How to properly enchant weapons and armor? (OWH+)

[Primaris]

So on my "serious" runs I've been running around with a Longsword+10 (Sturdy and the rest is quality) and a Spirit Robe (Adamantine and I'm wondering if I should spam quality or tough I could use some help here cause I have enough scrolls for either) with the shield you get from the Force Knight quest, a training bracelet and a bracelet of speed.

I 've found a Mythical Spear of Longinus a while ago and I just found a Legendary Terra Armor.

I don't want to waste such amazing finds. i know about the trick where you can use slimes to remove enchantments and I've already done it so that Mythical and Legendary are the primary traits. What should I put in for the rest?

[Hiraeth (J)]

(Wall of text incoming, TLDR: lots of Sturdy and a few Angry, then up to taste.)



For the spear, several Sturdy enchantments are a given on any weapon you want to keep around long-term. A Mythical+ enchantment and, say, four Sturdy- enchantments puts the Spear at about .25x attrition.

Afterwards, Angry is far and beyond the best enchantment to put on any weapon that already has accuracy above the cap, as Mythical grants.(Accuracy is mechanically capped at 95%, though there are a few situations where enemies will have Evasion stats where Accuracy above 95% is helpful, or debuffs that lower your accuracy, it isn't nearly so prevalent as to make it worthwhile.)

Your spear will have an accuracy of 110%, so at least three Angry- enchantments is a simple addition, leaving two more slots.

On non-axe, non-holy items, I'm personally a fan of a couple Item Destruction enchantments. Rather than only applying to chests and walls, these enchantments actually convey the same bonus axes grant, drastically increasing the weapon's damage against golems, shielded foes, and undead. Since Longinus always crits and has low base damage though, this isn't recommended here.

Which...really only leaves more damage enchantments; Slayer, Angry, or Sharp, or more Sturdy when you think the weapon is powerful enough. With Longinus' base damage of 12, Mythical+, and three Angry-, you're looking at a 35 power weapon at max accuracy that always crits. (x2 damage and bypasses 2/3 of enemy armor)

2x Angry: Due to exponential growth, this would raise the spear's power from 35 all the way up to about 55 at the cost of dropping to 85% accuracy. This would be a larger concern for most weapons, but being a Spear, Longinus does get that extra turn at the start of a fight to make up for bad luck.

2x Slayer: This would give the spear the same power as 2x Angry, but with reduced durability rather than accuracy. Slayer- is only 1.05x attrition though, so two of these will only bring the spear from ~.25x to ~.27x. (And more damage means less hits, so less durability loss.)

2x Sharp: No other drawbacks, but the spear's power would be around 45 rather than 55.

If none of those options are appealing (35 damage with 100% crit will one-shot all but bosses and elites), just toss 2x more Sturdy on there to bring attrition down to ~.16x.

[Hiraeth (J)]

The armor is simpler. Durability doesn't matter nearly as much as it does for weapons because if you're using a souped up armor from the vault, you're probably using a souped up weapon from the vault, which means you almost never get hit anyway. So if you want to swap some of the Adamantines for more utility effects or Tough for a bit more mitigations, that works fine.

Terra Armor with Legendary is already 44% + 45 mitigation. Put two or three Absorbing on there and you're impervious to physical damage, then Adamantine for the rest. (Legendary+, 3x Absorbing-, and 6x Adamantine- will leave you with 76%+45 mitigation (ignoring Vitality) and ~.25x attrition.)

[Primaris]

Wow thanks for the amazing tips. Unfortunately I'm not too bright so the math isn't something I can calculate on the fly.

How would you enchant non-holy gear? Like for example I find a crown Longsword and Spirit Robe. How can I make them super durable and with decent stats to be able to be used in the harder parts of a run?

[Hiraeth (J)]

Well, if you're talking about weapons to enchant and store in a vault for use (that aren't super rare finds like Mythical/Legendary Holy items) then I wouldn't go with things like Longswords or Spirit Robes at all. There are objectively better items you can reliably obtain and use as main vault equips instead that I can recommend.

