Post by Raj on Aug 21, 2013 8:20:31 GMT
When playing a melee character in the end game (lvl 55+) areas it's important to realize the choice of your weapon plays a big role in your actual contribution to the team success.
The first step is obviously loot/trade for a good weapon (from db-dis-abyss runs), but those come with fixed damage types on them, and such types aren't going to be the best suited ones for every situation; hence the need of aquiring multiple copies of the same weapon, and craft them accordingly to the monsters you want to fight.
Why is crafting weapons important?
Monsters healing from a particular dmg type is the obvious answer: if you have the wrong damage type on your weapon when fighting a particular monster you'll see a healing animation, its health won't drop (hit points can go over maximum as well, examining the monster will show a temporary hit points icon), and the whole party will yell at you ''fire heals'', ''stop healing'', ''no fire on the sup pit fiend'', ''omg noob'' and such
The less obvious answer is that you're not doing your job if you use a suboptimal weapon even against not-healing monsters; it's like choosing the wrong spell for the situation or forgetting to use a ability.
It may seem like you're doing fine, not dieing and tanking stuff, but that's half the job of a melee character, and using the wrong weapons means you're making the run lasting longer than it should, self-nerfing your dmg output.
What do I need in order to craft a weapon?
* A spare Dustbone or Dis weapon: a fully buffed DB one has a slight edge in dmg over a fully buffed Dis one, but sometime you lack some dmg buffs/keen and the difference is minimal, so both work; DB ones are quite easy to farm solo or with small party.
Abyss/lvl50 ones aren't craftable, lvl 35 and below rare ones are too weak, and Min ones are only good as a backup, solo farming, or for assassins/rangers who only care about the instakill and lack a gmw; so it's DB or Dis ones, for now.
* 6x crafting gems; the crafted weapon is going to have the dmg type of the gems you used, and you must respect the elemental/exotic dmg restriction on the base weapon: if the weapon came with acid/fire/cold/divine/negative/magic damage (3 elemental types, 3 exotic types), the new weapon can't have all 5 elemental types.
All Dis weapons have 3 elemental types and 3 exotic types, most DB ones have 3 and 3 as well, some have 4 elemental dmg types and 2 exotic ones: when crafting a weapon, you must find 6 appropriate gems even if you only need to change a single dmg type.
Such gems must be +2d12 or +16 dmg ones: a DB weapon needs 6x 2d12 gems, a Dis one requires 4x 16 gems (3 elemental, 1 exotic ones) and 2x 2d12 gems (for the last two exotic type).
Keeping such restrictions in mind, you can figure out why DB ones are cheaper to craft and your best solution (+16 gems only drop from few miniboss creatures and paragon enemies).
* Gold. Quite some, around 100-150 millions for a DB weapon (appraise score lowers the price, go craft with your wiz/rogue and then give the weapon to the dumb barbarian).
* A bag.
Visit the Alchemist in town, he'll explain you the procediment; long story short, use !forge command on the bag with the weapon and the 6 gems then speak with him.
That looks like a huge hassle, is there no cheaper way?
Please consider your weapon is the most important piece of gear for a warrior.
The gold cost is a fraction of what a good bur is worth on the market, and the gems are usually left (not identified) in the loot split: if you're in need don't feel bad act as the packrat grabbing all the gems and stay in party until all the unpicked items are mass-sold.
Finding spare weapons might look problematic: I saw quite many level 70+ NOOBS using a single, uncrafted, sometime lvl35 weapon in the end game areas (gaining a quite bad reputation out of that, but the good thing is they are the main sponsors of this guide), because they coudn't find spare weapons. BS.
First of all, stop look at the posted builds and copy their weapon of choice: everybody love to suggest katanas and bastard swords with the result that finding such weapons is a desperate mission. Most of the enemies you want to tank are crit immune, or take bad slashing damage, so you can safely choose less ''oomph'' weapons: warhammers, maces, battleaxes, longswords... martial weapons have low market demand and are perfectly fine. Keep in mind the choice of damage is important, and even more important is swapping to the right weapon istantly instead of running like a chicken when you meet a healing-type monster and your only katana has the wrong dmg type: if you have 4 unused DB longswords in bank and only one bastard sword, by all means choose longsword for your next tank.
Some builds weapon of choice is quite forced (staffy, rapier-wit smiter...) and you have to accept the fact finding the right base weapon is harder than normal, that being said using low demand weapons on your other tanks will help you trade spare fashion ones.
