Ok, for those of you not on the PTS yet, I took some time and checked out the new "Shadow Weapons".
These are the 'Temporary' weapons you can buy that have a 'durability' and will eventually disappear.
I only checked out the Giran weapons, so I'm not sure if all the Equipment shops sell the same.
SELECTION: It looked like a large selection of C and B grade, although not all weapons appeared available. For example I saw a Kris, but not the Demon Sword. There was a bug that was in the release notes, and a couple of the weapons didn't have an Icon, but were in the shop if you hovered over them.
LOOKS: When equipped the shadow weapons look exactly like a normal weapon. In your inventory however there is a BIG, THICK, PINK outline around the icons border.
COST: A quick scan showed that the weapons 'cost' around 87K to 93K for each one. I didn't see higher or lower than that. (I bought a B grade "Great Axe" for my review and it cost me the ~93K.
WEIGHT: The GA I used had only a 650 weight. Much lower than a regular weapon. The rest of the weapons were much the same.
DURABILITY: I didn't check each weapon seperately but it looked like each weapon had a (300/300) durability. (At the least that is what my GA had.
So....the key question then is how 'durable' are these? Well just equiping one took 1 Durability point. (dp for short). I then sat and wacked on the Olympiad guy for a couple minutes and checked again. This took another few points off. Within 5-6 minutes I had lost about the same in dp. If you 'unequip' the weapon then the durability loss seems to stop. Just holding the weapon however, seems to drain the dp at a constant rate. I assume WH'ing the weapon acts like equipping and takes 1 dp off. (I forgot to check this ingame.) I believe you can think of these as 'toggles' that you equip from my impressions of them.
When the item is 'trashed' or runs out of durability you get a big RED Message in your main view window (Like the Zone change messages) that states your Shadow weapon has run out and vanished. A smaller RED text stating the same thing appears in your chat box also.
So my initial thoughts?
These seem to be a waste of money. Basically, you would end up buying 2-3 of these things (so you don't end up completely weaponless in the middle of a party/grind!) and by the end of one night you will have used 1-3 of them depending on your playtime. This is a lot of adena to pay for consuming your weapon along with your SS! Just think if you 'saved' that same amount of adena overtime you would be able to buy a weapon instead of being broke and not having a weapon either.
All I can think is this is another great idea ruined. If the cost of the weapon was 1/10 of what it was now the use of them would be well worth it without reducing the value of normal weapons. This is because shadow weapons can't be SA'd, enchanted or refined.
I didn't check or test these for how they work if you are red, (Need to research this more.) But if there are no restrictions on them, then the gankers just got one hell of a tool to work with. (Expensive for players, cheap as hell even at this cost for a perma-red.)
What?? Your description of the wear on the items does not make any sense. What was the begining durability and then how much did it change after the time frame that you were describing? Is the constant rate of the wear 1 every few seconds, minutes? How long, since you've tested these, is rough estimated time frame that these weapons will last?
At best, it was 1 dp every minute. With all the server lag I can't be certain however. (Giran was Noob central it seemed.) At worst it was 1 dp every 30 seconds. This was while I was wacking on the NPC though. So still room to test. I didn't get my watch out and time it, as I had to log out for other reasons. (I tested the 'trash' because I was so unhappy with how fast it ticked down.)
Seriously though, in the time it took me to buy, equip and walk over to the olympiad guy and wack on him for a bit and check some of the stats I had already lost 6 dp. I can only imagine buying one of these, equiping it and by the time you actually get to the place your going to grind you've already lost 30 or more dp. And that is assuming everything goes smoothly and you port out, buff up and run to your grinding spot.
I am willing to bet people won't unequip these to prevent the decay and will lose a significant amount of dp just running around.
If I get back on later I will test with another and get some more concrete numbers tonight.
well all they really need to do is up the durability on them
i recognize this as a medium lvl dorf nerf but a huge boost for noobs so NC really need to get this right
in the patch notes i read something along the lines of (C and B weapons will now be purchesable from stores" is that those guys or are there real weapons being sold?
They are just referring to these new shadow weapons. Nothing new in the Luxury shop and even at the event cats the only full weapon being sold were some S grade weapons.
Raeding the patch notes, the impression I got is that "reflected" are temporary weapons. Their meaning might be, that they help you transistion from a lower grade weapon to a higher one. For example, you can sell your old weapon an begin collecting adena for the new one, using a reflected weapon.
