Mithril weapon recommendations

[Nuburan]

I always start by crafting the dark matter into swords, which I then sell for scratch. After that, it's accessories, which can have nearly as strong an effect as a weapon upgrade while costing much less and being transferable between more characters.

With mithril weapons, I always start with the ones that do unusual things which make them usable forever: ark halberds for spark 3 (for everyone who can use them), milky/sleepy rods for MP regen, usually at least one shine rapier (to pass around between leader and birdfolk as needed) for HP regen and demon property.

After those . . . I'm not usually too picky, though I sometimes prefer one over the others based on what a character needs at the moment. With gloves, for example, if the character is already fairly strong and can use the demon attribute to full effect, I'll take spark. But if the character is lagging behind, I might prefer the muscle glove for the added defense, special attack (which means an added 10% crit chance) and on-use Attack spell. There are some outright duds, but most weapon types have two comparable options (usually those with special attacks), so I don't waste a ton of time on it.

After main weapons, I'll do ranged options, and any mithril I have left over I turn into dragon lances, which sell for the most. If you want to take the time, you can figure out what you're going to need for future characters and what mithril you have yet to acquire, so then you can figure out before you start how much mithril you will need. You can then craft the excess into lances to fund your crafting.

[Hattari]

Gestalt gives instant death

Jumesyn doesn't list this effect, but it causes confusion.

[Hrith]

[...]at least one shine rapier (to pass around between leader and birdfolk as needed) for HP regen and demon property.

The Shiny Rapier is not a demonic weapon, it's a magical weapon, like all rapiers except the God Rapier, which is holy.

Again, attacking. Gigantic Axe is better than Berserk in this regard (despite the resistances granted by the Berserk). However, the resistance increases don't really factor too much when you've pretty much annihilated everyone before they get a chance to attack.

That you cannot be arsed haggling is not really a valid reason. The weapons are there and will not cost a Large Mithril.

The Dragon(Berserk) Axe is significantly superior to the Gigantic Axe. It's a demonic weapon (and has more attack, since you seem to care). Ragnarok is not stronger than Mega Wheel.

You claim to be focused solely on dealing damage, yet you consistently suggest the factually weaker options. If damage is your main focus, then the only weapons you should go for are weapons that have additional damage types, such as the Dragon Axe, as they are unbeatable in damage, not even orichalcum weapons beat those.

Higher defence = less HP taken when been attacked = less need to heal the character in question.

Plus, Justin's defence *is* abysmal, no matter what you do

Still no reason to get Demon Breaker Arrow in Sc1. Justin usually gets to 60 DEF without a defence-boosting accessory.

Whilst the increased Agility of the Sonic Wing looks good, Eldar and Fynnding *hardly* need the increase of Agility. The fact that the Zero Wing can instant-kill an enemy is better than the Sonic Wing. Even the Cosmic Wing is above the Sonic in this case. Also, the Silk Wing does give the ability to regen 3 HP per turn, which might make it more useful than the Sonic as well.

Are you now suggesting a wing without a special attack is better? Be more consistent in your argumentation; you have been saying that additional weapon specials are the reasons for your choices.

The reason Sonic Wing is the best wing in the game is because Hyper Boom inflicts Slow, not because it adds agility.

Instant death specials are atrociously overrated and will not work on any monster with 8+ luck (and such monsters are usually dead in one attack, instant death or no), while no enemy is ever immune to slow.

Slow is life.

Meh, Kahn/Irene usually have the Apollo/Artemis Pins equipped, plus neither he nor Irene really need the extra defence that the Giant Cestus grants. Plus no special either. With the Mist or the Wire Cestus, it's more than likely the special get's used anyhow, usually either one-shotting, or at the very least inflicting more than enough damage for just one more attack to be done on the enemy.

Again, Buddha's Palm Mirage and Backstep Blinding Fist - although really good attacks - are not stronger than Conquer King or Machinegun Soul.

Additional damage type = most damage, always.

Flame X-Bow is also a holy weapon. Whilst it only gives +5 critical, the special is extremely powerful, with pretty much what I said regarding the Cestus' for Irene/Kahn above to apply here too.

I don't see the point of spending a Large Mithril to get a weapon that is basically the same thing you get without using up a Large Mithril, but fair enough. The original question by Cullsoft was about which to get in Flagard, not in Malorie, and you are usually limited there.

I'm afraid I don't share your "Holy trumps everything" motto

It's not really motto, more like a fact. Holy is the most useful damage type in any of the scenario, while demonic and magical are only a bit better in Sc2 and really, really good in Sc3.

