Questions regarding Dark Courages and Black Insanities, the Zek-Bane Weapons

[FeroceFV]

Hey, I have a few particular questions about these nifty little items, their use, and obtaining them.

I'm in an alliance that's working on the Rallos Zek encounter now. We've had some difficulty with it, and to help out, I've started work on getting some Zek-bane weapons. I made my first Black Insanity today, a piercer for a rogue. I have several questions for folks in the know:

1. How exactly does this zek bane damage work? Is the dagger, with a 7/20 ratio and a bane damage of 10 as good, better, or not as good as a 17/20 ratio dagger?

2. Does the "Bane-ness" of these weapons apply ONLY to Rallos and his kids, or does it also apply to all mobs in Drunder?

3. The Decorin Ore seems to be the bottleneck for me. As a bard, I led a group down to where Maldric is. I would aggro him, pull him out, then fade (sort of like feign death), and pull out the animated decorin blades. I only got one decorin ore from this towards the start, though we killed probably a dozen or so animated blades. Is there some sort of reset timer on these animated blades dropping the ore, or does Maldric just have to die and respawn?

4. What is Maldric's respawn time?

5. Which zek-bane weapons, in your opinion, add the most to a raid's overall DPS?

[Qaladar Bragollach]

If bane damage was required to hit RZ, then it would be a 10/20 piercer. Since its not, its a 17/20 which is good.... but is it good enough to bother with?

Its totally unnecessary. Zek bane's are not needed to do the encounter.

[FeroceFV]

They're not necessary, but they are nice. I believe that your explanation of bane damage is incomplete. It doesn't seem to add solely to the ratio of the weapon; it also seems to increase the minimum hit value.

By the way, answering my own questions:

1. The damage effectively adds to the weapon ratio, and increases the minimum hit value of the weapon, making a 7+10 bane weapon better for DPS purposes than a 17/20 weapon.

2. It does not seem to apply to normal mobs in Drunder, merely to the zeks themselves, and possibly the mobs that spawn to defend them (need more feedback on this)

3. The blades do not reset. He has to die and respawn.

4. Tagrin's respawn time is 24 hours.

5. In my opinion, it's a tough one to call. I have no plans on making the hammer, but the 1-hand slasher, Ulak, bow, and daggers all look good.

[Saleani]

For your guild, probably the best use for the ore is to make bows for the rangers. VZ is a simple slugfest. TZ is best done from a distance. Some folks think that the bane applies to the new ogre model mobs (gindans and the named ogres like the supplier) also.

I have heard confilicting stories about bane damage.
Story type 1: the bane is added to the base damage, then your multipliers come into play. example: you have a dmg 10 weapon, with bane 5; it is now a dmg 15 weapon for that target. when you hit a regular (non-baned mob) you do 3x the base dmg on your highest hit. So instead of hitting for 30 max, now you hit for 45 max.
Story type 2: the bane damage is added at the end after all the multipliers have been done. example you have a 10 dmg weapon with bane 5; when you hit a non-baned mob, you do 30 max, when you hit a baned mob, you hit for 35 max.

Since our guild stopped farming the ores, I think that the consensus among folks is that the zekbanes are not as useful as they ought to be. If it was really known how the bane damage is computed, then it would be possible to determine if doing them is worthwhile.

As for the animated blades, only the first 6 can drop the ore, but we have also found that the number of ores is usually less than 6.

[FeroceFV]

Worst come to worst, these make nice twinkage items.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Without the bane damage... they kind of suck and they're no drop to boot. Dunno how that makes it a "good twink item".

[FeroceFV]

They make good twinkage items because I play on FV.

[Saleani]

Dunno how that makes it a "good twink item".

Hand the sheet and pulsing blue vial to your twink, get the rest of the stuff (molds or whatnot), press combine. 40-100 hp weapon, fast delay, lots of other stats. I would say that is what makes it a good twink item. If the ore was not lore, I think there would be a lot of twinks with them. When our guild was doing targin, the ore would either rot or be looted by folks with sub 100 smithing skill, so pretty much all the ore that could have been made into weapons went to waste (corpse rotting or losing to low skill). The raid leader at the time considered the bane weapons to be a waste, so if you wanted an ore, you had to just grab one.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Without the bane effect, the 2 hander is only 22/32. That sucks.

Sure its got 100hp, but theres a fair amount of work that goes into obtaining it.

On my server you can buy a Reaver for less than 15k. It is 40/40 and has no rec/req level.

YMMV.

[Thorvari]

For doing the black vial and Drunder's steel combines, which involve Lore Nodrop ingrediants from Tactics, but have to be combined in Stationary containers in PoK, here is a strat that sounds like it would work:

1. Have the Brewer/Smith bind near the forge/brew barrel in PoK
2. Bring a wizard and cleric to Talgrin in Tactics with Brewer/Smith
3. Brewer/Smith suicides to get a decent length corpse
4. Brewer/Smith loots Lore No Drop ingrediant
5. Wizard Xlocs Brewer/Smith to Bind
6. Brewer/Smith does combine
7. Cleric rezzes Brewer/Smith to port them back to Tactics
8. Repeat from step 4 as needed

[FeroceFV]

Qaladar, I wasn't talking about it's damage/delay. I was talking about stats, which are of prime importance for clerics, druids, shaman, and casters.

[Ianthe]

From memory the bane seemed to effect all mobs in the RZ event area. Including the Decorins, Elites, etc... I never tried to use it in the other areas to see if it was zone wide or not.