If that is the case, they are simply useless. Everybody knows that a lower grade SA'ed and enchanted weapon is better than a plain higher grade one. But never mind that. Someone might fall fo it and pay money to the new adena sink. The only case I can think that they may come handy, is for mindless people that try to to OE their only weapon without having money for a new one.
I don't want to tie up 68mil adena (and think of the profit I could have made having that money available) with buying a lance, but I'd still like to join the occassional pole party ... for example. :p
For that it sounds useful enough, 300k a night in consumable is very slim compared to experience and sealstone profits in poleparties. Even my EE uses up somehting in that vicinity in spirit ores for one night of playing.
Aye, the shadow weapons are good for classes that need more than 1 weapon, but use the others more rarely. As the dp doesnt go down while unequipped, you can have that polearm waiting for the poleparty, or the blunt for stunning, or the bow for when you're being rooted.
You can use them as backup weapons for different situations, if you dont want to invest in several real weapons. And you can also test how you would fare with different setups.
I don't think the whole 'keeping it around in case' thing would work, as repeated equipping and unequipping of the weapon increases the speed at which it detoriates (according to the patch notes at least, some test on this would be nice - would also be nice to know how many times Pain equipped/unequipped the weapon he bought before he took his numbers).
But yeah, if you know you are going out to hunt with a weapon you don't usually use (bow for swordsingers who are used for melee parties but going to a bow party, polearm, single target weapon for dwarf that's usually poling, melee weapon for healer who suddenly finds himself in a smaller-than-usual party etc.), it's good.
It's definitely not something to replace your main hand weapon with, though. :)
Aye, the shadow weapons are good for classes that need more than 1 weapon, but use the others more rarely. As the dp doesnt go down while unequipped, you can have that polearm waiting for the poleparty, or the blunt for stunning, or the bow for when you're being rooted.You can use them as backup weapons for different situations, if you dont want to invest in several real weapons. And you can also test how you would fare with different setups.
I doubt it. It would be great to have temporary Drac bow or at least soul bow. But not some B-gr wep. Imho the feature is a budget-conscious solution for subclassers who already have A gr. and are grinding their way through C and B.
If you are subclassing, it is cheaper in the long run to buy the weapon fully, powerlevel through to 61 with them, and sell them again when you are done.
At subclass levels, this doesn't take so long that you would have to worry much about tying your money up for too long.
actually that seems not bad, if its only 93k for lets say 3-4h grind.
that would mean you can, as an archer for example that cant afford a dagger in addition to bow, get a shadow dagger for 1 party. then you only equip it when you run out of mana or something, thus it will last very long. and 93k is really not much imo.
I don't think the whole 'keeping it around in case' thing would work, as repeated equipping and unequipping of the weapon increases the speed at which it detoriates (according to the patch notes at least, some test on this would be nice - would also be nice to know how many times Pain equipped/unequipped the weapon he bought before he took his numbers).
Well, if you think that you would be changing between the weapons all the time then, yeah it wont work. But if your playstyle as a Dwarf/Destroyer for example is single hitting and then you get a really nifty spot in a pole party, the shadow weapons are a better choice than having a 30-60mil weapon just laying in your inv for that one moment.
Also, for bows and their use in pvp when rooted... the times you will need it will be quite short, so a 93k weapon for that again is cheaper. Lets say a BoP costs 30mil, you can have like 300 shadow weapons with that cost. Now then, lets say that this shadow weapon has a duration of 2 hours since you equip and unequip it much. 600 hours of usage that way, and if you break it down to how often you find yourself in a situation where you really need it you can keep on going with them for ages. (more like the casual player style, but I personally would just get the real thing ^^)
Ofcourse it all depends on playstyle and the amount you pvp, but if you aint good at gathering large sums of money, shadow weapons are nifty since you can get them cheap and use them when you really need em.
Imho, they're still best for determining what new weap to buy when advancing in grades and lvls. Or testing different builds, like if poling is better than single hitting etc etc.
Imho, they're still best for determining what new weap to buy when advancing in grades and lvls. Or testing different builds, like if poling is better than single hitting etc etc.
