Is forging really worth it?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Assassin has swordfaire and that's considered a pretty good class as far as I know.

I like Assassin, but let's not go down a "which classes are bad and which are good" rabbit hole on a thread about the utility of forging. Anyway, the previous point - that forging certain swords can make for more reliable critical builds - is a salient one.

[Barren]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Assassin has swordfaire and that's considered a pretty good class as far as I know.

In terms of utility that is true. A couple of things that Assassin has going against them is no strength growth and modifier. That said, they are far from the worst class in the game and it takes little investment to get someone to Assassin. At least if you’ve gotten good a few good level ups increasing your speed you won’t get doubled as often. And 6 move is good.

 

Another question since we should remain on the topic of forging: does anyone really bother forging the Zoltan weapons?

Edited July 16, 2021 by Barren

[Jotari]

53 minutes ago, Barren said:

In terms of utility that is true. A couple of things that Assassin has going against them is no strength growth and modifier. That said, they are far from the worst class in the game and it takes little investment to get someone to Assassin. At least if you’ve gotten good a few good level ups increasing your speed you won’t get doubled as often. And 6 move is good.

 

Another question since we should remain on the topic of forging: does anyone really bother forging the Zoltan weapons?

I thought you couldn't forge the Zoltan weapons? Or at least there was something about them that made me question their whole existence. Maybe it's just that their stats are comparable to silver weapons but they're a weapon rank higher.

[Barren]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I thought you couldn't forge the Zoltan weapons? Or at least there was something about them that made me question their whole existence. Maybe it's just that their stats are comparable to silver weapons but they're a weapon rank higher.

At first I thought the same but then I get curious and you can indeed forge them with Wootz Steel.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

6 hours ago, Barren said:

Another question since we should remain on the topic of forging: does anyone really bother forging the Zoltan weapons?

Not I. For starters, the option demands A+ Professor Rank, and it applies to A-rank weapons. Ergo, it's generally not even an option until the lategame. The 3 extra Might is nice on the already-high-Might Zoltan weapons, I grant - but at what cost? 12 Wootz Steel. For comparison's sake, 4 Wootz Steel makes a Silver Weapon go Brave, and 6 more Wootz Steel makes it go Brave+. So it's cheaper, in terms of ore, to go through both Brave phases than a single Zoltan+ phase. And I would say, except for using with combat arts, or on enemy phase, the Brave effect is far more valuable than a few points of Might.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Another way to think of it is that instead of forging a Zoltan+ you can forge a Brave into Brave+ and then repair it twice, giving you potentially 120 swings, compared with just 25-30 swings from a Zoltan+ (and likely less, because a major reason to use a single-swing, high-mt weapon is with combat arts). So realistically I'd only ever make a Zoltan+ on a playthrough where I had more wootz steel than I could possibly use, e.g. if I got unusually lucky on all my wolf-breaking and I'm using fewer physical units than normal. Possible, but I've never actually done it.

Relics also kinda take the place of the zoltan+ weapons: for lances, axes, and bows, there's an even higher-mt weapon available (Lance of Ruin/Areadhbar, Freikugel/Aymr, Failnaught) at least on some routes.

Edited July 17, 2021 by Dark Holy Elf