I also disagree that it's the most "useful" Claw. Tiger is superior in this regard, as the main aim of any battle is to defeat all the enemies, whilst having as little casualties as possible, which even though the Tiger is only +5 Crit, the special (and indeed, technically, the basic attack without special) inflicts more damage to the enemies. Not to mention the friendships between the characters, I believe, reduce the usefulness of the crit/counter increase of any weapon, IMHO.

No, no and no.
In Sc1, Holy >>>>>>>> Demonic. Tiger Claw is insanely good in Sc3 if you get it early for Cyclops, though.
Storm Fang is not stronger than Sky Dragon or Wolf Rush. I'll admit it's an amazing special, though (slow is life).
If you think 1 ATK makes any difference in damage, you will be disappointed to learn most mithril weapons trump orichalcum weapons...
I always get friendship level 1 or 2 as soon as I get a new character, and I heartily disagree. You cannot have ALL characters next to Hayward or Justin, anyway.

Killer Knife = +2 Luck and special that, iirc, gives instant-kill. That is far superior than the crit increase of the Mithril Knife.

Luck is hardly needed by Synbios, unless you have also used a Lucky Cookie on him to make him immune to ailments. Assassin Knife has no additional damage type, so it will always lose in pure damage comparisons. Silent Kill is actually weaker than Laser Edge, should the remotely useless instant death effect fail.

Light resist of +25 and a special skill that can freeze an enemy in place makes the Rune Spear far more useful and therefore superior to the Silver Spear.

You said about the Dragon Axe that resistances were not very useful (and I agree).
Freeze is virtually useless, but you might have found a use for it. At least the weapon type is ranged.
Flash Gazer is not stronger than Thunder Fall and Thunder Fall paralyses.
The Rune Spear has no additional damage type, the Silver Spear does. Whether you favour holy weapons or not, 1 is better than 0.
It is inferior in every way except the light resistance, which you dismissed yourself.

Wind Shuriken wins this then. Most attack value, plus instant kill.

ATK = overrateeeeeeeed. Instant kill = overrateeeeeeeed.

Highest basic attack + demon + special > poison. Plus, as mentioned with Cesti, an attack with the RS will either instant kill or require one last shot for most of the enemies encountered in SF3.

The Rumbling Sea is not a demonic weapon. The only katana with an additional damage type is Kusanagi, which is exclusive to Sc3.
Umi Zatou is not stronger than Fine Mist, Oni Hyakusoku or Kamaitachi, so your second argument falls quite flat.

Other than usually kill an enemy. The Archers usually attack an enemy second due to their lack of decent agility, so having a weapon that "confuses" a dead enemy is hardly worth it.

Meteor shell has highest attack + most damaging special. As said already, even a basic attack with this shell won't require too much to be done after it's struck.

My archers do not usually attack last, but Ratchet does, so you have that.
Planet Dance is not stronger than Explode and in fact not stronger than Armour Shot.
Meteor Shell is also a demonic weapon, but I see little to no point in using up a Large Mithril to gain Planet Dance, when Armour Shot and Explode are already so damaging.

Gestalt gives instant death.

Hmm, no, Gestalt inflicts confusion.
That would not even be a good argument, anyway. Disregarding the fact that instant death is not amazingly useful, you have just said that characters with low agility do not need weapon specials with additional effects since they will attack second and kill off the target. Agility hardly gets lower than Ratchet's.


Anyway, if you want to deal the most damage in SFIII, always go for weapons with additional damage types, not higher ATK or pretty specials, it takes a lot of ATK (15+ in Sc1) to beat the damage bonus from the target being weak to your weapon nature.
Additional weapon natures also override weapon weaknesses, so if for instance you use the Silver Spear on an axe-wielding evil target, you will get the bonus from using the holy weapon against an evil target instead of getting the penalty from using a thrusting weapon against a bashing weapon. I'm not sure there are any instances of this in Sc1, but it's quite useful to know regardless.

[Nuburan]

[...]at least one shine rapier (to pass around between leader and birdfolk as needed) for HP regen and demon property.

The Shiny Rapier is not a demonic weapon, it's a magical weapon, like all rapiers except the God Rapier, which is holy.

Whichever. I glanced at Jumesyn for reference. The point is that it has a property, which is better than no property.

[Hrith]

Yes, but all rapiers do.

[Chinagonuk]

On my next Insane Mode playthough i intend to fully utilise Hrith's logic and exploit the additional damage types.

I recall a thread on this forum that listed all the mobs and what (if any) damage types they were vulnerable to, but i'm having trouble finding it. Does anyone know of this thread? And if so, would they be so kind as to give it a bump or post the link here?

Many thanks.

