Beginner guide - 2. Items (August 2021, patch 0.69)

Anything that can be put into inventory. How to use, how to get.

Disclaimer

• At the time of creation of this guide, the game is in Early Access. Everything can dramatically change with future content.
  
• All conclusions in this guide are based on my personal experience. This isn't the ultimate truth. If you think I'm wrong - tell me about it. Perhaps I will reconsider my point of view.

Updates

Last modified sections since May 1:
5, 6, 7.8, whole section 8

• July 7, 2022 - patch 0.72. New singularity sign, a few fixes.
  "Blade Mastery" skill (DEX 19) and Syllable 1 of the Serpent sign no longer affect base repel value in the tooltip of any shields.
  
  
• May 7, 2022 - patch 0.71. New singularity sign, bugfixes and quality of life udgrades.
  No changes related to items.
  
  
• December 24, 2021 - patch 0.70. New skills in Mechanics skill tree.
  No changes related to items.
  
  
• August 4, 2021 - patch 0.69.
  No changes related to items.
  
  
• May 10, 2021 - сompletion of section 8 and thus completion of the entire guide. Looking forward to future content.
  
  
• May 8, 2021 - reconsidering the significance of the "Get temporary levels" skull effect (section 5); at the bottom of section 7.8 added information about a bug leading to the loss of Skulls inserted into the Voodoo Doll.
  
  
• May 2, 2021 - patch 0.68.
  The Golden Umbrella can no longer be activated without a singularity point invested in the corresponding Syllable (Syllable 4 in the Rain constellation).
  
  
• March 2, 2021 - creating this guide.

Basic information about items and materials

Each item in the inventory consists of some combination of 5 base materials. By clicking the "Craft" button in your inventory, you will see on the right a list of available raw materials:

	Iron
	Steel
	Malachite
	Gold
	Dark Alloy

Note:

The in-game term "metal" is used for all of these materials, but it's inaccurate. Malachite is a mineral. Of course, it contains copper in its composition, but it isn't a pure metal. Therefore, in the future I will stick to the term "material". Because what else to call "what items are made of", if not "material".

All types of items (except for Magic stones) have one thing in common - Quality. For each type of item, Quality means something different (this will be discussed in more detail in the corresponding sections for each type of item).

The Quality can be improved through the "Upgrade" button in the crafting menu. When you click on it, the background of the inventory turns green, and the inscription "Upgrade" appears on the items, as well as the type and amount of materials required to increase the Quality.



Each item has the primary material from which this item is made - this is the material that will be needed when upgrading. When upgrading above Quality 5, in addition to the primary material, you will need a secondary material - some other type of material. Each subsequent upgrade requires more and more materials.

If you don't want to improve the Quality of an item, then it can be disassembled into materials through the "Disassemble" button in the crafting menu. When you click on it, the background of the inventory turns red, and a red inscription "Disassemble" appears on the items, as well as the type and amount of materials that will be obtained during disassembly.



Usually, when disassembling an item, you can get half of the amount of materials needed to upgrade to the next Quality. There are some exceptions, but they are quite rare.

1. Weapons

Primary material:	Iron
Secondary material:	Steel
Quality affects:	The maximum possible number of Magic Stones that can be inserted into an item.

When evaluating a weapon, there is 1 main parameter that determines almost everything - Base Damage. There are many aspects to consider, but most of them depend Base Damage in some way or another.

Note:

Many aspects of a weapon's performance are directly or indirectly related to a weapon's Base Damage. There are several ways in the game to influence the Base Damage of a weapon in one way or another (it can be inserted Magic Stones, Constellation effects or some skills), but any reference to "Base Damage" of any weapon in this guide means an initial Base Damage WITHOUT ANY EXTERNAL INFLUENCE.

First of all - the base cost of increasing the weapon level. The default base cost is equal to the square of Base Damage. If you see that this rule isn't being followed, then this is an obvious sign of external influence.

At this state of the game, it happens that the best weapon in the game is a weapon with a base cost of 1. And the easiest way to get it's the starting Noname Dagger (often abbreviated to "NND").

Common features:

• There is no maximum item level.
  Everything you can achieve is limited only by the amount of rubies you can get.
  
  
• The increase in weapon Quality affects the number of Magic Stones that can be inserted into this item.
  
  
• Damage grows non-linearly with each item level.
  As the level of the item increases, the damage increases depending on the Base Damage. Every 10 item levels, the weapon gains an additional damage bonus.
  
  • D(L)=D*L*1.25^TRUNC(L/10),
    where "D(L)" - current damage of weapon with Base Damage "D" at current level "L".
  
  
• The cost of leveling up increases non-linearly with each item level.
  
  • C(L)=C*1.1^L,
    where "C(L)" - cost of increasing the level by 1 for weapon with base cost "C" at current level "L".

More detailed information on weapon damage, cost and efficiency of use can be found in this guide:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2129993888

├ 1.1. Weapon archetypes

There are 2 archetypes of weapons:

• "Light" weapon (Base Damage <1000)
  The Base Damage of this weapon type can range from 3 to 999.
  
  In fact, there is no term "light weapon" in the game - there is only the term "heavy weapon". But you need to somehow name the weapon that isn't "heavy" in order to somehow distinguish between them.
  
  
• "Heavy" weapon (Base Damage ≥ 1000)
  The Base Damage of this weapon type can range from 1,000 to 10,000.
  
  Weapons of this archetype are automatically labeled "Heavy" in their names.

Overall, the "Heavy" label in the title is more than just a Base Damage indicator. There are 3 fundamental differences between light and heavy weapons:

• Upgrade cost
  Remember when I said that when you increase the Quality of items, there are primary and secondary materials, and also that for weapons the primary material is iron, and the secondary material is steel? Well, "heavy" weapons require steel for ANY upgrade (even below Quality 5). Just to increase Quality above 5 "heavy" weapons require even more steel.
  
  On the other hand, it also means that "heavy" weapons of any Quality are a source of steel. To be honest, most weapons obtained from various sources are prime candidates for disassembly. If you consider weapons as a source of materials, then any source of weapons can, with some chance, give you "heavy" weapons - this means that during disassembly, along with iron, you will also receive a certain amount of steel. Therefore, it isn't a bad idea to reroll the contents of the Market tab and reward Chests to aim for heavy weapon (see the "Tips" section for details).
  
  
• Constellation effect
  Syllable 2 in the Dragon constellation gives a bonus damage for weapons that are marked as "Heavy". "Light" weapons will not receive this bonus under any circumstances.
  
  
• Skull effects
  The game has such an item as "Skull". The effects of the Skull are slightly different depending on whether the weapon is "light" or "heavy". For more details, see the "Skull" section.

├ 1.2. Weapon prefixes

There are several weapon prefixes in the game:

• Flaming
  
• Buzzing
  
• Rainbow
  
• Primal

The prefixes are mutually exclusive, but don't affect weapon archetypes in any way. Therefore, you can find the "Rainbow Heavy" weapon, but you can't find, for example, "Flaming Buzzing" weapon.

The prefix doesn't affect the cost of upgrading Weapon Quality, so the cost of the upgrade will only depend on the archetype of the weapon. But the Prefix affects the reward for dismantling weapons. For example, Primal weapons will give more iron upon disassembly than weapons without a prefix. The influence of the prefix on the disassembly reward still requires additional research, but it's difficult to carry out in the context of limited resources. Well, maybe sometimes later.

For some prefixes, it's indicated that their damage type is different from "physical". As the developers admit, this is the legacy of the early concepts of the game. The idea wasn't developed, but the description remained. Don't let this be confusing: any mention of the damage type at the moment is purely cosmetic and doesn't affect the gameplay.

The only exception is the "Rage of Darkness" skill. This skill doesn't give the bonus damage to Buzzing and Rainbow weapons. Let's just consider this fact as a relic of the past.

Note:

To understand some aspects of this section, you need to know how crit works in the game. For details see section 3.2 of this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2162095826

Flaming weapons

Flaming weapons have a 50% chance to inflict Explosive Strike on any melee attack. Explosive Strike deals area damage, usually hitting 2 enemies (but in some cases - more than 2 enemies). The nearest enemy takes double damage from Explosive Strike, while other enemies hit take normal attack damage.

Flaming weapons by default have no chance to critically hit on basic attacks. This doesn't mean that the character will not be able to inflict critical damage at all, but certain conditions must be met for this.

However, Explosive Strike can't be critical under any circumstances. If Explosive Strike is triggered during the attack, then the attack won't be critical under any circumstances.

Buzzing weapons

On a critical hit, Buzzing weapon inflicts Shock on the enemy for 1.5 seconds. While Shock is active, melee attacks on the enemy deal double damage and cause the blue inscription "Double" to appear on impact.

While talking about the "Chain Strike" skill, the developer said "Chain Strike can't crit, but does double damage to shocked targets". Taking into account that "Chain Strike" is a skill, I have a theory that ANY damage to shocked targets deals double damage. It's just that not all damage types cause the inscription "Double" to appear. I can't confirm this in any way, but I sense that there is something in it. But until this has been officially confirmed, we will assume that Shock only doubles the damage for melee attacks.

For Buzzing Weapon, the bonus damage from Strength is capped and can't exceed +100%. Even the damage bonus from the Dragon constellation can't bypass this limitation. This reduces the combat potential of the weapon, but this can be circumvented. If you plan on using a critical melee build, then you can use the Buzzing Weapon as a secondary weapon. It doesn't need to deal damage - it only needs to inflict Shock on a critical hit. Therefore, you can insert into it those Magic Stones that you would never have inserted into the main weapon (for example, Stones with "on kill" effects).

Rainbow weapons

"Every 7th hit is critical" - the description of the weapon tells us. But what it doesn't tell us is that the other 6 hits won't be critical. Like Flaming weapons, the Rainbow weapons by default have no critical strike chance. Of course, there are ways to make the rest of the hits critical - but then what's the point of THIS type of weapon?

In addition, weapon with "Rainbow" prefix gets only 1/7 of the bonus damage from Strength.

All this makes me think that the "Rainbow" prefix is more of a debuff for a weapon than a buff.

Primal weapons

The power of simplicity - no fancy effects. Weapons with this prefix gain double bonus damage from Strength. Nothing outstanding, but also no downsides.

In the case of Primal Heavy Weapons, this could be a nice damage bonus if the Heavy Weapons didn't require a heavy investment to be more useful than a light weapon with a base cost of 1. But this is rather a problem not of the "Primal" prefix, but of the "Heavy" archetype. For details, see section 9 of this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2129993888

└ 1.3. Weapon suffixes

Well, actually there are no weapon-related suffixes in the game at the moment. If at the end of the name of any weapon you see an inscription like "... of X", it means that the Magic Stone is inserted into the weapon. And in the name of this Stone there is an "X" part.

For example, the name "Sword of Claws" means that the "Stone of Claws" was inserted into the sword.

2. Accessories

Primary material:	Various
Secondary material:	Various
Quality affects:	The maximum item level that can be achieved in the current game session is 10*Quality.

Note:

For items from this category, the game uses the term "non-weapon items". But it's heavily outdated. At the moment, there are too many items in the game that can be called "non-weapon", but they are too different from the items that are described in this section. They require a separate term - let it be the term "accessories".

