How do you upgrade a weapon?

[ThillyGooth]

Or can you?

[Vagrant]

The only weapons you can upgrade are the 8-bit weapon collection, the ones you have to craft.

[Chaostraveler]

With the exception of the 8-bit weapons, most of the weapons can't be upgraded. Some weapons are used as part of a recipe for newer weapons )or for shards) though you will likely need to find recipe books throughout the castle..

[RobDeLaMorte]

It's a bit weird to be honest that there's no way to "level up" weapons like you can with shards. It would have helped make 85% of them stay a little more relevant instead of being completely forgettable.

[Kyutaru]

You basically upgrade them by using them as mats to make better weapons. Then combining three weapons is how you craft most of the super weapons. The early stuff is mainly crafting fodder and usable for upgrading your weapon expertise.

[Icedfate]

also,
as I discovered in my other post, which is being discussed

you might want to hold onto some of the early , weaker weapons, since many of the weapon techniques require the early weapons,
which when mastered, those same techniques can be used with the stronger weapons.

[Kyutaru]

Something I also discovered accidentally through laziness and hoarding tendencies is that the weapon expertise all use easy to craft weapons that need basic materials like iron or steel, which you'll get tons of throughout the game. So regularly upgrade them and you'll have no problem getting them maxed halfway through the game.

[Icedfate]

and farming multiple copies of the weapon expertise shards, will increase their "grade" which increases the damage boost they give.

so, finding weapon expertise and increasing the ranks and grade, is a sort of way of "upgrading weapons"

unfortunately, in any game, some weapons will always be better than others, causing the weaker weapons to become obsolete.

at least this game gives you a reason to use those weaker weapons for a bit longer