EDIT

Also, am i right in thinking that some of the mobs don't have the weapon type weaknesses on Sc1 that they would normally have on Sc2 & Sc3? (Like monks aren't weak to rapiers if i recall) if so does anyone have a list of which mobs this effects?

Cheers.

[Lord Kane]

On my next Insane Mode playthough i intend to fully utilise Hrith's logic and exploit the additional damage types.

I recall a thread on this forum that listed all the mobs and what (if any) damage types they were vulnerable to, but i'm having trouble finding it. Does anyone know of this thread? And if so, would they be so kind as to give it a bump or post the link here?

Many thanks.

No problem. Here it is:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=25849#p694980

Also, am i right in thinking that some of the mobs don't have the weapon type weaknesses on Sc1 that they would normally have on Sc2 & Sc3? (Like monks aren't weak to rapiers if i recall) if so does anyone have a list of which mobs this effects?

Cheers.

It is the other way around. In scenario 1 the monks have the same weaknesses, but some weapons (like all rapiers) don't have their additional property, yet.

[Chinagonuk]

Thank's, Lord Kane. That's brilliant.

EDIT 11th August 2015:

So i've just completed Scenario 1 again on Insane Mode and for the most part, i'm very impressed with Hrith's weapon recommendations. Obviously special attacks were occurring often, due to the Crit bonus and doing good damage due to the extra damage bonus. A few things to note:

The claws are AWESOME and i used them with both Monks as well as Frank. I made Mithril Claws (holy) for evil enemies and Tiger Claws (Magic, Slow inducing Special) for monsters. The special attacks were doing heavy damage even on mobs with high defence.

As Grace is often at a slightly higher level, due to all the healing, i decided in this playthrough, i would have her dishing out some physical damage for a change, using the Blessed Ankh (Holy, Crit +15, Special Attack). WOW, even with Grace's low attack, this weapon was doing INSANE damage against evil enemies. Apostle Descent was doing incredible damage (110+ on the skeletons in the Hero's Test) and Grace was in fact the biggest damage dealer against the Skull Mage (Hero's Test Boss). Even beating Synbios!

There are a lot of weapons listed in Hrith's recommendations that do not get their special properties until Scenario 2. The Lances, Throwing Axes, Spears and Bows to name a few. I understand though, that mithril is in short supply in Scenario 3, therefore it makes sense to craft some of these now if you wish to use these characters later on in the Sc3 Hero's Test / Final Battle / Premium Disc. However if you're not planning a full run or putting these characters into reserve later on, then you may be better off using some of Swalch's recommendations for the higher attack and specials etc.

In previous Insane Mode playthroughs, my mages have always been far superior to my fighters with their magic. But I'm confident that in this playthough, by the final battles, my fighters will be doing decent damage, even against mobs with high defence. (The Sting Worms were getting owned by magical weapons this time around). I'm sure i'll breeze though the final chapter of Scenario 2, even without any power levelling, with my weapon choices.

[Sinful Force]

I remember it being pretty obvious and clear as to which is the best. But ultimately I stopped caring about forcing the smith to give what's the best by reloading save files, and just take what he gives me for varieties sake. Eventually I end up with what I want, I think... wow, I forgot a lot about this game already. This is great!

[Cullsoft]

Okay, several months on I finally got round to trying to make progress this afternoon. Thanks again for all the... well, discussion and "debating" over choices. I think Chinagonuk's comment about how our preferences differ and we can still debate our own choices over which we think are best is a great one, and the sort of thing that keeps these forums interesting and encouraging. (At least when kept civil. )

As Grace is often at a slightly higher level, due to all the healing, i decided in this playthrough, i would have her dishing out some physical damage for a change, using the Blessed Ankh (Holy, Crit +15, Special Attack). WOW, even with Grace's low attack, this weapon was doing INSANE damage against evil enemies. Apostle Descent was doing incredible damage (110+ on the skeletons in the Hero's Test) and Grace was in fact the biggest damage dealer against the Skull Mage (Hero's Test Boss). Even beating Synbios!

I'd be curious to know what Grace's base attack power was in this case, given how you've described her attack as "low". From my experience - even when setting aside healing abuse and level-up resets - her attack growth shouldn't be particularly low, usually just reasonable. Though great to here she was performing so spectacularly here (part of me hopes this was done with the Japanese voices, so she would be bellowing "SHITO KOURIN!" with each attack! ) - with this in mind, I may well be spending a Large Mithril on a Blessed Ankh and see how she fares for me in this battle!



So, what choices did I make with my smithing? Well, it went as follows...

- Made a Sky Tomhawk for Obright. As mentioned earlier, I pretty much always find it's extra range trumps the other tomahawks' benefits.

