Is Vorpal Worth It

Kancamagus Lightfoot

Well-known member
I've been playing a while and never quite warmed up to weapons with vorpal. I've taken weapons with additional damage over vorpal items usually. When is vorpal desirable? And, is it more useful in early game content vs. Epic or Legendary content? Thanks
 

Tyrande

Well-known member
Vorpal is nice since it also improves the weapon by 0.5W, which also improves DPS; and can completely cut the head off a monster on a natural roll of 20 ====> monster dies. It only works on monsters that have a head. e.g. doesn't work on Oozes, Gelatinous Cubes, Mimics, Wil'O Wisp or reapers.
Its nice. On Epic and Legendary levels they're great when it works. Also, it doesn't work on red names.

Back in the old days, ML1 Vorpals can drop and its nice for low levels. However, I haven't seen one lately.
 

Enoach

Well-known member
This does depend on the type of melee you are and options.

For a fighter/barbarian focused build it might have its place, but for DPS there are better options.

For a Paladin this will depend on your focus - Tank focus it can be a great weapon dealing with trash mobs. DPS focus follow the same path as Fighter/Barbarian for DPS options.

For a melee focused Cleric/Druid/Wizard/Sorcerer/Favored Soul where DPS on melee does not have the perks available to more melee focused classes these weapons can help 'catch up'

For other classes such as the Monk and Rogue they will have their uses but might be more situational.

Keep in mind that even if a mob is not below the Vorpal weapons HP limit it will still do an extra 100 damage.
 

Archest

Well-known member
Vorpal strikes occur when a natural 20 attack roll is confirmed as a critical hit. The Vorpal weapon effect triggers off a vorpal strike. Some other effects also trigger off vorpal strikes - you don't need a vorpal weapon to gain these benefits. a 19-20 for a critical hit is not a vorpal strike.

I like vorpal weapons such as endless night, eye of the glazier....
 

vryxnr

Well-known member
Vorpal strikes occur when a natural 20 attack roll is confirmed as a critical hit. The Vorpal weapon effect triggers off a vorpal strike. Some other effects also trigger off vorpal strikes - you don't need a vorpal weapon to gain these benefits. a 19-20 for a critical hit is not a vorpal strike.

I like vorpal weapons such as endless night, eye of the glazier....
True, but the above mention of 19-20 are special high level abilities that specifically expand vorpal strikes to be 19-20.

Perfect Single Weapon Fighting feat:
  • Your vorpal threat range is increased by +1 (instead of scoring Vorpal hits only on a roll of 20, you score them on a roll of 19-20, assuming you confirm the critical hit.)
Tier 5 ability Sniper from the Mechanic tree for Rogues:
  • You gain 1 extra Sneak Attack die with bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons. Non-repeating crossbows increase this to 3 Sneak Attack dice and also gain +2[W]. Great Crossbows now vorpal on a 19-20.

So weapons with Vorpal on them (or vorpal effects) are more potent on those builds.

However, even without those, Vorpal is still quite useful imo. As already mentioned, vorpal on a low level weapon is awesome for the instakill effects. In higher levels, the increased weapon dice is also nice (as it scales better than extra elemental damage due to being multiplied by melee power and on crits), though tbh I wouldn't go out of my way to find a named item with vorpal on it. If one happens to have it on it and it's one I want to use, great! If not, that's not a deal breaker.
 
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jotmon

Well-known member
Useful below level 12-15 for non-named vorpals.
by levels 12-15 you should have a decent named weapon (with or without vorpal) as vorpal damage is par with other damage effects..
Level 20+ sentience blows non-named out of the water and effectively makes non-named weapons pointless.
 

Zavina

Ms Stabby Stabby
Vorpal is nice since it also improves the weapon by 0.5W, which also improves DPS; and can completely cut the head off a monster on a natural roll of 20 ====> monster dies. It only works on monsters that have a head. e.g. doesn't work on Oozes, Gelatinous Cubes, Mimics, Wil'O Wisp or reapers.
Its nice. On Epic and Legendary levels they're great when it works. Also, it doesn't work on red names.

Back in the old days, ML1 Vorpals can drop and its nice for low levels. However, I haven't seen one lately.

I picked up a ML2 vorpal keen shortsword the other day, and a vorpal doublestrike greatsword ML9 (iirc) on a dual slot (red & colorless).

I have a ML5 vorpal keen greatsword on my permanent level 5 paladin (kept there to help new players), and it just eradicates trash at those levels.
 

AbyssalMage

Well-known member
Vorpal, improved vorpal, greater vorpal are all desirable because of the +w provided on the weapon. The damage/instant death effect is secondary after 23’ish.
 

dur

Paladin. Disruptor. Since the 1970s
..but the increase in Monster HP means you gotta beat em down first.
 

l_remmie

Well-known member
The extra (w) crits. That is the thing that matters.

The extra dmg is neglectable and doesnt even compare to a nd6 elemental dmg ruby.
 

dur

Paladin. Disruptor. Since the 1970s
The extra (w) crits. That is the thing that matters.

The extra dmg is neglectable and doesnt even compare to a nd6 elemental dmg ruby.
You mean the original weighting before percentage BS? That's not affecting Vorpal weapons?

I'd really like to know how/why CL1-2 Vorpal weapons drop now when they used to be CL7 - 9... in the midst of effing CHANGING/KILLING tumble cause it looked stupid.. No CL1 - 2, min, should know how to Vorpal.
 

AbyssalMage

Well-known member
You mean the original weighting before percentage BS? That's not affecting Vorpal weapons?

I'd really like to know how/why CL1-2 Vorpal weapons drop now when they used to be CL7 - 9... in the midst of effing CHANGING/KILLING tumble cause it looked stupid.. No CL1 - 2, min, should know how to Vorpal.
Vorpal hasn’t dropped for CL1 - 5 since HC season 3. Unless someone messed up code then you better hoard them. One of the many things nerfed due to HC.
 

kmoustakas

Scourge of Xaos
I've been playing a while and never quite warmed up to weapons with vorpal. I've taken weapons with additional damage over vorpal items usually. When is vorpal desirable? And, is it more useful in early game content vs. Epic or Legendary content? Thanks
It depends what difficulty you are running!

So if you are running anything up to elite, extra damage is usually better. On r10 for example, extra damage does 1 damage. Not 1%, 1. Literally 1. Ok sometimes 2 or 3 but usually one. The higher the reaper the higher effect vorpal has.

Also remember vorpal weapons also do +0.5w damage. So the higher the base damage of the weapon (greataxe vs dagger for example) the more damage vorpal does. That increases your critical hits as well so if you are playing a pure dps vs imbue/sneak dps, your criticals are the vast majority of your damage.
 

Vish

Founder and Winner of DDO
i have some legacy ml 1/2 vorpal weapons that are great until lvl10 or so
past that the base damage is the same as a vorpal

great to have for low level tho, esp a repeater
 

Purr

Well-known member
I've been playing a while and never quite warmed up to weapons with vorpal. I've taken weapons with additional damage over vorpal items usually. When is vorpal desirable? And, is it more useful in early game content vs. Epic or Legendary content? Thanks
Depends on the weapon you're using, I think. Expanded crit ranges, I think, would pretty much always prove to be more beneficial than the extra .5W or instakill effects. I can't think of any gear sets that build around vorpal weapons instead of, say, SoS, ratcatcher, bloom, nightforge weps, etc.

I guess there might be a case for taking the MD golden age weapons in heroics, but man, SoS (for maybe the first time in forever) feels easier to get than one of those, and the nightforge ones are trivial to obtain.
 
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