I couldn't find an active discussion on this, but let me know if one exists! Also, this game is quite fun and interesting, I'm looking forward to trying out more and more types of builds (Using the Diggle Gods DLC) Basically, I'm new to DoD and have put Smithing on all my characters so far, always on the middle/Dwarven difficulty (if that makes a difference). My furthest so far is a melee-warrior on Floor 4. At this point, Smithing seems to already be obsolete My experience with Smithing so far: I maxed out Smithing Skill sometime on Floor 3 to try and get use out of it, but invariably the highest-level armor I could craft was always significantly worse than what I found in shops or in chests. The swords I crafted were usually a bit better, but just when I finally crafted the steel katana (Which I assume is the best craftable sword because it has full stars below it?), halfway through Floor 4 I find an 'Angsty Sword' in a shop which far surpasses it, and then an artifact version of the same sword in an evil chest. So unless I find some new hidden recipes that are amazing, I may be leaving my crafting supplies on Floor 4. The only crafted items which are still viable are the gem-encrusted gold rings I made. So I'm not sure whether the Smithing tree needs buffed, or if random loot / shop items need to be nerfed, but something seems odd when on just floor 4/15 nothing I can craft is better than the stuff I find laying around. I think the random loot may be too good, since I already have several items with full stars under them, which I assume means they are the best of their type? If that's the case, I suppose not much on the deeper floors will be better than my current equipment? I guess I was hoping that by taking Smithing, I'd either be able to get access to good items sooner than by loot (sort of, I used a katana for about half a floor before it was obsolete ) or get access to superior weapons that I couldn't possibly get without it (Possible, if there are some more hidden recipes that are good?) But right now even though I leveled Smithing as fast as I could it has not given me much benefit other than those two gold rings and a half-floor's worth of katana. Is this different on the "Going Rogue" difficulty? One idea I had was that at higher levels of Smithing Skill, you get bonuses on crafted items. E.G. at Smithing Level 3, all crafted armor gets +1 block bonus or something. Anyway, wanted to see what other people thought about this. Maybe I've just had very good luck for loot this time?
Yep, at the moment the katana is the best craftable sword. If you don't mind the spoilers, I think you can check that sort of thing out at J-Factor's Dredmorpedia (http://j-factor.com/dredmorpedia/). As for evil chests, the gear inside those invariably outclasses anything else in the game, so I wouldn't read too much into it. Full stars means top-tier, but within a tier there can still be a lot of variation. Witness the katana, and the amazing uncraftable swords that can do twice the damage (e.g. Doul's Possible Sword). That's how it used to work before the very recent patch 1.08. Because you didn't need to have f0und a hidden recipe to craft something (you could do it from memory of past discoveries, or from a wiki if you wanted to cheat), you could make powerful gear early if you could just find the materials and get the levels. Now Smithing is indeed underpowered, because it makes you rely on luck squared (chance of finding recipe x chance of finding right materials = snowball in hell, especially for the few top-end items). There are some very good hidden recipes (e.g. the Embossed Serpentine Plate Mail, the second best heavy armour in the game or so), but any craftable item can also be found as a random drop. That said, frequencies vary. For example, certain crossbows you can make with Tinkering are virtually impossible to find as loot, whereas most Smithing weapons are more or less common. Nope, difficulty settings do not affect items in any way apart from shifting the buy/sell values.
Smithing can be the key to early survivability, plus it can be the only way to craft certain armors that you, for one reason or another, just don't find on your grind through the dungeon. Another good reason to have it is to always have a stack (or two) of un-corruptable base weapons and armors so you can switch if you start to get a lot of corruption. Used to be, pre-Diggle Gods, that only artifact weapons got corrupted, but now everything can get corrupted. Especially since, if you're taking Smithing, you're playing a melee character. It definitely loses its utility late but don't discount what it gives you early on. EDIT: Ninja'd, but yeah, it is a little underpowered with the recipe thing.
Also imo, but I don't know if that's really true since I only played non-Going Rogue once (first time), there's a lot less loot in GR, so then Smithing is somewhat more useful. But yeah, maybe give all crafting skills a 6th level, with a special item, that can be crafted, and then have those levels give really good recipes.