How many weapons do I need to craft?
Most of the time (and for all your Hells tanking duty) the right answer is 2. Yes, just TWO. You can see this is not a huge effort at all.
Two weapons let you cover all dmg types, while forcing you to have a single elemental and two exotics common to both weapons: such common dmg types can be problematic if you find the appropriate healing type monster, but you select them among the dmg types that heal only very rare enemies. More details in the next paragraph.
Consider casters have limited patience and number of weapon buffs, asking buffs for 10 different weapons is not going to make you popular; asking for ''all damage buffs plz'' isn't going to make you look 'pro' either because it means you have no clue about healing monsters, and the fact a added 4d4 dmg buff on a weapon without the appropriate elemental type isn't worth the time to buff (often resulting in a 0-1bonus dmg after dr/imms).
So, for every run you need 2, at most 3 (for the best dmg choice against the boss or a particular nasty monster) weapons crafted and buffed.
What are the best weapons to craft for every run? Update: check page 2 comments if the Dustbone variant of your weapon of choice has 4 elements + 2 exotics instead, or use Dis weapons
HELLS
1) Cold/Elec/Sonic/Divine/Positive/Negative
2) Acid/Fire/Sonic/Divine/Positive/Magic
The reasons behind the choice of elemental types are quite simple: almost nothing in hells heals on sonic, and sonic dmg is quite good against most things; with two weapons only you are forced to share a elemental type, and sonic is the safest choice.
Weapon 1 is perfect against Pit Fiends, your main target (even if you're a dex tank, you'll often have to flank these guys because everything else dies before them), and weapon 2 works against Malebranches. If you're doing your job, you're targetting these two guys most of the time. Asmodeus and most bosses are best served with weapon 1 as well.
Take your time to study the hells wiki and you'll discover how switching between weapons 1 and 2 let you have at least one major type of dmg good against every common foe, and such weapon isn't going to heal the relevant superior version.
Divine and positive are overall good exotic types for Hells as well, so they're shared by the two weapons: negative works good on many enemies mrs. Weapon 2 is aimed against (cornugons, osyluths, malebranches...) but it's going to heal superior kokrachons (a enemy not many druids deal with efficiently, and other casters can't istakill so must be bashed to death) and crafting weapon 2 in such way gives you a good weapon for Thanatos (Abyss) as well. No magic on mr. Weapon 1 because you want to have it equipped to deal with magebanes (paragon bueroza, heals on magic) fast, expecially in nessus/boss fights when you wield it most of the time: a cold/elec/div weapon with no magic on it is great in Shedaklan (Abyss) as well.
About the rare sonic/pos/div healers, the superior/elite versions of these mobs might be a problem: Masterwork Baatorian Golems and Orthon Fists (Div), Brachina Seductrix, Narzugon Eyes and Unbounds (Pos), Vexiarch and Kyton Legionnaires (Sonic); consider the only one of these who can't be istakilled by a caster is the Orthon Fist (not even by you noob Greater Ruin spammers! ), and the superior/elite version comes as a very rare random.
You can take your chances and not have a perfect weapon crafted for these guys as well, but here comes the usefulness of level 50/Minauros weapons that don't need gmw to be effective. A Acid/Negative, or Acid/Magic level 50 weapon is a great ''panic choice'' in these rare circumstances, else use a weapon from the next paragraph, or just focus on some other monster.
ABYSS
Here things get nastier, because many monsters heal from some particular damage, even if they're not a superior/elite version.
If you have crafted weapons 1 and 2 for your hellish duty, you'll be set most of the time because you only heal with sonic/positive/divine that, while being more common healing causes than they are in hells, aren't going to screw you against any major enemy. Checking the abyss wiki your main issue will be deal with Black Molidei (heal on divine and they're not random in Thanatos either); that being said I present you:
3) Acid/Cold/Sonic/Magic/Negative/Positive
4) Acid/Fire/Cold/Magic/Divine/Positive
5) Fire/Cold/Elec/Positive/Divine/Negative
You don't truly NEED these weapons badly if you have 1) and 2), but don't forget your tank duty is to kill enemies fast, with the right damage types, and using hell crafted weapons for abyss is not optimal.
Miss n°3 is going to be your Moly/Balor basher; Miss n°4 is what you want equipped for most of your Zio travels, it doesn't heal ekolids and deals perfect dmg vs them (and Obox). Miss n°5 is a all around great weapon in Azzagrat (and perfect dmg types vs damn trees). For Than and all the undeads healing on negative you dust off weapon 2)
A lot of swapping is needed in Abyss, please read wiki/use loggers/ask in game.