Yup - and as a backup for a pole group (expecting to bring 1~3 of them to the pole group as the OP suggested you might need for a night of hunting) is still pretty dang cheap. Certainly, if you have 68 mil (price of a Lance on Lionna) lying around and can't turn 300k with that overnight, you are doing something wrong. xD
ATM im useing a C grade pole to lvl my destro sub (currently mid B grade)
i'd go out and get myself a lance but frankly its just not worth the effort of tieing up 50 or 60 million adena just for a few lvls
problem is when i aoe i use a bow to pull so i can pretty much forget about getting myself a cool shadow weapon :(
I got no idea about higher then D grade, but D grade shadows are nice. I lvled a new toon to 20, did the quest (and the new transer animation is awesome!), and got 15 excange tickets for middle D weapons (the ones that cost about 1m in shop). DP are 90 on these, lvled the toon to 25 with the first in like 15 or 20 mins and got DP 65 after that (like 1 weapon = 1 hour).
So, new players basicly got 15m worth in 15hours grindtime handed out at 20, nice feature (together with the academy armors being a noob is a fortune these days).
Nevertheless u have an advantage. You can actually test a weapon if u like it or not so u wont waste money on crafting a worthless weapon (for your taste ofc). So we have to check the bright side. Many wizzards like to test their weapons also many ppl would like to see how a bow fits them. Its a nice thing to have such things. Shadow armor sets would also be very nice since ppl make big mistakes in what armor to choose.
Ok, had some more time to play with the shadow weapons now that the 'newness' has rubbed off a lot of stuff. =P
First Note: Shadow weapons are like normal weapons in that Giran = Uber. If you go to another town the selection of weapons available is much lower. I didn't check the lowbie towns yet, so I haven't seen D grade stuff and have no idea what their selection is like. Pretty much every other place is C/B grade. (Almost certain only Giran has B grade.)
Second note: The 'wearing' down of the weapon IS constant. It's 1 dp every minute with the first taken off as soon as you equip it. So 300 dp = 300 minute duration. (5 Hours)
So 1 weapon = 5 hours (If nothing else affects their decay.) Which is likely enough for one person for one (full) night or two more 'casual' nights.
I tested a Stick of Eternity this time, and that was 84,500 adena which roughly comes out to 282a per minute cost.
As some people pointed out above, this is actually fairly cheap if you just want a weapon you normally don't have and want to AOE or test a weapon out.
This also pretty much confirmed to me how much L2 is designed for big melee groups. As 282a per minute in a nice big group with a steady kill rate isn't a huge portion of your income. (Noteable, but not significant.) Solo nukers/archers with a good kill rate are probably in the same situation.
For a more melee oriented soloer, it's a MUCH bigger chunk of your 'daily take'. (Where you may only kill 2-3 mobs per minute, considering kill time and running to the next mob.) And for this person the cost per minute IS a quite significant portion of your income from drops.
So basically, this is not a terribly cost efficient Idea for a person who may be in the most need of it, but it's a very nice, not to expensive and sorta- convenient (The whole 'only in Giran' thing for some weapons is not-so-convenient.) service for those who just want to use/try another weapon for a short while.
Also, I swapped the weapon in and out of the WH (CWH doesn't 'see' the weapon) a few times and didn't notice any dp change there. Waited a few minutes and checked again, still no change. Still it may be possible to lose dp over longer lengths of time...I'll wait a day and check again, after leaving it in the WH to see if there is any further decay.
NOTE: Need to see if the SS useage is the same on the shadow weapons as normal...I think it is but want to verify.
Nice nice. Did you test how much equip/unequip mania adds to the decay rate? Or is it even implemented yet.
Everytime you equip the weapon, it takes 1 dp off. Equipping counts for the first minute. Thus if you leave the item equipped another dp will only be taken off 1 full minute later.
If you go on a equip/unequip/equip spree its still -1 dp everytime you equip the weapon.
the weapons would be a great addition if the had built in shots or did same dmg output without shots...its meants to be the poor mans upgrade but at its current status will opnly run you more in the long run since investing in a decent weapon can still get you the same returns monitarily once your done and ready to upgrade
I think it might be a viable option for people who play for a long time at the same time (with a buffer) and do not have to go to town much but they do not have the money yet to buy the normal weapons. I think you can go through 20-40 in about 5 days. C grade can be done really fast as well. As you also get some for free on class changes then you should easily be able to get money for your weapon after using up all those weapons in effective hunting.
15 * 90 / 60 = 22 .5 hours of leveling with those D grade exchange things. You can earn quite a bit of money and xp in that time, probably get to about level 25-30 or something, depending on your class, buffer and weapon.