Pyro Axe overpowered?

The pyro axe does almost double the damage of the 2 handed arcane sword, without the high strength requirement.
The only melee weapon that comes close to it is the Iron Clan hammer. Should an easily made weapon rival the uber weapon of a dwarven king? I don't think so.
The pyro axe only requires 3 ranks of smithy and 1 explosives manual to be able to make it.
I usually equip my whole party with the pyro axe (apart from weakling Jayna) which says to me that this is an unbalanced weapon.

 

Yeah, you have a very weighty point there. I just made the pyrotechnic axe for the first time a few days ago (I had the schematic for a while, but never thought of a use for it.). I saw the regular damage, what is it, 5-15? Then I saw the fire damage, and that goes up to 50! I was thinking at that point, "Everyone is getting one of these." What's better, is that it's nearly indestructible. It'll break on a critical failure, but not on a rock golem or seething mass, or any other enemy that can damage weapons. The only way I could see that weapon being balanced is if it used fuel. Or if it did less damage. Then again, tech characters tend to have a slight disadvantage when it comes to attack power over the mages. The weapon selection is much higher, so is the armor, but the damage you can dole out seems a little less, except with the pyro axe.

 

No, I don't think it's overly powerful and simply because it's relatively easy to make doesn't mean it shouldn't be powerful. Sometimes the simplest things work best. As a side note, you don't even have to spend 3 points in smithy to make it if you have Magnus in your party since he'll be able to eventually make the feather-weight axe.

Also considering that techies kind of get the short end of the stick when it comes to technical melee weapons (I'm talking about normal Arcanum, I don't know what Car Arcanum is like) that do decent damage (balanced sword, charged sword, feather-weight axe, the Iron Clan Hammer if you do the quest, and the pyro-axe), I think it's kinda nice to get a great weapon early on so you can use it to kill the big enemies like Ore Golems, Brute Fangs, and the like. It is not all powerful since it cannot kill fire resistant enemies quickly like that fire rat and fire elementals (damn I hate fighting fire elementals). So in that sense, magick has a really unfair advantage in terms of shear variety of weaponry available and I think the pyro axe makes up for it. Yes, techs can also use normal weapons but you don't really get many great perks from them save for a handful.

If you want to talk ridiculously overpowerful, then I would look more at Disintegrate. While doing over +30k damage, that is unreal. As far as I know, only a few monsters can stand up to it. Even lightning bolt does decent damage and let's not forget the "spam harm" technique with arcane staves. Plus magic has a lot of other great advantages that technology doesn't have such as teleportation, the whole divination college, protective spells, easily summoned minions, tempus fugit, and the ability to use tech items if they're magickal aptitude is sufficient. Mages can also easily learn healing salve and not have it greatly affect their magickal aptitude and fatigue restorer is only one more point. They don't hurt total tech enemies that well from what I understand but that's what minions are for (Dog and Sogg are great that way).

The techs on the other hand have only a few perks like the molotov cocktail trick but you can only carry so many of them before you run out on a group of really tough enemies (that and the weight tends to add up). There's also the electrical branch (mainly the ring, chapeau, and staves), the explosives branch, smithy (making armor is great and techs have some really nice ones), and sometimes mechanical. The gun branch isn't really worth it unless you really want to make guns. The therapeutics and chemistry branches are next to useless (ok, therapeutics is worthless). Herbology isn't even all that great once you get past poison cure. Cure-all is nice but it's debatable whether or not it's worth the points since by the time you get it, you don't lose much health anyway because the enemies get relatively weak.

As for the tech skills, Repair you don't really need since you can pretty much get to a blacksmith easily. Picking Locks is nice but mages have the equivalent with Unlocking Cantrip with the only real difference being it's loud. Firearms is great if you use guns. Disarming traps is nice since you can stock up on free fuel, charges, and bullets from traps you disarm but first you have to spot them (either spot traps skill or the level 3 electrical item whose name escapes me at the moment). But all of those items you can easily obtain from shops. So since pyro axe is powerful and relatively easy to make, I think that helps balance the scales between magick users and tech users.

So getting back to the original topic, no, I don't think the pyro axe is overpowered. I think it's just right for the game due to the reasons I listed above. I think adding a fuel cost would be unfair since you then limit it while the arcane great doesn't receive any limits save for activating it's full magickal properties due to aptitude. You would also have to worry about carrying fuel around and having it run out at a critical time, which means you either rely on another weapon or just ditch it since it wouldn't be worth the trouble and money.

