Red, Blue, or Green?

[katsuragi]

How does everyone feel about the 3 (at least I've only found 3) weapon upgrades? What do you like on a ranged weapon? What do you like on melee?

If I convert my lvl 3 Slayer with a gem is it still going to be lvl 3 or will it revert back to the first version?

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by MCNacho-ナチョ:

meele red because low health more damage. and you got alot of hits.

crossbow green because of that stagger. you can pick enemys out of the fight.

blue seems not really powerful to use.

what an outright terrrible take in terms of effectiveness this couldnt be farther away from the truth.

blue is by far the strongest gem currently. its completly bonkers ahead of the others. its not even close.

red is the worst. you wanna avoid getting hit in the first place and even if you take 100 hp of dmg red is STILL outperformed by lighting procs. as at 100 missing hp you only get 20% more phys dmg. a single lighting proc can do up to 300 dmg. and its AOE on top. it arcs to nearby enemies damageing the entire pack.

green is only worth it on a bow and even then lighting is better because it turns the bow into a random cluster missle when it triggers. but rooting enemies is only useful for the higher hp targets. the rest doesnt even survive 1-2 lighting procs and is just dead already. plus lighting has a higher trigger chance on melee weapons than root on top. and most of ashlands enemies are FULLY immune to poisen so that dmg is completly wasted.

as for the tc : you should have not made the 2hander. its by far the worst melee weapon as attack speed is everything in this biomes weapons case. the faster = more chances to proc chain lighting which is what you want. also you upgraded the base version?

congratz. you tossed flametal literally into the trash bin and as much as you could on top because the 2hander needs more than all other weapons :)
all the flametal spend on the upgrade level is lost when you gem it. never upgrade these. the reason for this is that gemmed weapons take extra gems to upgrade and are level capped at level 2 currently on top.

[Ammikaameri]

Blue/Lightning is way better than the others. Slayer might be the only one I'd consider using the red/blood one on and it still probably is worse than the blue one.

But I like to have different items and effects, so probably blue for axes, red for slayer and green for bow or mace. The blue one for bows may be too good to pass.

EDIT: Your weapon will reset to level one when you change the element.

[bacon]

shock for general purpose.

vines for boss.

blood for nothing.

[katsuragi]

to be fair... hitting hard is better than hitting fast. Maybe Slayer (and presumably Krom) don't fit your playstyle but I wouldn't use anything else.
You know that slow crossbow and the Ripper? Yeah, I use those too. They don't take any stamina.
DPS is important when you can just land hit after hit without interruption, like a DPS class in an MMORPG does during a boss fight.
When you are only landing 1 hit at a time as opportunity presents itself, because you are also evading attacks, it is the damage you do per hit that matters.
While you may hate the 2 hander, the game does not. It seems to think it works very well.

[Goreion]

Blue all the way for myself.

I pair the lighting sword with the tower shield. The tower shield knocks back mobs which sucks and you cant get a parry bonus. However, the lighting sword staggers the mobs many times more than its previous version the Mistlands Sword. So I not only knock back mobs but one or 2 swings, stagger happens, i get my parry bonus AND lighting procs. Its dmg is insane for 1 or 2 swings while I hide behind my shield hehe.

So I get when you say 2h is your play style as I always wanted to use tower shield (sword and board guy) but never could till Ashlands cause round shields parry bonus was always better. Now i was able to do all of Ashlands content, all of it even both bosses with my heavy setup.

Lighting for Crossbow too. Hits the Valkyrie like a truck till it gets close which I switch to melee, and seeing it proc and just blow stuff up is amazing

Also not to spoil anything, but you can get a 1 handed sword that does more dmg than KROM and sets enemies ablaze. (lighting sword still better by far) but who knows how the deep north will be and that fire sword could be epic. For now I only use it for other biomes not Ashlands.

And yeah, as said before you never wanna upgrade the base flame metal weapons if you want to gem them. (Sucks about the wasted flame metal but there is so much in forts and to be honest, i cant tell you how many mats I've wasted over my many hours by creating something instead of upgrading it by mistake haha.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by MCNacho-ナチョ:

Originally posted by Nerevar:

what an outright terrrible take in terms of effectiveness this couldnt be farther away from the truth.

blue is by far the strongest gem currently. its completly bonkers ahead of the others. its not even close.

red is the worst. you wanna avoid getting hit in the first place and even if you take 100 hp of dmg red is STILL outperformed by lighting procs. as at 100 missing hp you only get 20% more phys dmg. a single lighting proc can do up to 300 dmg. and its AOE on top. it arcs to nearby enemies damageing the entire pack.

green is only worth it on a bow and even then lighting is better because it turns the bow into a random cluster missle when it triggers. but rooting enemies is only useful for the higher hp targets. the rest doesnt even survive 1-2 lighting procs and is just dead already. plus lighting has a higher trigger chance on melee weapons than root on top. and most of ashlands enemies are FULLY immune to poisen so that dmg is completly wasted.

as for the tc : you should have not made the 2hander. its by far the worst melee weapon as attack speed is everything in this biomes weapons case. the faster = more chances to proc chain lighting which is what you want. also you upgraded the base version?