Ah thanks, that clears some things up! Hmm from my perspective, there may be two things off: loot quality, and Smithing. Unless I've been unusually lucky, I seem to consistently get high-quality gear in chests, shops, evil chests, Lutefisk shrines etc. very early (before Floor 4), which doesn't seem to leave much room for improvement on the deeper floors. It just seems the loot doesn't scale evenly with the floors; I would expect to get full-star items mostly on the deepest floor, but I already have a bunch. I think this is an issue in and of itself, but it compounds the smithing problem since Smithing can't keep up. As fast as I can put another point into Smithing, everything I can craft is already worse than what I'm finding (other than one or two items, and only for a few minutes each). Perhaps loot needs to scale more linearly with the Floors, and Smithing items need a buff. It'd be nice if by having Smithing lvl 1, you could make items equal to or greater than most loot found on Floors 1~2. Then Smithing lvl 2 items >= most Floor 3~4 loot, etc. In my experience, Smithing lvl 2 items < Floor 1 loot, and Smithing lvl 5 items < floor 4 loot For Smithing, even if the loot rate was adjusted so that I couldn't find excellent gear on the early floors, there's still a problem. All Smithing does is give a chance to get certain items earlier than you'd expect from normal looting. It doesn't actually give you an advantage over taking other skills, except sometimes you'll get some items sooner. It seems all the other skills give you some ability, boost, or effect that you'd totally lose out on if you didn't take that skill. I'd prefer if it gave you some benefit that you simply couldn't get without the skill. E.G. certain craftable items that are impossible to find from loot, and must be crafted. Not just for the end-game, but at all levels have Smithing able to give items that give you an advantage over loot gear. Or as mentioned, Skill Levels in Smithing grant stat bonuses to crafted items, similar to artifact enchantments. That way, even late game you would be glad you took Smithing. Any early-game benefits of Smithing I've mostly missed out on since I always found loot superior to what I could craft at the time, or in a few minutes.
Smithing is weak, no doubt - however, it does give 2 things a warrior class needs: 1. It is the ONLY Warrior skill that can provide Trap Skill. Only 1 point, mind. 2. It is the ONLY Warrior skill that provides a flat +1 Melee Power per level - the Melee Power formula is (Burl-5)/3, and Smithing, as a Warrior skill, gives 2 - plus 1 passive per level. Of course, Tinkering gives +8!!!! Trap Skill, a huge boost to Trap Sight Radius, the same smelting output bonus, and solid-to-great craftables. Alchemy gives the ability to shuffle gems, a big Magic Power/Mana boost, great potions, good weapons, some awesome gear....starting to see a trend? Smithing is hurt the most because its throwables are...honestly, CRAP. The "best" is the Nzappa Zapp, which takes 2 Iron ingots and 2 steps to craft - you get 6 from it at level 5 and they do 5 pierce, 5 slash, plus Melee Power and any passive damage boosts. Compare to even just Cruelly Barbed Iron Bolts with a decent crossbow - 1 ingot = 13 bolts that do comprable base damage. And to really drive the point home....Embossed Serpentine isn't even that much "better" than Armored Archmagi's robe - 1 more Piercing resist, 6 more Armor Absorb, 8 more Block, but it also imparts an effective "penalty" of 15 Magic Power, 3 Mana Regen, and 5 Dodge. The Armor Absorb can hurt a little, but given that the majority of pain will be elemental by then, it really won't matter. And as several have noted, later on Block stops mattering as much - since everything crits consistently, which overrides Counter, Dodge, and Block. So, long story short....skip Smithing. And save yourself some pain - skip melee for the time being if you're seeking an actual "win". AoE spam and teleports are the rule of survival, and that means mage or craft-heavy rogue.
I'm working on a mod that expands the crafting system by adding several useful items to blacksmithing, including a powerful set of armor. It adds a special skill to the game called "Clockwork Knight" it's a warrior skill that grants a special teleport ability at level 4, as well as equipment that you can only craft if you take both the clockwork knight skill and the related crafting skill. Crafting is meant to provide you good equipment, but it's not supposed to surpass the most powerful artifacts.
Strictly disagree. Crafting should be able to match the strongest drops in the game, but only with a lot of time and effort and a little luck. Smithing needs a Level 6 like Tinkering has, and a craftable weapon (Maxwell's Silver Hammer?) that grants you the additional craftiness.
Very much agree - crafting should be able to match or make the top-line gear, otherwise there really IS no point to it, as you WILL find it in a normal run at least once. The throwables crafting needs some serious balancing - Smithing is really left behind because of its lack of AoE and several poor conversion rates, so SOMEthing needs to be done to balance it somewhere.
Throwables in Smithing are just a bonus - I'd rather the focus be kept on equipment. --- I used to pick Smithing because of certain key items that benefit a particular build. Example: Other builds I tried included: Mana Regen Build (2 x The Mana Torus = +4 Mana Regen) 100% Block Build (2 x Heroic Bronze Aspis = +20 Block). Just recently I beat the expansion with: Health Regen Build (2 x Emerald Encrusted Gold Ring = +4 Health Regen). Now that hidden recipe crafting has been fixed I'd never pick Smithing for these builds. If the Emerald Encrusted Gold Ring recipe was hidden that last build would be dead too (you can just barely get to +12 Health Regen as it is). On that playthrough I never found any of the above recipes. Balancing Smithing is simple: keep the obviously 'best' items hidden, but unhide / add more 'niche' items that focus on a particular strategy. Add some crafted shields that boost Magic Resistance, some kind of crit-boosting jewelry, a weapon with a knockback hit effect - this is the sort of stuff that you can plan a build around.