The items in this category are made of different materials and have different effects, but they do share some common features:

• Items have a maximum level.
  The value of the maximum item level is always strictly limited by the item Quality. Maximum level = 10*Quality. It's for this reason that there are no Quality 0 accessories - there is no point in them.
  
  
• Each item level has a fixed effect that increases linearly with the item level.
  
  
• The cost of leveling up increases non-linearly with each item level.
  
  • C(L)=C*(1+0.5*L)*1.2^L,
    where "C(L)" - cost of increasing the level by 1 for an accessory with base cost "C" at current level "L".
  
  
• For different items with the same effect, the cost of leveling up may differ depending on the material the item is made of.
  Despite all the differences between accessories, the principle of increasing the cost of leveling the item up is the same for all of them and depends on the current level of the item (see the formula above). But accessories with the same effects but different primary materials have different base costs. For example, a gold ring has a base cost of 1000 rubies, and an iron ring has a base cost of 8000 rubies. If you raise the level of both rings to the same value, then both of them will give the same effect. But it turns out that for a gold ring you get the same effect, but 8 times cheaper than for an iron ring.

├ 2.1. General stats

Total damage

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Iron Ring of Strength	8000	Iron	Steel
	Ring of Strength	5000	Steel	Malachite
	Malachite Ring of Strength	5000	Malachite	Gold
	Golden Ring of Strength	1000	Gold	Malachite

Effect per level: + 2% to total damage.

Critical damage

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Iron Ring of Dexterity	8000	Iron	Steel
	Ring of Dexterity	5000	Steel	Malachite
	Malachite Ring of Dexterity	5000	Malachite	Gold
	Golden Ring of Dexterity	1000	Gold	Malachite

Effect per level: +5% to critical damage.

Maximum energy

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Iron Ring of Water	8000	Iron	Steel
	Malachite Ring of Water	5000	Malachite	Gold
	Golden Ring of Water	1000	Gold	Malachite
	Flask of Water	200	Malachite	Gold

Effect per level: +8 to maximum energy.

Maximum mana

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Iron Ring of Wisdom	8000	Iron	Steel
	Ring of Wisdom	5000	Steel	Malachite
	Malachite Ring of Wisdom	5000	Malachite	Gold
	Golden Ring of Wisdom	1000	Gold	Malachite

Effect per level: +5 to maximum mana.

Energy regen per second

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Iron Ring of Energy	8000	Iron	Steel
	Malachite Ring of Energy	5000	Malachite	Gold
	Acorn amulet of Energy	1500	Malachite	Steel
	Golden Ring of Energy	1000	Gold	Malachite

Effect per level: +0.1 to energy regen per second.

Mana regen per second

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Iron Ring of Mana	8000	Iron	Steel
	Malachite Ring of Mana	5000	Malachite	Gold
	Horn of Mana	4000	Dark Alloy	Gold
	Golden Ring of Mana	1000	Gold	Malachite

Effect per level: +0.01 to mana regen per second.

Voodoo doll

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Voodoo doll	6600	Dark Alloy	Dark Alloy

Effect per level: one of the effects mentioned above.
A voodoo doll has no effect when received from any source (chest/reward). Instead, after each Ritual, it receives one of the random effects mentioned above. The player has no control over what effect will be obtained after the next Ritual.

WARNING!

Don't use the Skull on the Voodoo Doll (see the bottom of section 7.8 for details).

Note:

Interesting fact: despite the fact that the Voodoo Doll obviously obeys all the rules of accessories and gives the effects of most of them, it NEVER appears on the same reward list with other accessories. Not on the Market, not as Chest rewards. Any mention of a "non-weapon" item (which in the case of Chests means accessories) will never give you a Voodoo Doll.

├ 2.2. Auto-launch active skills

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Soldier's Boots	6500	Gold	Steel
	Hunter's Boots	6500	Malachite	Steel
	Traveler's Boots	6500	Dark Alloy	Steel

Effect per level: +1% chance to activate an active skill from a specific skill tree every 3 seconds.

"Soldier's Boots" - for Strength skill tree, "Hunter's Boots" - for Dexterity skill tree, "Traveler's Boots" - for Wisdom skill tree. At the moment, there are no boots that could activate active skills for the Lunar Bond skill tree. Because wolves don't wear boots, I suppose.

To automatically activate a skill, you still need to fulfill all the conditions that are necessary for manual activation of the skill. If more than one active skill is unlocked in one skill tree, the order of their activation is unknown.

A very situational item, but in some cases it's simply irreplaceable, as it allows you to enjoy idle play without the need to invest skill points in any skills with a similar effect, as well as in the stats required to unlock these skills.

└ 2.3. Unique effects

This section contains accessories that have no analogues at the moment.

Combat Gloves

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Combat Gloves	350	Iron	Dark Alloy

Effect per level: direct clicks on enemies deal 20% of total damage per item level.

Heavily underestimated item.

This accessory has one of the lowest base costs in the game. The lower the base cost, the less rubies you need to level up, the faster the item gets new levels. This alone has certain advantages:

• The most comfortable start for a new Shard I have ever seen.
  The unique effect of Combat Gloves allows any clicks to inflict damage on enemies. If for any other methods of inflicting damage it's necessary to gain several levels of the character and invest skill points in some skills, then only rubies are needed for Combat gloves. Already at level 5 of the item, this damage is equal to the total damage of the character, and then the clicks begin to exceed the damage of the character's attack. At some point, the damage from the click starts killing enemies, which GREATLY speeds up the start of a new Shard.
  
  This effect works with ANY clicks, so autoclicks also start to deal damage across the entire screen, seriously speeding up the completion of starting Zones.
  
  Since clicks begin to inflict a percentage of the total damage (+100% per every 5 item levels), any skills that increase the total damage at the same time increase the damage of clicks. This allows click damage to be adequately scaled for a fairly long time. Of course, at some point the character gains several dozen levels, and click damage becomes not so important, but this doesn't negate the fact that Combat Gloves support the character when he is weakest and most vulnerable - at the very beginning.
  
  
• One of the cheapest accessory to insert the Skull.
  Three Skulls in accessories allow you to get any basic stat (STR/DEX/WIS) for free. But in order for the Skull to start working, you need to raise the item level to 50. In the case of accessories, this also means the need to increase the Quality of the accessory to 5. In this regard, Combat Gloves also have an advantage: they not only use the most accessible material in the game to increase the Quality (Iron), but also allow you to get level 50 faster than other accessories due to their low base cost. Early access to a free stat means 10+ skill points that can be saved on unlocking expensive stats through the Skull effect in Combat Gloves. Looks like a win-win situation to me.

Pyromancer Ring

Icon	Name	Base cost	Primary material	Secondary material
	Pyromancer Ring	4500	Gold	Steel

Effect per level: +4% to fire damage.

This is a new item introduced in patch 0.67, so its effects have not been sufficiently researched yet. But the developers said that the increase in fire damage should work on damage of "Flame Flow", "Fire Sword", "Fireball" and "Armageddon" skills.

It was also mentioned by the developers that the effect of this ring should work on Flaming weapons, but testing has shown that this isn't entirely true. Despite the fact that the description of the Flaming weapon clearly states that it deals fire damage, the ring doesn't affect the damage of melee attacks and the total damage of the character. But at the same time, the ring works on Explosive Strike, which can be triggered when attacking with Flaming weapon equipped.

3. Shields

Primary material:	Iron
Secondary material:	Steel
Quality affects:	The maximum possible number of Magic Stones that can be inserted into an item.

Shields are a new item type introduced in patch 0.65. Shields give access to a new mechanic - Repel. If the character was attacked by an enemy, then a tiny shield mark is applied to the enemy. At the next auto-attack of the character on the marked enemy, the mark is removed, and the damage of the melee attack is increased by the value of the Total Repel (yellow number next to the shield mark above the enemy's head).



The bonus Repel damage applies only to melee attacks in form of additional damage multiplier. Thus, the shield is most effective for melee builds, especially critical melee builds.On the other hand, this means its low efficiency for builds in which the main damage is done not by an auto-attack, but by some skill (most WIS builds).

The idea is great, but its implementation has one big problem: the Repel effect depends on the attack speed of the ENEMY, so the effect of the shield is applied only once every 2-4 seconds - and the player can't influence this in any way. If you look at the attack speed of most melee builds, the ability to increase ONE attack every 2-4 seconds doesn't look like a serious increase in DPS.

On the other hand, the player always lacks SP. Always. Against this background, being able to get a damage multiplier that depends entirely on rubies is a rather tempting prospect. But in this case, you need to get a REALLY high values of Total Repel ​​- this is greatly facilitated by the fact that in patch 0.67 the Total Repel increase passive moved to the Strength skill tree ("Shield Mastery" skill) and is now next to "Indefatigability", which makes it easier to get this skill.

Let me explain what I mean.

Let's say the Repel effect is triggered every 4 seconds. Let's also assume that at this stage of the game your character makes 5 attacks per second, which means that in 4 seconds he will make 20 attacks. Now suppose you have a shield with a base Repel of 25%, which you have leveled up to level 40 - this means that the next attack will deal 40*25%=1000% additional damage. Now you have invested 10 SP in the "Shield Mastery" skill, which will increase your total Repel by another 500% (up to +6000%).

What does it mean? The character continues to make 20 attacks in 4 seconds, but one of these attacks, in addition to its normal damage, will deal an additional 6000% damage, which is equal to 60 normal attacks. It turns out that in terms of damage, in the same 4 seconds you inflict damage equal to not just 20 attacks, but 80 attacks - which means an increase in your average DPS by 4 times.

In terms of common features, shields resemble a strange mixture of weapons and accessories:

• There is no maximum item level.
  Everything you can achieve is limited only by the amount of rubies you can get.
  
  
• The increase in weapon Quality affects the number of Magic Stones that can be inserted into this item.
  However, unlike weapons, not all Magic Stones can be inserted into shields. You can't insert Stones that directly affect weapon damage (Stone of Dominance, Stone of Claw, Stone of Excellence).
  
  
• Damage grows linearly with each item level.
  As the level of the item increases, the total Repel value increases depending on the base Repel value.
  
  • R(L)=R*L,
    where R(L) - current total Repel of shield with base Repel value "R" at level "L".
  
  
• The cost of leveling up increases non-linearly with each item level.
  
  • C(L)=C*(1+L)*1.1^L,
    where "C(L)" - cost of increasing the level by 1 for shield with base cost "C" at current level "L".
  
  
• Although shields aren't weapons, they can be used in Raw Shards.
  Even though the description of the Raw Shard says "Only weapons can be used." Just a fun fact - decide for yourself what to do with this information.

At the moment there are only 5 types of shields in the game. Don't be fooled by the picture on the item icon: shields only differ in the base Repel value.

Base Repel	Base Cost
5%	12500
10%	100000
15%	337500
20%	800000
25%	1562500

If you still decide to get yourself a shield, then take the one with the most Base Repel value.

