I seem to be running in to a lot of forging questions again- So here's the data I've collected over time. Hopefully this will be easy enough to reference without digging through one of the bigger threads.

I'll edit/add more as it comes up!

Weaponry:

What are weapon stats?:

There are three stats with which weapons are defined-

Damage- Factors in to the damage in terms of health points that a weapon inflicts with each hit.
Precision- Factors in to the wounding inflicted with each it.
Speed- Factors in to the recovery time after each use of the weapon- higher speed meaning shorter recovery time.

What are weapon types?: Basically, there are four types of weapons for every given spec. There are speed weapons, damage weapons, precision weapons, and one type that is a balance between the three stats. Since the more recent changes, these categories are somewhat misleading- their only remaining meaning comes in the minimum stats that can occur on each type, which are as follows:






The maximum values for stats on all weapons are as follows, from the AB file for forging-temper:



What is this weapon score? For one handed weapons, it is simple- it is the sum of the three scores. For two handed weapons, it is slightly more obscure:



Why is this the case? Because two handed weapons have half the wound affliction chance as their one handed counterparts, they are afforded a 20% higher precision value.

So what weapon should I use?

This depends largely on what you want to do. In terms of bashing denizens, optimizing things isn't critically important to your success- you can hunt with nearly any reasonable weapon without any real problems. That said, the prevailing preference for a "hunting/bashing weapon" is to maximize speed, minimize precision, and put whatever is left in to damage. Looking at the minimum values table above, it is apparent that the speed class weapons are the optimal choice for this- not due to the speed stat, but rather, because the minimum values achievable in precision is lower than the other weapon types, freeing more points to put in to damage. Assuming a speed weapon is used, they will look like this:




For fighting other players, the answer is a little tricker. While mechanics have changed back and forth over the years, the prevailing feeling is to minimize damage, and then find a mix of speed and precision that maximizes wounding over time against a curing opponent. What this means in practice is, again, the best choice is speed class weapons, for the same reason as above- you have a lower minimum value for damage with that type of weapon, freeing more stats to allocate between precision and speed.

As a rule, most people will have a speed stat somewhere between 250 and 280, putting the difference directly into precision. You'll want to figure out what works best for you through trial and error.

EDIT: It seems this isn't entirely accurate- I probably got that from conversations regarding katanas. I'm told that various blademasters have their speed at 230, with most of the rest in precision, sometimes with a nominal amount in damage.

Therefore, it comes down to a case of your milage may vary.


But I don't want to use a speed weapon for roleplay reasons!

That's fine, especially for hunting, where it will matter very marginally, if at all. You may still push the speed stat to 280, you will just have somewhat less allocated to damage. For fighting, it will matter as much as it matters, to be terribly vague. Again, you can have any sort of weapon tempered in the general direction you want it to be in, but just be aware that you will be sacrificing stat points to the higher minimum damage.

Armour:

Armour is much easier to deal with than weaponry. Essentially, as a knight, you'll have two pieces- your helm, and your plate. From AB FORGING TEMPER:



Generally, a safe method is to have it set to 90 cutting, 90 blunt. Note that for the plate portion, transcendant forgers will make their armour masterarmour, increasing each statistic by 10 to 100/100. Note that there is some variation here too- some people prefer to set their cutting higher than their blunt, as they run in to cutting damage more frequently- however, unlike weapons, there's no reason to minimize either stat, naturally.

Monks and Kata weaponry:

It is very simple for this category of weaponry as well. Speed is what you want here, and every point put elsewhere is seen as a wasted one. From AB FORGING TEMPER:



So, for Shofa/Nekai, the ideal weapon is 95/95/110
And for Tahto/Jakari(chains) the ideal weapon is 190/190/220

Its as simple as that!


Shields:

Shields, unlike the above weapons, cannot be tempered. However, this is not critically important to the functionality of the shield. That said, some want their shield as good as they can get it- generally speaking, stats floating around 40 are solid. You can get higher, but not much! Even a 40/40 shield can take over an hour, with an artifact forging mallet to achieve, and you won't generally do more than a few points better than that.

Worth a pinning I reckon. Thank you!

At least one value is off that I recall offhand. Min rapier/hammer stat is 33, but you got the 2x right for klang/katanas at 66 though.

Yeah, that's always been a bit odd. I had a similar problem with max precision on runed two handers- not certain if it was ever fixed. But at the time I took these, it gave me the "no more tempering this stat" message at 35, though I knew that under the old system, people had spat out 33s.

Have any of the envoys ever made a report asking for the weapon stats to be made the same? I like katanas as much as the next nerd but some variety would be nice

Edit: Also, thanks for making this I had your old posts book marked back when I was bashing my head on the tae'dae knight wall, always found them very helpful.

Uniformity is contradictory to the design of the forging system and weapon variety itself.

PS. New Sig!

Odd, I've never had that happen in any tempering situation, before or after the tempering change.

Ok, I'll go ahead and change it then!