congratz. you tossed flametal literally into the trash bin and as much as you could on top because the 2hander needs more than all other weapons :)
all the flametal spend on the upgrade level is lost when you gem it. never upgrade these. the reason for this is that gemmed weapons take extra gems to upgrade and are level capped at level 2 currently on top.

would be true if the blue 300 were made. but they don't do it. Every weapon I have only does 10-15 lightning damage with blue gems.

so red is my choice for meele and green for bow.

dude. dont look at the tooltip dmg. the actual lighting PROC isnt listed in the tooltip. the 10 lighting dmg youre seeing isnt the proc. the proc doesnt happen every hit. its random 25% chance. and you WILL notice it on the enemys hp bar when it does. because it does WAY more than 10-15 dmg. you have not tested this AT ALL. please go ahead and do so.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by katsuragi:

to be fair... hitting hard is better than hitting fast. Maybe Slayer (and presumably Krom) don't fit your playstyle but I wouldn't use anything else.
You know that slow crossbow and the Ripper? Yeah, I use those too. They don't take any stamina.
DPS is important when you can just land hit after hit without interruption, like a DPS class in an MMORPG does during a boss fight.
When you are only landing 1 hit at a time as opportunity presents itself, because you are also evading attacks, it is the damage you do per hit that matters.
While you may hate the 2 hander, the game does not. It seems to think it works very well.

the problem is the 2handers extra stamina cost doesnt make up for the extra dmg. and the problem is the proc system favors speed above all else. simple fact of reality of such rng based system. the axes have already hit 3 times in the amount of FRAMES the 2hander takes for 1 attack. its not even close.

dmg per hit is irrelevant if you do so much dmg that everything staggers already.
the crossbow is probaly one of the worst weapons in ashlands due to the abundance of pierce resisting enemys. its only good for sneak attacks. the stamina cost of the bow becomes fully irrelevant at high skill levels. the lighting gem and the root gem plus the option to use frost arrows shut down the crossbow in just every way imaginable.

it still excels at sneak shots but overall its now worse off clearly. had better dps before already but this new proc system favoring speed just makes the gap wider. no clue why the devs did that.

can you use the 2hander? sure. you definitly can use both and still beat ashlands without much trouble aslong as you as a player know what youre doing. are you as effective as someone else who uses the faster weapons ? nope. not even close. you havent done much with the gemmed weapons yet given this thread was made by you. but the difference is crazy. the dual axes are super OP with lighting. simply due to the amount of hits per frame. i have 98 sword skill. but only 46 axe. the dual axes kill the enemies faster than my sword does. despite haveing HALF the skill power roughly. that speaks for itself on how big the gap is. balance wise the weapons in this biome are a total mess.

the biggest letdown by far is the legendary sword you have to reforge out of 3 pieces. the dev responsible for these stats deserves a slap. so much effort and what you get is effectively a trophy item.

here is a BAD FPS clip example of what a single lighting proc can cause (level 1 weapon only and the multitarget penalty applys to chain lighting) note this was recorded before the dmg got buffed during the ptb:

https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/1cof18u/ashland_weapons_are_wild/

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by MCNacho-ナチョ:

Originally posted by Nerevar:

dude. dont look at the tooltip dmg. the actual lighting PROC isnt listed in the tooltip. the 10 lighting dmg youre seeing isnt the proc. the proc doesnt happen every hit. its random 25% chance. and you WILL notice it on the enemys hp bar when it does. because it does WAY more than 10-15 dmg. you have not tested this AT ALL. please go ahead and do so.

oh, is that so? good for you. Still, it doesn't change the fact that I do more damage with my blood grom during an heavy attack. with blood magic that's op. dps is not worth for my playstile.

if youre spamming the bubble shield you may aswell go full mage a use the staff of the wild and do more dmg than any melee weapon can^^

[Nerevar]

oh and another effect plenty of players dont seem to be aware off : lighting does STAGGER dmg on top of the actual dmg proc. alot of it. unlike frost or fire or poisen. when it procs it will stagger even a 1 star morgen.

[bacon]

lightning also deals +50% vs wet.

[Wilson768]

I prefer blue, because it works well when fighting multiple enemies and you'll likely to get swarmed every time you're in Ashland

[katsuragi]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

Originally posted by katsuragi:

to be fair... hitting hard is better than hitting fast. Maybe Slayer (and presumably Krom) don't fit your playstyle but I wouldn't use anything else.
You know that slow crossbow and the Ripper? Yeah, I use those too. They don't take any stamina.
DPS is important when you can just land hit after hit without interruption, like a DPS class in an MMORPG does during a boss fight.
When you are only landing 1 hit at a time as opportunity presents itself, because you are also evading attacks, it is the damage you do per hit that matters.
While you may hate the 2 hander, the game does not. It seems to think it works very well.

the problem is the 2handers extra stamina cost doesnt make up for the extra dmg. and the problem is the proc system favors speed above all else. simple fact of reality of such rng based system. the axes have already hit 3 times in the amount of FRAMES the 2hander takes for 1 attack. its not even close.

