I often do the 20 Poison Dmg Jewel in Armor/Helm/Weapon to twink characters super fast on players 8.

Today, I decided to do it when only using sets/uniques/runewords, no Psn Jewels, and no respec.

Started a Zerk Barb using Blade Mastery, and planned out gear for every level.

As far as I can tell, Cleglaw's Sword/Shield, which can be equipped at Level 4, beats out any other Sword (or dagger) until level 25 when you can get Strength or King's Grace.

The only other options are below, and as far as I can tell, they're all worse than Cleglaw's with it's 50% Deadly Strike & 1.25 Max Damage per clvl.

Rixot's Keen (2)
Gull (4)
Death's Touch (6)
Blood Crescent (7)
Isenhart's Lightbrand (8)
Skewer of Krintiz (10)
Angelic Sickle (12)
Shadowfang (12)
Gleamscythe (13)
Steel (13)
Malice (15)
Griswold's Edge (17)
Soulflay (19)
The Diggler (19)
The Jade Tan Do (19)
Hellplague (22)
Kinemil's Awl (23)

Did I miss something, or is this just a weird game imbalance? ..... and swords suck at low levels? Or Cleglaw's is OP?

Anyway, just a thought...

After continuing my playthrough, testing a Strength Rune Sword, and a King's Grace Ancient Sword, I can say that..... Cleglaw's is still really good.... even at level 25. And the crazy part is, if you upgraded it for the damage boost, the level requirement would be 25, so that might put it squarely in the lead for up to and including Level 25 Swords.

This is not apples to apples because of the two different bases I used, but they're very similar, Ancient Sword doing a little more base damage (30.5 vs 26.0), but Rune Sword making up for it in speed (-10 vs 0).

Basically, I think the main differences are:

Strength is probably better vs bosses because of the Crushing Blow.

King's Grace is probably better vs Demons & Undead

... but Cleglaw's competes for sure, and when that Deadly Strike triggers, it might win..... yet that is also its problem. It's good, in part, because of its Deadly Strike, but it is also what makes it inconsistent over a small sample size.

Now trying to find a base for Honor, to see how that competes. There's only 3 options for my Character requirement, but Executioner Sword has requirements that are too high, so it will be Zweihander or Dimensional Blade.

This post was edited by moogleslam on Aug 20 2023 07:31am

Honor >

Yeah, Honor is good once I look beyond the Level 25 and below Swords.

I ended up making Honor in a Zweihander at Level 27, and it was a small upgrade over the King's Grace that I'd primarily been using.

I kept testing out the other Unique Swords as the became available, but it wasn't until Level 36 that I found something better than Honor, and it was a bit of a surprise. Heart Carver. The raw damage for 1 handed was slightly better, but then it had more Deadly Strike as well.

I used that for a few levels, then felt that Headstriker was a bit of an upgrade, so used that for two more levels, before I made Unbending Will in a 13% ED Dimensional Blade at Level 41.

That's basically where I'm at now. I did think about making Hustle to see how that compares, but don't think I have a good 3os base. I'm thinking I might put Hustle in a Merc Weapon instead, maybe even a Lance, which is very slow, but between the Runeword IAS, Fanaticism, Treachery, and a 15% IAS Jewel in VGaze, the attack speed will actually be the 2nd fastest breakpoint.

The whole melee builds suck thing isn't really applying so far. Yeah, I'm twinked, but not with any rare gear, and so far Players 8 all the way has been a breeze. I'm sure that will change in Hell though....

Cleglaws sword + gloves and kill on p8 hell
Just need to upgrade the sword on the way

Not that the shield is anything special, but I'd rather use that than the gloves because of annoying knockback on gloves.

Not so sure about P8 Hell, even with a double upgrade, but it's probably passable at least

Look my barb WT
I did double cleglaws swords upgraded in pit p8 hell..
it was the best option i had