ELYSIUM
Negative/sonic are great dmg types to have against pretty much everything. You might want to not have positive on your weapon because it heals prismatic golems and the deathless guys, but these are casters targets so crafting ad hoc weapons is overkill.
Weapons 1) and 3) are fine, but if you feel rich, and want to have a perfect weapon against malebranches/osyluths as well just modify 2) changing magic to negative damage, or modify 3) changing positive to divine and you can bash deathless in safety for when the casters' skills are underwhelming.
ABOLETHS
A lot of things with kickback you don't want to hit here, and your weapon isn't going to do much against aboleths if they're not dispelled/you have a slashing one.
That being said fire and positive are good types to have, with cold being useful against most minibosses, acid and magic against golems, while it's important not having elec on your weapon so you can bash stoned cristal oozes in safety.
Weapon 4) is great to use here
LIMBO NEW!
You really want for your weapon of choice to be of a slashing type here (Slaads, some slime-like creatures), but if you're mostly concerned about part 1 then bludgeoning trumps alternatives. It is worth carry bludgeoning options even if you're specialized in different weapons to deal with extremely high (80%+) immunities to slash/pierce on some common foes, the good thing here is that such targets have very low ab/are crit immune so weapon feats don't matter. More on that later.
Your main weapon has to deal with Slaads, and all of them (exception green slaads atm, but sounds like a temporary oversight) heal when hit with acid. Even non-paragon ones. They are also 100% immune to sonic so it's cold/elec/fire for them; sonic healers are quite rare so if your weapon has 4 elements on it (such as the DB greatswords in the example) it's sort of safe to have sonic as well. The various slaads have different exotic resistances, and while negative damage comes handy against some of the bigger toads it is also a pain to switch around with the many negative healers that populate this run, especially the second half. It's also more common to have divine buffed by some paladin/blackguard than negative by thosecrap underrated shadowdancers.
That means you can use weapon 5) if you already crafted one (and think you can deal with the neg healers quickly), or craft a new one:
6a) Cold/Elec/Fire/Divine/Magic/Positive
6b) Cold/Elec/Fire/Sonic/Magic/Positive
There're a myriad of acid healers on this run so this weapon works well even in Chaotic (te-he) situations. The other main source of healing for the run is electric (Zeugalak, Anarchic Storm Giants, superior Stormwardens and Limbo Stalkers and these guys spawn in maps where the relatively common positive healers (superior mivilorns, titans, bloodthorns) also have good chances of showing up.
7a) Acid/Cold/Fire/Divine/Magic/Negative
7b) Acid/Cold/Fire/Sonic/Magic/Negative
There're no Divine healers, and Magic healers are dealt with casters/not really recommended to tank. Also no Cold healers in part 1 (very rare Fire healers in part 1 as well, superior/elite Githzerai Avengers only). So these two weapons are enough for part 1. Exception if you are using the b) variants and need to deal with Sonic healers, namely superior/elite Chaos Rocs and randomly Amorphons (they heal of a random element picked among Acid/Elec/Sonic). If you are in this situation. it is safe to use a level 50/min/limbo weapon against those guys.
Not a must have but quite handy option, just for map 4 of part 1 filled with Gith creatures (boss included):
8) Acid/Elec/Sonic/Divine/Magic/Positive
And you pretty much never have to swap it inside the monastery.
To deal with the Cold and Fire healers in part 2 (elementals) a 4th weapon is needed, or even a 5th (because well, fire ones take cold and viceversa, who'd have guessed) but it might start to get confusing by now. I usually go for a minimalistic approach.
9) Elec/Sonic/Magic/Negative Min bludgeoning weapon
Elementals are very vulnerable to those exotic types so even lacking the 'perfect' counter element works. Note this is also the 'more on later' bludgeoning weapon you want to have handy for the many Kaorti enemies (Sup+ heal on acid) in both run halves; an alternative (that might actually deal some more damage against the very resistant Kaortis and Amorphons) would be going the perfectionist route and then have
optional 1) Sonic/Divine level 50 bludgeoning weapon
That is also cool against Amorphons, but then to deal respectable damage against elementals you must also have
optional 2) Elec/Fire/Magic/Negative Min weapon or Elec/Fire/Sonic/Magic/Negative/Divine DB/Dis for Thalassi
optional 3) Acid/Cold/Magic/Negative Min weapon or Acid/Cold/Sonic/Magic/Negative/Divine DB/Dis for Pyrophor
I'd stick to 6+7+8 for part1, and 6+7+9 for part2 to keep swapping less confusing, then if you are using a 4 elements weapons and have Sonic everywhere make sure to have a bludgeoning no-sonic option and ask just a gmw for it. Really, 4 weapons is already too many, better keep it simple, especially in the long part 2 when buffs will drop mid run.
