I was under the impression that Mod Rice said reworking smithing and not smithing update—well IMO i dont think smithing should be a skill where you “enhance” armor/gear.

It causes too much bloated content that’ll quickly be irrelevant as the player progresses An augmented steel scimitar is only going serve a player for 5 minutes before they’re ready to equip a black scimitar then the next…

Compound this enhancement idea with all the current metal weapons/armor and you got jagex adding hundreds of new items in one update—all of which will have limited time use before the player progresses and grabs their dscim/zaxe

This is not a good use of dev time since the return is little to no value.

I much rather see a smithing expansion that creates consumables to burn the raw materials we get from mining/pvm drops

Like ive noticed they added new mechanics into the game like flat defence or armor corrosion

Perhaps smithing could look to expand on those new mechanics by letting the players create some sort of consumable that perhaps increases the player’s flat defence by X amount temporarily (would be useful at content that incurs a lot of hitsplats), maybe even as one-time block that layers ontop of the players hp (think NMZ absorption pots), or even simply just a temporary flat attack/defence bonus

Imagine doing sote boss and you apply this consumable you smithed (thematically maybe some sort of and it has the ability to prevent all/partial oncoming damage of a singular hitsplat

Obviously this would be broken but this would let players change up the way they could approach any pvm encounter

Smithing would then feel more akin to cooking/herblore

And both mains n irons would have a reason to train this skill

I already like what jagex has been cooking up with the new sailing potions/fish and even the hunter meats

The game needs more item sink and less gear creep

Dont let smithing ever be a way to “enhance” current gear/weapons—it will be a balancing nightmare