For more information on comparing shields, see section 12 of this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2129993888

4. Magic Stones

Icon	Name	In-game description	Disassembly reward
	Stone of Claw	Weapon base damage increased by 5 Weapon damage increased by 20%	Steel x10
	Stone of Cornflowers	X% chance to get 2 mana for killing X equals weapon level	Steel x1 Malachite x1 Gold x1 Dark Alloy x1
	Stone of Dominance	+Q to base damage, -Q to base cost (Q=quality)	Gold x9
	Stone of Excellence	+1% damage per weapon level	Steel x8 Malachite x4
	Stone of Harvest	+3 to energy for killing a monster	Iron x4 Dark Alloy x3
	Stone of Mechanic	Weapon automaticallly upgrades (rubies are still required) Autoupgrade speed: 3	Iron x10
	Stone of Tenderness	Level-up cost x0.80	Gold x6
	Stone of Thief	Base levelup cost -10 (cost can't be less than 1)	Gold x6
	Stone of Vlad	3% chance to summon a bat when killing a monster	Iron x4 Dark Alloy x3
	Stone Extraction Tool	In craft mode, drag this tool to a weapon to extract all stones from the weapon. Uses remaining: 2	Iron x18

Magic Stones can be inserted into weapons or shields for specific benefits. When a Stone is inserted into an item, a suffix appears in its name, indicating which stone is inserted. For example, the name "Sword of Claws" means that the "Stone of Claws" was inserted into the sword.

If several Stones are inserted into an object, then at some point it becomes inconvenient to check which Stones are inserted. Of course, knowing the properties of the Stones, you can look at the characteristics of the item and calculate which Stones are inserted and how many there are. But you can use a little trick: if you put an item in your inventory in the furthest right column, press "Craft" button, and then press "Charm", you will be able to see all inserted Stones:



Of course, this is glitch, but not critical and extremely useful for the player.

If you disassemble an item with inserted Stones, then in addition to the standard reward for dismantling that particular item, you will also receive a full reward for each inserted Stone (see the table above).

├ 4.1. Detailed analysis (part 1)

Stone of Claw

An important stone for weapons (especially light weapons).

This stone increases weapon damage in two directions at once: base damage and total damage. This is quite a significant effect if you understand the mechanics of damage calculation.

If you look at the formula for weapon damage, you will see that the first component of total damage is base damage. The 5 base damage increase may seem insignificant, but let's see how this gem affects the 5 base damage weapon - the starting Noname Dagger. First, an increase of 5 to base damage would double the total damage. Then, after all other calculations, weapon damage will be increased by another 20%. As a result, we get that inserting just one stone increased the total weapon damage from 100% to 240% - this means +140% damage.

With the percentage increase in total damage, everything is clear. But the effectiveness of increasing the base damage by a fixed value depends on what base damage the weapon had before the Stone was inserted. But it just so happened that at the moment the best weapon in the game is a weapon with a base cost of 1. Therefore, for a beginner for a VERY long time, the starting Noname Dagger will be the best friend. And for the Noname Dagger, the effect of the Stone of Claw is significant. Of course, with each Stone inserted, the relative effectiveness of subsequent Stones decreases, but it's still a good choice.

Under the effect of this Stone, the weapon's damage formula changes as follows:

• D(L)=(1+0.2*Cl.)*(D+5*Cl.)*L*1.25^TRUNC(L/10),
  where "D(L)" - current damage of weapon with Base Damage "D" at current level "L", "Cl." - the number of Stones of Claw inserted.

Can't be inserted into shields.

Stone of Cornflowers

It works as it's written: when killing an enemy, it restores you 2 mana with some chance. Increasing the chance above 100% doesn't provide any benefit.

This may seem like a good Stone, but consider the condition for obtaining the effect: killing an enemy. What if you didn't kill it quickly? Will you benefit from an effect that is useless during boss fight? As a result, it turns out that on paper it looks good, but in practical application, this effect is too unreliable.

Unlike the Stone of Harvest, this Stone doesn't even give a 100% chance of an effect if the item doesn't have 100+ levels. Too unreliable. And even when disassembled, it yields less materials than any other Stone. Sheer disappointment.


Stone of Dominance

The most important stone for light weapons.

The Stone of Dominance increases the base weapon damage by Q while reducing its base cost by Q (where Q is the current weapon Quality). Any changes to the Quality of a weapon with a Stone attached to it immediately results in a recalculation of the effect of the Stone in accordance with the current values. If you have chosen your main weapon, then you will surely improve its Quality - and this makes the stone only better with each upgrade.

This is the main way to get the best weapon in the game - a weapon with a base cost of 1.

Under the effect of this Stone, the weapon's damage formula changes as follows:

• D(L)=(D+Q*Dom.)*L*1.25^TRUNC(L/10),
  where "D(L)" - current damage of weapon with Base Damage "D" at current level "L", "Dom." - the number of Stones of Dominance inserted, "Q" - current weapon Quality.

Can't be inserted into shields.

Stone of Excellence

A very important stone for all types of weapons.

The effect of the Stone is very simple, but powerful: for each weapon level, this Stone increases the total damage of the weapon by 1%. If you leveled up your weapon to level 100, then each Stone will increase its damage by 100%, regardless of whether it's a light weapon or a heavy one.

Under the effect of this Stone, the weapon's damage formula changes as follows:

• D(L)=(1+0.01*L*Ex.)*D*L*1.25^TRUNC(L/10),
  where "D(L)" - current damage of weapon with Base Damage "D" at current level "L", "Ex." - the number of Stones of Excellence inserted.

Can't be inserted into shields.

Stone of Harvest

It works as it's written: when killing an enemy, it restores you 3 energy.

This may seem like a good Stone, but consider the condition for obtaining the effect: killing an enemy. What if you didn't kill it quickly? Will you benefit from an effect that is useless during boss fight? As a result, it turns out that on paper it looks good, but in practical application, this effect is too unreliable.

I wouldn't put it in the main weapon, because there are more useful Stones. In the best case, I would insert it into the shield to get a little utility effect, but before that I would still check if I have something better in stock.

Stone of Mechanic

Pure utility Stone.

To be honest, I prefer to play Grim Clicker mostly idle. This is a game that I play while I play something else. And in the first Galaxy, when I obviously lacked a lot of what I have now (SP, items, buffs, etc.), I used this Stone in my primary weapon.

No great plan - just laziness. I was too lazy, so I inserted this stone to use the Alt-Tab less often. You are busy with something else, and at the same time the game is progressing, weapons gain levels, Zones are being completed, experience is accumulating. Nice.

Of course, if you want to achieve the best possible weapon damage in your current situation, then this Stone has no place in the primary weapon. But if you have a free slot, Stone of Mechanic and a desire to make the game a little more comfortable - then why not?

When inserting several Stones, the auto-upgrade speed increases. It looks like the time to level up by 1 is equal to 100 seconds divided by the auto-upgrade speed value. For one stone, this is about 33 seconds, for two - about 17 seconds. But in fact, I don't see any reason to insert more than 1 Stone of Mechanic into any item.

Stone of Tenderness

It reduces the cost of leveling up an item to 0.8 from the original value. Multiple effects stacks multiplicatively before applying to weapon (with one Stone level up cost 80% of original value, with two - 64%, with three - 51%).

To be honest, this Stone looked pretty good until I figured out the behind-the-scenes math of how weapons work. Taking into account HOW the cost of the weapon is calculated, it turns out that the discount received from the Stone of Tenderness will allow you to purchase approximately 2.34 additional weapon levels per each inserted stone. Compared to the effect of ANY other damage Stone (Dominance, Excellence and Claw), this is ridiculous.

But everything changed with the introduction of shields into the game. Damage Stones can't be inserted into shields, so the competition for a place in the slot simply disappears. And it turns out that if you decide to use shields, then the Stone of Tenderness is the "best in the slot" choice .

└ 4.2. Detailed analysis (part 2)

Stone of Thief

Poor man's Stone of Dominance.

The main task of any new player is to get a weapon with a base cost of 1. And the Stone of Thief allows a beginner (who obviously lacks resources) to achieve the desired result MUCH faster.

The Stone of Dominance reduces the base cost by the value of the current Quality of the weapon - which means dozens of units of materials that are not so easy for a beginner to get. At the same time, the Stone of Thief simply reduces the base cost by 10 without any fancy conditions. Yes, it doesn"t increase damage, but at first it doesn't matter. When the player has accumulated enough materials, then it will be possible to start optimizing weapons. Until then, the Stone of Thief is a gift of fate for any beginner.

Stone of Vlad

As with other effects that are triggered by killing an enemy, I find this activation method not very reliable. But in this case, it's even worse. 3% chance to summon a bat? Seriously?

I would be grateful if someone could tell me a reliable way to benefit from this stone. So far, I don't even see one.

Stone Extraction Tool

It may seem that the Stone Extraction Tool doesn't belong in this section - but from the point of view of game mechanics, this is the Magic Stone. The simplest proof: on the Market, the Stone Extraction Tool is sold in the same slots that are intended for the sale of Magic Stones.

The method of its use is the same as for other Magic Stones: through the "Charm" button in the "Craft" menu. When used on an item with Magic Stones, all inserted Stones will be extracted and moved to inventory. If the player had less free slots in the inventory than the number of extracted Stones, then nothing will be lost - all the items that are exceeding will be placed in temporary storage (a corresponding button will appear in the lower right part of the inventory).

The Stone Extraction Tool can be used twice, after which it disappears from the inventory. If you have come across information that the charges of using the Stone Extraction Tool can be restored through the "Upgrade", then I will disappoint you - this is very outdated information. The developers recognized this as a bug and fixed it in patch 0.59d.

Conclusions

In my opinion, at the moment I can divide all existing Magic Stones into 4 categories:

• Damage Stones
  Stone of Dominance, Stone of Excellence, Stone of Claw - intended for weapons. If damage is important to you, then there should be no other Stones in your weapon.
  
• Utility Stones
  Stone of Mechanic,Stone of Thief, Stone Extraction Tool - situational utility under certain conditions.
  
• Stone of Tenderness
  At this stage of the game, I see no other use for Stone of Tenderness other than shields. The Stones mentioned above either can't be inserted into the shield, or have situational usefulness. Only the Stone does anything really useful for shields, especially considering their astronomical increase in the cost of leveling up. If not for this, this Stone would be in the category below.
  
• Other
  Sheer disappointment.

For more information on the interaction of weapons and Magic Stones, about the importance of weapons with a base cost of 1 and the dubious usefulness of inserting Stone of Tenderness into a weapon, see this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2129993888

5. Skulls

Icon	Name	Disassembly reward
	Skull	Steel x12 Dark Alloy x16

The Skull is one of the possible rewards for the Cursed Altar game mechanic. This mechanic is available to all players only after completing the first Galaxy.

The Skull is somewhat similar to the Magic Stones: you insert it into an item and get some kind of effect from it. But there are key differences:

• The Skull can be inserted not only into weapons and shields, but also into accessories.
  
• The number of Skulls in an item doesn't depend on Quality.
  
• There is no limit to the number of Skulls in an item.
  
• The skull doesn't conflict with Magic Stones in any way and doesn't occupy a slot for Stones.
  
• The Skull gives access not to one effect, but to a whole list of effects, from which the player must choose one. This effect will last until the next ritual or until leaving the Shard.
  
• To get the effect from the Skull, you need to raise the item level to 50.
  
• Once the item with the Skull inserted into it reaches level 50, the item can't be removed from the equipment slot until the next Ritual or until leaving the Shard.
  
• Skulls can't be removed after insertion.
  