I want more pro tips!
* Learn what to expect in the next spawn, so that you are wielding the right weapon and you don't need to swap, losing one full round worth of attacks.
* If you killed your opponent, and the next target is badly wounded it's often not worth swap weapon and losing attacks in the process, obvious exception if the target is a healer.
* Rename your weapons: it saves you a lot of time not having to examine each one. "!setname" command is your friend.
* Craft the weapon appearance as well: just change the blade color or the weapon visual ( "!wp##" command), it makes it a lot easier to realize you're wielding the right weapon.
* Carry some toyshop gems for the 1 in a 100 chance situation when you have to swap to the odd weapon that's not worth ask buffs for
* Some spontaneous casters can't fit the Keen Edge spell, carry some cheap scrolls if you have umd/arcane splash or use items like the Rona sai or the Phleg armor for it
* Sometime can be worth craft a weapon you didn't spend feats for: if your tank uses a warhammer you're going to be disappointed by the phisical portion of dmg against things like aboleths/viper trees/oozes ... the good thing is that many of these high resistant enemies have very low ac and often are crit immune so you're going to hit anyway and deal better damage if you buff a alternate weapon (a slashing weapon with fire/positive/elec/cold works great in these examples), possibly a Min one so you don't need a fresh IoF either (because 99% chance it's already been used)
* The introduction of Paragon Weapon Alternate feats made up for the loss of double-damage weapon types (halberds and morning stars now only deal piercing, scythes only slashing); if your weapon of choice is piercing or slashing, having a bludgeoning alternative is well worth it (especially for hells), while if your weapon is bludgeoning you're best served with PWA in slashing (Limbo and Aboleths, the latter mainly for better critical range) or piercing (Abyss and Ely) ones, depends what you expect to run more often.
The first step is obviously loot/trade for a good weapon (from db-dis-abyss runs), but those come with fixed damage types on them, and such types aren't going to be the best suited ones for every situation; hence the need of aquiring multiple copies of the same weapon, and craft them accordingly to the monsters you want to fight.
Why is crafting weapons important?
Monsters healing from a particular dmg type is the obvious answer: if you have the wrong damage type on your weapon when fighting a particular monster you'll see a healing animation, its health won't drop (hit points can go over maximum as well, examining the monster will show a temporary hit points icon), and the whole party will yell at you ''fire heals'', ''stop healing'', ''no fire on the sup pit fiend'', ''omg noob'' and such
The less obvious answer is that you're not doing your job if you use a suboptimal weapon even against not-healing monsters; it's like choosing the wrong spell for the situation or forgetting to use a ability.
It may seem like you're doing fine, not dieing and tanking stuff, but that's half the job of a melee character, and using the wrong weapons means you're making the run lasting longer than it should, self-nerfing your dmg output.
What do I need in order to craft a weapon?
* A spare Dustbone or Dis weapon: a fully buffed DB one has a slight edge in dmg over a fully buffed Dis one, but sometime you lack some dmg buffs/keen and the difference is minimal, so both work; DB ones are quite easy to farm solo or with small party.
Abyss/lvl50 ones aren't craftable, lvl 35 and below rare ones are too weak, and Min ones are only good as a backup, solo farming, or for assassins/rangers who only care about the instakill and lack a gmw; so it's DB or Dis ones, for now.
* 6x crafting gems; the crafted weapon is going to have the dmg type of the gems you used, and you must respect the elemental/exotic dmg restriction on the base weapon: if the weapon came with acid/fire/cold/divine/negative/magic damage (3 elemental types, 3 exotic types), the new weapon can't have all 5 elemental types.
All Dis weapons have 3 elemental types and 3 exotic types, most DB ones have 3 and 3 as well, some have 4 elemental dmg types and 2 exotic ones: when crafting a weapon, you must find 6 appropriate gems even if you only need to change a single dmg type.
