How to compare weapons

[Odds]

Are there any useful heuristics people use to compare two weapons (other than "ask the Tavern")? Particularly early on, when it's not uncommon to have an artifact with a crap base type.

[tedric]

kill things with each one, see which is faster/more consistent

basically, higher base damage is better (unless you find a fast weapon with a super-high enchantment and/or additive brand, and even then higher base damage will often become better if you train that weapon skill)

[WingedEspeon]

Use Fsim.

[Sprucery]

Wait for the next version where we will hopefully see the actual damage done as numbers.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

zap /paralyze at yourself

[ZipZipskins]

Beware, mortal, for you know not what you ask. The last man to glance the merest portion of such ancient, arcane, unfathomable mathematics still gibbers in a tongue foreign to all nations of this world, rooted by some incomprehensible compulsion in the same spot in the same antediluvian cavern whereupon those damnable equations were unearthed!

[CypherZel]

1+(weapon skill x base damage)/25

[dowan]

fsim is probably your best bet, as it will give you average effective damage, probably the most meaningful number in terms of weapon effectiveness. However it doesn't account for things like draining making your enemy weaker, poisoning damage over time, and things like that.

As far as a quick rule of thumb, it's not uncommon to see people say to consider 3 enchantment worth about 1 base damage on a two hander, and 2 enchantment for 1 base damage on a one hander.

So a +5 falchion is a base damage 7 weapon, and is one handed. 1/2 of 5 is 2.5, so a +5 falchion is approximately worth 9.5 base damage. A +0 long sword has 9 base damage. So the +0 long sword is slightly worse by this formula.

It's not exact, it doesn't take accuracy into account, but it's generally close enough.

Very early on, accuracy is worth a lot more, so a weapon with high enchantment might be worth using even if it is a bit worse damage-wise than another weapon. Later on your base accuracy is high enough that the effects of enchantment on it aren't too important.

A damage brand is pretty straightforward, you can see on the wiki what % of extra damage they add, so you should take that into account when selecting.

A very important thing to keep in mind is that if your weapon is your primary way of killing stuff, the only real consideration you should make is which is more damaging. Don't take a weak weapon because it has lots of resists or + to stats.

[VeryAngryFelid]

As far as a quick rule of thumb, it's not uncommon to see people say to consider 3 enchantment worth about 1 base damage on a two hander, and 2 enchantment for 1 base damage on a one hander.

So a +5 falchion is a base damage 7 weapon, and is one handed. 1/2 of 5 is 2.5, so a +5 falchion is approximately worth 9.5 base damage. A +0 long sword has 9 base damage. So the +0 long sword is slightly worse by this formula.

I think the rule of thumb applies only to situation when both weapons have the same attack speed. In your example falchion will be much better with Long Blades 14 (it attacks every 6 auts) so I would recommend fsim you really care.

[dowan]

Yes, that's a very important point I should have mentioned, attack speed is very important. The exec axe might have higher damage per hit, but if you only have 18 axe skill it's gonna be slow, and you'd be better off with the less damaging battleaxe.

[duvessa]

As far as a quick rule of thumb, it's not uncommon to see people say to consider 3 enchantment worth about 1 base damage on a two hander, and 2 enchantment for 1 base damage on a one hander.

It's not uncommon to see that but it's also insane. You need an unrealistically high amount of str+skill for this "rule of thumb" to come anywhere close to helping you. Otherwise it will lead you to far worse decisions than treating enchantment as equal to base damage.
"2 enchantment is worth about 1 base damage with two-hander levels of skill, and 2 enchantment is worth about 1.5 base damage with one-hander levels of skill" is sorta vaguely close to being accurate enough to be useful but it's still really, really wrong. If you are really opposed to using fsim, it is probably better to memorize that the equivalent amount of enchantment for your base damage is approximately (1+1/50th of weapon skill)*(1+1/60th of fighting skill)*(1+1/40*(strength-10)). This is still an extremely rough approximation that doesn't handle certain breakpoints or account for the wider damage distribution, but it at least acknowledges that skills and str interact with each other and therefore doesn't provide the almost-always-wildly-inaccurate results that these "rules of thumb" do; the error is small for all values of weapon skill, fighting, and str.