 

The Flow Spektrometer. That's what you're talking about.
Well, I can see what you're saying. Maybe if it was harder to make then? Not sure. The Arcane Greatsword can be a tough find, so I think the Pyro Axe should be a little tougher to make. If it used fuel as ammo, it would be very easy to stock up on it. But, if you're that worried about weight constraints, get the anti gravity loaf of the future on this website. TONGSyaBASS made that little beauty. Fuel is a very easy schematic, and you find ingredients for it everywhere. What is it, liquid soap and kerosene?
Yeah, sometimes the simplest things work the best. In the real world, the more complicated something gets, the more chances there are for something to go wrong (not a direct Murphy's Law, but close to it). Makes sense for that to hold true in Arcanum (but not always).
If you really want a damaging tech item, spend the 7 points in explosives. Dynamite. It will kill just about everything in one or two hits. Best thing is, you don't even need to be close to an enemy for a succesful "planting" of TNT. Put it on an enemy that's in a group of enemies, and make sure they can't see you. You do NOT want an enemy to rush you when there's a bundle of dynamite strapped to their back. It's either that or explosive grenades. Or maybe concussion grenades. Basically, what I'm getting at is, there are a lot of benefits to studying the explosives in arcanum. There's a lot of damage to be had. Explosives and Electrical are the most useful colleges for damage. And, if enemies don't seem to regard your normal explosives, chuck an electrocution grenade their way.
So, aside from the cost of materials, tech characters don't necessarily have it so bad in arcanum. Sure, it takes them longer to get places, but they also can get stronger with random encounters.
Eh, I dunno. Maybe it's best to leave the axe as it is. I certainly don't mind doing that extra 50 damage per hit.

 

Fuel can be made from brewer's yeast and wine. And yes, the explosives tech branch is very good at dealing out the damage.

If you really wanted to make the pyrotechnic axe hard to get and not have fuel as its ammo, I would say make it harder to find the schematic. You know how you have to find the vivifier, the necromizer, or the reanimator? Something along those lines, for example, searching the sewers used by The Boil's thieves or Caladon's sewers or maybe the Iron Clan cave.

 

Magick probably does have an advantage over tech. You're right that there isn't much choice for tech melee weapons (which I'm in the process of fixing).
You list lots of different ways in which magick is better but I don't think throwing in 1 uber weapon for the techies is a reasonable way to balance this.

Tech does have some advantages though
e.g. best standard tech armour = 35AC, 55DR, strength boost
best standard magick armour = 25AC, 46DR, no boost

I've changed harm so it scales and I'm looking at disintegrate too. I'll perhaps make it cost more but I haven't decided yet. Since I've reduced the magick uber weapon, I think there is a stronger case for nerfing the pyro axe in my mod (compared to the original game where harm is stupidly deadly).

I've been working on this. Chemistry is now definitely worth having:
Animal Lure, Animal Control, Fire Retardant, Locomotion Limiter, etc.

As yet, therapeutics is still sucky though.

But as I said, the pyro axe is nearly twice as powerful as the arcane greatsword.

It makes sense for the vivifier, necromizer and reanimator to be hard to find because they are ancient / forbidden technology which has been forgotten. The pyro axe wouldn't really fit with that.

I've been considering splitting the pyro axe into 2 weapons.
mark 1 - Normal pyro axe with damage reduced.
mark 2 - As powerful (possibly more powerful) than current pyro axe but it gobbles up fuel.

 

Could you also look into the making the enemy encounters scale better with a character's level? I think another reason pyro axe is seen as overly powerful is that the enemies get really weak save for the occassional level 30. I mean encountering an Ailing Wolf when you're level 40+ with just about any weapon is a joke battle. More highly fire resistant enemies would also take the bite out of the pyro axe and make it not as useful.

 

Haha! Yeah, I remember right after I hit level 50, a couple level 8 molochean hand thugs came to take me out. The only way they could've won was if my character had no arms or legs. All I had at the time was a rusty dagger(I broke my good weapon), and I ended up turning them all into giblets. There's already a mod that does the scaling up of random encounters, though: Car Arcanum does it, along with a couple other hacks that just scale up either the molochean hand or the orc bandits. By the way, what does liquid soap and kerosene do? I know at least one of the schematics is liquid soap with something. I don't know if making the schematic harder to find would really balance it. The reanimator can be found along shade's beach, right? That's not too far into the game. I think maybe if it could only be either stolen from or looted from a certain enemy. Maybe...the captain ofthe guard in Dernholm; Master of melee. That could make it pretty tough.

 

A perfect place to put it would be in the middle of the Dredge.
Maybe back by the werewolves and brute fangs. Thats about
the beginning of mid-game isn't it? Plus, it would be a reason
to go down there if you found an alternate route to loghaire,
rather than just for the bloodlust.

And yes, the Pyro-axe is second only to the Iron Clan Hammer
in shear damage. Only problem with it is it damages armor.

Thinking of reloading the axe with fuel, why not an upgradable
flame-throwing axe! (Never mind, to much fallout for me.)

