Just for comparison, here are a tier 5 stone scimitar, a tier 5 crafted scimitar of the same weight, and a tier 5 crafted scimitar of the highest weight's appraisals:

Weapon	Punc	Slice	Impact	FoI	Balance	Suitedness	Construction	Weight
stone scimitar	03- low	09- heavy	04- s.fair	02- dismally	06- decently	06- decently	13- h.protected	30
crafted scimitar	03- low	10- v.heavy	04- s.fair	02- dismally	06- decently	07- reasonably	17- n.impervious	29-30
crafted scimitar	03- low	11- great	06- s.mod	03- poorly	05- fairly	08- soundly	17- n.impervious	43-45

So pound for pound, the elemental weapons are quite similar to crafted, but crafted weapons currently have the ability to have their weights and thus stats increased. That will eventually change somewhat once Quick Infusions is fully implemented, since the density of summoned weapons will be able to be changed and the weights and stats will reflect that. E.g. the stone scimitar will go from density 5 to density 6 and become a 36 stone weapon. Still not as heavy as the highest potential crafted one, but it closes the gap somewhat. By the same token, the advantage that elemental weapons have right now is variability of damage, but this will change once enchanting is available. Elemental weapons will still have a bit of an advantage here due to flexibility, but the gap won't be as wide.

What this all translates to in my opinion:
Elemental weapons are roughly equal to tier 5 crafted weapons if you compare weapons of the same weight, but the advantage overall goes to crafted ones because they have a greater weight potential resulting in a greater stat potential. That said, my Warrior Mage is focusing exclusively on elemental weapons since they are still a tier 5 weapon no matter how you look at it, and I consider tier 5 of any stripe to be good enough for any purpose. Plus they're cool as heck. Especially the icy ones. ;)

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

How does the elemental damage of the weapons (they do elemental damage, right?) compare to the physical stats of the crafted weapon? Does elemental damage have more oomph, and is it enough to weight the stats more heavily?

<<How does the elemental damage of the weapons (they do elemental damage, right?) compare to the physical stats of the crafted weapon? Does elemental damage have more oomph, and is it enough to weight the stats more heavily?

The basic elemental weapon is stone, so it does purely physical damage and will compare to a crafted weapon accordingly.

As an upgrade to the basic elemental weapon you can choose to shape it to fire, ice, or electric forms which swaps the highest physical stat for that of the chosen element. Whether this results in more or less damage compared to the stone version depends on the creature.

If a creature's elemental protection/absorption/resistance is better or worse than the physical protection/absorption/resistance for the stat that was converted then the damage will be better or worse accordingly. Most armour (and I assume critter armour) protects against physical damage better than elemental damage, so in most cases, barring elemental immunities, the ice/fire/electric weapon will do slightly more damage than the stone version.

There isn't really a way to compare the elemental version against a crafted version with different stats, except by guesstimating or seeing how it functions in action. In most cases, however, I would assume the higher physical stats of a crafted weapon will outperform a lower elemental stat of an elemental weapon unless they were very close.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

ABSOLON - Thanks a lot for the info and the comparison of the weapons, it's exactly what I needed to know.

TFPETPATH - I don't think it's much to ask that these weapons might be close to the top tier of player crafted weapons since to get tier 5 elemental weapons, you are giving up at least seven spell slots, more if you want to shift to any element, the weapon crafting techs for the weapons you want to use and need an ingot of rare metal. That time investment for me as a casual player is a lot and I wanted to get as much info as possible before working towards this.

>I don't think it's much to ask that these weapons might be close to the top tier of player crafted weapons since to get tier 5 elemental weapons, you are giving up at least seven spell slots, more if you want to shift to any element, the weapon crafting techs for the weapons you want to use and need an ingot of rare metal. That time investment for me as a casual player is a lot and I wanted to get as much info as possible before working towards this.

Look up moonblade appraisals and limitations on epedia and you'll feel immensely better about elemental weapons.

Elemental weapons give you another way to train summoning and at the same give you a craft-competitive weapon. Having access to train every weapon skill without having to carry those weapons around is massive. Plus there's the cool factor.

Unless you're at WM endgame I can't think of a reason why you wouldn't embrace elemental weapons.