If you're more asking about how to enchant stuff mid-run and what items/enchantments to look for as you go, then every item in the game is relevant, obviously. Let me know more of the context of your question so I don't give a shoddy answer. =p

[Primaris]

Ok the main reason I specified Longsword and Spirit Robe is because those are my go to items not for effectiveness but so I won't be "cheating" as hard. I pick those mainly because they are better than starting gear but not the best.

My main question would be how would you enchant weapons and armor that don't have inherent bonuses to stats such as the Dark Scale gear.

[Primaris]

Originally posted by Hiraeth:

Well, if you're talking about weapons to enchant and store in a vault for use (that aren't super rare finds like Mythical/Legendary Holy items) then I wouldn't go with things like Longswords or Spirit Robes at all. There are objectively better items you can reliably obtain and use as main vault equips instead that I can recommend.

If you're more asking about how to enchant stuff mid-run and what items/enchantments to look for as you go, then every item in the game is relevant, obviously. Let me know more of the context of your question so I don't give a shoddy answer. =p

Well what gear would you suggest? Like for example is Panty's Sword a good choice? How would you enchant that for long term use?

[All For Her Smile]

Originally posted by Kinzoku Batto:

Well what gear would you suggest? Like for example is Panty's Sword a good choice? How would you enchant that for long term use?

Not only is Panty's Sword a "good choice", for me it's by far THE best, most reliable and efficient sword in the game. I myself have two of them stored in the Vault for long-term use, the first one I made a long time ago when I was still experimenting, the second one is kind of recent, when I finally realized that the only enchantments worth of putting on high-end swords are Slayer and Sturdy (plus, it's impossible to get Panty's Sword with a Mythical prefix, so I don't find it a good idea to use Angry on it). This is how it looks like, in comparison to a more "normal" long sword and it's absolutely devastating, I don't think you can have anything better and more balanced at that low weight:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494914081
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494914312

Angry enchantments will obviously destroy your accuracy so those aren't meant to be used for melee weapons, unless, like mentioned above, said weapons are Mythical. But normally, this is how you use Angry:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494914532

Originally posted by Hiraeth:

Terra Armor with Legendary is already 44% + 45 mitigation. Put two or three Absorbing on there and you're impervious to physical damage, then Adamantine for the rest. (Legendary+, 3x Absorbing-, and 6x Adamantine- will leave you with 76%+45 mitigation (ignoring Vitality) and ~.25x attrition.)

This isn't possible, there are no Scrolls of Absorbing in OWH+. I read somewhere that you could do that in the original OWH, but I'm not 100% certain of that. It certainly can't be done in OWH+ though. Here's what I do with Terra Armors:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494914700

And this was one of my luckiest drops, as it came with both Legendary and Absorbing and became my main "heavy duty" armor:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494914870

Originally posted by Kinzoku Batto:

How would you enchant non-holy gear? Like for example I find a crown Longsword and Spirit Robe. How can I make them super durable and with decent stats to be able to be used in the harder parts of a run?

First of all, let me specify that Scrolls of Slayer are very rare, so you should save those for good weapons that you plan on storing in the Vault forever. So if you find a "crown" (that's "Max Rank") Long Sword and want to make it "super durable" and with "decent stats" only for your current run, as you say, I think a cheap solution would be something like 3x Sharp (one of them as the weapon's main enchantment), 2x Destructive for golems/shielded enemies that are more frequent in the late game (and swarming the Dimensional Passageway), 3x Sturdy and 2x Quality. On the other hand, if it's an Eagle Blade, which gives a 10% bonus in Accuracy, you can replace the 2x Quality with 2x Angry.

Also, if you want to use the weapon for a looooong time, you can always leave it with only 9 enchantments and when it's down to <10 durability, simply put it aside until you find an Equipment Adjuster. Then, use a Scroll of Jerryrigging on it without losing any of your previous enchantments, pay the Adjuster to immediately remove all Jerryrigging effects from it and you have a fully-repaired weapon with all its enchantments intact, at a very low cost. I believe it's best to use this method for "regular" gear and pay Blacksmiths only for your high-end legendary/mythical equipment that's already maxed out with 10 irreplaceable enchantments and you can't afford to lose or mess them up. Of course, that always costs 250,000 silvers but it's worth it.

