Chapter 17 – Spell Caster Weapons – Experiment Time.

I already spend good few hours inside the smith, experimenting and finding things out.

Here are some things I found out or found interesting.

First thing first, I made mana guides from the [Mana Stones] I got from the monster.

[Mana Guide – Mana Type – Rank G]

[Mana Guide – Mana Type – Rank F]

I got F rank mana stone from the giant wild wolf that we once hunted down. 

When I first got those mana stones, I didn't had a bloody clue how to use them, but I kept them just in case they were needed for something.

Also, I have this weird thing.

[Poison Element Mana Stone – Rank G]

(I got this thing when me, Kitty and Hype were traveling to the village for the first time. It's bit different than a normal mana stone.)

(From what I checked, if I were to make an item with this, I could make an item that possess poison element affinity value. But I shouldn't touch it for the time being. Just to make sure that I don't screw up. I will look at it later.)

From what the [Blacksmith Knowledge] told me, it recommends using materials like mana stones for making spell caster weapons, apparently it will boost the mana affinity value.

I made the staff this way and its mana affinity value increased, by 20 to be exactly. With increased mana affinity I decided to make few experiments. Some of those experiments increased or decreased mana affinity value.

Here are some test that I made for example.

First test: Mana carvings.

So, I've made multiple types of the first staff that I made before and for each one I add different type of carvings.

There are multiple types of carvings that can belong to the same category of type and rank.

For example, there mana type carvings that can:

-Influence offensive performance.

-Influence defensive performance.

-Influence healing performance.

-Influences the buff performance.

-Influences the debuff performance.

-Influences the cooldown time.

-Influences the power potential.

And other stuff, there WAY more things than I though. There are also the same type of things for each element and attribute as well.

Each carvings gave the different of effects as expected.

[Spells healing effectiveness increases: 5%]

[Spells defensive power increases: 5%]

[Spells type skill cooldown reduction: 1.1%]

I also tested few things with the other weapons. The amount of the mana affinity value differ for each weapon. Most of the times the staff and the big spell book had highest amount of mana affinity.

The mana carvings you can add to the weapon are divided into ranking, modification and type.

[Ranking.]

Each carving have their own rank. Higher rank carvings are bit stronger than lower ranked version, but they cost noticeable more, the increase per rank isn't small so you need to be careful. For example G rank carving cost 5, while F ranking cost 13. 

You can't apply the same copy of the carving, unless the carving bonus belongs to the different type. 

Simple put: Mana type carving - damage buff and Fire element type carving – damage buff – This OK apparently.

G rank mana carving: 5% buff to damage.

F rank mana carving: 11% buff to damage.

[Modification]

There are many different modification you can add. Like I said there is a LOT of them and each have different effect. 

However there is a limit how much modification you add per carving type. You can add up to 4 different modification per type.

Simple put: If you have mana affinity value and fire element affinity value, you can put 4 modification in each mana carving and fire element carving. But remember you need to watch out for the cost that you have to use. Pretty much you can just go with for example 1 powerful carving for each, or 4 weak carvings instead.

[Type]

Mana, element and affinity. Each of those things can appear on the crafted weapon and each of them give their own points. You use those points given by each of those types to apply carvings and other stuff, but there is a catch.

For example: You can use the points from fire element affinity to make for example water element or holy carvings. 

Question: Is the 11% buff to spell damage good? Depends what are you looking for.

When it comes to the other weapons the stats like [Strength] and [Agility] stat play important role physical type damage.

For example, if you were to hit the person with the hammer, you will obviously deal the hammer damage, but if have high [Strength] stat like me for example, the damage you will normally do will be increased.

On top of that, some skills like [Weapon Attack] or [Sword Slash] uses the attack power your weapon possess. Since your attack power would get increased thanks to either [Strength] and [Agility] stat, the damage your skill would do would end up too getting increased.

Hype told that most spell type skills are stronger than other skills and spell caster often get more than average amount of skills from the single class, but those spells often have side effect like high mana cost, casting time, cooldown and other stuff.

But there is also a fact that sometimes you need a weapon that provides more than one benefits, like cooldown reduction or casting time reduction besides the things like damage buff or healing buff. Right now, I can only use low ranking carvings, since I don't have higher grade mana stones and I don't have items with big amount of mana affinity.

(Hm? Wait a second. Each player most of the times uses different type of build or strategies from each other, meaning they will look for the spell caster weapon that satisfy all the things they are looking for. So, wouldn't costume made weapon for them be the best option? Hype told me than when he was still full spell caster build, he had trouble finding the right staff for himself to use.)

(Since I'm one making them, I can decide the how the item works unlike the random stuff you can get from drops or rewards, that can have random bonuses. Should I add option for costume made equipment when I finally open up the store? I should ask Kitty that, she is the business woman among us three.)

