More of a question than anything, have the devs ever discussed the Random AOE (AOE rank 5) boon? It seems very much out of place in the forging process and I honestly can think of no use for it. I mean I don’t really mind it being there but there are no other boons that you level up high enough and the next step is a detriment to the weapon or tool. It really feels like dead space. It is no problem to cut the forging off at lv4 to avoid it, seems as if that spot could be better used for a greater improvement to a hammer. Thoughts?
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I always wondered why it wasn’t the first rank of the boon, then I wonder why it existed in the first place. It serves as a good quirk more than anything.
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Yeah there’s a ton of threads and discussion on this. They’re keeping you on your toes with it.
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Have any Devs participated in any of those or are they just community threads?
To my knowledge they don’t weigh in on this, although you may find something in some of the earlier threads when forging was getting started.
The devs are quick to weigh in when there’s a bug or something they plan to address. Doesn’t make nearly as much sense or serve any purpose for them to come in and say “Yes, we’ve made this harder on purpose so deal with it” if they have no current plan to change it.
They don’t talk about the non functional boons weighting the RNG for a year or so now, either. These things and their effects are pretty obvious and the topics of many, many threads. The attention to possibly making chisel forging slightly harder with the recent change really highlighted this.
@james occasionally pops in to say “There will be a balance pass at the forge some time in the future”.
In the meantime they’ve added a couple generations of new boons and new ingredients so, it’s not like the code has gone untouched.
I’ve been pretty vocal and taken down my forge, I don’t mind stating that I see the ‘dead’ boons as basically, a poke in the eye. Overforging or getting careless leading to a less useful tool is not nearly as bad, IMO.
It will soon be monday morning over there and most of them are active forum users. No doubt they’ll read this thread, too.
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Makes sense I suppose. Mind you, I am not complaining, It just seems very out of place to me considering none of the other boons penalize you for leveling up. I realize that the random blocks are hit at 100% power which makes sense but the random aspect makes it very hard to mine with. I guess what I am trying to say is the hammer is a mining tool, so why make it do something in the forge that makes mining more difficult. I find it to make mining more difficult because it is odd and cumbersome to try to navigate the random pattern it makes, just to clarify. If it somehow filled a niche or had any real use I could see keeping it but I can’t really determine what the use could be, that is sort of why I made this post so that I could see if anyone uses it. Nothing against the devs, THIS IS A GREAT GAME AND I REALLY ENJOY IT.
In summary: Not gamebreaking, not overly annoying, but it feels like there could be something more useful there. 
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If I ended up with random aoe either from free forge fails or super cheap like 500c and under I used them as clean up while mining instead of using the 3x3. Otherwise they’ll make you some coin back from the minter
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Yeah just mint it…or deconstruct…and just don’t make it
Trust me I don’t. Too many materials go into forging to waste it on that boon.
What do you mean random AOE boon? Like the cross/all around boon? where it hits more than 1 block? If so this is huge for mining… if you have not used it. I think you are really missing out!!
Random aoe is rank 5 you never know the amount of blocks it will hit when swung
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No man, it’s awful.
It doesn’t clear an area, and it doesn’t always make a pattern you can move through either.
In several hours with these tools (mainly axes and hammers) I can tell you it averages less blocks harvested than cross AoE and it gets in it’s own way.
Feel free to try this random AoE hammer I’m giving away.
It is slightly more useful than a single shot hammer, but it’s still irritating if you like to dig clean patterns or make tunnels you can walk through.
Hitting this boon means you’ve over forged the item.
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Edited original to reflect I was talking about rank 5 AOE.
Besides the tier 5 AOE being random and 100%, I had expected it to at least hit 5 or more random blocks, but it seems to hit less than 3 every time. So annoying…
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I would be repeating to say its an over-forge, keeps you vigilant when making tools, should be used as an offhand lootmagnet etc… it has one thing going for it though compared to other aoe’s; no damage loss… So thats ‘nice’… not quite a throw away, i would offhand it to whack other stuff as it lasts long and doesnt need dmg buffing.
TL/DR AOE5 is the signal to use decon resin.
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I kindof like the possibility to “screw the item by overforging”. It would be too easy without the need for Gums and resets after you set your initial boons.
And if the ratio of destroyed block would be slightly higher (by my experience it destroys 3-4 block per hit) it would even be useful.
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That I guess is my main concern. The rank 5 basically is something everyone knows to stay away from. Wondering if that was always intended or if it needs to be reworked.
Didn’t even realize this because I think every time i forged AoE 5 the tool already had damage forged onto it. So… 
Luckily i haven’t done it much.
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I can guess it is intended for beginners. It may come handy without the need to hassle with multiple gums and ranking up Damage. But if it would be too useful it would be overkill for experienced forgers.
Thing is that probably no beginners forge.
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The purpose of the random AoE boon is meant to be a punishment for overshooting the sweet spot. The purpose of forging is to be inconsistent and give you a headache. And when players figure out a way to consistently craft what they want, first time every time again we’ll get punished with another forging “rework”. This post sounds way more bitter than I intended, but being able to put in a dollar and get out 4 quarters goes against their “vision” of how the game should be played.
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