No normal uni swords ?

[Éowyn]

Didn't you hava any ideas to make some, or are swords just too elegant weapons in ME to make a normal version from ?

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Probably the latter, since they would have to use some fancy theme item for the sword and a normal one would be down right useless. The problem with normal unique weapons (all of them except the caster ones) is that they are useless very soon in the game (so soon that you may choose to throw them away the moment you find them).

Maybe increase the chances of getting uniques on weapon treasure classes (the problem is there are no "weapon only" treasure classes)

[Éowyn]

That reminds me of the original D2.
There where only normal unique things.
Some where really usefull because the had no level requirement this time. And some stayed usefull later, things like boots, jewellery, belts or gloves and helms armor as well for some classes. But the weapons you were only using on low levels

But there are normal unique weapons I only don't see any swords
And no belts, gloves and boots

[Khan]

Actually most of the normal unques are as we say in german "Für den Arsch", they are useless. You will drop them for some better magic or rare item of an exceptional type because in D2 the baseitem type of a weapon determines the power of it.
This might not be true for helms, belts, etc but it definitely is true for all armors and weapons.

The fact that there's no normal sword is just a coincidence. If we had to do it again, we would probably not bother about normal unique weapons and body armor at all.

[Éowyn]

You havn't seen my lvl 70 northman using 2 glass axes
Ok ok just kidding
On low level normal uniques are useful, but since you also find nice rares in the ME mod not really necessary

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Speaking of axes, why don't you add 50% enhanced damage against demons as a default ability (like the maces) and increase some of the one handed axes by 1? I am sure this would encourage more people to use axes.

I think it is stupid a northman should choose swords over axes, that's all...

[Éowyn]

Hmm I always thought Axes have +50% dmg to demons and it is just not stated on the items description. But maybe this is only a rumour that I have heard some time ago (;

And I think the biggest axe has a greater range than the biggest sword, in LoD it was like this in ME hmm if I made no mistake on my site it is not like this they have the same range there

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

That rumour has been around since Diablo 2 Classic first got out, I guess. I never found out the truth about that, but I guess if the axes did have 50% enhanced damage against demons, Blizzard would not keep it hidden for so long (even if they did, I wonder what kind of motive they had for doing it).

[Khan]

axes are currently slightly slower than swords but deal slightly more damage. Since base damage is an important value, a War Mattock is a viable option if you have either a skill making it a bit faster or some speed via affix on the weapon.

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Surely a small "+50% enhanced damage" on axe class weapons would not seriously disrupt the balance of items? I mean, the +50% enhanced damage on mace class weapons is not the reason you choose to use them, it's just a small boost that makes you smile a little bit (or just switch to your mace when you hit undead filled areas).

[Khan]

I know I could probably find that info in the depths of the vaults of wisdom on phrozenkeep but does anyone know if the +%damage to demons and or undead is calculated on the weapons basedamage or on the characters total damage?

you know like civerbs cudgel back in Diablo 1 added 200% damage on the character's total damage and therefore was the best demonslayer weapon in the game.

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

I am pretty sure that enhanced damage against undead/demon properties only work on the item damage (not the base damage, the damage that's listed on the weapon). So if a sword is listed to do 100 damage and has 50% enhanced damag against demons, it has an additional 50 damage against them (which does not get affected by the abilities of the character wielding it).

Normally I would base this knowledge on pure rambling, but I can tell you of an example in LoD: when you have a big weapon in the hands of a melee character that has a lot of %enchanced damage skills and go to kill Mephisto, wearing Laying of Hands, which gives 250% or something damage against demons, does not make a huge difference. You can see this for yourself. Your killing time does not decrease by a huge amount (otherwise, the magic find barb on diabloii.net site would at least mention wearing laying of hands for faster kill).