Oh and if you do find a non-mythical Max Rank Long Sword, it's also not a bad idea to waste just one Slayer scroll on it, if you have one and then follow-up with 8x Quality enchantments.

As for Spirit Robes... I actually never used those so I can't give any sound advice, but generally I think a good balance for armor is 4x Flexible, 3x Tough, 3x Adamantine. And if you can put those enchantments on an Undine Cloak, even a basic one, you're set for the rest of the run.

Phew. That was a lot, sorry for the length. I hope at least some of all that was a little bit helpful.

[Hiraeth (J)]

If you're hesitant to use reward items, a well-enchanted Longsword is certainly a good option for dealing with most enemies you'll encounter in a run, but it could fall short damage-wise when dealing with particular elites or bosses.
My preference for 'standard' weapons would probably be an Eagle Blade. Though quite heavy, it has great stats in every other regard, giving you the stopping power of a Battleaxe without the steep accuracy disadvantages.

Definitely agreeing with Sleeper about Panty's Sword. It's entirely unmatched for reliability and efficiency among low-weight weapons. A Sturdy/Angry/Angry Panty's Sword +3 is still objectively superior to a Mythical/Angry/Angry Longsword+3.

(That being said, if you ever happened to find a *double* Mythical Longsword, fully enchanted it may well take the edge over Panty's Sword due to the extra durability and accuracy.)

Originally posted by Sleeper Agent of Planeptune:

(plus, it's impossible to get Panty's Sword with a Mythical prefix, so I don't find it a good idea to use Angry on it).

It's worth noting that since accuracy is mechanically capped at 95%, you can still put one Angry- enchantment on Panty's Sword for no disadvantage beyond accuracy debuffs/enemy evasion effects.

Originally posted by Sleeper Agent of Planeptune:

Originally posted by Hiraeth:

Terra Armor with Legendary is already 44% + 45 mitigation. Put two or three Absorbing on there and you're impervious to physical damage, then Adamantine for the rest. (Legendary+, 3x Absorbing-, and 6x Adamantine- will leave you with 76%+45 mitigation (ignoring Vitality) and ~.25x attrition.)

This isn't possible, there are no Scrolls of Absorbing in OWH+. I read somewhere that you could do that in the original OWH, but I'm not 100% certain of that. It certainly can't be done in OWH+ though. Here's what I do with Terra Armors:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1494914700

Oh, I didn't realize Scrolls of Absorbing weren't a thing anymore. I guess thinking about it I can't think of any time I've actually *found* one. The armor I looked at in my vault for reference must have had Absorbing when I got it.

There's no real reason to ever use more than one Tough- enchantment on your vault armor except as a shortcut. Since enchantments in + stack multiplicatively rather than additively, two Tough- enchantments are inferior in all ways to an Adamantine- and a Flexible-. (Or in this case, four Tough- enchantments versus two Adamantine- and two Flexible-.

Originally posted by Sleeper Agent of Planeptune:

Also, if you want to use the weapon for a looooong time, you can always leave it with only 9 enchantments and when it's down to <10 durability, simply put it aside until you find an Equipment Adjuster. Then, use a Scroll of Jerryrigging on it without losing any of your previous enchantments, pay the Adjuster to immediately remove all Jerryrigging effects from it and you have a fully-repaired weapon with all its enchantments intact, at a very low cost.

Another trick, though it only works once, is to enchant your permanent vault gear to +9 and then wear out all their durability. You can then use a Scroll of Jerryrigging to bring it to +10 and follow it immediately with the final enchantment. The new enchantment will appear in an empty space between any of the top nine and push Jerryrigged right off.

The downside to this trick is that there's a 1 in 10 chance the new enchantment will appear at the top and become the primary enchantment on the item. This generally isn't an issue for non-Mythical/Legendary/(Absorbing, apparently?) gear so long as the final enchantment is something you don't mind being the primary. Otherwise, don't take the risk, savescum it, or wait until you encounter a Melted Slime before performing it.

