Optimal weapons in Smithing (Forging): a second, deeper (?), look - Blades/Heads + Guards/Banners and Accessories. Bit of a letdown

Hello everyone.It’s been one month since part 1 was released (This one https://www.reddit.com/r/Bannerlord/comments/12yqhq5/optimal_weapons_in_smithing_forging_a_first_look/).I’m here posting again to go forwards in the established direction from part 1.There will be a TL;DR section at the end.

A little recap is in order: last time we crafted every single possible weapon in Bannerlord, but ignoring guards, pommels, grips, accessories (From now on, "Parts 2/3/4")... and only switched between different blades/heads ("Parts 1"), which I expected to determine the overall worth of the item much more than the other parts (This proved to be the case, according to today's data).Furthermore, there were no changes in size at all, so all components were crafted only in standard size.

Again, I've updated the Google drive folder I've been using up until now. It contains a series of screenshots detailing the weapon's name (Which in turn is a combination of the components used to craft it) and its cost.It's this one here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1twBKwxsz3q7LFDW3zj7nHzzlNz6dDLAe?usp=drive_link

This time around, we’re sticking with the best blades and heads, or Parts 1 (Which by the way all turned out to be from the Polearms and Two handed swords categories), and we’re switching between Parts 2, which are Guards, Banners but also Accessories (For Polearms). All other parts will be left untouched.By “Best blades and heads”, please do refer to my earlier post’s TL;DR, points 2 to 12 name every component I’m considering again.I’ll be mentioning them here too, but the TL;DR is much clearer.

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Very well then, time to start with a shocker: these new data do not make much sense if we’re expecting to find the one meta item to craft.There are general patterns, but there is no definite answer when it comes to finding the overall best of Parts 2.As a matter of fact, this whole thing would’ve been MUCH EASIER if only I’d accepted earlier just how generic and unreliable these number become, and how harder it’d be to tell exactly what’s better than what.So, in a certain sense I surrendered and accepted to publish sub-optimal data (Not because I wanted to, do keep in mind), and at that point everything got so, so much easier.I mean, at least we’ll be able to keep it short, unlike last time.

We can split this post into two from here on out:

1. For the Polearms:Components 5-3 and 5-4 go along with all weapons equally well, increasing the value by about 10k more when compared to the third place (Except polearm head 2-7, which they impact much, much less, and actually head 2-7 seems to prefer guard 4-10 over guard 5-4 for whatever reason, but NOT guard 5-3. Weird).Anyway, 5-3 and 5-4 are practically equal in value between eachother, so they may be used interchangeably with little to no difference.This is the one certainty of Parts 2 for Polearms: when crafting, use 5-3s and 5-4s for maximum value.

This is where the data take a turn: for polearm heads 5-3, 4-1 and 4-4, the next best 3 alternatives from Parts 2 are Banners 5-1, 5-2 and 4-2. They are not overwhelmingly better than the rest, and make it out by a few hundreds gold.For the other heads, however, the leaderboard is very different: 5-1, 5-2 and 4-2 are found below or not found at all, replaced mostly by 4-10 and 4-5 as the consistent top pick.This has to be expected: at this point the difference is in the order of a few hundreds gold, hardly noticeable, therefore components are bound to cross eachother in value.All-in-all, the message is clear: everything goes, the difference is slim.

So basically, for polearms: do 5-3s and 5-4s, then probably still do 5-1s and 5-2s because they have no cost.Do take note however: 5-1s and 5-2s can be worse than lesser components, even by quite a lot. If crafting for value while having tons of materials, do experiment a bit, it may be worth it.Other component combos are too inconsistent to calculate precisely, but if you really must I’d go 4-5s and 4-10s.

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2) For the Two handed swords:Unlike polearms, Two handed swords do not have a small set of specific components that are decisively better: their whole 5th tier of Parts 2 is way better than anything before.The difference between components in this tier is of a few hundreds gold, practically they are the same UNLESS one wanted to min-max for resources: if yes, then guards 5-1 and 5-9 are the worst of the bunch, because they cost 2 Fine steel instead of just 1.If not, they are instead the best by a small margin (Which, again, kind of makes you appreciate more min-maxing for resources).Other than that, pretty much anything goes, so long as it is tier 5.

There seems to be just one major exception for blade 5-2: for some reason, the values for 5-2 are all over the place. Beyond guards 5-2 and 5-3, which are definitely the best for the blade, it seems to like lower tier guards much more than higher tier guards (Namely, guard 2-3 has almost the same value of guard 5-7, which makes no sense).I mean, if you look closely you’d see the BASIC 1-1 guard is actually above half the leaderboard, so... I’m not sure what to even consider here.

Just like I said for the polearms, min-maxing and precise calculations can’t be done in a consistent manner.

So basically, for two handed swords: do any 5th tier guard, EXCEPT guards 5-1 and 5-9 for some resources min-maxing.But that’s about it, differences between other lesser guards barely matter.The only consistent min-maxing I noticed in the data is the 4-10 guard: it costs iron but is worth more than other guards made of iron. Not much more to be said really, it’s a small boost at best.

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TL;DR:

0) Using weapons from my other post one month ago, read the TL;DR there to catch up

1. ... this was surprisingly underwhelming. Prices all over the place, minimal margins, bothersome to measure, maybe impossible to predict... really not worth it, so I just took the main patterns
2. Polearms do guards 5-3 and 5-4. They are equal in value
   2.1) If you want to min-max on resources, do 5-1 and 5-2: they cost nothing and are worth a good extra. Maybe worse than lower materials, but I can't predict by how much.
   2.2) Rest is too hard to calculate. I guess 4-10 and 4-5 are good
3. Two handed swords do any guard from tier 5
   3.1) Except 5-1 and 5-9 for min-maxing resources, they cost 2 instead of 1
   3.2) If NOT min-maxing, 5-1 and 5-9 tend to be worth more, but not much more. Probably always better to use other components
   3.3) Blade 5-2 is very, very weird. Refer to screenshot in Google drive for SPECIFIC combinations, I can't predict it in any way otherwise.
   3.4) Guard 4-10 is good for using iron, but not that much. Did not find any other value combos.
4. Suggestion? Instead of crafting for gold, craft for experience and unlocks until you reach any of the components I named before. If already owned, it's really not a big deal to craft inefficiently here.

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... and we're already at the end. Wish I could've theorycrafted a bit more on components, but truth is it's not worth it from a gold standpoint.I mean, it was very well worth it for blades, they had differences in the thousands. This time around it's so little it's in the hundreds most times, I don't think anyone'd feel motivated to research what you can loot off of a single battle.Anyway, at least we found out the most important and valuable pieces.

Will probably do Parts 3 and Parts 4 too, not sure when though. Made a little autoclicker thing, speeds up the process considerably.

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