• Disassembling an item with Skulls doesn't add the disassembling reward of inserted Skulls to the list of materials received.

List of possible effects:

Name	Effect
Increase this weapon damage	+50%*√skulls
Increase max level	+50%*√skulls
Get temporary levels	+80%*√skulls
Autoupgrades	Automatically increases the item level at a rate that depends on the number of Skulls inserted (formula unknown)
Increase Strength	+1 Strength
Increase Dexterity	+1 Dexterity
Increase Wisdom	+1 Wisdom

Note:

In the table above, “√skulls” stands for “square root of the number of Skulls inserted”. This wasn't obvious to me, because in the game instead of the symbol "√" (square root), the symbol "✓" (check mark) is used.

However, not all of the above effects apply to all items. This depends not only on the type of item, but also on the archetype of the weapon (see section 1.1 for details).

In addition, 1 skull is not enough to activate most of the effects. The table below shows the number of Skulls required to activate certain effects:

Effect name	Light weapon	Heavy weapon	Accessory	Shield
Increase this weapon damage	1	1	N/A	N/A
Increase max level	N/A	N/A	1	N/A
Get temporary levels	1	1	1	1
Autoupgrades	1	1	1	1
Increase Strength	4	2	3	4
Increase Dexterity	2	4	3	4
Increase Wisdom	11-Quality	11-Quality	3	11-Quality (see note)

Note:

The menu for selecting the effect for the shields was simply copy-pasted by developers from the similar menu for the weapons. Even the text hasn't been changed - the "weapon" is mentioned everywhere instead of the "shield". This is probably why the "Increase Wisdom" action doesn't take into account the Quality of the shield, so it ALWAYS requires 11 skulls to activate the effect - after all, the shield isn't a weapon.

Let's take a closer look at these effects:

• Increase this weapon damage
  Weapon-exclusive effect. A very simple and straightforward - increases weapon damage. The damage bonus is actually quite small, but it has an undeniable advantage - it's the best effect for 1 Skull. But further insertion of the Skulls opens up access to more useful effects.
  
  
• Increase max level
  Accessory-exclusive effect. As with the effect above, not a very large result, but the effect is better than the rest of the effects for 1 Skull.
  
  
• Get temporary levels
  When you see "temporary levels", you have no idea how temporary they are. The effect lasts exactly until you leave current Zone.
  
  Using temporary levels on weapons gives you a HUGE damage spike (because of default level-related damage scaling, multplicative x1.25 bonus damage for every 10 weapon levels and level-related bonus from Stones of Excellence). It can help you to start a new Shard much more comfortably or kill a boss easier. Thanks to auto-leveling effects (such as "Blacksmith Craft" skill), you can save a skull effect for later, while still geting benefits from leveling your weapon up.
  
  Temporary levels on accessories aren't that impactful.
  
  
• Autoupgrades
  Just a little utility effect. Situationally useful under some conditions, but not more.
  
  
• Increase Strength/Dexterity/Wisdom
  This is a HUGE SP-saving utility. It would seem that only +1 to the selected stat isn't much. But it's important to understand WHERE this stat is located. For example, for your build you need 13 Strength. To increase Strength from 12 to 13, you usually need to spend 13 SP. But if you increase Strength to 12, and then activate the "Increase Strength" effect, then you will receive the same 13 Strength as planned, but you will save 13 SP, which can be spent on strengthening your build.
  
  When you have at least a rough idea of what your build will look like, the greatest results are achieved when you use this effect on the most expensive stats.

When a Skull is inserted into an item, the prefix "Cursed" appears in the name of the item. In general, up to level 50, this item is no different from any other similar item. But as soon as level 50 is reached, an image of a skull appears on the item against a reddish background:



Clicking on this skull brings up an effect selection menu. And this is where the problem begins: until you select an effect from the list, you will not be able to increase the item level by normal means. And this is quite inconvenient: sometimes you get access to an effect when you don't need it yet. If you choose "+1 stat" now, you will not get the full benefit. And if you don't choose, you won't be able to increase the level of the item, which is quite critical in the case of weapons.

However, there is a way around this problem: automatic leveling up. Any skill that automatically increases the level of items ("Blacksmith Craft", "Pilgrim Mask") can help in this situation: you will retain the ability to activate "+1 stat" when YOU need it, but the level of the item will still increase.

6. Golden Umbrella

Icon	Name	Primary material	Secondary material
	Golden Umbrella	Gold	Gold

Effect: +10%*Q to experience gained, you get Q SP (where Q - item Quality).

I'll start with how to get this item.

After completing the first 4 Galaxies, the Rain constellation is unlocked. When you invest a singularity point in Syllable 4 in the Rain constellation, the Golden Umbrella is added to your inventory. Interesting fact: the Golden Umbrella is added to your inventory EVERY TIME you invest a singularity point into this Syllable. If you reset the singularity points and invest it back into this Syllable, then another Golden Umbrella will be added to your inventory.

The Golden Umbrella has 2 states: closed and open.

	Closed
	Open

When closed, this is a completely normal item that can be freely moved between inventory and equipment slots, but doesn't provide any benefits.

When you click on it in the equipment slot, the Golden Umbrella opens. In this state, it can no longer be removed from the equipment slot, but it begins to give its effect. In this case, the level of the item is automatically increased to the maximum - the current value of the item Quality. Once opened, the Umbrella can't be closed manually. The Umbrella closes automatically when performing a Ritual or exiting the Shard.

Note:

After patch 0.68, the Golden Umbrella can no longer be opened if no singularity point has been invested in the corresponding Syllable (Syllable 4 in the Rain constellation ). Therefore, if you used singularity points reset, then you will have to re-invest 1 singularity point in this Syllable.

The Golden Umbrella has a completely unique mechanic: it's similar to other items, but at the same time it's completely different from them. Item Quality affects the maximum level, but the maximum level is equal to Quality. The item level can be increased by any means of auto-upgrade, but it doesn't increase by 1 - it puts the Umbrella in the open state, which immediately increases the item level to the maximum. The Golden Umbrella can gain temporary levels, but doesn't benefit from them.

No matter how you look, you see familiar mechanics, but in a distorted form. But this is more than offset by the Golden Umbrella effect.

Upon opening, the Golden Umbrella immediately grants the player an amount of SP equal to the Item's Quality. In addition, each level of the item increases the experience gained by 10% - and this effect multiplicatively interacts with any other effects that increase the experience gained. The inability to use the equipment slot in which the Umbrella is stuck is a small price to pay for such a HUGE effect.

7. General item strategy

This section contains conclusions and suggestions, which are my personal opinion based on gaming experience.

Maybe this section will give you some ideas to think about, maybe not - but remember that there is no "correct" way to play the game. Just do what you like and have fun.

├ 7.1. Weapons (part 1)

How to start

As I said before, a beginner's top priority is a weapon with a base cost of 1. This guide will explain why this is important and how to achieve it:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2129993888

TL;DR version: there are mechanics in the game, because of which "largest base damage" doesn't actually mean "best overall damage".

Weapons with a base cost of 1 have advantages because there are some damage bonuses, that scale with weapon level:

• x1.25 damage bonus for every 10 weapon levels (miltiplicative);
  
• level-dependant damage bonus from Stone of Excellence.

It turns out that by making many small purchases, you get much more bonus effects for the same amount of rubies.

Another aspect of low base cost: easier starting a new Shard. Instead of annoying poking enemies for the sake of a few rubies, that aren't even enough to get a single weapon level, you can set soul actions to "Create a ruby" or "Summon XXX" (creature of your choice, but I prefer bats - easier to catch and some exrta bonuses later), catch a flying creature, and with the rubies you get, immediately buy several weapon levels. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Note:

From time to time you'll get Rich/Grim Chests for free. Ususally you don't have to open them immediately, because you don't actually need their content in the middle of your current Shard. However, you can save these chests for later - and get some rubies/Black Wax at the very beginning of a new Shard, when you need them the most. And in case of weapons with base cost of 1 it's a huge starting buster.

Unfortunately, I have to break the "more base damage is better" stereotype every time I meet a new player who uses a bunch of Heavy weapons. And you know what? Once they tried it, EVERYONE admitted that it became much more comfortable to play with just a single weapon with base cost of 1.

The best part about this situation is that the starter weapon (Noname Dagger, also known as "NND") is the best candidate for crafting a weapon with a base cost of 1. The developers themselves gave you the weapon of victory. It's like a sealed Excalibur in disguise, waiting for you to understand its power and unleash it.

But now you have Excalibur in your hands - what to do next?

Second weapon

Note:

I will clarify right away: you should go to this part only when your NND has a Quality of 14-15. Until then, you still have work to do.

I'm a big fan of the "Blacksmith Craft" skill: it not only gives a good universal damage multiplier, but also automatically raises the level of equipped items - an ideal skill for idle play. But that's why I'm AGAINST the idea of ​​an auxiliary weapon, which doesn't give damage, but gives effects.

Before that, I wrote that you can use the Buzzing weapon as an auxiliary weapon. Doesn't this contradict my own words? No, it doesn't. There is a clear difference between "can do" and "worth doing".

Weapons that aren't optimized for damage will still automatically level up under the "Blacksmith Craft" effect, thereby stealing rubies from combat weapons. It’s like you’re dying of starvation, because all the nutrients have been sucked out by the parasitic maggot.

Then what is considered a "combat" weapon? At this stage of the game, I would answer: "Normal weapons and Primal weapons".

Now I'm working on idea from rob_s_cat2, a player with one of the biggest progress in the game, if not the biggest. Multiple weapons.

If I take 2 identical weapons with a base cost of 1 and increase their level evenly, then the level of each of them will be less than the possible level of only one weapon, but at the same time their total damage will be more than the possible damage of one weapon could. The proof is in the guide mentioned above.

In addition, don't forget about the curse of the Skull. Several weapons with Skulls also mean:

• several "+1 stat" effects = dozens of saved SP that I can spend on strengthening my build;
  
• several instances of "Temporary levels" effect, which is overpovered on the verge of being completely broken (see below).

But what if it won't be 2 identical weapons? What if the second will be stronger? For example, with "Primal" prefix (extra damage bonus from Strength as a stat).

At this point, my idea went further: how far can I go in enhancing a second weapon? If I plan to upgrade the second weapon to the same Quality as my NND has, and lower its base cost to 1, then what can I afford?

With the Quality 15 and 5x Stones of Dominance in mind, I made some calculations, and it turned out that any weapon with a base damage in 3-8 range. For a base damage of 9 or higher, the base cost is so high that with 5x Stones of Dominance I can only reduce it to 1 at Quality 16 or higher - it's unacceptable for me.

In long term, it doesn't matter which base damage within 3-8 range I choose, because at Quality 15 the difference between them will be less than 3% due of +100 base damage bonus from Stones alone. So just get whatever you can find as long as it's Primal and within the mentioned range.

Note:

Be careful with weapon selecting. Double check with their base cost: base cost of a weapon without any external influence is ALWAYS a square of its base damage. However, there are some effects, that apply on top of initial calculation and can misguide you:

• weapons with a pefix at the bottom slots of the Market always come with a stone inserted - and in case of Stone of Dominance/Claw/Thief the base damage/cost can be altered, so read description carefully;
  
• Syllabe 1 of the Serpent sign adds +10 base damage to all weapons on top of their actual base damage;
  
• "Blade mastery" skill (DEX 19) also adds base damage to all weapons.

