I know that "using" a weapon will cause its condition to decrease. What specific actions will cause the condition to drop?
Is it only if a weapon connects with an enemy and causes damage?
What if a weapon is used to break an object (boxes, vases, etc.)?
Does simply swinging or shooting a weapon cause a decrease in condition over time even if it doesn't connect with anything?
Are the specific actions that decrease a weapon's condition universal or are there different conditions for different weapon types (daggers, fae blades, longbows, sceptres, etc.)?
If there are different actions that can decrease a weapon's condition, does one decrease the condition more than another (if striking an object and striking an enemy both decrease a weapon's condition, does striking an enemy decrease the condition more quickly)?
Best Answer
The amount of degradation your weapon experiences is directly proportional to the amount of damage that your weapon inflicts.
Since your weapon will only inflict up to the remaining health of the entity you are attempting to destroy it will only degrade by that amount. In other words, if you have a set of Prismere Chakrams that inflict 199 damage and you attack a poor defenseless storage crate that has, let's say, 5 armor, your weapon will degrade by whatever 5 attack does to it and not 199.
I had a similar question when I was questing near Didenhil: Does attacking boxes hurt my weapon? So what I did was fairly simple: I repaired all my stuff at the blacksmith, ran outside and smashed a bunch of crates, then ran inside and repaired my stuff again. Lo and behold, they had a bit of damage (-1). Then I thought, what about my staff? What if I just launch a bunch of fireballs and don't actually fight anything? And the answer is yes, that does degrade your weapon. I would assume that if you
are dumb enough touse a sceptre, it would also degrade in a similar fashion. Physical/piercing weapons do not seem to be affected by just waving them about.