Benefit of Common->Uncommon->Rare, etc.

Hi,

I fight with a Two-Handed Sword, Elf Slaying artifact.

I've upgraded this artifact from Common to Uncommon to Rare, using the standard approach of : coal + Ancient Essence + stone chisel + 4x the artifact on a smelting station.

However, after going through all this, the sword's properties to not seem to have changed. Specifically, the sword was 10-30 damage when it was Common, and it's still listing 10-30 damage even though I've upgraded it to Rare. Same for the other properties of the sword. (crit%, strength bonus...)

Am I misunderstanding something here? Shouldn't the weapon get better?

 

the base stats do go up a little: an epic is 11-33. however, for that particular artifact, most of the benefit from upgrading is increasing the number of ancient essences and the chance/number of the +10 bladed combat gem you can get from salvaging it.

 

Thanks @Alley Oop. I'm still trying to figure out crafting, so that response went over my head. Are you saying we should upgrade weapons only to salvage them later to get goodies? And then craft our own weapons using those goodies? Can you point me to any resources that explain that strategy more?

 

curious if anyone has done any actual testing on the slayer weapons to determine effectiveness?

You will find the official google doc with the gems/jewels here (use the R92 tab). There are all kinds of cool gems and jewels you can get to incorporate into your crafting. The percentage chance of getting a gem or jewel goes up with rarity. At uncommon you have a 50% chance and at rare you are at 100%. It is important to note that you do need special recipes in order to place these gems/jewels.

You can also use the results of my Artifact Survey to better locate artifacts.

 

Just as a heads up, you'll probably need to buy 50k+ worth of recipes on top of the grind for artifacts to make this happen.

 

Tell me if this is correct:

There are three ways to improve weapons/armor:

1. Masterwork, at Crafting station
2. Enchantment, at Alchemy station
3. Socketing Gem/Jewel, at Alchemy station

Is that accurate?

 

Yes, and also special enchantments on weapons and armor when they have gems and jewels socketed in them (doesn’t work for imbued gems and jewels). Full list here:
https://sotawiki.net/sota/Enchantment

 

I haven't, but I always assumed that the damage bonus scaled with upgrade in the case of this particular weapon since not much else does.