Ceremonial sword
Ceremonial swords are a random event that can occur when smithing in the Artisans' Workshop. Whenever the player finishes smithing any item in the workshop (including burial equipment), there is a chance for Lige Tonweight to appear. When talking to him, he will offer a ceremonial sword design after which he will disappear again. Participating in the event yields experience based on how well players have matched the design. If a perfect score is achieved, players will be offered the made sword or its off-hand counterpart.
Smithing ceremonial swords is solely a members activity. Free players may receive the designs but are unable to interact with them. Because they cannot be banked, this can become a nuisance to free players. They should drop the plans, unless they are about to become a member to use them.
Overview[edit | edit source]
The goal of this activity is to hammer a hot ingot into a specified shape before the ingot cools.
Experience awarded for ceremonial swords is prorated based on performance. A 20% experience bonus is awarded for perfect score. A warning message displays when handing in ceremonial swords that would award 0 XP.
Making the sword[edit | edit source]
To make a sword, after getting plans from completing an item, simply click on an anvil in the Artisans' Workshop.
In the interface, the picture at the top shows the plan. The goal is to recreate the shape with the given number of tries. The closer the match is, the higher the performance and the higher the experience awarded.
To smith a sword, players must select a hit type: Hard, Medium, Soft, or Careful. They then click one of the 16 hammer buttons to create a dent at that position. The cooldown number starts at between 22 and 39, apparently depending on the sword design. For every hit, the cooldown number decreases. When this number reaches zero, the sword is no longer workable. Players then may ask Egil to score the sword and award the experience for it. The cooldown timer decreases by one for Hard, Medium, and Soft hits. It decreases by two for Careful hits.
To decide which hit to use, it is important to know the range, typical hit, and cooldown effect for each hit type. This is shown in the table below. The chance to make a typical hit increases with Smithing level.
| Type | Cooldown | Range | Typical |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hard | 1 | 0-5 | 3 |
| Medium | 1 | 0-3 | 2 |
| Soft | 1 | 0-2 | 1 |
| Careful | 2 | 1 | 1 |
A dent larger than 8 for the tip of the sword or 6 for the rest of the sword shatters the sword.
If this happens, no experience is awarded. Sword polishing kits can be used to prevent the breaking of ceremonial swords. If the performance on the sword is low enough, no experience is awarded in that case, either. In calculating the performance, the parts closer to the tip of the sword appear to be weighted more heavily. Dents that are too deep appear to be counted more heavily against performance than dents that are not deep enough.
Strategy[edit | edit source]
- Avoid shattering the sword at all costs.
- Apply a HARD hit to areas requiring a 4 dent or more.
- Apply a MEDIUM hit to areas requiring a 2 dent or more, except where a 3 dent would break the sword.
- Apply a SOFT hit to areas requiring a 1 dent or more, except where a 2 dent would break the sword.
- Go around applying HARD hits to required areas, then MEDIUM and SOFT, this saves more time.
- Start the tip early, but finish it last, as it requires more hits to perfect. In some cases not starting the tip will result in a XP award of 5% or less.
- SOFT hits are more likely to be typical (1) than HARD hits.
- Use CAREFUL only when you have cooldown to burn or hitting more than 1 might break the blade. Otherwise, a SOFT hit is a better option.
- Prioritise accuracy over symmetry. If you have time to get one side perfect or make the sword symmetrical, but not both, prefer the former.
- If you over-dent a sword, don't fret, move on and finish it anyway. This is common when your hits are based on chance. Speak to Egil and ask him to rate your sword if you finish with heat still remaining.
The key to making ceremonial swords from the plans is knowing how hard to hit the sword with your hammer. For instance, if the player is supposed to get a certain segment to 4 or above, the player should hit it the hardest. If 2 or 3 is required, the player should hit with medium. If one is required, the player should hit lightly.
A good strategy for someone of 95+ Smithing[edit | edit source]
- Hit all the areas requiring a hit greater than or equal to 4 with the 'Hard' hit.
- Hit all the areas requiring a hit of 3 with the 'Medium' hit.
- Hit all areas requiring a hit of 1 with 'soft', as soft is always a guaranteed 1 or 0 for level 95+ players.
Now only areas that need cutting down by an area of 2 remain:
- Weigh up how many turns you have left with total dent required.
