Hi,
from what I read on the wiki, increasing the weapon level should increase its damage
However I can see no evidence that this is actually the case.
Crafted an ascended calibur, went to the advanced practice area, hit monsters, deal 36 damage.
Now my ascended calibur is lvl 10, I go to the advanced practice area, hit monsters, deal ... 36 damage.
Did anyone notice any sort of difference between lvl 1 and lvl 10 gear besides the charge time bonus?
More concretely, what you're seeing is that the numbers are reduced and rounded down so much in the training hall that you don't see your bonus. The bonus will show up in T2/T3, though, don't worry.
@ wrs1864 : I think we're not talking about the same thing. When I say that my weapon is lvl 10, I don't talk about depth 10 but rather the heat-level of my sword.
@Schwarze : too bad there's nothing on the wiki that explains what the effect of heat leveling really is. It says 'higher damage', but how much is 'higher'? Same with defense. I'm a bit surprised that no-one did any bit of theory-crafting about this.
Maybe I'll do some tests and wiki them
It's because of the bars -see this http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:Stats-closeup.png
The grayed out part becomes active that is supposed to mean an increased damage
@jeango: mostly because there are too many factors behind damage and no verifiable base numbers for any of the weapons. Don't doubt that its been heavily speculated, theorized, and several attempts made at finding a way to test it, but its been extremely difficult for weapons, and almost impossible for armor (since we don't fully understand life bars other then it being a representation thats rounded to the nearest 1/2, and damage bars aren't linear but do seem to be rounded down to the nearest 1/4 of a life bar in small scale testing).
Even the stat bars on equipment are considered meaningless since weapons with similar stats aren't consistent in damage tests. So far all that we know for sure is that all monsters have slight normal damage resistance, damage resistances are stronger then weaknesses, and 2 of the exact same species of monster can have different defense values, even in different parts of the same level. The last part seems to be tied to spawn groups, but its not known how or when its put into effect (aside from one section of FSC where its easier to notice).
went to the advanced practice area
There's your problem. You never go to the Advanced Training Hall for damage calculations. The reason no one did "theory-crafting" was because it has been proven that there is a damage increase, same with defense, but the ATH is the WRONG place to test that due to its nerfing. There are no concrete numbers because the only persons who could possibly supply those accurately are the developers.
And that won't happen for a variety of reasons. Rest assured, when the wiki says the damage/defense is increased at higher levels, it is.
Also, always ignore stat bars. They are inaccurate.
@jeango
Your Ascended Calibur is being nerfed in the ATH. That is why you don't see a differnce between L1 & L10 heat. That is a 4* weapon so you would have to into Tier 3 to get away from the strata based nerf. Check out the wiki's damage table:
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Ascended_Calibur
The AscCal doesn't hit for its full potently until stratum 6. The ATH seems to behave like stratum 0, because my AscCal(L10)'s charge attack only hits the ATH bots for -44 when it would be hitting for 60-70 at stratum 1.
Higher star items get nerfed in the higher parts of the clockworks. An ascended calibur is a 4* weapon, but depth 10 of the clockworks is only the very top part of tier 2, so it will be nerfed some. That said, I suspect what you are seeing is the fact that it isn't leveled up fully with heat. According to the wiki's damage table, an ascended calibur should be doing 90 or so in stratum 3 (depth 10).