enhancing blacksmith weapons

[[JD]]

argh.. after 2 weeks of cranking out thousands of soul glaive using DC runic hammers I finally came up with:

DI
Hit Mana Leech
Troll Slayer
10 physical
90 cold damage

This was my PERFECT Dragon boss slayer for the stygian/rikky. I wanted DI, HML, HSL, Dragon Slayer, SSI, and 100% hit cold and finally there were no wasted mods.

I went to enhance agapite to make it 100% cold dmg, equipped a +30 ancient hammer just in case, and failed. it poofed. after I pof'd but did not imbue it yet.

wtf, originally people had told me that enhancing weaps rarely fails, but now this is the 2nd super awesome elemental weapon I have lost.

I'm a legendary smith... is there anything aside from that enhancement tool I could do to improve my enhancement chances? Given it took so long to make this, this was probably worth using the tool, but I didn't know it could faill like that... I guess I thought last time was a fluke.

does it enhance based on item weight/intensity? if so I could have lowered DI and HML to 1 and possibly had better success chances?

Just not sure how enhancing works for smithing.. my sanity thanks you for your answer

 

[Percivalgoh]

I hate when that happens. I have been using enhancing as a way to reduce my item count including weapons. It seems to me that when you are creating 100% damage items the more mods and the closer to 100% it is the more likely it is going to fail. I'm sure Basara or someone with actuall facts will come along and point out the truth but for now that's my opinion. The easiest to make are fire since you can enhance them from 60% fire. Also if you are enhancing luck the higher the luck on the weapon the greater the chance it will poof. I am considering the antipoof tool you can buy from EA because it seems to me like the ones that I want to succeed the most are the ones that will most likely poof.

 

[[JD]]

Dude I was so bummed. I had made a handful of 70 cold but they always had useless mods. 90% and no useless mods was so awesome. lol ;/

Really interested to find out if me POFing and reducing the intensities on the HML and DI on the weap might have lowered chances of the epic failure. Or also maybe equipping a +60 ancient hammer- I heard that increases your skill?

If I ever make another of those I think I will prob use the tool, the high cold is just so rare.

 

[Basara]

From the old guidelines, there were only a few things that affect the difficulty of enhancing metal weapons:

Adding luck (which is more difficult, the higher the existing luck is on the item)
Adding lower requirements
Adding Durability
and...
adding to or modifying the existing non-physical damage spread, for EACH non-physical damage property attempted by the metal.
(for armor, this is for each resist type increased).

Each check is hinted to be based on the amount of physical damage that can be replaced, after each step, but what the base amount for each check is has never been revealed. If the other modifiers are any indication, it's probably (current total non-physical damage%/10) plus some number (most of the others are +20%; luck is +30%, but the item current luck is divided by 2 for that calculation). Each failure chance is subtracted from 100% separately, then the results multiplied together. Breaking chance calculated in the same manner, but is (apparently)calculated by adding 10% to each of the (100%-penalty) numbers before multiplying.

In fact, even though the energy doesn't get applied, in your example, it still results in 2 high-difficulty checks in the enhancing process instead of just one.

You probably would have been better off using Shadow iron to get that last bit of cold, as the following applies

Shadow:
Durability penalty only ranges from 21% to 26%, (40 original durability or less, to max durability). As the weapon was imbued, it would be 26% from the powder use.
Cold enhance from 90% to 110% (truncated to 100%). This would probably be a 29% chance of failure, if the pattern holds true.
Each failure chance is subtracted from 100% separately, then the two results multiplied together (so it would be 74%, multiplied by the other percentage (71% we assume)).


Agapite:
Cold enhance from 90% to 120% (will have a higher chance of failure), but with only 10% physical to use. (29% failure)
20% Energy is then attempted to be applied, but there is no room (30% failure)

so
Shadow: 74% * 71% = 52.5% chance of success (32% chance of breaking)
compared to
Agapite: 71% * 70% = 34.79% chance of success (35.2% chance of breaking)

if my guesses on how the elemental damage enhancements are handled are correct.

Note:
Smiths get a +1% Success chance per 10 Skill (rounded down) over 100. So with a +60 ASH, a Legendary Smith would get +8% to succeed.
BUT, nowhere does it say WHERE the bonus comes from. Most likely, the chance of breaking is unchanged, and the Elder+ bonus comes from the "Failed, but Didn't Break" area. so, the above examples, at 120 skill and a +60 ASH, would probably be
Shadow: 60.5% chance of success (32% chance of breaking)
compared to
Agapite: 42.79% chance of success (35.2% chance of breaking)

 

[Thunderz]

Out of about 20 wepons iv enhanced to gain elemental damage iv only had 2 break on me so it sounds like you got very unlucky with the RNG.

If its a sweet 90% elemental i dont bother enhancing as that extra 10% i might get if it doesnt break is worth 4-5 damage points anyways.

Thunderz

 

[covert]

You can pay a premium fee to skip the RNG.

 

[Percivalgoh]

Out of about 20 wepons iv enhanced to gain elemental damage iv only had 2 break on me so it sounds like you got very unlucky with the RNG.

If its a sweet 90% elemental i dont bother enhancing as that extra 10% i might get if it doesnt break is worth 4-5 damage points anyways.

Thunderz

Thank goodness I have most of mine go poof or I would have more items to get rid of.

 

[Heimi]

Use a +60 hammer and like Basara said, if you want to turn physical to cold then your best bet is to use Shadow Iron rather than Agapite.

 

[[JD]]

wasnt aware of the double whammy on the agapite enhance. thanks for the heads up. ill have to consider that in the future.

ive been paranoid and using +30 ancient hammers on any enhances since this incident... no idea if it even helps?

ty

 

[Basara]

Yes, because of the +1% bonus to enhance per 10 smith points.

The ONLY thing the +30 & +60 hammers are any use for are enhancing - as everything can be made 100% exceptional with a good talisman and +15 hammer, with the possible exception of the kabuto helms.