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[cythev]

Hi,

I often wonder if for example a +silver hammer+ would be better than my steel hammer or if a shiny *<*bismuth bronze shiled*>* would outperform my simple steel shield
Is it genarally better to have the better material or is the "cheaper" metal with good quality and maybe decorations better?

From my guts i'd say, that material is nearly alway preferable over quality except for artifacts and maybe masterwork, and that decorations don't affect armor value or weapon damage at all!?

please correct me otherwise...

[Cathar]

It depends of a lot of things. Quality for weapons increase sharpness, so if you're making, blunt weapons, a club is a club, doesn't matter if it's forged by an apprentice or a master. What matters for blunties is the weight of the material. The heavier the better. Good quality swords however are sharper, so it matters there.

For instance : silver is very heavy, but can't be sharpened very much, so it makes for good hammers but for poor swords

But it doesnt make sense in DF to say "this weapon is better than this weapon". Against what is it used? How skilled is the wielder ? What trade off does it constitutes, etc.

The best way to figure out what works best for you is to try in object arena, that's how tests are conducted.

Also : 
• Decorations only affect the value of the item.
• A shield is shield regardless of materials and craftmanship (lighter shields are better)
• Bismuth bronze is exactly like bronze, but is crafted differently. It's the same thing.

[bloop_bleep]

Iron, steel, bronze, bismuth bronze is good for edged weapons. Silver, copper, platinum is good for blunt weapons.

[rhavviepoodle]

In my current adventure, I managed to get 86 significant kills with a finely crafted copper battle axe. About 80 of those were night trolls, and admittedly... most of them bled out. But I will say this adventurer eventually became skilled enough to chop night troll heads and other limbs off with said weapon. I eventually retired it in place of a finely crafted steel axe,  since I intended to hunt a couple bronze colossi. Of course, I named it before leaving it in the fortress in which it was replaced. So even though it's by all rights a mediocre weapon, it's a relic with 86 kills

I will suggest that as of right now you should avoid using artifacts (and naming your weapons) in adventure mode. It's been bugged (for me, at least) where the items jump out of your inventory and scatter when you enter a new site. So finely crafted axes aren't great, but at least they don't grow legs and walk off!

[Kars]

It's a bit close, but in my experience, you're better off upgrading materials even if the one you're already using is a masterwork. I'd rather use a normal quality iron sword than a masterwork copper one, for example.

For sharp weapons: silver -> copper -> bronze/iron -> steel -> divine

For blunt weapons, just reverse the above order.
Quality goes like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So you can see that even for blunt weapons, higher quality is still better, though not as useful as on a bladed weapon. And, furthermore, a copper sword will never be as good as an iron sword, even if the iron sword has no modifier, due to the inherent differences in the metal.
However, a masterful copper warhammer might be a better choice than a normal silver warhammer, due to the fact the silver warhammer is only denser than a copper one by about 1.5k density, and if your warhammer skill is low, that 2x to-hit modifier could save your life. If you're a legendary hammerdwarf though, definitely better off with the silver normal quality warhammer.


tl;dr Weapon material matters much more than quality, quality is just a nice bonus when you happen to find it or something to obsess over in fortress mode

[duckman]

Material is also important in maintaining the quality of a weapon or armor. Repeatedly parrying strikes from a steel battle axe with a *copper mace* will turn it into a x+copper mace+x and eventually a XXcopper maceXX. On the attacker's side of things, I ruined a copper morningstar I wrestled away from someone against their iron mail shirt while trying to lodge it in their guts.

[TheDorf]

It depends of a lot of things. Quality for weapons increase sharpness, so if you're making, blunt weapons, a club is a club, doesn't matter if it's forged by an apprentice or a master. What matters for blunties is the weight of the material. The heavier the better. Good quality swords however are sharper, so it matters there.

For instance : silver is very heavy, but can't be sharpened very much, so it makes for good hammers but for poor swords

But it doesnt make sense in DF to say "this weapon is better than this weapon". Against what is it used? How skilled is the wielder ? What trade off does it constitutes, etc.

The best way to figure out what works best for you is to try in object arena, that's how tests are conducted.

Also : 
• Decorations only affect the value of the item.
• A shield is shield regardless of materials and craftmanship (lighter shields are better)
• Bismuth bronze is exactly like bronze, but is crafted differently. It's the same thing.

So the wiki is outdated? Or what do they mean by "Weapon To-Hit /
Armor Deflect Modifier"?