Hernando's Sword: Possible Waste of Your Time?
I will dispute one common myth circulating around the forums...
Hernando's Sword is not "the best weapon in the game." "Best" is a relative term, and Hernando's Sword can end up being an unnecessary obsession for you if you meet any of the following criteria:
1. You're a shooting dueler.
If your Vigor is at a base value of less than 40 or so, you're going to end up plunking down a ton of cash on respec'ing to Vigor. Please remember that the Sword is only as awesome as your Vigor allows it to be. With less than 100 Vigor, you're not really a great threat to most experienced players -- Sword or no Sword. A Precise Colt Buntline can go toe-to-toe with Hernando's sword in most situations.
2. You're not a premium player.
I have to be completely honest about this: Finding Piece 1 of the note is entirely up to chance. Players with the energy premium are roughly 50% more likely to find it in a given day than those players without Energy premium (because you are working 50% more each day!). You're also going to want to be as lucky as possible. Being an Adventurer with the Class Bonus Premium makes finding the note a lot "easier" (not easy, though!!). Premiums are a good thing. Without Premiums, it's not impossible to find the note, but you're going to really, really hate working low income jobs for a month with only mediocre items to show for it.
3. You're not really a dueler.
Yes, I know you *could* respec your character. I know that anyone can decide to be a dueler down the line. I realize these things -- but I also realize that the reason most of you want the Sword is because of its "wow" factor. Step back and ask yourself: will having the Sword really improve my game experience enough to warrant months of working the same 2-3 luck jobs over and over, day-in and day-out? When I say it could take months, I mean it could take many, many, many months, for the record.
My World 1 Experience:
My world 1 character found two Piece 1's in less than a week. I know exactly how much luck you need and how many LP to pair with it*. I took this info into 4 other worlds, and so far NONE of those characters have found Note 1 -- after months of searching, even with prior experience under my belt. I would hate to imagine that there are people out there pining over the Sword, when it won't really do anything to help their game in the end. My World 1 character's Sword was equipped for literally 1 week. I spent $20-30K switching to Vigor, and as soon as I could, I switched back to Shooting. I'm more comfortable with firearms, and the current meta is full of Resistance players who specialize in Toughness -- two good reasons for me to have hung the sword up for good.
As far as the "wow" factor goes... I have Hernando's Sword. I also have an extra Note 1. Do you really care? Does anyone? Should anyone? Nope.
*Please don't ask me for this information. I'm not being mean... I'm just really tired of being asked every single day, and I am not going to post it in the forums (that's considered a spoiler and the post would be deleted, anyhow).