In the end, I settled on a Primal weapon with a base damage of 6. Nothing special - I'm just tired of rerolling the Market (see the "Tips" section for details), so I settled on what I found.

Already at Quality 7 and 5 Stones of Dominance, I reduced the base cost of the weapon to 1. After that, I inserted some skulls into it and equipped it. While the damage of this weapon is about 15% of the damage of my primary weapon, I still get some utility effects from the skull:

• Increase damage
  The most obvious effect for 1 skull. Not much, but constant effect.
  
• +1 free stat
  Not the most useful effect for a weapon, because it depends on number of skulls and also activates too early (because of low weapon's base cost) to be used to full extent.
  
• Temporary levels
  Until you leave your current Zone, your weapon gets at least +80 temporary levels (scales with square root of inserted skulls) - and all these levels will get all the benefits of damage scaling (including x1.25 damage multiplier for every 10 levels and bonus damage from Stones of Excellence). That's a huge damage spike, that can help you to start a new Shard with high curse power or kill a boss. Sometimes it can oneshot a boss. And having 2 weapons allows you to use this effect twice.
  
  You can save skull effect usage for later while still leveling your weapon up above level 50 through auto-leveling effect from "Blacksmith Craft" (STR 11) - combined with the Warrior seal (one of the best cursed seals in the game even with penalty - unlocks as 3rd seal through Cursed Altar, which becomes available after completing Galaxy 1) it will be extremely easy to get it pretty early.

I can't say that this is the "best" or "most optimal" option, but I decided to choose it for myself. Perhaps this could help someone make their own decision on weapon strategy.

├ 7.2. Weapons (part 2)

Third weapon

TL;DR version: theoretically has potential, but in fact doesn't worth it in the current game state.

Note:

I will clarify right away: you should go to this part only when your second weapon at the same level with NND has equal or more damage. Until then, you still have work to do.

As I already mentioned in the "Weapon Efficiency" guide, in order for a heavy weapon to start shining, it needs a lot of conditions and efforts. First of all, because at the beginning of the game you sorely lack Steel to increase its Quality.

Secondly, due to their high base damage, their base cost (which is equal to the square of base damage) is astronomical. The largest heavy weapon damage I've ever seen was 10,000. Accordingly, you need 100,000,000 rubies just to get level 1.

Thirdly, for heavy weapons to really shine, you need 2 additional conditions:

• Sign effect
  Syllable 2 in the Dragon sign gives access to an effect that is exclusive to heavy weapons: an increase in the bonus from Strength.
  
  Usually the bonus from Strength is
  
  • +(50*Strength)%
  Under the influence of this Syllable, the bonus is
  
  • +((50*Strength)^1.05)%
  For example, I've said more than once that I use at least 13 Strength in most of my builds. In my case, I would get
  
  • +(50*13)% = +650% bonus damage from Strength without Syllable effect (usual damage bonus)
    
  • +((50*13)^1.05)% = +(650^1.05)% = +899% bonus damage from Strength with Syllable effect (which means about +33% damage compared to the usual damage bonus)
  
  Of course, the greater the value of Strength, the greater the difference. But if we compare for Strength values from 10 to 25, then we get about (35 ± 4.6)% more bonus damage compared to the variant without the Syllable.
  
  
• "Primal" prefix
  The prefix "Primal" means doubling the bonus damage from Strength. Combined with the previous Syllable effect, this gives an even better result. In the example above, for Strength 13, the bonus damage from Strength under the effect of Syllable will be +1798%. Unfortunately, the only reliable way to get a weapon with this prefix is to buy it directly from the Market for about 500 shards.

Note:

I must remind you that when comparing relative damage for percentage damage bonuses, we must not forget that all percentage increases are added to the current damage, which is 100% by default. Therefore, "+650%" means the final value of 750% of the current damage, and "+899%" means the final value of 999% of the current damage. As a result, the relative increase in damage is 9.99/7.5 = 1.332, that is +33.2%.

This may seem obvious, but as the heated debates on the community forum have shown, some players still need this information.

So it gets to the point that heavy weapon is a good thing under CERTAIN conditions, but a beginner simply can't fulfill these conditions to the fullest:

• Have a powerful starting weapon that will provide a comfortable gameplay until the moment when the amount of rubies received allows you to start using heavy weapons.
  
• Have enough resources (both Magic Stones and materials for increasing the Quality) to quickly get a noticeable result.
  
• Have about 500 shards that you can afford to spend freely on primal heavy weapon with high base damage (the closer to 10,000, the better) without compromising other activities.
  
• Have enough singularity points to allow yourself to spend one of them on a Syllable that doesn't have any general game effect, but only affects one specific type of weapon, which requires the previous three conditions to be met.

But what if you're not a beginner anymore? What if you've already completed the previous two weapon modification tasks and are ready to take on the next challenge?

Then I must warn you: there is a bug in the game due to which this whole harmonious theory loses some of its attractiveness.

Until you put a singularity point into Syllable 2 in the Dragon constellation, the Heavy and Primal Heavy weapons behave as intended. The Strength bonus (in percent) is correctly displayed in the item description, and if you equip this weapon and right-click on it, then at the very bottom you will see the red number of the damage multiplier, into which the percentage value specified in the weapon description is converted correctly.

But as soon as you put a singularity point in this Syllable, everything changes. The percentage increase in damage from Strength is ALWAYS indicated in exact accordance with the calculations, but the multiplier at the bottom is always lower. The higher the value of Strength, the more noticeable it is.



The image above shows the results of testing the Syllable effect at Strength = 50. As you can see, under the Syllable effect, the final multiplier at the bottom of the item description is below the percentage damage bonus from Strength.

In any case, the effect of the "Primal" weapon correctly doubles both the percentage bonus from Strength and the final multiplier. But these two values still turn out to be in no way connected within one item.

However, I have already decided for myself what to do in this situation: after unlocking the last equipment slot, I bought myself a Primal Heavy Sword with a base damage of 9300, and now I am preparing to improve and use it. I have several reasons:

• Even if the final multiplier is lower than it should be, it's still higher than that of a weapon without the effect of Syllable 2 in the Dragon constellation. Not as high as we would like, but still higher.
  
• The way of increasing total damage through increasing the number of weapons gives me some inner protest, as I like to experiment with combinations of items and builds. Having no more than 3 weapons is currently the most acceptable way for me to use equipment slots. Maybe in the future I will change my mind, but for now I will focus on this choice.
  
• I have reported this issue to the developers. Sooner or later they will do something about it. Either they fix it - and then I will have a ready-made weapon for further use, or they break it - and then anyone can point a finger at me and laugh.

Personally, I am willing to take risks for the sake of science. What choice will you make?

Other weapons

Unfortunately, the formulas for damage and the cost of increasing the level of weapons in the game are made in such a way that weapons can be divided into three categories: "tuned for battles", "waiting for tuning" and "other". Either you invest resources in tuning for battle, or you never put a weapon in the equipment slot, otherwise it will simply parasitize on other equipped items by stealing rubies.

But there is no point in keeping "other" weapons in your inventory, so such weapons have only one role to play: to become material for the weapon of victory. If you don't see potential in a weapon, if you don't plan to tune and optimize it for battle, then there is no point in storing it - disassemble it for materials.

Important note!

From almost any source from which you can randomly obtain some weapon, there is a chance to get a Heavy weapon. If optimization is important to you, if you want to improve your main weapon a little earlier, then try to get the Heavy one. Heavy weapons ALWAYS give a bit of Steel in addition to Iron when dismantled.

├ 7.3. Accessories (part 1)

The selection of accessories is perhaps the most difficult section of equipment to analyze. Here you need to keep in mind a few key mechanics, the state of other items, the contents of the inventory, the amount of resources - and that's not all.

There is no single "correct" strategy - it will be necessary to re-evaluate the situation for each players's case. Therefore, I will talk about the evaluation criteria.

Quality vs. quantity

If an accessory of a specific type is important to you only from the point of view of its effect, then check if you have a free slot in your equipment.

Accessory effects change linearly with level, but the cost of leveling up increases non-linearly - so why pay more? 1 accessory of level 60 = 2 accessories of level 30 in terms of resulting effect. However, 1 accessory of level 60 = 510 accessories of level 30 in terms of the total cost of leveling up.

If you only want the effect of an accessory, it's much cheaper to equip a second one than to increase Quality and level of current one. And we haven't talked about the material cost of improving Quality yet.

The table below shows the total cost multiplier for leveling up an accessory to the specified level. To get the final total cost, you need to multiply these values by the base cost of the accessory. So, the lower the base cost, the less rubies you'll spend on leveling this item.

Desired level	Total base cost multiplier
10	x102
20	x1,543
30	x15,439
40	x132,289
50	x1,046,560
60	x7,888,662

Reason for improving Quality

Accessories in the game are made in such a way that Quality affects the maximum possible level of an item (10*Quality).

Why does an accessory even need an item level? There are two reasons:

• The strength of its own effect
  The most obvious reason. The higher the level of the item, the more powerful the effect it gives.
  
• Skull effect
  Accessories are the least whimsical in terms of getting a "+1 stat" effect through the Skull curse. Put in 3 Skulls and get any stat of your choice. No strange changes in activation cost depending on archetype or Quality (like weapons). But the problem is that in order to activate the Skull curse, you need to reach the 50th item level, which in the case of accessories means a mandatory increase in Quality to 5.

In my opinion, there are no reasons to increase Quality above 5: aside from skull effect, the ring's own effect will increase by +20%, but the total cost of leveling it up will increase by +654% (+908% in case of Syllable 3 of the Appretice sign). Not worth it.

Primary material vs. base cost

TL;DR version: if you already have an upgraded ring of any material - use it. But if you still on the way to start upgrading a ring, golden ring will have some advantage.

Look at the tables in section 2: among the rings (this is an important clarification) there is a relationship between material and base cost. Golden rings have a base cost of 1000, steel and malachite rings - 5000, iron - 8000.

Section 2 provides a formula for calculating the cost of increasing the level of an accessory by 1. With each level, the price of the subsequent level increase is just insane. That is why, the lower the base price - the cheaper each individual level increase and the lower the total cost of raising the accessory level to the current maximum will be.

For example, when a golden ring reaches level 50, steel/malachite ring will be only level 41, and iron ring will be level 38. And while you already can activate a skull effect on golden ring to get +1 free stat, for all other rings you'll need to get several times more rubies, than you have already spent at the moment (4 times more for steel/malachite rings, 7 times more for iron rings).

So, choosing the ring material also slightly affects the speed of you build development and your overall progression. Don't get me wrong: the difference isn't overwhelming - just a few extra Zones (because ruby cost also scales with Zones). But the difference still exists.

There was once another controversy about the material of the ring: if you don't reroll boss chests for better reward, gold isn't the most common material. However, you don't actually need too much gold.

To increase the Quality of a ring by 1, you need an amount of materials that is equal to

• (Current_quality +1) * (Material_multiplier)

The material multiplier for gold is 6, for malachite - 9, for steel - 10, for iron - 20.