---

Vote:
http://www.topmudsites.com/vote-DragonRealms.html

Moonblade is also conceived as eventually having more of a utility/wizard's staff kind of thing going for it instead of pure weaponess. Moonblades have conceptual room to do weird things (Empowerment, shards, plus the TS stuff we've talked about before) while Elemental Weapons live or die based on their killingness.

-Armifer
"Perinthia's astronomers are faced with a difficult choice. Either they must admit that all their calculations were wrong ... or else they must reveal that the order of the gods is reflected exactly in the city of monsters." - Italo Calvino

the full implementation of quicken infusions where weight or density can be adjusted will bring the weapons in line with higher density forged weapons, no?

it does sound fair to have that density limitation, rare metals and all that crafting skill. in comparison to a suite of spells a war mage can have by circle 15. unless it is meant to replace all mundane weapons for warmies by design

> Pretty sure the design is to have a weapon that is desirable enough to use for some but not replace crafted weapons.

(Serious question) if you had all the techs, and the density change was in place, and you knew the rare metal ingot size that didn't reduce quality, then why wouldn't it replace crafted weapons?

I should have been clearer. Desirable enough to use for some in place of crafted weapons, but not so desirable as to make everyone use them and replace crafted weapons entirely.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

<<I'd say the slots and crafting techs and restrictions and rare metal quantity should be at least equal with crafted weapons

They are at their respective weights. And the differences will be relatively minor once Quick Infusions is fully implemented. The perk of having every single melee/thrown weapon in two different template each with four different damage flavours available at hand with a 1 second rt and no carrying weight is why there's a difference.

---

Elanthipedia - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
Epedia Admins - https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Elanthipedia:Administrators

>>The perk of having every single melee/thrown weapon in two different template each with four different damage flavours available at hand with a 1 second rt and no carrying weight is why there's a difference.

Pretty much this. Elemental weapons have their advantages over crafted weapons. If they could reach full density cap then every WM would be using them. They are meant to be an option not a replacement.

lets us alter our elemental weapons and we're all set

> Like Armifir wrote, Elemental Weapons fill one role and have to do it well enough to justify an investment in spell slots and crafting techniques. If Elemental Weapons capped at T4,rare metal weapons would always be preferable and high carbon steel weapons would be equivalent. HCS weapons are inexpensive. There'd be no reason to bother with the metaspells.

> Between the T5 templates and the ability to deal elemental damage the costs seem worth it to me. Other players disagree. There are arguments on both sides. That suggests Elemental Weapons are pretty well balanced, IMO.

> Mazrian

As I have from the beginning, I respectfully disagree on the balance. Or, at the very least, am very concerned. Even assuming that elemental weapons are fully as good as T5 weapons, or even slightly better, that leaves me unhappy with the arrangement. Yes, the elemental damage is nice, and does things that can't be done or done easily through other method at the moment. But we've been given every indication (or at least never been disabused of the notion) that enchanting is going to be able to do elemental damage. I mean, come on, that's the big thing everyone's looking forward to.

And there lies the problem. In my eyes, to be worth it, elemental weapons HAVE to be able to do something important that cannot be achieved through any other means, particularly enchanting. Otherwise, what we're essentially doing is paying with a nonrenewable resource, spell slots, for what we could be paying a renewable resource, plats, for. To me that makes them a trap - something that people without the patience to wait for sufficient money will buy into and then regret later, especially with the declared intent to squeeze us harder on spell slots and force us to make hard choices. I'm just fine with paying a premium in spell slots for something particularly cool, as long as it's also got its unique power niche. But I have no intentions of paying a bunch of spell slots JUST for something that looks cool when I could get the same thing by paying no slots but some plats instead. I mean, after all, enchanting will probably look cool and I can alter my physical weapon.

And this is a shame, because I think it's a really cool system, and I'm both appreciative for the development time being put into my favorite guild and also think the elemental weapon system is nicely developed with a lot of evident care put into it. Thank you so much for that! Ultimately, I think part of the problem lies in what I've seen as a consistent overvaluing of versatility when it comes to spell slots. We do not currently have a good "paper/rock/scissors" makeup to the game that cannot be simply overcome by having a bigger, better rock - or if there is, the efficacy of it is obscured enough that it's not readily available. As such, paying for versatility seems an awful lot like paying for a roleplay choice.

In short - I love the idea of elemental weapons! However, in the context of enchanting eventually being released, I'm just not sure why I would want to spend the slots on them. I fear they look balanced now but will no longer appear so when enchanting is released.

- Saragos