The reason the throwables aren't just "bonus" is crafting skills have TWO aspects: one-time-use recipes, and "durable" recipes. One-time-use is stuff like Embossed Serpentine etc - stuff you make ONCE and that's it. Both Alchemy and Tinkering have one-times that are just as good as Smithing. Then you come to the "durables" - stuff you will keep making through the dungeon. Alchemy is head-and-shoulders the best - AoE throwables plus heal/mana/buff potions. Tinkering has bolts both single target and AoE with a bigger output than anything in Smithing, plus AoE throwables with comprable or higher yields than anything in Smithing. Smithing gets single target throwables with poor yields and at BEST marginally comparable damage. The only "special effect" throwable in Smithing is Bolas...which are hidden, have a HORRID yield, and are single target. This is part of the reason Smithing used to be "rush it to 5 then forget you have it" and is now "skip it" - it lacks good durable recipes, and its one-times are either matched by the other craft skills, or easily found once you reach a certain level.
The throwing recipes were never originally part of Smithing - they were 'thrown in' a couple of releases back (from a community recipe pack). I agree that the recipes/items need to be improved, e.g: Javelins and Throwing Axes should have a strong knockback effect Throwing Stars should cause bleeding That said, there is also the potential for 'durable' equipment recipes in the form of random stats jewelry / artifacts . The 'Emerald Amulet' is a poor example of this, typically only getting 1-3 random stats. I'd much rather see stuff like: Amulet of Resistance (2 + dungeonlevel/2) resistance against a random damage type Gloves of Damage (2 + dungeonlevel/2) damage of a random damage type Cadd's Boots Random amounts of Crit and Counter, scaling by dungeon level? More 'High Quality' Artifacts E.g. Flail of Pleiades, which gets ~10 random stats when crafted I once made a build with Alchemy, Wand Lore and Smithing just so I could farm the ingredients to repeatedly craft these Flails and pick the ones with the best stats There's other ideas that would be harder to implement, like improving armour/weapons. I just don't want Smithing to become the 'throwing' equivalent of Tinkering.
Thing is, Tinkering gives Cybertronic Amulet - while it's not an artifact, it DOES have both more and better stats than the randoms on an Emerald Amulet - at a lower level of progression. Also gives the best crossbow, access to at least 2 "decent"/acceptable swords (blue steel and three-bladed), and the Clockwork/Overclockworked limbs. The only things Tinkering doesn't cover that smithing does are shields, torso, feet, and head - all of which are easily findable at low enough dungeon levels or high enough RNG early. So all smithing does is give potentially earlier access if you're lucky enough to score the proper recipe, at the cost of a HUGE trapskill difference and worse "durable" recipes. While I'd like to see Smithing recipes for more high-end artifacts, the problem is that they really ARE "onetime" unless you're taking corruptions on the chin en masse. While you CAN constantly make more to feed to the museum or in a search for the "perfect" tool, by the time you get it, you'll have found an Evil Chest weapon that makes your "perfect" tool look silly, purely because of the raw stats it'll have. Once again, all smithing gives you is the potential early access, at the cost of long-term utility. And I do agree that Javelins, Nzappa Zapps, Ninja Stars, etc. should all have SOME good utility at least vs. bosses...but a single-target knockback is not gonna help against a zoo most of the time. Against a zoo, you need consistent AoE...melee and smithing just do not bring that. Could almost see porting the bomb recipes to Smithing - tinkering already has bolts by the billions and traps out the wazoo. But even then....it needs SOMETHING to make it balance out compared to the sea of health and buffs that Alchemy gives with potions and the XP farm and safety that Tinkering gives with trapskill and sight. +5 HP and +2ish Melee Power just does not compare to that.
One other thing I think would help smithing a LOT would be a corruption removing ability on lvl 5 since one of the biggest things that cripple melee characters in lower levels is having all their high-end gear totally crippled by wading through corrupting mobs. Sure Demonology has a corruption removal at lvl 6... but you have to be willing to completely rape your own righteous resistance to get it. The only other thing I can think of is some sort of 'Hard Block' that has a chance of blocking crits since this is another thing that makes melee builds useless... sure at DL 11 a shield and arms mastery character can easily have 95-100% block chance, but when every melee mob crits 90+% of the time it becomes utterly useless. Or perhaps that is something to bring into the Arms Mastery/Block trees?
Flames Of The Heckforge also has a 100-turn cooldown IIRC, and only removes 1 corruption at a time. The protective circle gives you 100 Mag Resist, which also makes you immune to corruption - but that's incredibly kludgy as a corruption defense since it requires you to not move.