Next, let's check how much Boss's Chests you need, if you use disassembling rings after rerolling as a primary source of materials:

Accessory's material	Materials on disassemble	Requires materials for Q5	Chests needed
Gold	12	54	4.5
Malachite	18	81	4.5
Steel	20	90	4.5
Iron	30	240	8

So, it doesn't matter, which ring you select - it's 4.5x Boss chest anyway (except for iron rings). Well, you can actually get iron/steel from weapons, but at early development stages you'll benefit from upgrading your weapon much more.

But in addition to the rings, you can also get some stones from the Boss Chest, as well as weapons with stones. Stones also give some materials when disassembled, so they can be a source of additional income when upgrading rings. When you disassemble a weapon with a stone inserted, you get materials from both the weapon and the stone, so no need to extract stones beforehand.

Let's list the most significant ones with an indication of how much material they give, compared to the rings received from the chest:
- Stone of Dominance - 9 gold (0.75 rings);
- Stones of Tenderness/Thief - 6 gold (0.5 rings);
- Stone of Claw - 10 steel (0.5 rings);
- Stone of Excellence - 8 steel (0.4 rings) and 4 malachite (0.22 rings);
- Stone of Mechanic - 10 iron (0.33 rings).

In the end, it doesn't actually matter which ring you'll choose - the differences aren't THAT big. But they still exist.

├ 7.4. Accessories (part 2)

Which effect should you choose?

The short answer is "a lot of them", otherwise get ready to pay. A beginner simply can't afford to say that some effect is useless. Show me a beginner who always has enough SP (Skill Points) for all the desired skills.

There are no "useless" effects - but the most of them are "situationally useful". In some situations, this will save a certain amount of SP on the effects of some skills and stats required to unlock these skills. SP that you no longer have to invest into some skills can be considered as "bonus". In this case, accessories, in a sense, give you the opportunity to buy "bonus" SP for rubies.

The simplest examples:

• Energy regen per second
  One of the simplest and cheapest starting idle builds is the "Rage of Darkness" skill + "Nimble Fingers" skill + some source of energy regeneration. Often the "Photosynthesis" skill acts as a source of energy regeneration, but you need to remember that after gaining access to "Nimble Fingers" you need another 13 SP to unlock "Photosynthesis", and then another 5 SP for the skill itself. In total, 18 SP - 6 levels for a beginner, of which only the last 2 levels give energy regen. For 6 levels of the character, you don't receive an increase in damage and you just expect that someday it will be good.
  
  Alternatively, I can invest a couple of SPs in "Huntsman" and "Devourer of the Light" skills, take "Assassin Mask" skill and a couple of energy regen items (for example, a ring and a Voodoo Doll if I'm lucky after the Ritual). As a result, I will spend 5 SP on this change, preserving the basis of the build, but at the same time I will get the effect immediately and will be able to directly invest all subsequent SP received into damage, and not into some supporting effects.
  
  
• Maximum mana
  In Cursed Shard, your maximum mana and energy value is reduced to 1/6 of your actual value. If you decide to use the "March" skill (50 mana to activate), you need to increase your maximum mana to 300 (300/6 = 50).
  
  You can use the "Mana Breathing" skill level 20 (+10 mana per skill level), which means at least 20 SP excluding the cost of stats to gain access to this skill. Or you can compensate for part of this cost with accessories that increase the maximum mana. Every 10 accessory levels give 50 mana, which is equal to 5 SP invested into "Mana Breathing".

Note:

More experienced players may feel that in these examples I'm wasting my efforts unnecessarily on a very minor battle for a measly 15-18 SP. But perhaps many no longer remember the feeling when you look at the experience bar in the hope that a new level will fix an apparently hopeless situation.

I remember. And I remember the joy of being able to put 10-20 SP directly into damage multipliers and watch the faces of enemies melt. And not in stats, which don't give me anything directly, but are needed to unlock a skill that won’t give me damage,but instead just give me some utility that I can get through accessories simply by spending rubies.

Do you want to object to something? Start the game from scratch, go through the first Galaxy and check if the desire is still there.

Of course, I'm not saying that every player MUST have an accessory with EVERY effect in their inventory. These are not Pokémon to catch them all. But having one of most used types can be helpful.

The more progress, the more effects you can replace simply by investing SP, which you will have more and more. Over time, you will begin to better understand what you really need and what you can do without. But I will say this: I still have 2 Rings of Wisdom, a few additional unupgraded Rings of Strength/Dexterity and Soldier's boots in my inventory. Just in case. And this "case" comes from time to time.

I would also like to remind you about the Combat Gloves. As it sometimes turns out, people greatly underestimate this item. See section 2.3 for details. There is one more reason, but we will talk about this a little later.

Effort optimization

The optimization path suggests: "If you have to make an effort anyway, then why not go straight to a better goal?"

In this case, there are several principles:

• You need to try to get as many golden and steel rings as possible.
  Reroll, as if your life depends on it. Golden and steel rings can be used as they are or to upgrade your core rings/Golden Umbrella/weapons.
  
  
• At first, try to take quantity, not quality.
  If you unlock additional equipment slots as early as possible, then you will be able to use several effects at the same time or enhance existing ones. In any case, it will make the gameplay slightly more comfortable. If the effect of the current ring isn't enough for you, use two of these rings. The main thing is to stay on track and complete the improvement of the selected ring.
  
  
• Try to focus on one item at a time.
  If you spread your efforts too much, you will end up with many semi-finished rings, but not a single one that is really powerful.
  
  
• Prioritize.
  Determine what gives you the greatest effect, then focus on that. For example, "crit damage" doesn't work unless you have enough critical chance to activate it, so total damage becomes a safe choice for the first target. Whatever you do, you will do increased damage.
  
  
• When choosing the next target, try not to coincide with the previous improved ring, but to complement it.
  The simplest example: total damage and critical damage. Since these values are multiplied, an increase in any of them leads to an increase in the overall damage. So, instead of upgrading 2x Rings of Strength in a row, better upgrade a Ring of Strength and a Ring of Dexterity for better results.

├ 7.5. Accessories (part 3)

Don't disassemble if you don't need it

The idea is very simple, but I got caught on this one. Do you know the idiom "killing the goose that lays the golden eggs"? In this case, it means: don't disassemble the accessory if you aren't sure that it will bring you instant benefit.

Materials in their pure form have no effects, it's better to consider all rings in your inventory as a profitable way of storing materials. Until you need the material, you can keep the ring. As soon as you urgently need materials for a SPECIFIC task, and you are sure that you CAN complete it right now - disassemble it.

A simple example: while I was focused on reducing the base cost of my NND to 1, I got a Steel Ring of Strength. I just lacked 19 Steel to improve the Quality of my weapon, and if I disassembled the ring, I would get 20 Steel. Blinded by an irrepressible thirst for increasing Quality, I disassembled the ring... and realized that I didn't have the right stone to insert into my weapon. As a result, having disassembled the ring, I not only got nothing, but also lost the ability to use the ring as temporary equipment. Double fail with one action.

Be flexible

Don't assume that the same rings should always be used in equipment.

If I use March, but I still don't have enough SP to use autostart skills, then it is much easier for me to temporarily replace one of the damage rings with Soldier's Boots. If I don't have enough energy regen, it's cheaper for me to use an accessory and spend rubies than to spend SP on a skill.

You need to adapt to the situation. If you have an accessory in stock that can make your gameplay more comfortable - use it. Even if it's temporary comfort, it's better to have it than not to have it.

However, if you think, that disassembling an accessory (which you keep "just in case") for the sake of upgrading a weapon will benefit you more at the moment, disassemble it. But don't forget to save manually in case you change your mind later. It's better to be safe than sorry.

Voodoo Dolls

I deliberately postponed this conversation until later.

I'll say right away: DON'T upgrade the Voodoo Doll. Its effect can be situationally useful, but the player has no control over it. If you have a free slot in your equipment, then the Voodoo Doll can help you - but it may not help you.

Although they don't need to be improved, they DON'T need to be disassembled immediately. Their strength is in numbers. The more Dolls you have, the higher the chance that at least one of them will give you a beneficial effect. Of course, if you run out of free space in your inventory, or if you have already collected more reliable sources of permanent effects in the form of rings, then there is no point in storing Dolls.

├ 7.6. Shields

I can't say much about shields, because most of the information is already in section 3.

Simplified version: if you decide to use a shield, then take the most expensive one, because in the long-term perspective it's the cheapest option. This may sound like a contradictory statement, but it works that way (see section 3 for details).

├ 7.7. Magic Stones

The main source of Magic Stones is the Boss's Chest. And here a certain conflict of interest arises: the same chest is the source of accessories. Of course, you can reroll the contents so that you immediately get both the desired accessory and the desired stone - but here everything is at the mercy of the random.

However, the situation is somewhat simplified by the fact that both among the accessories and among the stones you need a whole range of items. If an accessory is a priority for you at the moment, then when you open the Chest you focus on the accessories. And if the accessories aren't so important at the moment, then it's enough to get something gold or steel in order to have a supply of materials later.

But in that case, what to choose among the Stones? First of all, you need to understand why you need Stones? Where do you insert them and what do you want to get?

First of all, it's a weapon. But to get the final weapon of victory, you need to go through several stages:

1. Obtaining weapons with a base cost of 1
   This is the most important step. The closer your starting weapon is to the end of this stage, the more comfortable it becomes to play. The earliest opportunity to do this is to raise the Weapon Quality to 6 and insert 4 Stones of Dominance into it. These 4 stones are top priority.
   
   
2. Balancing a set of Stones
   The best choice for starting weapon is a combination of Stones of Dominance, Stones of Claw and Stones of Excellence. For each individual weapon Quality, the conditional "optimal" set may slightly differ, but a simplified principle: keep the number of these three types of stones equal. The damage of a weapon created according to a simplified principle will differ from the "optimal" one by literally a couple of percent - so why bother?
   
   But after the previous stage, you already have 4 Stones of Dominance in your weapon. Therefore, the next task is a Quality 12 weapon that maintains the balance of the three specified Stones.
   
   
3. Make a reserve for the future
   Sooner or later, you will come to weapons with a Quality of 14-15. And maybe you'll even equip a second weapon. Why not stock up on a few Stones? Just in case.

After you have passed the first two stages of creating a weapon of victory, you can already relax a little. You can slightly weaken the control over the flow of Stones in favor of accessories or other equipment.

If you decide to use a shield, then it's better to use Stones of Tenderness - but DON'T upgrade your shield. Upgradin a shield only increases the amount of stones, that you can insert into it. But at the current game state there are no stones, that can actually make a shield better.

Unfortunately, the rest of the stones are more distracting, than helpful. For me personally, they are more a source of materials, than source of effects.

I will also add about the Stone Extraction Tool: it's always better to have one in your inventory. At some point you can change your mind about used stones, so you may unexpectedly need the Stone Extraction Tool - therefore it's better to have it in stock.

├ 7.8. Skulls

To choose your path in using the Skull effects, you need to find answers to 4 questions:

• How many Skulls are needed to activate the effect?
  
• How Skulls work?
  
• How to get an analogue of this effect?
  
• How quickly can you level up an item to 50 to activate the Skulls effect?

You start small: at some point you get your first Skull. The first and only, therefore, a logical question arises: how to use it?

I could write a lot about the course of thinking, but instead I will give a ready-made answer: if you want to immediately get any effect from the Skull, then the first Skull must be inserted into a light weapon (most likely into your NND).