- Tried making an Ark Halberd for Cybel, a Breaker Bow for Hayward, and a Rune Spear for Dantares and/or Cybel... but several attempts at any of these came out empty! I don't know if I was just constantly miss-timing the smithy's arm swings (though it felt like I'd tried every combination of the "three swings" rule), but I can certainly see why people think some of these weapons aren't available until Chapter 6. Suffice to say, frustration here encouraged me to set aside the game until later... and finally getting round to continuing today.

- Made a Milky Rod for Masqurin, Grace and Noon to pass between themselves as needed.

- Made a Mist Cestus for Irene, Kahn and Frank; decided I'd take whichever given between Mist and Wire. Irene's fully trained with Cestuses (Cestii?), so I'm probably going to give it Frank to train with once he hits L2 with Claws... he badly needs the attack power.

- Decided I'd go with Hattari's suggestion to make a couple of accessories. Scored myself a Power Ring for Obright and an Artemis Pin for Irene - shame I didn't get a Magic Ring, but getting an Artemis Pin is a keeper in my book, so I stuck with those two.

- After seeing Hattari's video with the Berserk Claw giving Frank some monstrous power while berserked, I tried forging that... but after REPEATEDLY BEING GIVEN A MITHRIL CLAW I decided to give it up and move on with the game.


And so, time to press on with the game... which led to me recosidering giving the Power Ring to Obright. :P He's already got some rocking attack power with the Heat Axe, and I misjudged just how powerful he is when I got near the end of the next battle, intending to egress before finishing; Obright attacked the Masked Priest boss, with the intention of heavily wounding him, but instead cleaved him in twain in a single blow!

So I'll now have to reload and replay over half the battle later this evening (after listening to and taking this opportunity to plug my pal Dave Wilcox's Sunday evening radio show! )...

[Hattari]

- Made a Rune Tomhawk for Obright. As mentioned earlier, I pretty much always find it's extra range trumps the other tomahawks' benefits.

Extra range...did you mean the Arrow Axe aka Sky Tomahawk perchance?

In either event yeah, don't let Obright's modest demeanor fool ya: that guy's a portable monster truck. I don't know how or when it happens, but more often than not when I look at characters' base stats near endgame, he typically has one of the highest, if not the highest attack value! And far better in that area than Rock or Leon, typically.

Here's hoping you get yourself that Berserk claw in Malorie instead...and why not go one further than I did, and make one for Frank, Kahn, AND Irene

I've been on here too long as it is, but I'll be checking out that link you shared later tonight or tomorrow.

[Cullsoft]

- Made a Rune Tomhawk for Obright. As mentioned earlier, I pretty much always find it's extra range trumps the other tomahawks' benefits.

Extra range...did you mean the Arrow Axe aka Sky Tomahawk perchance?

In either event yeah, don't let Obright's modest demeanor fool ya: that guy's a portable monster truck. I don't know how or when it happens, but more often than not when I look at characters' base stats near endgame, he typically has one of the highest, if not the highest attack value! And far better in that area than Rock or Leon, typically.

Here's hoping you get yourself that Berserk claw in Malorie instead...and why not go one further than I did, and make one for Frank, Kahn, AND Irene

I've been on here too long as it is, but I'll be checking out that link you shared later tonight or tomorrow.

Yep, meant Sky Tomahawk. Brain fart there, sorry.

That's a curious suggestion about Berserk Claws, even if just to berserk all three Claw-users for one battle and let 'em run rampant. (I may want to wait until Aura L4 is at hand first, though...) Kahn and Frank already have skills with Claws, and although I haven't been training Irene with them this time, she's at L2 with Gloves (and L3 with Cestuses), so I may well have time to get her onto them before endgame!

Sadly I don't think Dave's radio station has a listen again feature, and he just does the Sunday 6-9pm (GMT) slot (so on for the next 2-3hrs), so if you're interested I'd recommend checking it out now if you can!

[Chinagonuk]

Sorry for bringing back this old thread bit i’ve just discovered something awesome. If you craft a Mace for 9k and get a Thor Hammer, you can sell it for 15750 netting you a whopping 6750 profit! By the time you get to the Flagard smithy you should have 20 mythrils so more than enough to spare. I’m currently on a run not using return spell at all and by the time i sold all my other expensive items i was able to get just about every weapon i wanted for my current team.

[stefanos2k10]

Sorry for bringing back this old thread bit i’ve just discovered something awesome. If you craft a Mace for 9k and get a Thor Hammer, you can sell it for 15750 netting you a whopping 6750 profit! By the time you get to the Flagard smithy you should have 20 mythrils so more than enough to spare. I’m currently on a run not using return spell at all and by the time i sold all my other expensive items i was able to get just about every weapon i wanted for my current team.

this could be useful...