All weapons start off at X/Y/Z
A smith has S amount of swings (possibly dependant on his skill level) to affect the weapon.
Each swing adds so much to a certain stat. Depending on the skill of the smith, this might knock a few points off, or might give the points to another stat, or give an additional few points.

When it's done, it's done.

Forging Mallet gives you so many more swings, or a reduces the mishap chances.

You can even throw in a durability factor to give smiths the reason to fix blades. I can finally have a freaking axe that uses furrikini shoulder blades, and keep the damn thing without going through the entire population of Estelbar, compounded since the start of the game, and when it's almost decayed, I can have it repaired and give it to the grandkids.

yeah, I'd like a repair function. That'd make me do flips.

You are easily swayed, I don't like the idea of more random crap. It has been concurred upon random blows.

Also, I think that Warriors without runes will always be (considered?) subpar until people come to grips with the fact that Warriors are a class just every other class in the game. Artifacts do nasty things to the implied balance of a combat system, and Warriors are no exception to that rule. Why should the formula be balanced around making artifact rune weapons bearable in combat? By doing that, you make all other weapons subpar.

I think people need to grasp that and then we can balance Warriors around the possible constraints within forging - making weapon runes are exception to the constraints just like any artifact is an exception to the restraints of power in any other class.

Also, I think that Warriors without runes will always be (considered?) subpar until people come to grips with the fact that Warriors are a class just every other class in the game. Artifacts do nasty things to the implied balance of a combat system, and Warriors are no exception to that rule. Why should the formula be balanced around making artifact rune weapons bearable in combat? By doing that, you make all other weapons subpar.

It's a difference in scale. Arties for a warrior can up damage and wounds by nearly 40% while increasing weapon speed (and thus rate of affliction) a bit as well. Arties for caster classes can up damage by 20% and rate of affliction to the lovely tune of 0%. There is no such thing as balance for a class with a 40% spread in raw numbers when the class depends so heavily on those numbers. Casters get a smaller bonus to a less relevant part of their offense, so an unartied caster actually can compete with an artied out caster. It's not fair, but it's doable. With warriors, there's no comparison.

Diminishing returns! After a certain point, just make each stat worth less and less and it goes up.

You know there's only one rune for stats per weapon, right? If that was the whole problem, there would be no problem. It's elemental + bleeding + stat + wounding runes that cause problems.

One rune per weapon?

One rune per weapon?

That ship has sailed.

If you're going to do that, you might as well just redo the artifacts entirely anyways. You have to give everyone refunds.

Well, artifacts are going to have to be looked at anyways. How did this turn into such a big mess with stats? It used to be precision and damage were worth something and artifact warriors were fine. Now it seems like any sort of change is being fought against tooth and nail.

I believe in Desitrus. He will lead us to the promised land where forging won't take a week.

Maybe if we could buy runes of elemental resist, wound reduction, and improved clot, unartied warriors could be buffed to a level closer to their artied counterparts. Then we'll introduce runes of elemental bypass for the casters to get around the new runes and some DMP stacking. Then combat will come down to who spent 6k credits on arties for everyone!