It's simple:

• I don't even consider shields as an option - at the moment the Skulls in the shields don't work correctly (see section 5 for details), so their effects are unreasonably expensive.
  
• Item level 50 is required to activate the Skull Effect. Do you have a Quality 5 accessory? Most probably not.
  
• Weapons have no quality restrictions, but heavy weapons have an invisible limit - price. Reaching heavy weapon level 50 isn't an easy task.

So it turns out that after the consistent exclusion of options, only light weapons remain. In fact, when I get the first Skull, only weapons have a meaningful effect for 1 skull. But what to do next?

On the community forum, I saw posts where people talked about 36 Skulls inserted into the NND. Well, everyone has the right to choose, but I can't say that I support THIS choice. Let's go back to HOW skulls work.

For all scaled effects, the value of the square root of the number of Skulls inserted is used for calculations. So 36 Skulls is just x6 times the initial effect from just 1 skull. On the one hand, it's an independent damage multiplier, and many multipliers are better than large multipliers. But on the other hand...

On the other hand, there is a thing that I think is the best in the game - SP. For all items with Skulls, it's possible to increase any stat by +1. It may seem unimportant, but if you spend this effect on the most expensive stat in your build, then you save SP. For me, the SP saved are the bonus SP that can be spent on strengthening the build. For example, by raising Dexterity from 12 to 13 with the Skulls effect, I not only gain access to a good critical damage multiplier, but also save 13 SP, which I can now distribute as I wish.

So it turns out that you can achieve a similar effect, but not only cheaper (3 Skulls versus 36), but also with greater benefit. Therefore, for myself, I have determined the following goal - to get the "+1 stat" effect. Weapons require a different number of Skulls for each stat type, so for me the most acceptable choice is to insert 3 Skulls into an accessory: no matter what conditions, no matter what build - for just 3 Skulls, I can choose any basic stat.

The choice of accessory is important here: the lower the base cost and the easier it's to increase the quality to 5, the easier it's to get the Skulls effect at item level 50. I have said on several occasions that Combat Gloves are the best choice for me (see section 2.3 for details). In second place are any gold rings of your choice. The safest option would be rings that give pure damage (Rings of Power) - no matter what build you have, pure damage will never be superfluous.

After getting 2 cursed accessories with 3 Skulls, I prefer to switch back to weapons. In this case, there are 2 degrees of improvement: 2 Skulls and 4 Skulls. 4 Skulls with enough Weapon Quality allow you to choose ANY base stat, which adds flexibility to the build process: you can more easily adapt to new conditions, because there could be a time, when 1 extra free stat can make a huge difference in your build.

2 Skulls allow you to get only 2 stats to choose from. But if you decide not to increase the number of Skulls in your weapon to 4, then you can split these Skulls between two weapons, thereby getting twice as many bonus stats.

Note:

For me personally, this option is more acceptable for another reason related to the Cursed Altars: Cursed Seals. I mostly use the Warrior Seal ("Discount 5" on Strength), so 2 Skulls in light weapons are preferred for me because Strength is becoming the cheapest stat.

For more information on stat discounts, see section 3.4 of this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2162095826

I can't say that putting a lot of Skulls into a weapon to increase its damage is a bad idea, but in the beginning, this isn't the best choice.

In addition, don't forget about the Raw Shard, in which you can't increase the level of accessories, which means that it's impossible to get the effects of Skulls from accessories. In this case, having a weapon with enough Skulls isn't a bad idea.

TL;DR

Skulls	Item	Reason
1	NND	The only "not bad" option
2-4	Accessory	A reliable source of "+1 stat" effect.
5-7	Accessory	A reliable source of "+1 stat" effect.
8-10	Weapon	Increase the number of Skulls in the NND to 4 to get a universal source of "+1 stat" effect, or split the Skulls between two weapons (2 in each) to get 2 sources of "+1 stat" effect, but with some restrictions.
11+	As you wish	The general principle of using Skulls should be clear at this point, so use them at your own discretion.

WARNING!

Don't use the Skull on the Voodoo Doll. In my opinion, this in itself is a strange choice, but in addition to this, a message appeared on the community forum about a bug leading to the loss of Skulls inserted into the Voodoo Doll.

Note:

I can't say that I'm completely against the idea of ​​using the "increase damage" effect in weapons. But I wouldn't give it high priority. Admit it: due to the square root scaling of Skulls, the total damage is... puny. Maybe it makes sense when you already have so much SP that you just don't know where to invest them. But think about it: has there ever been a way for beginners to have ENOUGH SP for their ambitious build plans? Therefore, for now, getting bonus SPs through saving on stats is a more useful effect IMHO.

Maybe someday, when I can get 2000 SP in one run and allow myself to keep a dozen unused Skulls in my inventory, but I still won't have enough damage to win, then I'll think about the "increased damage of this weapon" effect. But it will be an insane quality heavy weapon with some effects (see section 7.2 for details). Until then, I find it too... ineffective to spend Skulls on this effect. Too high costs with too little result.

In example above, 36 Skulls is a minimum 142 Shards completed at maximum curse power. I can't figure out: do you really need to overcome yourself for 142 Shards to get only +300% damage? This looks weird to me.

└ 7.9. Golden Umbrella

In section 6, I already wrote that the Golden Umbrella has some similarities with accessories. And so I'll start right away with the most important thing: it's cheaper to have 2 low Quality Umbrellas than 1 high Quality Umbrella.

Even though you don't need to buy levels, you still need to improve the quality of items - and the price goes up too quickly.

Quality upgrade	Cost
1 -> 2	12
2 -> 3	24
3 -> 4	40
4 -> 5	60
5 -> 6	84
N -> (N+1)	2*(N+1)*(N+2)

In a sense, it's more profitable to raise the Quality of the second Golden Umbrella to 3 than to improve the Quality of the first Golden Umbrella to 4:

• it requires less resources (36 gold vs. 40 gold);
  
• it gives a better effect (+60% exp and +6 SP vs. +40% exp and +4 SP).

However, the benefits can't be without price:

• a price must be paid to obtain a second Umbrella;
  See section 8.6 for details.
  
• the second Umbrella blocks an additional equipment slot.
  This means not only the loss of the potential effect from some other item, but also from the "+1 stat" Skull effect, because the Golden Umbrella is the only equipable item in which the Skull can't be inserted. "+1 stat" could mean 10-25 SP savings. Can a second Golden Umbrella have the same effect? I don't know...

It turns out that you need to decide for yourself whether you are ready to pay the price.

8. How do I get an item?

Before continuing, I need to talk a little about the Market tab in the Store menu.


If you pay attention, the Market is divided into 2 subsections ("Armory" and "Jeweler"), each of which sells 6 items. To simplify further explanations, I will introduce the following conventions to denote slots in each of the subsections:

Slot 1	Slot 2
Slot 3	Slot 4
Slot 5	Slot 6

Note:

While some items are directly obtainable as "Knowledge of the world" rewards, I can't say that this source is reliable - it's too rare for you to get items this way. Plus, you have no control over when and what you get. If you're lucky, well then ok. But usually you get something in the "meh, whatever..." category.

├ 8.1. Weapons

Note:

Any mention of "rare prefixes" in the game means that the weapon has a prefix (see section 1.2 for details). "Heavy" is not a prefix, but an archetype designation. If a weapon can be obtained from some source, then with some probability it can be Heavy.

There are 2 sources of weapons:

• сhests;
  
• "Armory" subsection on the Market.

In some cases, the weapon may already have a Magic Stone inserted into it - these cases will be noted.

Chests

Chest type	Contain weapon	Source
Rich	Guaranteed : Quality 0, no Stones, no prefixes. With a chance: Quality 0, no Stones, no prefixes.	Purchase for 20 shards "Knowledge of the world" reward Receiving the "Key" item from any source
Grim	Guaranteed: Quality 1, no Stones, no prefixes. With a chance: Quality 1, no Stones, no prefixes.	Purchase for 80 shards "Knowledge of the world" reward Cashback reward at Black Wax Store
Celestial	Guaranteed : Quality 2, 1 Stone possible, no prefixes. With a chance: Quality 2, 1 Stone possible, no prefixes.	Purchase for 150 shards "Knowledge of the world" reward Reward for getting a certain number of achievements
Boss's	Guaranteed: Quality 2, 1 Stone, no prefixes.	Purchase for 200 shards "Knowledge of the world" reward Reward for killing a certain number of bosses
Shard	Guaranteed: Quality 3, no Stones, with prefix. Guaranteed: (Quality 4, 1 Stone, no prefixes) or (Quality 3, no Stones, with prefix). Guaranteed: (Quality 4, 1 Stone, no prefixes) or (Quality 3, no Stones, with prefix).	Purchase for 900 shards

Market

Slot	Weapon	Price
Slot 1	Quality 0, no Stones, no prefixes.	Black Wax only. The price increases with every purchase.
Slot 2	Quality 1, no Stones, no prefixes.	About 8-14 shards.
Slot 3	Quality 2, 1 Stone, no prefixes. (or shield - see section 8.3 for details )	About 32-44 shards. (if it's a weapon)
Slot 4	Quality 2, 1 Stone, no prefixes.	About 32-44 shards.
Slot 5	Quality 3, 1 Stone, with prefix.	About 340-500 shards.
Slot 6	Quality 2, 1 Stone, with prefix.	About 340-500 shards.

There are several patterns for the "Armory" subsection of Market:

• With any form of loading (both from manual save and from autosave), the assortment of goods changes completely. If you like an item, don't expect it to be waiting for you on the next loading. The Market Reroll method is based on this (see section 9 for details).
  
• Each slot has its own "base price". If it turns out that there is a Heavy archetype weapon in the slot at the moment, then the base price of this particular purchase will be increased by some value. This is a markup on this particular deal which won’t affect the "base price" of subsequent purchases.
  
• The item in slot 1 is always sold for Black Wax only. When purchasing an item, this slot remains empty until the Ritual is performed. After the Ritual, an item appears in this slot again, but its base price increases with each purchase.
  
• In slots 2-6, after the purchase, a new item immediately appears, but its base price increases with each purchase. However, if after the purchase you go to the main menu and then return, then the prices will be reset to their base values. But the slots will be filled with new random items.
  
• In slots 5-6, prices depend on the prefix and archetype of the current weapon in that slot, which is why the price range is so great.

├ 8.2. Accessories

Note:

As mentioned in section 2.1, while the Voodoo Doll obviously obeys all of the accessory rules, all of the ways to obtain accessories described below don't include the Voodoo Doll. The Voodoo Doll can only be obtained from the Grim Chest or as a "Knowledge of the world" reward.

Apart from the "Knowledge of the world" reward (which can't be considered a reliable source), there are 2 sources of accessories:

• сhests;
  
• "Jeweler" subsection on the Market.

Weapons and accessories are one of the very first items in the game, therefore, as a relic of the early stages of development, in the description of chests "Non-weapon item (e.g. a ring)" means accessories.

Thus, accessories can be obtained from the following chests:

• Boss's Chest: 1 of 5 items is guaranteed to be an accessory;
  
• Living Chest: 3 of 5 items are guaranteed to be an accessory;
  
• Shard Chest: 2 of 5 items have a chance of being an accessory.

