What determines a weapon can be enchanted?

[Baron01]

I wonder what is an answer to question posed in subject of this topic.

I run a Faith melee build where I want to use Incantations as a support to my melee attacks in form of weapon enchants, healing and self-buffs. I run into problem that a lot of weapons can not be enchanted for some reason and I can not determine why.

I currently use Treespear, which is by all definitions a unique weapon (you can not change its Ash of War) but it can be enchanted by spells or consumables. I also use similar weapon, Winged Scythe, which is also unique and has similar composition of damage, ie. physical and holy, but it can not be enchanted. Why and what determines your ability to enchant weapons?

[[OTS]EchoZenLogos]

Basically, weapons with non-standard damage can't be enchanted is my understanding.

That doesn't include status effects like bleed or cold or poison, usually, though some unique weapons I think might just be locked regardless of their elemental damage.

That is how it worked in past FROMSOFT games as well.

It being a unique weapon or not is only relevant for the moveset and ashes of war, and doesn't seem to affect the ability to cast a buff spell on the weapon, or use something like fire grease, or so on.

I think this is meant to give a bit more variety to builds that are primarily using "regular" weapons - since those tend to be dex/str builds with less spellcasting potential. After all, if you have a high faith score you would want to use something like holy weapons or sacred fire, while intelligence scales well with magic weapons and decently with cold enchantments.

This also of course means that using melee on a "spellcasting" build can be more predictable, but this is made up for by the fact that you get powerful spells as well.

[Baron01]

Originally posted by Echonian:

Basically, weapons with non-standard damage can't be enchanted is my understanding.

...

What you posted sounds logical but my experience does not fit into those parameters, which is one of reasons I'm asking about this.

Treespear is a weapon that comes with fixed Ashes of War (I call this type of weapon unique) and deals by default physical and holy damage. Winged Scythe is also weapon with fixed Ashes of War and also deals by default physical and holy damage. Treespear can be enchanted but Winged Scythe can not.

The only difference I see between Winged Scythe and Treespear is that the first uses somber stones for upgrades while the spear uses standard stones.


What gives?

[toughnails]

The rule of the thumb is if the weapon uses standard smithing stones for upgrades and the affinity is set to either standard, heavy, keen or quality (i.e. pure physical), then it can be buffed with greases or spells.

However, there are also some somber weapon that can be buffed, e.g. Bloodhound's Fang. You'll just have to memorize these exceptions to the rule, there's no way to tell at first glance.

Also, the Occult affinity is never buffable, even if it's pure physical with no status effects, which is a bit lame, but you can use the Cragblade AoW to get around this limitation.

[Moon🌙]

Originally posted by toughnails:

The rule of the thumb is if the weapon uses standard smithing stones for upgrades and the affinity is set to either standard, heavy, keen or quality (i.e. pure physical), then it can be buffed with greases or spells.

However, there are also some somber weapon that can be buffed, e.g. Bloodhound's Fang. You'll just have to memorize these exceptions to the rule, there's no way to tell at first glance.

Also, the Occult affinity is never buffable, even if it's pure physical with no status effects, which is a bit lame, but you can use the Cragblade AoW to get around this limitation.

it as nothing to do about what kind of smiting stone the weapon use. but its about if the ash of war or in some case the weapon itself do more than just physical damage if it does you cannot enchant it because when you use bloodflame blade for example it add fire damage to the weapon for a time i've done testing and only weapon with ash of war( or weapon themselves) that does not add additional type of attack power can be enchanted
unless stated otherwise but for that you can refer yourself to the wiki to see if it can

[toughnails]

Originally posted by King Sorcerer:

Originally posted by toughnails:

The rule of the thumb is if the weapon uses standard smithing stones for upgrades and the affinity is set to either standard, heavy, keen or quality (i.e. pure physical), then it can be buffed with greases or spells.

However, there are also some somber weapon that can be buffed, e.g. Bloodhound's Fang. You'll just have to memorize these exceptions to the rule, there's no way to tell at first glance.

Also, the Occult affinity is never buffable, even if it's pure physical with no status effects, which is a bit lame, but you can use the Cragblade AoW to get around this limitation.

it as nothing to do about what kind of smiting stone the weapon use. but its about if the ash of war or in some case the weapon itself do more than just physical damage if it does you cannot enchant it because when you use bloodflame blade for example it add fire damage to the weapon for a time i've done testing and only weapon with ash of war( or weapon themselves) that does not add additional type of attack power can be enchanted
unless stated otherwise but for that you can refer yourself to the wiki to see if it can

That doesn't make sense. You can put Sacred Blade AoW (which is holy damage) on a Heavy weapon and it will still be buffable. Or Flame Spear or w/e.

You're probably a newcomer, but this regular vs somber system is the same as in Dark Souls games, and the weapon buff limitations work the same way too. Only regular upgrade path weapons set to a pure physical affinity can be buffed.

[Old Captain Yon]

It is usually that a weapon that can be infused and has one of the "normal" (normal, heavy, keen and quality) infusions can be enchanted. It has nothing to do with innate elemental damage (some have it even on physical infusions - Clayman harpoon has magic, Erdsteel dagger and black knight weapons have holy, fire knight weapons have fire). MOST (but not ALL) somber and/or unique weapons cannot be enchanted, some however can. You should look online for these exceptions, out of my head Bloodhound Fang, Treespear, Troll hammer, Great club can be enchanted by spells and greases