I'm curious, what's with the 30 stone weight limit on backstab?

I have always assumed it was A) 'we don't want you backstabbing with spears' which extended down to B) we don't want you backstabbing with dagger-shapped objects which weight a billion stone.

So that leads to my dumb question of the week (yes, I limit myself to one intentional stupid question, the others are purely accidental leakage). Does this cap serve a purpose in modern DR? Would breaking the 30-stone cap lead to backstab being insanely overpowered again?

I'm looking at the wiki and I can't really find puncture-based forged weapons in se/me over 30 stone (there's 1 harulun mambeli at 45), so I can't build a stat comparison chart to find out for myself. But if the 45 stone mambeli in harulun is a good example, the stats don't get too insane? 11/3/5, compared to a tyrium rapier at 30 stone, 10/5/3. Obviously these NOT GOOD comparisons since I'm swapping weight and metal (density). It's just the best I could do.

I went off and talked to Squanto after posting this, and as near as he can figure, most/all small edge weapons would cap around 30 stone anyway, due to density and volume. Might kick them up to 37 or 45 in a rare case, but since they use such small volume templates you're just not going to push them much beyond that weight.

And the stats weren't much better than a 30 stone tyrium rapier, might have added 1-2 points.

I was just wondering if anyone knew the base mechanics of BS better than me (ok, YES EVERYONE DOES), and could figure out if the 1-2 point increase on visible appraisal would combine with the alpha damage and DFA damage to break the game.

>I have to assume you are asking this because of damage reqs for weapons with Ambushes? And that increasing the BS weight limit would open up more weapons that can do everything? If so, then I think lowering the Ambush reqs would be a better way to go since I think BS is good where it is and would be wary of it being rebalanced for something that doesn't affect BS.

Honestly, no. I was just wondering about the weight limit. Most stuff in DR is based on skill, skill-set, or guild. Some are based on having another ability up, but very few are just flat out based on weight. Weight factors into quite a few things, but I can only think of one other thing that uses weight as a binary check. LT/HT with non-weapons.

>It depends on where the damage increase is applied

Ya, that's rather my point. I (we?) don't know enough about the calculations used, so we don't know if the weight limitation is a hard limit (i.e. every weapon over 30 stone has stats high enough to warrant a nerf on base BS), or if it's just a relic from a game 10...20..? years ago. So this post was less 'RAR WE NEED DO THIS THING!' and more 'Hey, why does this even exist?'.

If we compare other weapon feats, there's whirlwind. Size limitation only. There's dual load. Requires a second ability to be active. Snipe, just the correct weapon and a couple of skill checks. Off-hand, pure guild and size, no weight limit. Arm-worn-shield sizes is only guild (exception: clerics with SoL). Maneuvers don't use weight or weapon size at all, do they? Stacked throwing weapons use guild to determine bonus throws. The aforementioned throwing non-weapon-weapons uses strength and weight as a go/no go

I feel like I left out some weapon or armor based feats, so please correct me if those are wrong.

Again, can't stress this enough, I'm not arguing for a change. I'm asking why it exists. The implication from that is not 'and if there isn't a good reason I will then whine for a change', so please don't assume that, either. I'm just asking why.

What if Backstab ranks helped mitigate penalties to using non-SE weapons or increased the range of allowable weapons somewhat? (Weight wise)?

Or does it already do this?

GENT

I was pondering getting the Darkstone Stiletto from the grey raven commissary but it irks me it doesn't hit enough slice to slash. I wish it did, Tyrium Stiletto's type template does from what I've heard. The darkstone stiletto compares similar to my glaes telek which apps at moderate puncture (must be high end). I am still pondering on getting it however since it has the backstab boost, but not sure if that's enough that i'd want to bother since I also have a capped glaes rapier. Really there's nothing else in the commissary that really compels me though.

If you were asking me, 1 minute of 'unlimited' backstab every 48 hours isn't worth wasting my time with. If we assume a 6 second total attack for backstab (which also assumes you're at melee and can stay there) that's 10 attacks every 2 days. So it's worthless for training, but what about PvP? I don't know. Can you kill your target in 10 backstabs? Can you stay at melee long enough to get enough backstabs in during the 1 minute timer to matter? Even if you run a quest and want to use it on the 'boss' mob, they flex each time you hit so it wouldn't do you any good.

That's basically my response to every 'but it buffs X for Y seconds' thing in DR. We play on the scope of hours, giving me a buff for a fraction of one percent of my time that I can use weekly might as well be nonexistent. It's a boss-killer for a game with no bosses. Duskruin did it sort of ok, most of the boosts the items offered would last 10-20 minutes and be usable hourly.

As far as the other commissary items, if you have a ton of scrip and need to burn some, the guard ring works with infuse or potency crystals (whatever increases level) I believe, so you should be able to use two to get it to produce tier 6 quality gear. Should sell for a heck of a price? Same deal for the money belt and bank, both can be bumped up with crystals.

Or the 14 bolt repeater is a good stand by for PvP, crank out 14 shots in a few seconds.

>>2000 scrip = 4-5 runs of Aftermath (Even 3 perfect runs you only get 1800 scrip so you need at least 4 and most random groups average about 400 scrip in my experience) So you're talking about $40-$50.

Keep in mind that scrip prizes are meant as a bonus on top of the normal end prizes a quest has. So it's not like you get only scrip from riot runs.

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Uzmam! The Chairman will NOT be pleased to know you're trying to build outside of approved zones. I'd hate for you to be charged the taxes needed to have this place re-zoned. Head for the manor if you're feeling creative.