Steel Shovel
Steel shovel, tier 7: 390 digging power.
What a steel shovel is really worth
The number printed on the recipe is the power of a common copy, untempered, with no modifier and no enchantment, the worst possible roll. Four multipliers stack on top of it, and the best copy is worth seven times the worst.
Order matters: the runic modifier lands on an already tempered tool, and the enchantment applies last of all, on what the other three produced. Tempering before or after changes nothing, everything is recomputed on every display, but each tempering level gained raises what the modifier and the enchantment pay afterwards.
Quality, rolled at craft time
Quality is not cosmetic: it decides how many modifiers the tool can carry, how far it can be tempered, and how high its modifiers can climb. It is rolled once, at craft time, and it is played on your crafting table level: that is the only reason to raise the crafting table beyond the level the recipe demands.
| Quality | Odds at crafting table 7 | Modifiers | Max bracket | Max temper | Ceiling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common | Odds at crafting table 750,3 % | none | 3 | Ceiling678 | |
| Uncommon | Odds at crafting table 726,9 % | 1 | 2 / 10 | 5 | Ceiling1 199 |
| Rare | Odds at crafting table 714,9 % | 2 | 4 / 10 | 7 | Ceiling1 753 |
| Epic | Odds at crafting table 77,1 % | 3 | 6 / 10 | 8 | Ceiling2 196 |
| Legendary | Odds at crafting table 70,9 % | 4 | 8 / 10 | 10 | Ceiling2 773 |
At the ceiling, a legendary beats a fresh a infernal shovel, five tiers higher: 2 773 against 1 200. But it only rolls once in 117 at crafting table 7. Raising the crafting table to level 15 turns that into once in 33. That is the main lever, not the only one: a cooked dish granting a quality bonus shifts the crafting table level used for the roll, with nothing built.
A tool can only carry one modifier of each type. The four slots of a legendary therefore never hold four power bonuses: one counts for power, the others go to crit, area affinity, job XP or a specific resource.
Tempering, level by level
Each tempering level adds a fixed share of the base power, and is paid in the recipe's resources. The bill climbs every level: the tenth alone costs a full craft, and pushing a shovel from zero to ten costs 5,5 times that, retries not counted. The risk, though, is not linear: up to level 3 a failure only costs resources, from 4 on it can drop a level, and from 6 on it can break the tool.
| Level | Power | Cost in crafts | Success | On failure | Flawless |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 449 | 10 % | 95 % | 95 % | |
| 2 | 507 | 20 % | 90 % | 85,5 % | |
| 3 | 565 | 30,0 % | 80 % | 68,4 % | |
| 4 | 624 | 40 % | 70 % | 47,9 % | |
| 5 | 683 | 50 % | 60 % | 28,7 % | |
| 6 | 741 | 60,0 % | 50 % | 14,4 % | |
| 7 | 800 | 70 % | 35 % | 5,0 % | |
| 8 | 858 | 80 % | 25 % | 1,3 % | |
| 9 | 917 | 90 % | 15 % | 0,19 % | |
| 10 | 975 | 100 % | 5 % | 0,009 % |
Tempering 3 can do nothing worse than cost resources, and it returns +45% power for a little over half the ingredients of a single craft. The next tier in the series, Mithril Shovel, returns +28% for 2,4 times the value of this one. Temper first, climb tiers after.
A tool broken beyond level 5 is not lost: repairing costs 50% of the recipe's resources and drops one tempering level. It is the only thing in the world that repairs a tool, and it opens only after a break, never before.
The tier before, the one after
The only two comparisons that arise while holding this tool. The whole series is on the family page.
This one gives +30% more for 3,5× the price
13 128 of value per power point
Gives +28% more for 2,4× the price