Anyway, I continue crafting different stuff, experimenting and taking notes.

Honestly speaking, making spell caster weapons are more complicated that it seem.

Test 2: Weapon Shape.

Does weapon shape influences spell caster weapon?

Results:

The next thing was to see if the shape of the spell caster weapon influences the mana carvings.

The mana carving types are different in many ways, sometimes you make a circle or a wavy line. Simple put you first connect the mana from the mana guide into an object and then begin making mana carvings.

Honestly speaking it doesn't matter if the item is big or small, for example I am straight line that was longer than a wand and it still worked. Pretty much it doesn't matter if you carve into a space where the item is not underneath the device, all it matter is the shape of the carving you made before deactivating the device.

I tried making the staff body something like a wavy form line and then tried applying the wavy line mana carving that influences the defensive spell. The results were pretty much normal. The defensive buff to spell was the same like with normal looking wand. I also tried making it few more different times with different patterns and shapes, sometimes also making the body bigger or smaller, but all results were pretty much the same.

In short.

The shape doesn't influence the mana carvings.

Third test: Channing materials and amount of material used.

Frist, I tried something simple.

I tried making a thin staff, normal one and the thick one. I wanted to see if the amount of material used influences mana affinity value.

The results shows each staff having different amount of mana affinity. The results were quiet, normal? The thin staff had reduced mana affinity value, while the thick one had mana affinity only increased by 1.

It's kind of like with wand and staff to be honest.

Maybe there is limit how much you can get from single material?

Moving on to next thing.

So, I already checked and proven that adding monster mana stone indeed gave better results than just having staff being just piece of wood without anything else on it.

I tried adding the leather from evil bunny and horned rabbit that had 0 mana affinity, and pretty much it didn't do anything, besides raising the durability. Next, I tried adding the copper staff, pretty much it has higher attack and durability, but it has lower mana affinity value.

Next, I tried making something like I did with the sword, adding spikes and other materials.

I tried many different things and honestly results were pretty interesting. Some results were good, some were failures. For example, you can add different type of materials to increase mana affinity value, but only by small amount. Honestly speaking it's more useful for increasing item durability, so adding it like sub material or something, like for example reenforcing some part of 1/2 of the staff with copper or steel is good idea. You can add more, but it will end up increasing the weight of the item as well so you need to be careful with it.

I also made some few more test, like for example adding the spikes and I somehow ended up with this thing.

[Magical Spike Club]

[The power of the magic is violence.]

[Attack Power: 36-42]

[Spells damage dealt increase: 18%]

[Item Rank: 8]

[Level Restriction: 50]

"That is just straight up a spiked club and you can use it to cast spells."

"An also, why in bloody hell it has high attack power as well?"

(Why I think somebody going to use it to be someone and tell him that was magic or something?)

I made few more experiments to this test before then moving on to the next one.

Test 3: Spell books and artifacts.

Honestly speaking, the most interesting thing that I was dealing with were artifacts and spell books.

Spell books are like staff and wands, meaning it can have low or high amount of mana affinity value. However, unlike the staff it doesn't relay that much on carvings, more on mana drawings. 

Simple put mana drawings is just drawing spell onto item at the cost of mana affinity value. Since most of the mana affinity value is used for making spells, it doesn't leave too much left for carvings.

The tool you use to it it's pretty much you use for this is [Mana Pencil] and its pretty much pencil with mana stones in it, kind of similar looking to mana guide.

The mana pencil has similar ranking types to the mana carving, but with little twist. Simple put the spells have their own ranking or something. 

Simple put there are multiple spells that belong to G rank category, even if some of them cost more and be more powerful than other.

But there is obviously a catch. 

The spell I add need to have a something that make them bad in one way or another. For example, lowering the skill level, increasing the spell cooldown, making the skill cost more and stuff like this. I can also not add any downgrades, but that will result in mana affinity usage for the spell to become quite big, to the point where it maybe not even worth it, but don't know really.

The artifact are pretty much the same as the book, but with one big difference.

In books you can put the spell onto spell book pages, but with artifact you can only put 1 spell at most. It doesn't matter how much you have mana affinity on the thing. Pretty much it's better to make it as supp weapon that can be carried in one hand. 

Book and artifact can be both used as main weapon and as support weapon, pretty interesting. 

There is way more combination than I though when it comes to equipped for spell caster. You can have staff, wand, artifact or book as your main weapon or you can go with two light weapon or even if you have enough [Strength], you can go one bit heavy weapon like staff or big book and use one more lighter weapon. 

You also need to include that there are many types of benefits that weapon can possess, resulting in many different possibilities.

I won't lie. This is way more interesting then I originally though.