A +5 rune is 150 credits, so I made the +6 160 and went from there.

You know it's not going to happen, so arguing it is a futile exercise.

Besides, I don't think that the artifacts are the problem. The scale of damage from a warrior or a mage versus the cost invested in each was more the gist of the discussion.

The number of months a blacksmith spends forging his weapons and armor is almost irrelevant to the value placed on those items. There is nothing forcing these people to spend that immense amount of time at the forge. It is their choice to do so, knowing very well the cost.

How about this. Raise the stat cap to 490, change lvl 1 stat runes to 2+ stats for 40 credits, lvl 2 stat runes to 4+ stats for 80 credits, and lvl 3 stat runes to 6+ for 160 credits. Owners of already existing stat runes would find their runes nerfed, but they would be allowed to add 30 points of stats to their weapons appropiately (as in, not violating caps). This means they lose absolutely nothing, and owners of lvl 1 and 2 stat runes would actually be gaining some stats. They probably should receive some credit compensation as well so they don't regret not waiting for the cheap runes.

Anyway, this would keep the cap for artifact weapons at 508, allow people to keep more of the stats they forged for hours/days to get, restore tempered stats more cheaply, and allow people to make their weapons non-decay for much less. However, as a non-forger I may be overestimating a forger's ability to create a 490 stat total weapon.