In the case of the Market, everything is easier than with weapons:

• 4 out of 6 slots in the "Jeweler" subsection contain accessories (see section 8.4 for details);
  
• when buying any accessory from any slot, the empty slot is immediately filled with a new random accessory;
  
• each type of accessory has a fixed price, so consecutive purchases from the same slot won't affect the cost of subsequent items;
  
• accessories are affected by Market Reroll (see section 9 for details).

├ 8.3. Shields

At the moment, the only "reliable" source of shields is the Market. In the "Armory" subsection in slot 3 (with a certain chance, instead of a weapon) a shield of Quality 2 may appear, which will always cost 35 shards, regardless of characteristics.

I have 2 warnings regarding shields:

• It's not worth buying several shields in a row, because (as in the case of successive purchases of weapons), the price of subsequent purchases will increase greatly - it's better to use the Market Reroll method to find another shield.
  
• Since the introduction of shields into the game, there is a visual bug that can confuse the player - it's better to focus on the Base Cost in the item description, rather than the Base Repel (see the note in section 3 for details).

├ 8.4. Magic Stones

UPD:

Thanks to user Xymph for confirming the information: one Stone Extraction Tool can be obtained for free from one of the Boss's Chest in your first Galaxy. It's a one-time predetermined reward, so it's the only reason why you can get Stone Extraction Tool from a chest.

There are 3 sources of Magic Stones:

• сhests;
  
• "Jeweler" subsection on the Market;
  
• combined approach.

Magic Stones can be obtained from the following chests:

• Celestial Chest: 1 out of 3 items is guaranteed to be a Magic Stone, another 1 of 3 items has a chance of being a Magic Stone;
  
• Boss's Chest: 1 of 5 items has a chance of being a Magic Stone;
  
• Shard Chest: 2 of 5 items have a chance of being a Magic Stone.

In the "Jeweler" subsection on the Market, 2 out of 6 slots are reserved for Magic Stones (including Stone Extraction Tool). One of these two slots is always slot 2, and for the second slot either slot 1 or slot 5 is randomly selected. The remaining slots of this subsection are used for accessories.

As in the case of accessories, when purchasing a Magic Stone, an empty slot is immediately filled with a new random Magic Stone, and each of them has a fixed unchangeable price (44 shards for the Stone Extraction Tool, 74 shards for each of the other Magic Stones).

The combined approach involves using the Stone Extraction Tool to extract the required Magic Stones from the weapon. One way or another, the player can get a weapon in which some kind of Magic Stone is already inserted (see section 8.1 for a list of sources). Usually they just become materials when disassembled, but what if you need a specific Magic Stone right NOW? If you have the appropriate Chest at hand, then you're lucky - through the Chest Reroll (see section 9 for details) you can get what you want. But what if you don't have a Chest? In this case, the Stone Extraction Tool will help.

Let's consider the most expensive option: you buy 2 Magic Stones directly from the Market and pay 148 shards for it. Instead, you can buy 2 weapons from slots 2-3 in the "Armory" subsection for 32 shards each, and then buy the Stone Extraction Tool for 44 shards - a total of 108 shards. In the second case, you not only save shards (108 shards instead of 148), but also get some iron as a bonus for your wit.

Moreover, it may turn out that you already had a weapon with a Stone that you received for free, and your inventory could already have a Stone Extraction Tool - in this case, the costs are reduced even more. As with many other aspects of this game, a direct solution to a problem isn't always the best.

├ 8.5. Skulls

The Skull is one of the possible rewards for the Cursed Altar game mechanic. This mechanic is available to all players only after completing the first Galaxy.

Each curse level has 3 milestones awards - Skull is the second of these. To complete the current level of curse, you need to complete at least 4 Shards at maximum curse strength (more if you choose not the maximum value), therefore, with maximum curse, you need to complete at least 4 Shards to get 1 Skull.

└ 8.6. Golden Umbrella

After completing the first 4 Galaxies, the Rain constellation is unlocked. When you invest a singularity point in Syllable 4 in the Rain constellation, the Golden Umbrella is added to your inventory. The Golden Umbrella is added to your inventory EVERY TIME you invest a singularity point into this Syllable. If you reset the singularity points and invest it back into this Syllable, then another Golden Umbrella will be added to your inventory.

At the moment, there is no other way to get the Golden Umbrella other than constellations. Luckily, each player has 2 free singularity point resets. Further, each reset of singularity points will cost 80 shards.

9. Tips

Market reroll

For many types of items, the Market tab in the Store is a way to reduce the effect of randomness on getting the desired result. If you are ready to pay in shards for the goods that you see before your eyes, then the store is the best choice. No need to buy "chance of getting an item" - buy the item itself.

But the list of Market goods is limited. To artificially change it, you can simply exit to the main menu and then return to the game.

It would seem that both the Market and the Chests are random. In general, this is true, but the Market has an advantage: more slots for each item type. You need a Magic Stone - you have 2 slots for them, you need a weapon with a rare prefix - there are always 2 such items to choose from on the market, you need a specific accessory - you have 4 slots with them.

If you didn't see the desired item on the list - just reroll. Also, the Market is the only way to get a shield. If you want a shield - reroll.

In some cases, the Market has an undeniable advantage over Chests: saving shards and/or time.

For example, to get a specific accessory, you either have to wait for the next Boss's Chest or buy it for 200 shards (versus direct purchase for 44-92 shards). And even if you received a Chest, then the chance of getting this particular accessory is about 3% (1/29). At the same time, these accessories are available on the Market at a lower cost and in 4 slots at once, which increases the chance of finding a specific accessory up to 14% (4/29).

Another example is searching for a specific weapon with a specific rare prefix and stats. The only alternative is the Shard Chest, which costs 900 shards (versus the direct purchase for 344-493 shards). Also, remember that the animation for opening the chest is quite slow, moreover, to reroll the Chests, you need to perform additional actions (select the save file and open it), which also adds time. At the same time, when you open the Market, you immediately see the prefixes in the name of the item - it immediately becomes clear whether it's worth looking at their stats at all.

Note:

In the case of buying weapons with a prefix and specific stats, there is one more recommendation: make saves on your PC. Save before purchase (save # 1 - when the shards aren't yet spent), and then save after purchase (save # 2 - with the item in your inventory). It happens that you can find an item that isn't "perfect", but is acceptable - make a save with it, and then load save # 1. This will allow you to continue your search for weapons with the closest stats to your desired stats, but also have a backup plan (in form of save #2) if you don't find anything better.

Chest reroll

Most often, when it comes to opening a Chest, it turns out to be a Chest that you got for free. This is no longer a question of saving shards or time - you ALREADY have this Chest, so why not get better items?

The contents of the Chest are determined at the moment of opening. Therefore, the most important stage of the reroll is to save on the PC before opening the Chest. Then everything is simple: you open the Chest and look at the contents. If you like what you see, keep it. If you don't like what you see, you load from the previously made save.

The problem with Chests is that there are several items in them at once, and for EACH item there is a range of possible results. You can get one good item and several so-so ones - but you always want to get several good items at once. Therefore, the desire to reroll the Chest simply can't be stopped. But there is a way out: if you liked at least one received item, then save the result before loading the previous save. After several attempts, you will get tired of loading, but you will have a choice: which of the "not bad" options you like best.

Chest opening timing

From time to time you will receive free Rich Chests and Grim Chests. You simply have no choice - you WILL get them.

It would seem that materials (in form of so-so weapons) are the only benefit that can be obtained from them, because a small amount of rubies and Black Wax don't affect anything. This is the wrong line of thought. That small amount of rubies and Black Wax doesn't affect anything only when you already have a lot of rubies and Black Wax - but not at the beginning of a new Shard, when you have nothing.

All received chests don't disappear anywhere, they can be transferred with the character from Shard to Shard and from Galaxy to Galaxy. If you received the Grim Chest as a cashback reward at the Black Wax Shop, then click "Accept the reward", but DON'T OPEN it. Wait until you move on to the next Shard, and only then open it. These few units of Black Wax will be a gift of fate for you: several levels of "Value of rubies" upgrade can significantly speed up the start of a new Shard.

Other guides by this author

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2162095826
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2529562124
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2129993888
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2806513543

[Alketal]

It seems so. For weapons, the item level was only used once in the formula, so I was able to derive the formula for analysis and plot it. For shields, the level was used twice, one of which was used as an exponentiation. I'm not good enough at math to make a relative dependence on the number of gems from this formula. In my opinion, spreadsheets are probably the only option, but that method is too numerically heavy to be useful for anyone other than a few enthusiasts.

But the most significant reason why I didn't do such calculations is the lack of alternatives. And even if it turns out that the shield will have a fairly small level gain effect at high item levels, I still consider the Stone of Tenderness to be the best choice. Simply because it reduces the cost of development at low levels (25% repel shields will be impacted the most), and therefore speeds up the development of the character when it's most important.

[??]

so I can only try to get my own data on shield cost + stones if I wana invest into them?

[Alketal]

To be honest, I don't know. I can't answer this question through math only.

However, shields are still a niche item (STR 13+melee only), so the question isn't so much how to make your shield a "must have" item, but how to increase a benefit you get from it despite its niche nature.

Out of 9 stones, you can't insert any damage-related stones in a shield (-3 options). "On kill" don't work on bosses or tough champions (no kills - no effects, so another -3 options). "-10 base cost" does almost nothing in case of a few millions base cost (-1 option), and autoupgrade isn't a problem for a build with STR 13("Blacksmith Craft" at STR 11, so -1 option).

So, you are literally left with only Stone of Tenderness. The effect isn't great enough to justify using a shield-related builds all the time, but if you'are already using a melee build with 13 points of Strength, then equipping a shield would be nice - and since you have a shield equipped, then inserting a few useful stones won't be bad.

[??]

do shields scale differently compared to rubies as u said cost reduction stone is 2.34 weapon lvls is it different for shield lvls?

[scorreia]

Disagree about heavy weapons, getting them to 50 is quite easy. it isn't like you need all your ability buffs at level 1 or something, actually the longer you wait the more bang you get for your buck as this adds one level of strength whether it is level 1 or level 25. So if you use it for level 25 you save 24 SPs.

They also have the benefit that you can use Monumentality on them as getting them over 120 is challenging but a times 33 multiplier rocks.

[Alketal]

Huh, this is valuable information. Thanks for the confirmation. This information should be included in the guide.

[Xymph]

Just confirmed that you can get Stone Extraction Tool from a Boss's Chest, just rolled it somehow.

[Naerus]

Спасибо за подробные гайды. Было бы интересно, если бы дали проклясть золотой зонт с каким-нибудь изменением эффекта)

[Alketal]

Время, удача и терпение - иначе никак. Чем сложнее сочетание условий, тем меньше шанс найти "идеальное" оружие. Я часа полтора без остановки сбрасывал магазин.

Я не говорю, что сброс магазина - это удобный вариант. Эти полтора часа просто выжали из меня все силы и боевой дух, но на данный момент этот метод всё равно быстрее сундуков, дешевле и не требует предоплаты.

[mrsextton]

Касательно второго оружия. Перебирал магазин несколько часов, попался только Первобытный кинжал мастерства с базовым уроном 35. Как вам удалось найти первобытное оружие с базовым уроном 6? Спасибо.