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As far as armor goes, I find the Undine Cloak to be highly underrated. For only one weight you can bring with you an item capable of nullifying two of the most deadly attacks in the game, Force and Fire attacks.
A recommendation of mine to any players using the vault is to save the first Undine Cloak you find, whatever its enchantments, and build it up with a Flexible+, 8 Flexible-, and a Fireproof- enchantment. This gives you a 71%+3 100 durability armor you can bring with you and equip at any time to trivialize battles against Dragons, Black Dragons, Fire Imps, Lava Slimes, Necromancers, several of the story bosses, and King of Flames miniboss encounters.

Moreover, a single Legendary+/Absorbing+ on a piece of armor goes a lot further than a Mythical+ on a weapon. Since the effects of Legendary or Absorbing are independent of the stats on the armor rather than multipliers, they immediately turn *any* piece of armor (besides like, hole-covered or glass) into a top-tier item no matter how bad it was before.

With that in mind, a Legendary/Absorbing Undine Cloak is a much better find than a similar Terra Armor. Once you've already got a super-powerful armor item, large Force and Fire mitigation is far more useful than piling more and more physical defense on a Terra Armor already capable of absorbing the strongest hits in the game.

[All For Her Smile]

Originally posted by Hiraeth (J):

My preference for 'standard' weapons would probably be an Eagle Blade. Though quite heavy, it has great stats in every other regard, giving you the stopping power of a Battleaxe without the steep accuracy disadvantages.

That's true, I wanted to make a special reference to Eagle Blades in my post, but apparently I forgot. A Max Rank Eagle Blade with a Mythical prefix has got to be one of the 5 best things the game can drop. I do have a double Mythical Eagle Blade myself, but sadly it's not even High Rank, let alone Max, so it's not that impressive, I haven't even enchanted it yet.

Originally posted by Hiraeth (J):

It's worth noting that since accuracy is mechanically capped at 95%, you can still put one Angry- enchantment on Panty's Sword for no disadvantage beyond accuracy debuffs/enemy evasion effects.

About that, I'm actually often playing with a Training Bracelet equipped, which drops your base Accuracy to 70%, so I kinda need my weapons to have at least 100% Accuracy in order to counterbalance that handicap. But yeah, normally a 95% Accuracy is enough.

Originally posted by Hiraeth (J):

There's no real reason to ever use more than one Tough- enchantment on your vault armor except as a shortcut. Since enchantments in + stack multiplicatively rather than additively, two Tough- enchantments are inferior in all ways to an Adamantine- and a Flexible-. (Or in this case, four Tough- enchantments versus two Adamantine- and two Flexible-.

I'm not sure what you mean by "shortcut" but yeah, okay, that is true, although the difference is extremely small, isn't it? If I'm not mistaken, one Flexible- and one Adamantine- enchantment give you damage x0.90 and attrition x0.80 respectively, while two Tough- combined give you damage (0.95 * 0.95 =) x0.90 and attrition (0.90 * 0.90 =) x0.81, correct? Unless I'm miscalculating something here, the difference is barely noticeable. And in my defense, that particular piece of armor is pretty old, from a time when I didn't care enough to sit down and make such calculations before enchanting gear. >.>

Originally posted by Hiraeth (J):

As far as armor goes, I find the Undine Cloak to be highly underrated. For only one weight you can bring with you an item capable of nullifying two of the most deadly attacks in the game, Force and Fire attacks.
A recommendation of mine to any players using the vault is to save the first Undine Cloak you find, whatever its enchantments, and build it up with a Flexible+, 8 Flexible-, and a Fireproof- enchantment. This gives you a 71%+3 100 durability armor you can bring with you and equip at any time to trivialize battles against Dragons, Black Dragons, Fire Imps, Lava Slimes, Necromancers, several of the story bosses, and King of Flames miniboss encounters.

