plus, you can get random bonuses off gem swords / gem shields. So I build a load of dragon bone / ruby one hand swords, and enchanted bone / diamond shields. I think enchanted bone doesn't give the greatest Shielding bonus, but you already have huge shield bonuses anyways, and you also get +5 Magic, so that's pretty nice. Then you get incidental bonuses from gems, so maybe you get some swords or shields that give gathering or crafting bonuses, or whatever they give that's nice, divination, or sixth sense, or whatever nice thing, maybe more magic. If nothing "nice" just recycle them.

==

on HIGHER difficulties all that doesn't really work of course, gathering is just way too slow, especially with Realism On. But then, with Realism On, you're only gathering max one pack of any particular resource a turn anyways, so not everyone can really *use* gathering tools terribly effectively. Just a few, and some amber amulets, does nicely. Then you kit villagers out depending on what resources you have. It's like - yeah theoretically you might want Dragon Bone / Ruby swords, but if it's kind of early on and you know you're not going to get there any time soon, you might as well use some Dark Wood if you have it lying around.

Just tested 1 handed swords with dragon bone and ruby I am guessing you mean two handers?
Dragon bone+Diamond= 8 damage 8 sheilding 6 leech
Dragon bone+Ruby= 8 damage 8 sheilding 7 leech

I have never actually seen the strength belts worth considering on low carry weight characters perhaps

4 diamond gives concentration and one more great bonus like it i forget what it is called now you can also use 4 amber for +1 gathering or one of the other materials to give a small bonus such as +1 folklore from dark wood, never worth using more than 4 diamonds after you have the two bonuses at least i wouldn't say so +1 will in the very very late game might be nice if your in no rush to finish the game/have excess diamonds

[dergefata]

Originally posted by General Profit:

I have never actually seen the strength belts

If you get a good quality result from a Dragon Bone + Mithril belt, that's +5 STR. That's not just 250 more equip/carry, that's also 5 more base damage and 5 more base attack for Physical challenges, too (great if you're playing Lada and hoping to pick up another Dwarven Bandit). They're very costly given their materials and their long build time but if you're playing a longer game, belts for everyone.

[General Profit]

Originally posted by dergefata:

Originally posted by General Profit:

I have never actually seen the strength belts

If you get a good quality result from a Dragon Bone + Mithril belt, that's +5 STR. That's not just 250 more equip/carry, that's also 5 more base damage and 5 more base attack for Physical challenges, too (great if you're playing Lada and hoping to pick up another Dwarven Bandit). They're very costly given their materials and their long build time but if you're playing a longer game, belts for everyone.

I did not realise that strength actually gave a base damage increase i only knew about the carry weight granted this makes a lot of sense xd