Need weapon advice

[Phigl]

I'm very new to the game, only on shard 2 of the first galaxy.

For weapons, is there something I should start doing now? Like should I look for a certain item and start upgrading it? Or does everything I have now become irrelevant?

I can't find a really good gear guide for beginners.

[wulfster42]

Well things are changing with this game (in fact they just seemed to have recently) so that makes guides a bit difficult.

In the past it was best to just use the no-named dagger, it was basically the best weapon in the game to use because you can get the cost down to 1 pretty easy with dominance stones.

It's still a great weapon and you can't go wrong with it, but heavy weapons may actually be as good or close when just starting off without stones now.

With stones and skills later the dagger will (for now) still shine though.

You should upgrade it's quality to 8 asap and try and get 3 dominance stones in it. At 8 each dominance stone adds 8 damage and subtracts 8 cost....so a total of 24.

That makes the no name which starts with 5 damage and 25 cost.....have 1 cost and 49 damage.

Toss claw and excellence stones in after that and you'll just obliterate everything.

[cdarklock]

Originally posted by Phigl:

I can't find a really good gear guide for beginners.

There isn't one. I've been complaining about that.

Wulfstar is right, though: upgrade your noname dagger. It's the only weapon you're guaranteed to get, so even if there's a better one out there, you may never find it. I'm doing a lot of research on the best setups for weapons, and while the upgraded noname dagger is imo not AS amazing as people say it is, it's still amazing. And you have the first piece of that puzzle when you start the game, so you're farther toward the goal than with anything else.

The basic way weapons work is this: the quality of a weapon dictates how many stones you can install in it. You improve a weapon in the craft screen (double green upward arrow), by using materials. You get materials by disassembling other equipment in the craft screen (red X). When you want to put a stone into an item, you use the charm function (blue flame) and drag the stone to the item.

There's a tool you can buy in the shop sometimes, which will pull stones out of a weapon. You can use it twice. If you find a weapon that has stones in, and you can get that tool, use it to pull them out.

Other than that, disassemble anything you're not going to use and upgrade your dagger with the materials. Make sure you leave at least three stone slots open for stones of dominance, and upgrade the dagger to at least an 8 quality.

Other than that, try to split your dagger's upgrade space between excellence and claw stones. Once you have three dominance stones and at least two each of excellence and claw, you have a powerful enough weapon to carry you through the game pretty handily. Keep upgrading it, keep adding claw and excellence stones.

Now, when you're just starting out and don't have anything upgraded, all you need to worry about is the three slots you start with: in the middle slot, put your noname dagger. In the left slot, put the cheapest other weapon you have. In the right slot, put the strongest other weapon you have. Level up whatever you can whenever you can.

As you collect enough black wax, open additional inventory slots. As you collect equipment, decide what you want to use based on your playstyle. There is nothing wrong with just using weapons in all your inventory slots; I do.

You can totally clear the entire first galaxy without getting your dagger or anything else upgraded. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I kinda still don't.

[Phigl]

Thanks for the feedback. Based on what I read in other threads, the no-name dagger is great at the beginning of shards, so I'll be following your advice. But at the end of shards the heavy sword is best. What base should I be looking for in a heavy sword to start upgrading? What upgrades are best for it?

[wulfster42]

The heavy weapon is never best currently, or even close.

IF they ever have more than 50 levels, and a few more things change, then it might eventually at least catch up, but it's not likely, and even if it did.....it would just be as good by the end (hopefully).

The no named dagger or better yet a primal dagger (you have to buy that in the store for shards) is the best weapon in the game currently through all the content.

Even the person who was trying to say heavy weapons might be ok, admits that it's at least 5x better WITHOUT applying skills. With skills that number is multiplied many times (my own screenshots show it's 50x better, but I did have more skills going (just not the one skill that only boosts daggers pretty much (boosts base damage, so it affects the dagger with a lower base damage WAY more than the heavy sword (dagger base damage around 100, sword around 4k....and the skill boosts base damage by about 100 per 10 points).

So yeah, focus on the dagger for now, as the heavy sword just isn't worth it sadly. Hopefully that will change in thefuture though.

[rob_s_cat2]

sadly, i can safely say that for practical purposes, the heavy sword is never best. it would take so long to make one worthwhile compared to a dagger that it's just not practically viable. the diversion needed in creating another weapon takes away from upgrading whatever you started to upgrade in the first place.

the trick is to choose a weapon that is ok at the start and will later be better than the noname at the same grade, AND DO THIS EARLY. although there are few that fit this bill initially, later on, it's feasible that a dagger with 15 or even 20 base damage will, if both were to be upgraded optimally, overtake it in the practical lifetime of the game.

given that i'm one of the more developed players of the game, i can be pretty sure of my findings in this regard. i've made quite a few mistakes of judgement myself, but a primal dagger with base damage 15 to 20 will do enough at the start of a shard to be useful there, and not be far enough behind the noname dagger for most of the journey of upgrading that when it does overtake the noname dagger for damage output, you'll won't wonder why you started with the noname dagger.

that all said, it takes a lot of upgrading for this to be the case. the higher base damage dagger doesn't overtake the noname dagger until grade 43, optimally upgraded. that's a long way down the track even for me, so the noname dagger is still always going to be a very good option as a starting weapon choice.

[wulfster42]

Rob is right, but honestly the only reason to go with a higher base dagger is if it's primal and you already have the resources to get a high enough grade on the primal dagger to still get the cost to 1.

Since the cost is damage squared, your talking about a VERY VERY small difference in base damage, at a point when your well over 100 base damage anyway, so I would say it's not really worth it, other than making daggers with a higher base damage viable (so you don't have to re-roll somany times to get one.

A 7 base damage dagger for instance isn't a good idea initially, because the base cost is 49....and you only get 2 more base damage for all that cost. Takes WAY longer to get the cost down to 1 that way. Now if you have say 4 dominance stones, and the ability to upgrade the dagger to quality 12 right away.......then there is no real penalty to taking that primal dagger over the 5/25 damage/cost one.

I have never seen an 8 cost dagger, but I believe I did see a 9 one (maybe it goes up by odd numbers?). Even a 9 one would have an 81 cost though and require quality 20 (which costs a ton) and 4 dominance to actually get down to 1 cost....while still only giving you 4 more base damage. Trust me, it's not worth it.

What IS worth it, is as Rob mentioned getting a primal dagger as that is a straight up 100% damage increase (and it's amultiplier like everything else). It doubles your strength bonus...which means it doubles your over all damage as well. That can be huge since it's another multiplier.

So the best bet is to only go up to around Q12 or so with the no named and THEN save up resources (like I have) and keep an eye out for a 5-7 base cost primal dagger in the store. Upgrade that baby right from the gate to 12 or so, and BAM you doubled your damage.

That is only a 2x over all multiplier, but it all adds up. You can just go with the no-named right now and just save up resources (like I am) for if content ever gets added that requires more damage. I have enough resources to probably get a primal dagger to Q15-18 or something. I don't need it though cause...well, I destroy everything anyway.

[cdarklock]

Originally posted by Phigl:

But at the end of shards the heavy sword is best. What base should I be looking for in a heavy sword to start upgrading? What upgrades are best for it?

I have, until like... an hour ago, been of that opinion. I was pretty much alone in that opinion. This is because I was wrong.

Low-cost weapons are invariably the better and smarter choice for upgrading, and heavy weapons are primarily useful when that's just what you have and none of your stuff is upgraded very much.