That is absolutely true, just like Panty's Sword is probably the best weapon due to its overall balance and efficiency, I'd say Undine Cloak is the armor equivalent of that. I'm just not sure if an extra Fireproof enchantment is needed, as its base 80% nullification rate has always been more than enough for me (and saved my precious Ice Crystals more times than I can count). Bottom line is, with an armor like that you can survive pretty much anything:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1495646477

Originally posted by Hiraeth (J):

Moreover, a single Legendary+/Absorbing+ on a piece of armor goes a lot further than a Mythical+ on a weapon. Since the effects of Legendary or Absorbing are independent of the stats on the armor rather than multipliers, they immediately turn *any* piece of armor (besides like, hole-covered or glass) into a top-tier item no matter how bad it was before.

Again, true. And if combined, even the worst of armors can become powerful. Just look at that one below. With 6x Flexible- and 2x Adamantine- enchantments it could reach around 88-89% defense and 49% attrition rate, even though its base defense is barely 1%. It's almost a shame that I didn't have room in my Vault and I was forced to discard it back then...

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1495650363

Originally posted by Hiraeth (J):

With that in mind, a Legendary/Absorbing Undine Cloak is a much better find than a similar Terra Armor. Once you've already got a super-powerful armor item, large Force and Fire mitigation is far more useful than piling more and more physical defense on a Terra Armor already capable of absorbing the strongest hits in the game.

Speaking of powerful armors, I did a quick Walk in the Park run a couple of hours ago, just to get access to my Vault & get some screenshots... and I was lucky enough to be awarded this amazing piece of armor:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1495653229
I seriously didn't expect anything like that today and it's something I've wanted for a long time now, so I was quite shocked to suddenly see it. O.O; I had this armor in High Rank already, but I had never seen it in Max Rank... And now I have to be reeeeeeally careful with the enchantments here, since this looks like it's going to become my main non-boss armor from now on... So how would you go about this one? Since it has a decent base fire mitigation (same as Terra Armor), I don't think any extra Flameproof enchantments are needed. And with that crazy durability, just 2 Adamantines should be enough. So the rest should be... probably 1x Tough and 7x Flexible. What do you think?

(Now if only I could get a Max Rank Demon Lord's Estoc too... Well... Maybe after another 700 hours into the game... __;)

[Hiraeth (J)]

My Flameproof recommendation isn't for an Undine Cloak that you'd be wearing as a primary armor, it's only for one you're effectively using as a consumable anti-fire equip. (Before you find one with Legendary or Absorbing on it.) As Undine Cloak doesn't actually offer any fire damage mitigation, you're entirely dependant on that 80% chance to get you by. Raising it to 90% cuts that failure rate in half. If it wasn't capped there I'd make Flameproof the primary effect.

(I haven't actually used the vault in ages since I only really play on Maniac mode. While I'm not enough of a masochist to play without saving like some players do, I do impose a personal limit of only reloading any save file one time, as the abundance of save crystals in the game trivializes its difficulty to me. This playstyle probably colors my enchantment recommendations in situations like this.)



Training Bracelet is nice. I finished an Inhumane Maniac 10,000km run a little while back with Pirate where I *finally* found one about 4,000km in reaching level 3700 or so. Did you know the Training Bracelet's evasion/accuracy debuff is actually just giving your character the water tile debuff? If you have it equipped, your accuracy/evasion isn't lowered further while underwater. Whoops.

For your Max Rank Demon Lord's Coat, which of those enchantments in your list would be the primary?


EDIT: By 'shortcut' I just mean that you'll fully enchant a piece of armor faster by using the Tough scrolls you find rather than waiting for more Adamantine and Flexibles, even if it's a tiny bit worse at the end as a result.

[Primaris]

Lots of info here. Thanks for the tips. Guess I`ll be hoarding even more slayer and sturdy enchantments. I`ll keep using Panty`s Sword for now then too.

Right now I`m just trying to find a Force Sword and even if it isnt nearly as good as Panty`s Sword I think I`ll be maining that one just for the fun of it haha.

So for Weapons Slayer, 4 Slayer- and 5 Sturdy- and for Armor Flexible, 4 Flexible- and 5 Adamantine?

