Upgrading Weapons

[Finarfin]

I have a weapon that says it's upgradeable. I've tried a few times (and succeeded) at the smithing process, but nothing changes on the weapon. Am I doing something incorrectly?

[HunterSilver]

Head to any brotherhood training grounds and talk to the brotherhood trainer there, they can upgrade weapons.

[Finarfin]

Then what is the option in the blacksmith's shop in each town to upgrade items? What does that do?

[HunterSilver]

That's a weapon alteration, it increases the stars on weapons and armor. 3-Stars is the highest alteration possible. This increases the damage, armor, and guard of equipment.

[Finarfin]

So how do you make that work? I have a 2-star weapon that shows it should go up to 3 stars when I move it to the right of screen (where it actually says 'upgrade'), but nothing happens after doing the smithing mini-game.

[HunterSilver]

Normally you need to get a perfect on the smithing mini game to upgrade an item from 2-star to 3-star, so you'll need to hit all 4 metal plates at the perfect time. If you have certain belts, they give you a chance to upgrade item quality even if you don't get a perfect on the mini game.

[Finarfin]

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Normally you need to get a perfect on the smithing mini game to upgrade an item from 2-star to 3-star, so you'll need to hit all 4 metal plates at the perfect time. If you have certain belts, they give you a chance to upgrade item quality even if you don't get a perfect on the mini game.

Oy. I doubt I'll be doing any perfect hits as I'm not even sure what counts as a perfect hit. I'm assuming you have to be hitting just as the sparkle appears, but I'm typically hitting as soon as I see the sparkle. It still tells me it's superior quality, though.

[HunterSilver]

Honestly don't worry too much about going for 3-star on equipment. Unless you're swimming in resources you're better off just making sure everyone has appropriate leveled equipment and maybe getting a few critical pieces of legendary weapons to 2-star.

Once you're working on lv12+ equipment you can start to bother with it.

[Ercoles]

Originally posted by Finarfin:

Originally posted by HunterSilver:

Normally you need to get a perfect on the smithing mini game to upgrade an item from 2-star to 3-star, so you'll need to hit all 4 metal plates at the perfect time. If you have certain belts, they give you a chance to upgrade item quality even if you don't get a perfect on the mini game.

Oy. I doubt I'll be doing any perfect hits as I'm not even sure what counts as a perfect hit. I'm assuming you have to be hitting just as the sparkle appears, but I'm typically hitting as soon as I see the sparkle. It still tells me it's superior quality, though.

When you hit the metal plates and they stay incandescent orange then you did a perfect hit