Such gems must be +2d12 or +16 dmg ones: a DB weapon needs 6x 2d12 gems, a Dis one requires 4x 16 gems (3 elemental, 1 exotic ones) and 2x 2d12 gems (for the last two exotic type).
Keeping such restrictions in mind, you can figure out why DB ones are cheaper to craft and your best solution (+16 gems only drop from few miniboss creatures and paragon enemies).
* Gold. Quite some, around 100-150 millions for a DB weapon (appraise score lowers the price, go craft with your wiz/rogue and then give the weapon to the dumb barbarian).
* A bag.
Visit the Alchemist in town, he'll explain you the procediment; long story short, use !forge command on the bag with the weapon and the 6 gems then speak with him.
That looks like a huge hassle, is there no cheaper way?
Please consider your weapon is the most important piece of gear for a warrior.
The gold cost is a fraction of what a good bur is worth on the market, and the gems are usually left (not identified) in the loot split: if you're in need don't feel bad act as the packrat grabbing all the gems and stay in party until all the unpicked items are mass-sold.
Finding spare weapons might look problematic: I saw quite many level 70+ NOOBS using a single, uncrafted, sometime lvl35 weapon in the end game areas (gaining a quite bad reputation out of that, but the good thing is they are the main sponsors of this guide), because they coudn't find spare weapons. BS.
First of all, stop look at the posted builds and copy their weapon of choice: everybody love to suggest katanas and bastard swords with the result that finding such weapons is a desperate mission. Most of the enemies you want to tank are crit immune, or take bad slashing damage, so you can safely choose less ''oomph'' weapons: warhammers, maces, battleaxes, longswords... martial weapons have low market demand and are perfectly fine. Keep in mind the choice of damage is important, and even more important is swapping to the right weapon istantly instead of running like a chicken when you meet a healing-type monster and your only katana has the wrong dmg type: if you have 4 unused DB longswords in bank and only one bastard sword, by all means choose longsword for your next tank.
Some builds weapon of choice is quite forced (staffy, rapier-wit smiter...) and you have to accept the fact finding the right base weapon is harder than normal, that being said using low demand weapons on your other tanks will help you trade spare fashion ones.
How many weapons do I need to craft?
Most of the time (and for all your Hells tanking duty) the right answer is 2. Yes, just TWO. You can see this is not a huge effort at all.
Two weapons let you cover all dmg types, while forcing you to have a single elemental and two exotics common to both weapons: such common dmg types can be problematic if you find the appropriate healing type monster, but you select them among the dmg types that heal only very rare enemies. More details in the next paragraph.
Consider casters have limited patience and number of weapon buffs, asking buffs for 10 different weapons is not going to make you popular; asking for ''all damage buffs plz'' isn't going to make you look 'pro' either because it means you have no clue about healing monsters, and the fact a added 4d4 dmg buff on a weapon without the appropriate elemental type isn't worth the time to buff (often resulting in a 0-1bonus dmg after dr/imms).
So, for every run you need 2, at most 3 (for the best dmg choice against the boss or a particular nasty monster) weapons crafted and buffed.
What are the best weapons to craft for every run? Update: check page 2 comments if the Dustbone variant of your weapon of choice has 4 elements + 2 exotics instead, or use Dis weapons
HELLS
1) Cold/Elec/Sonic/Divine/Positive/Negative
2) Acid/Fire/Sonic/Divine/Positive/Magic
The reasons behind the choice of elemental types are quite simple: almost nothing in hells heals on sonic, and sonic dmg is quite good against most things; with two weapons only you are forced to share a elemental type, and sonic is the safest choice.
Weapon 1 is perfect against Pit Fiends, your main target (even if you're a dex tank, you'll often have to flank these guys because everything else dies before them), and weapon 2 works against Malebranches. If you're doing your job, you're targetting these two guys most of the time. Asmodeus and most bosses are best served with weapon 1 as well.
Take your time to study the hells wiki and you'll discover how switching between weapons 1 and 2 let you have at least one major type of dmg good against every common foe, and such weapon isn't going to heal the relevant superior version.
Divine and positive are overall good exotic types for Hells as well, so they're shared by the two weapons: negative works good on many enemies mrs. Weapon 2 is aimed against (cornugons, osyluths, malebranches...) but it's going to heal superior kokrachons (a enemy not many druids deal with efficiently, and other casters can't istakill so must be bashed to death) and crafting weapon 2 in such way gives you a good weapon for Thanatos (Abyss) as well. No magic on mr. Weapon 1 because you want to have it equipped to deal with magebanes (paragon bueroza, heals on magic) fast, expecially in nessus/boss fights when you wield it most of the time: a cold/elec/div weapon with no magic on it is great in Shedaklan (Abyss) as well.