dmg per hit is irrelevant if you do so much dmg that everything staggers already.
the crossbow is probaly one of the worst weapons in ashlands due to the abundance of pierce resisting enemys. its only good for sneak attacks. the stamina cost of the bow becomes fully irrelevant at high skill levels. the lighting gem and the root gem plus the option to use frost arrows shut down the crossbow in just every way imaginable.

it still excels at sneak shots but overall its now worse off clearly. had better dps before already but this new proc system favoring speed just makes the gap wider. no clue why the devs did that.

can you use the 2hander? sure. you definitly can use both and still beat ashlands without much trouble aslong as you as a player know what youre doing. are you as effective as someone else who uses the faster weapons ? nope. not even close. you havent done much with the gemmed weapons yet given this thread was made by you. but the difference is crazy. the dual axes are super OP with lighting. simply due to the amount of hits per frame. i have 98 sword skill. but only 46 axe. the dual axes kill the enemies faster than my sword does. despite haveing HALF the skill power roughly. that speaks for itself on how big the gap is. balance wise the weapons in this biome are a total mess.

the biggest letdown by far is the legendary sword you have to reforge out of 3 pieces. the dev responsible for these stats deserves a slap. so much effort and what you get is effectively a trophy item.

here is a BAD FPS clip example of what a single lighting proc can cause (level 1 weapon only and the multitarget penalty applys to chain lighting) note this was recorded before the dmg got buffed during the ptb:

https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/1cof18u/ashland_weapons_are_wild/

alright... fair enough.

I only use the crossbow tactically, like killing ballista from a safe spot, or downing a spawner from far away if I don't want to rush in there, because it doesn't matter how many shots it takes when the ammo is basically free (charred bolts). It is great on Valks who are not pierce resistant and a sneak attack to start the encounter takes almost half their health.

Your praise of the dual axes intrigues me though, so I may make them and blue gem them even though axe is my lowest weapon skill

[Pobblebonk]

Red: Garbage and never worth using.
Green: Can be good on a bow against tough enemies, but I'd rather go with blue and frost arrows instead, the slow effect from frost arrows is good enough.
Blue: By far the best choice, does a lot more damage than the others and the lightning damage also helps staggering your target.

[Megatron]

I won't discuss blue gems since they are already considered best.

However.

I found green gems excellent on bows, for crowd control, especially Morgens. Combined with Frost arrows, Ashlands is walk in a park for a solo archer.

I also tested red gems. I made a "Blood build" to test. All 3 foods are HP foods. Full Askvin armor with Ashen cape. Using Lingering stamina potions. I put the gems on the highest dmg weapons, the crossbow and 2H sword. With low enough HP you can 2-shot a Valkyrie. And one shot most things from far away if they aren't aware of you. The 2H sword is intereseting of it's special attack which has more range than most 1H weapons. But only used when something came close. With it you can one-two shot Charred warriors. And I was really suspicious of this build, because Ashlands is already pretty hard, how should I run around with low HP? Well with the new food, and to my surprise, you can easily afford to miss 150 to 200 hp. You are clearing everything from far away. I was in combat with some askvins and charred skellies, when suddenly a Valkyrie attacked from nowhere. I had to backup and kite, but in the end I killed them all. Very fun build

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by Megatron:

I won't discuss blue gems since they are already considered best.

However.

I found green gems excellent on bows, for crowd control, especially Morgens. Combined with Frost arrows, Ashlands is walk in a park for a solo archer.

I also tested red gems. I made a "Blood build" to test. All 3 foods are HP foods. Full Askvin armor with Ashen cape. Using Lingering stamina potions. I put the gems on the highest dmg weapons, the crossbow and 2H sword. With low enough HP you can 2-shot a Valkyrie. And one shot most things from far away if they aren't aware of you. The 2H sword is intereseting of it's special attack which has more range than most 1H weapons. But only used when something came close. With it you can one-two shot Charred warriors. And I was really suspicious of this build, because Ashlands is already pretty hard, how should I run around with low HP? Well with the new food, and to my surprise, you can easily afford to miss 150 to 200 hp. You are clearing everything from far away. I was in combat with some askvins and charred skellies, when suddenly a Valkyrie attacked from nowhere. I had to backup and kite, but in the end I killed them all. Very fun build

the problem is pretty much spot on : you still need TWO specials to kill a charred warrior. they arent oneshot in most cases. so do you do more dmg with 1 special `? yes. but the problem is you wont kill either. and 2 specials from a lighting 1hand sword will ALSO kill a warrior already. so you just use more stamina and effort to achieve the same thing.

red gems just arent worth useing currently. especially on melee weapons. they can work on crossbows and bows with a blood magic build. but due to bows super fast speed blue and green are offering better options for bow.

if you dont run blood magic forget the gem entirely. way too much risk and haveing to get hit first just to get ANY benefit is not a good option at all.

i mean its called BLOODSTONE it was probaly designed for blood magic users entirely. but if you use magic you may aswell use the elemental staffs instead of these melee weapons to begin with as they will perform better than these.