- If you have enough cooldown, hit all areas with 'soft'.
- If you do NOT have enough cooldown, risk some hits (but except the tip) with 'medium' to obtain some 2's until you have enough turns left; then finish off with 'soft'.
Scoring[edit | edit source]
It seems that the score is calculated by subtracting a penalty for each incorrect location, where the penalty depends on the size of the deviation from the correct value and the number of errors of that type. Below is a table for underhits and overhit penalties.
| Overhit or Underhit | Difference | # Locations | Penalty % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underhit | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Underhit | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Underhit | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Underhit | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| Underhit | 1 | 5 | 4 |
| Underhit | 1 | 6 | 4 |
| Underhit | 1 | 7 or more | 6 |
| Overhit | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Overhit | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Overhit | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Overhit | 1 | 4 | 4? |
| Overhit | 1 | 5 | 4? |
| Overhit | 1 | 6 | 4? |
| Overhit | 1 | 7 or more | 10 |
| Underhit | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Underhit | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Underhit | 2 | 3 | 8 |
| Underhit | 2 | 4 | 12 |
| Overhit | 2 | 2 | 8 |
However the way in which errors of different type combine is not completely clear. Interesting cases:
- A sword with 2 locations underhit by 1 and 2 locations underhit by 2 scores 80%. This implies that the penalty for each location depends on the total number of locations that were underhit.
- A sword with 1 location underhit by 1 and 2 locations underhit by 2 also scores 80%.
- A sword with 1 location overhit by 1 and 1 location underhit by 2 scores 96%.
Distraction and Diversion[edit | edit source]
While working on the Ceremonial sword, there is a high chance that a burst pipe will appear immediately after completing a sword order.
Rewards[edit | edit source]
If you complete your Ceremonial sword before the cooldown ends, speak to Egil (located at the front of the Artisan's Workshop) and ask to rate your sword. (
)
Players receive a one-time reward of 5,000 experience upon the creation of any ceremonial sword with 90%+ performance and a one-time reward of 15,000 experience upon the creation of any ceremonial sword with 100% performance.
Upon completing a perfect sword (100% performance), you are awarded a 20% experience bonus and, for iron to rune, Lige will ask if the player wishes to keep the sword as a main-hand or off-hand sword. Upon completing a perfect bronze sword, you are awarded the 20% experience bonus, but you don't get to keep the sword.
As with other activities in the workshop, players receive +1% respect for every 10k experience from swords smithed. The respect can be doubled while carrying an activated Artisans' workshop respect enhancer.
Pieces of the Blacksmith's outfit can also be obtained by completing a ceremonial sword. There is a 1/25 chance of receiving part of the outfit from making a perfect sword, and 1/100 for all others.[1] When obtaining an outfit piece from ceremonial sword smithing, the following message appears in the chatbox:
As an extra reward for completing this sword, you're also awarded with a piece of the Blacksmith's outfit.
It is possible to get a crystal triskelion fragment instead of a sword, even below 100% performance. This gives the message "You obtain a Crystal triskelion fragment!"
For players using a hammer-tron or an augmented crystal hammer, it is only required to equip it when scoring to level the items and minimise drain.
Update history[edit | edit source]
- patch 7 June 2021 (Update):
- Fixed issues with the Ceremonial Sword tutorial. Sten is now in the right place during the animation and the Respect Percentage box no longer disappears after exiting or completing the tutorial.
- patch 1 June 2020 (Update):
- The flame sword enchantment is now disabled on all ceremonial swords.
- ninja 6 April 2020 (Update):
- Ceremonial sword plans will no longer retain the progress of previous plans. The first plan you receive after this update may still have some leftovers on it, but every other one will be brand-new.
- patch 14 October 2019 (Update):
- Fixed an issue causing Ceremonial smithing projects to start with changes already made.
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- After the Mining and Smithing rework, ceremonial sword smithing was changed to a D&D within the Artisans' Workshop.[2]
- Prior to the Mining and Smithing rework ceremonial sword smithing required level 70 Smithing and Grade IV ingots to make.
- Prior to the Mining and Smithing rework players required tongs and a hammer. These could be found in the workshop just inside the entrance. Both tools can be placed on the tool belt.
References[edit | edit source]
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| Off-hand |
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