About the rare sonic/pos/div healers, the superior/elite versions of these mobs might be a problem: Masterwork Baatorian Golems and Orthon Fists (Div), Brachina Seductrix, Narzugon Eyes and Unbounds (Pos), Vexiarch and Kyton Legionnaires (Sonic); consider the only one of these who can't be istakilled by a caster is the Orthon Fist (not even by you noob Greater Ruin spammers! ), and the superior/elite version comes as a very rare random.
You can take your chances and not have a perfect weapon crafted for these guys as well, but here comes the usefulness of level 50/Minauros weapons that don't need gmw to be effective. A Acid/Negative, or Acid/Magic level 50 weapon is a great ''panic choice'' in these rare circumstances, else use a weapon from the next paragraph, or just focus on some other monster.
ABYSS
Here things get nastier, because many monsters heal from some particular damage, even if they're not a superior/elite version.
If you have crafted weapons 1 and 2 for your hellish duty, you'll be set most of the time because you only heal with sonic/positive/divine that, while being more common healing causes than they are in hells, aren't going to screw you against any major enemy. Checking the abyss wiki your main issue will be deal with Black Molidei (heal on divine and they're not random in Thanatos either); that being said I present you:
3) Acid/Cold/Sonic/Magic/Negative/Positive
4) Acid/Fire/Cold/Magic/Divine/Positive
5) Fire/Cold/Elec/Positive/Divine/Negative
You don't truly NEED these weapons badly if you have 1) and 2), but don't forget your tank duty is to kill enemies fast, with the right damage types, and using hell crafted weapons for abyss is not optimal.
Miss n°3 is going to be your Moly/Balor basher; Miss n°4 is what you want equipped for most of your Zio travels, it doesn't heal ekolids and deals perfect dmg vs them (and Obox). Miss n°5 is a all around great weapon in Azzagrat (and perfect dmg types vs damn trees). For Than and all the undeads healing on negative you dust off weapon 2)
A lot of swapping is needed in Abyss, please read wiki/use loggers/ask in game.
ELYSIUM
Negative/sonic are great dmg types to have against pretty much everything. You might want to not have positive on your weapon because it heals prismatic golems and the deathless guys, but these are casters targets so crafting ad hoc weapons is overkill.
Weapons 1) and 3) are fine, but if you feel rich, and want to have a perfect weapon against malebranches/osyluths as well just modify 2) changing magic to negative damage, or modify 3) changing positive to divine and you can bash deathless in safety for when the casters' skills are underwhelming.
ABOLETHS
A lot of things with kickback you don't want to hit here, and your weapon isn't going to do much against aboleths if they're not dispelled/you have a slashing one.
That being said fire and positive are good types to have, with cold being useful against most minibosses, acid and magic against golems, while it's important not having elec on your weapon so you can bash stoned cristal oozes in safety.
Weapon 4) is great to use here
LIMBO NEW!
You really want for your weapon of choice to be of a slashing type here (Slaads, some slime-like creatures), but if you're mostly concerned about part 1 then bludgeoning trumps alternatives. It is worth carry bludgeoning options even if you're specialized in different weapons to deal with extremely high (80%+) immunities to slash/pierce on some common foes, the good thing here is that such targets have very low ab/are crit immune so weapon feats don't matter. More on that later.
Your main weapon has to deal with Slaads, and all of them (exception green slaads atm, but sounds like a temporary oversight) heal when hit with acid. Even non-paragon ones. They are also 100% immune to sonic so it's cold/elec/fire for them; sonic healers are quite rare so if your weapon has 4 elements on it (such as the DB greatswords in the example) it's sort of safe to have sonic as well. The various slaads have different exotic resistances, and while negative damage comes handy against some of the bigger toads it is also a pain to switch around with the many negative healers that populate this run, especially the second half. It's also more common to have divine buffed by some paladin/blackguard than negative by those
That means you can use weapon 5) if you already crafted one (and think you can deal with the neg healers quickly), or craft a new one:
6a) Cold/Elec/Fire/Divine/Magic/Positive
6b) Cold/Elec/Fire/Sonic/Magic/Positive
There're a myriad of acid healers on this run so this weapon works well even in Chaotic (te-he) situations. The other main source of healing for the run is electric (Zeugalak, Anarchic Storm Giants, superior Stormwardens and Limbo Stalkers and these guys spawn in maps where the relatively common positive healers (superior mivilorns, titans, bloodthorns) also have good chances of showing up.
