Are 5* Weapons Worth It?
Do, 05/05/2011 - 18:55
This is a question which I want answered, not a rhetorical question which I will try to back up one way or the other. I noticed that most all the weapons experience a big jump in power going from 3* to 4* (I know people say don't pay attention to the bar but when a weapon goes from [____] to [____________] that's a significant enough increase to safely say the weapon's a lot stronger). For 2* to 3* weapons actually tend to not change at all or not change very much o.O'''. You do get the benefit of having the cap on your weapon lifted later (meaning your damage will increase steadily as you go down instead of topping on at the terminal and decreasing till the town), but is this really worth it for 5* weaponry (with 3* stuff the 4* jump comes after so that makes it worth it)? From what I looked over semi-quickly it seems like 5* weapons don't get a very large power increase other their 4* precursors either. That makes the biggest theoretical benefit of going 5* be the fact that your weapon will continue getting stronger all the way to the core. Note though that most bombs get a better range when they go 5* so that makes it worth it however most swords and guns don't get a very sizable increase in power going 4* to 5* it looks like.
Is that really worth it I wonder? If you don't get your weapon forged by someone else (and omitting the forging cost of previous weapons) a 5 star equip will cost you 50,000 crowns (including transmutation costs), 300 units of your precious energy, and several tokens/hours/more thousands of crowns to get the ingredients if you don't already have them. All this just to get the cap on your weapon's damage pushed down to the core? I also recall reading many comments that talk about how T2 has better money and Heat than T3, and I *think* a lot of pros go for JK runs over core runs. So you use up all those resources to make a 5* weapon which will not be too much stronger than your 4* weapon and will get capped harder if you do T2 runs because it's a 5* weapon in a shallower depth than it should be used. That doesn't seem like a very good investment to me.
I've never used 5* weaponry myself so I'm asking here in hopes of finding people who have. Am I just being fooled by those ambiguous bars in the wiki, or are 5* weapons really not worth their cost?
Do, 05/05/2011 - 21:40
#2
Bombs are exceptions
Bombs are the exceptions to this as I said in the OP. Most bombs get more range or better effects so it's worth it to go 5* on bombs. What I'm asking about is more swords and guns. A lot of these don't get any better effects from 4* to 5*, and the damage increase looks very small.
Do, 05/05/2011 - 21:56
#3
Stat bars are unreliable.
Stat bars are unreliable, and, due to the fact that weapon damage scales with depth/ "native" tier, kind of confusing. Over in the wiki editors subforum, we're starting to assemble data on how much damage each sword (by star level) does per depth (at level 10 heat). Essentially, it's an attempt to provide a direct comparison. The more data we get for different weapons, the better.... so feel free to join in. We could use numbers, and also, some kind of organized template for easy input of data to facilitate side-by-side comparisons later.
(Be sure to note whether or not you're using gear with a damage bonus, and if the weapon deals a damage type that the monster is strong/weak to; the best comparisons will come if we control these confounding variables)
Do, 05/05/2011 - 23:12
#4
lazy
Link to said thread please :3? I'm lazy ^^;
Fr, 05/06/2011 - 01:47
#5
@pauling
I took a quick look over at the Wiki forum, but I'm with Shinko. Can we get a linky please? I'd like to contribute.
Fr, 05/06/2011 - 10:41
#6
Yes, infinitely many times yes
There is a large jump in power from 4-5* weapons. While the difference would not be very noticeable in t2, in t3 the damage skyrockets, particularly past basil. Besides even the damage boost, look at the charge up attacks on weapons, the charge attack in the divine avenger alone would be enough for me to upgrade an avenger to 5* even if there wasn't a nice damage boost. While you might not want to upgrade 10 differenet weapons to 5* right away your main 4 or 5 should be bumped up.
Don't trust the bars. I think it's worth it, but I don't have any hard numbers to give you. Not like you want the crowns for much else after you have all 4* gear.
Also it's not only damage, but some weapons also gain some better effects/charge attacks. For example, going from atomizer to 5*status bomb is AWESOME.