Edit: I just gotta ask though. This game is so amazing but why is that Mystery Chronicle one such hot garbage? I'm running a PC that can run modern games on Ultra but for some reason that game lags so hard and the design decisions just baffle me like traps that take away item enchants >_>.

[Hiraeth (J)]

Good luck finding that Force Sword. As far as I know there's only been one documented example of it (just recently), which means it's likely only been obtained a handful of times by anyone.

Mystery Chronicle aimed to be a more streamlined reimagining of the franchise but failed to deliver on many fronts, not the least being that it's just horribly optimized and fails to run smoothly on most systems whatever their specs. Some people like it for a few of the additional features it offers though. To each their own.

EDIT: Whoops, missed your main question. Armor is pretty simple enchantment-wise compared to weapons since there's so few good enchantments for them and all the good ones pretty much do the same thing. Heavy is pretty awful on non-Maniac but great on Maniac...where you can't pull anything out of the vault anyway. Flexible and Adamantine are the way to go, and Tough is fine too if you want the process done faster.

And yep, due to the relatively low downside to Slayer, just stacking that and Sturdy is a simple and powerful route to a powerful long-term weapon. Remember that you can replace a Slayer- with an Angry- for every 5% accuracy your weapon has over 95%. (Unless, as Sleeper mentioned, you're using something like a Training Bracelet or other accuracy-modifying effects are in play.)

On weapons that don't have high crit rates or aren't axes, I'm still partial to throwing a couple Item Destructions into the mix to deal with animated and undead enemies, but that's more a matter of personal taste and most players probably wouldn't advise doing the same yourself.

[Primaris]

Yeah I've just been picking up every 4 weight sword and hoping xD

[All For Her Smile]

Right, flame nullification doesn't add any damage reduction, should the attack go through. It's funny how after so many hundreds of hours into the game, I never really put any deep thought into such details. -_- Although, to be fair, instead of equipping a "consumable anti-fire Undine Cloak", wouldn't it be better to carry around an Ice Fog Armor which, as it says, completely nullifies flame attacks?

And no, I didn't know that the Training Bracelet gives you the same handicaps as water, another thing I never really paid attention to. Thanks for the tip.

As for my Max Rank Demon Lord's Coat, I made some calculations: https://imgur.com/VwdXtt6 . Since the defense rate there shows the damage received, we're looking for the lowest possible score in both columns. And from what you can see there, it seems that the best combination is the 2nd from the top row: Main Adamantine, one more Adamantine-, one Tough- and 7x Flexible-. I could replace 2x Flexible- with 2x Flameproof- (to get it up to 50%) but I don't think that's a very good idea, as that would raise the damage received from 45% up to 56%.

Originally posted by Kinzoku Batto:

Lots of info here. Thanks for the tips. Guess I`ll be hoarding even more slayer and sturdy enchantments. I`ll keep using Panty`s Sword for now then too.

Do that. You won't regret stuffing 5x Slayer and 5x Sturdy on Panty's Sword.

Originally posted by Kinzoku Batto:

So for Weapons Slayer, 4 Slayer- and 5 Sturdy- and for Armor Flexible, 4 Flexible- and 5 Adamantine?

I don't think you need that much Adamantine on an armor, unless it's one with very low durability like Terra. The balance of those enchantments always depends on what kind of armor it is, while things are much more simple with melee weapons. But take a look at the picture I posted above about armor enchantments, maybe it will give you an idea or two.

And about that Force Sword you both mentioned, does that actually exist? I've never seen one and I have over 700 hours in the game. o_o; And it sounds like it would be the perfect weapon for a Force Knight?

[Hiraeth (J)]

Completely nullifies it, yes, but...what, 20? 30 durability? And no ability to enchant it either. And with no defensive properties you're losing your shield slot in the process, leaving you vulnerable instead to the physical attacks unless you have one of the aforementioned uber-tier armors.

EDIT: And 2 weight, I think? Or 3. I haven't used one in awhile, it's not on the wiki, and I don't have one in the vault.