7a) Acid/Cold/Fire/Divine/Magic/Negative
7b) Acid/Cold/Fire/Sonic/Magic/Negative
There're no Divine healers, and Magic healers are dealt with casters/not really recommended to tank. Also no Cold healers in part 1 (very rare Fire healers in part 1 as well, superior/elite Githzerai Avengers only). So these two weapons are enough for part 1. Exception if you are using the b) variants and need to deal with Sonic healers, namely superior/elite Chaos Rocs and randomly Amorphons (they heal of a random element picked among Acid/Elec/Sonic). If you are in this situation. it is safe to use a level 50/min/limbo weapon against those guys.
Not a must have but quite handy option, just for map 4 of part 1 filled with Gith creatures (boss included):
8) Acid/Elec/Sonic/Divine/Magic/Positive
And you pretty much never have to swap it inside the monastery.
To deal with the Cold and Fire healers in part 2 (elementals) a 4th weapon is needed, or even a 5th (because well, fire ones take cold and viceversa, who'd have guessed) but it might start to get confusing by now. I usually go for a minimalistic approach.
9) Elec/Sonic/Magic/Negative Min bludgeoning weapon
Elementals are very vulnerable to those exotic types so even lacking the 'perfect' counter element works. Note this is also the 'more on later' bludgeoning weapon you want to have handy for the many Kaorti enemies (Sup+ heal on acid) in both run halves; an alternative (that might actually deal some more damage against the very resistant Kaortis and Amorphons) would be going the perfectionist route and then have
optional 1) Sonic/Divine level 50 bludgeoning weapon
That is also cool against Amorphons, but then to deal respectable damage against elementals you must also have
optional 2) Elec/Fire/Magic/Negative Min weapon or Elec/Fire/Sonic/Magic/Negative/Divine DB/Dis for Thalassi
optional 3) Acid/Cold/Magic/Negative Min weapon or Acid/Cold/Sonic/Magic/Negative/Divine DB/Dis for Pyrophor
I'd stick to 6+7+8 for part1, and 6+7+9 for part2 to keep swapping less confusing, then if you are using a 4 elements weapons and have Sonic everywhere make sure to have a bludgeoning no-sonic option and ask just a gmw for it. Really, 4 weapons is already too many, better keep it simple, especially in the long part 2 when buffs will drop mid run.
I want more pro tips!
* Learn what to expect in the next spawn, so that you are wielding the right weapon and you don't need to swap, losing one full round worth of attacks.
* If you killed your opponent, and the next target is badly wounded it's often not worth swap weapon and losing attacks in the process, obvious exception if the target is a healer.
* Rename your weapons: it saves you a lot of time not having to examine each one. "!setname" command is your friend.
* Craft the weapon appearance as well: just change the blade color or the weapon visual ( "!wp##" command), it makes it a lot easier to realize you're wielding the right weapon.
* Carry some toyshop gems for the 1 in a 100 chance situation when you have to swap to the odd weapon that's not worth ask buffs for
* Some spontaneous casters can't fit the Keen Edge spell, carry some cheap scrolls if you have umd/arcane splash or use items like the Rona sai or the Phleg armor for it
* Sometime can be worth craft a weapon you didn't spend feats for: if your tank uses a warhammer you're going to be disappointed by the phisical portion of dmg against things like aboleths/viper trees/oozes ... the good thing is that many of these high resistant enemies have very low ac and often are crit immune so you're going to hit anyway and deal better damage if you buff a alternate weapon (a slashing weapon with fire/positive/elec/cold works great in these examples), possibly a Min one so you don't need a fresh IoF either (because 99% chance it's already been used)
* The introduction of Paragon Weapon Alternate feats made up for the loss of double-damage weapon types (halberds and morning stars now only deal piercing, scythes only slashing); if your weapon of choice is piercing or slashing, having a bludgeoning alternative is well worth it (especially for hells), while if your weapon is bludgeoning you're best served with PWA in slashing (Limbo and Aboleths, the latter mainly for better critical range) or piercing (Abyss and Ely) ones, depends what you expect to run more often.