 

That would be a great place to put the schematic. I think an even better spot would be right in the chest by the Grey King. And, as a side note, I was actually thinking of how much work it might take to put a flame throwing melee weapon in the game.

 

Can you imaging the carnage?! Some silly magik user standing there trying to cast 'Derringers Chromatic Cloud of Clustfuk', and them WHAM,
him and his weak robes turn into a flaming ball of char-broiled brahmin!

That would have to be a Vendigroth special, of course....

 

It's already on my to do list. I just need to tinker with how much they scale.
So lookout for Ailing Wolves that summon several Brute Fangs when they get into trouble. Muahahaha!

Fire Obstruction (it's the only one that uses soap).

That is an excellent idea.
-Stores idea for later use-
The only trouble with changing the main game like that is that it turns a 5mb hack into a 50mb hack so I won't be doing that in my first hack.

Actually it shouldn't be too hard. Just take the Flamethrower proto and reduce it's range.
Or, in a similar vein, I could tie a grenade "tech spell" to a weapon which gives splash damage when used.

 

That'd be wicked! If I'm understanding you right, it sounds like
a pyro-axe with burning fuel spewing outta it. Nice.... :mean:

 

Personally I do think the Pyro axe is a little too good and a little too easy to get.

On the one hand... Techies don't get that many weapons very easily that can put the hurt on serious magickal critters. Even then, if you don't have a high tech apptitude a Pyro axe is a death sentence for you and not your foe.

Perhaps just a simple tweak is best...

I say making it consume Fuel with each swing would work, and it'd make sense. It'd make it more of a pain to outfit your whole party with them too. Perhaps the fire damage could be lowered to the range on the Charged axe too. Enough to make it not quite so ultimate but still very good.

 

Must've missed this thread somehow.

I think the Pyro axe is fine as it is. The sheer number of damage tends to dazzle you when you see it, but when you take a real good look at it, it's not exactly the uber weapon it is made out to be. Once you get to a higher ST, speed becomes by far more important than damage stats. The Barbarian Heavy Blade easily beats the Pyro axe in combat efficiency due to its speed and neutral nature (the Pyro tends to miss a lot against magickal beasts, and you DON'T want to score a critical miss with it). It is only an uber weapon for low ST characters who are nevertheless stuck with melee as primary combat skill.

I also notice that you guys are thinking of WAY overcomplicated ways of balancing the Pyro axe out. Want to make it less accessible? Nothing is easier.

Idea 1: Let it be made with Fire Obstruction rather than with easy-to-find Fuel, and let it require appropriate Explosives expertise to go with it. This way one can only get a Pyro axe through a significant investment of CPs and money (for tech manuals).

Idea2: Alter speed, slow it down to 6. A pyrotechnic melee weapon could reasonably be heavy and unwieldy, right? Well there you have it, it still does its huge damage but an average NPC follower wouldn't be able to swing it too many times in a turn.

Idea 3: Just give it an increase in critical miss chance. Talk about Russian roulette :lol:

 

And I missed this post somehow.

The pyro axe is much better than the barbarian heavy blade apart from under some very specific circumstances:
DX of 7 or less and a ST of 20 (double damage bonus)
Under these conditions the barbarian blade is very slightly better.
At any DX above 7 or ST below 20 the pyro axe is much better.
e.g. DX9, ST 19
Pyro: 112
Barbarian: 72

Though you do have a point about the tech / neutral aspect.

It's already 5.

 

I didn't say the BHB outclasses the Pyro axe in sheer damage, I said it outclasses it in combat efficiency.

The BHB deals out somewhat less damage, but it deals it out FASTER. You get up to 8 swings per turn with BHB where you could do 5 at most with the Pyro axe. This may not be an advantage when fighting a single uber tough opponent (for which the Pyro is undoubtly better), but this is not a situation that happens as often as a room full of low or mid-level foes. With BHB, you kill one opponent and move on to the next while the Pyro axe's overkill strikes would consume all your action points on one foe. This is especially apparent in the hands of your followers who do not have an Apprentice status in melee- the Pyro axe is so intolerably slow for them that they rarely if ever get to make good use of it.

That too.

I mean drop it down to 6 WITH the Apprentice bonus. Give it an "inherent" speed of 1.

 

I say the Pyro-axe is just waaaay to easy to make. I've said it already but I like this discussion so I'll state my opinion again: the pyro-axe should consume something like 10-20 fuel each time you use it. This would make it harder to equip an entire party with but enough that one person could manage. The pyro-axe kills most things in one hit anyways.

 

Don't you think 10-20 is a little bit too much? I personally haven't used the axe or any weapon that need fuel... but 10-20? There's no weapon that uses that much ammo (well, at least no weapon that I know).

 

10 or 15. You have to keep in mind you're adding a hell of alot of damage with that fuel. 30-50 if I remember correctly. ...and it is almost always a 1-hit kill.