[dowan]

But treating enchantment as equal to base damage is always going to be wildly wrong, as you don't run around with 0 weapon skill, 0 fighting, and 0 strength either. But yeah, the amount enchantment is less valuable than base damage is dependent on your skills and str.

FSIM is best, so long as you keep in mind what limitations it does have.

[zackoid]

Is it time for at least the basic FSIM to be accessible from in-game? If you play online, having to download local, recreate your character and run FSIM is a ridiculous expense of time and knowledge. For the longest time I avoided using it for that reason, but when I finally did break down and use it, I found that lots of the advice I had been given was wrong.

Having it in-game would require a new kind of interactive pop-up mode that doesn't really exist otherwise, but being able to determine which of two weapons is best is all of a) a common expectation in games b) useful c) educational about things like skill costs and to me, anyway, d) interesting. I imagine the hardest part is working out which parts of FSIM are vital, between the skill modes, target selection and results. And maybe the CPU cost.

[duvessa]

But treating enchantment as equal to base damage is always going to be wildly wrong, as you don't run around with 0 weapon skill, 0 fighting, and 0 strength either.

That would be for 10 strength, not 0, and I'd wager that most of the time you're closer to 0 weapon/fighting skill and 10 str than you are to values where 1 base damage is worth 3 enchantment:
- 27 weapon/fighting skill and 24 str
- or 20 weapon/fighting skill and 35 str
- or 12 weapon/fighting skill and 50 str

[dowan]

Wow, ok, so 3 enchant for 1 base damage is clearly way off for realistic scenarios. Good to know!

[Eyesburn]

recreate your character and run FSIM is a ridiculous expense of time and knowledge.

actually it is not that hard

[Reptisaurus]

recreate your character and run FSIM is a ridiculous expense of time and knowledge.

actually it is not that hard

& S to set your skills.
& o ( to create a weapon
& t to tweak the weapon's enchantment.

& f against several different enemies.

& o ( to create a SECOND weapon
& t to tweak the weapon's enchantment

Multiple & f against several different enemies.

Maybe not "hard" but un-intuitive and a couple minute's work.

[Eyesburn]

yeah sometimes that can be funny and relaxing
but " ridiculous expense of time and knowledge" sounds like exaggerating

[Siegurt]

recreate your character and run FSIM is a ridiculous expense of time and knowledge.

actually it is not that hard

& S to set your skills.
& o ( to create a weapon
& t to tweak the weapon's enchantment.

& f against several different enemies.

& o ( to create a SECOND weapon
& t to tweak the weapon's enchantment

Multiple & f against several different enemies.

Maybe not "hard" but un-intuitive and a couple minute's work.

&# will attempt to load a char dump into wizmode, it isn't perfect, but it saves a lot of those steps most of the time.

[Reptisaurus]

Oh! Cool! Didn't know that!

[Trobe]

I've got a Google Sheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1px0MtoX8pzT8-OczhLi4iG16520xTgvg_Y79WrD0Fl0/edit?usp=sharing

that helps me compare up to 4 weapons with/without shield, enchantments etc. It may be wildly wrong, but it seems to work out okay in comparison. It's based on numbers picked up on the wiki and so forth. You just fill in the coloured range and then read the numbers at the bottom.

Actually, I'd love to know if it's anything like right -- not in damage numbers, which it won't be -- but in comparison of weapons.

[WingedEspeon]

I've got a Google Sheet

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1px0MtoX8pzT8-OczhLi4iG16520xTgvg_Y79WrD0Fl0/edit?usp=sharing

that helps me compare up to 4 weapons with/without shield, enchantments etc. It may be wildly wrong, but it seems to work out okay in comparison. It's based on numbers picked up on the wiki and so forth. You just fill in the coloured range and then read the numbers at the bottom.

Actually, I'd love to know if it's anything like right -- not in damage numbers, which it won't be -- but in comparison of weapons.

Str weight got removed.

[Trobe]

Thanks! will adjust my copy