This weekend I procured a Robot Instruction Disk (Improve Slashing Weapons) and, with the very gracious help of Prologic who made a ql 198 Robot, I started converting a number of my Zeniths to the new Hidden variety.
Here's what I found:
1. With the original in the ql 60ish range the conversion added about 9 ql to the weapon so that a ql Zenith would become a ql 69 Hidden Zenith.
2. The reqs on the weapon increased slightly BUT still ended up LESS than those of a similar ql normal Zenith. In other words the reqs on a ql 69 Hidden were LESS than the reqs on a normal ql 69 Zenith. With ONE exception which I'll address below.
3. The damage ended up greater than a similar ql Zenith. The min increased by a nominal amount and the max by a very small amount. The crit increased most notably...by about 75%.
4. The ONE exception to the reqs were the multi-melee req. THis OVER doubled from a similar ql Zenith. The increase was SO dramatic that it became very clear my level 55 MA would NOT be dual-wielding Hidden Zeniths.
So what are the advantages?
1. As a primary weapon the Hidden Zenith is substantially better than the standard IF you have decent crit bufs running (and Low Light Scope). Under the crit increase of SG only the added damage is only marginally better. For the same reqs though a Hidden Zenith is preferable.
2. If you dual-wield Zeniths then there is a distinct advantage in using a Hidden in the right hand and a normal Zenith in the left hand. Once you have outgrown the normal Zenith you can breath new life into it by modifying it to the Hidden variety and re-equiping it in the right hand. Since Zeniths are relatively rare, and with the bug that makes over-equiping impossible, this modification gets you more life out of each weapon. Once you out grow the left hand normal Zenith you modify it and equip it in the right hand and find a new Zenith for the left hand.
3. With high crit bufs the Hidden Zenith is substantially better than the normal weapon.
Disadvantages:
1. Cost. The robot instruction disks are fairly rare (seen exactly ONE in 4 days of playing) and the cost of a high ql robot is very high...over 1.5 million. There won't be many players capable of converting Zeniths for quite a long time. If the charges for conversion are high then there isn't really any advantage.
2. Zeniths are rather weak weapons anyway and although the conversion helps some it is not comenserate with the dificulty in obtaining the conversion. I would have hoped that the result would have increase BOTH min and max damage more substantially.
3. The added stat buf is negligable and not worth the trouble by itself.
Since my MA, Baiyue, dual wields Zeniths and now has a supplier for conversions she'll continue to modify the ones she out-grows. A MA can't pass up even the slightest increase in damage at the present time.
Funcom still has some work to do on these MA weapon upgrades to make them truley valuable.
BTW, I did make a low level Piercing weapon Robot and converted a low level Golfe Prod. The result added Piercing req to the existing 1HE req of the weapon. Other effects were similar to what I described for the Zenith.
Again, thanks to Prologic for the help in making these conversions.
Baiyue, level 55 MA on RK1
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I'm on RK1 as Vistol if you feel up to helping out a fellow MA 
