The fastest way to superb IV weapons

[Silvaren]

I did some thorough testing. Imo it's impossible to craft superb weapon in Dawnshore because there is not enough paradisan ladder and this material as same as adra doesn't restock if player buy it from vendors. I tried to savescum gathering paradisan ladder with scavenger perk (scavenger 2 is required to optimal crafting), but the quantity seems to be predetermined. Some will always give 2 pieces and other 2 + 1, no matter how many times I reload the game. I restrained to picking up herbs until I get scavenger 1 perk.

Optimal path is to buy fine one-handed weapon (it's critical because two-handed weapons require more materials), upgrade it to fine +3/3, use 9 adra gathered in Dawnshore to craft 3 pieces of awakened adra, then upgrade this weapon to exceptional quality. I recommend not spending paradisan ladder for upgrading armor to fine quality. During the quest with luminous adra it's best to side with captain Trevik and kill captain Bardatto to get fine breastplate from her corpse. Then it's time to gather all unique items. They will provide at least 8 awakened adra pieces and the ninth can be just bought in form of exceptionall item from any vendor - beware that Sanza and one of twin sisters have fixed quality of unique items determined in the moment you first time look at their stock.

I did 3 speedruns of Dawnshore content. There is some inconsistence. For example killing Octav without checking his loot and going back for it with exceptional weapon sometimes spawn his weapon as exceptional, sometimes in lower quality - but I'm sure I didn't cause game to display tooltip, so it's weird. Sargamis is the same - sometimes I came back for Last Light of Day and it was exceptionall 2 times and one time it ended as fine weapon - even without triggering game to displaying the tooltip. Quality seems to be tied to the weapon you used while killing him.

All unique items in chest have their quality determined if you are close enough to point at the chest to prompt "open" interaction. Even if you won't open the chest, the game will set its quality. It's best to avoid two chests with unique armors like Arcanist's Gambeson and Stelgaer's Pride until you kill captain Bardatto.

@Lonion wrote that it's better to use common weapon as upgrading template. I disagree. Sure it doesn't require adra, but adra isn't an issue in Dawnshore. You can get enough even for superb upgrade. Paradisan ladder is the issue and common weapon needs gold and more paradisan ladder for quality upgrade. 

Nevertheless three times in a row I leaved Dawnshore with Exceptional +2/3 weapon with enough adra to craft 3 Corrupted Adra and missing maybe 5 paradisan ladder to upgrade my weapon to Exceptional +3/3 and then immediately to superb. Main crafting materials like branches and metal chunks can be bought from vendor because these are restocted. I crafted superb weapon in the starting point of Emerald Stairs, after bringing Yatzli the vase and setting up first camp in the region. Since then all unique weapons scale to superb (IV +0/3).

If you won't exploit this system but still pick scavenger perk you should finished Dawnshore with at least exceptional +0/3 weapon (even two-handed) and fine armor.

Edited March 17 by Silvaren

[omgFIREBALLS]

I hope you don't mind if I use this thread to share some comparable science. I started a lightning wizard, and had to start over Dawnshore because it bothered me too hard that I hadn't nearly optimized it. Judging from your post and the 3 Awakened Adra upgrade requirement, you played on some easy difficulty, I'm guessing for science. This is from a PotD perspective (where upgrading armor or 1h costs 5 Awakened Adra).

In one's quest to ever upgrade one's gear, one will be limited by either Adra, skeyts (money) or herbs. If you're limited by iron etc, that's just a matter of restocking shops, which with the right mod means you won't also be limited by your desire to stay sane. It's no cheat - spam resting is free, except for the enjoyment cost.

So, let's consider this. In order to minimize the money problem, I made sure to not loot a single skeyt until I had the necklace for +20% looted money. Next, I wanted to get out of Dawnshore with Exceptional armor and weapon and as much Adra on top of that as possible. To do this, I needed to acquire 15 Adra without looting uniques. Looking at what options are available for that, in retrospect I can't see how I managed to do it but apparently I did. It involves looting Adra directly (both ogre bosses drop it for example) or buying it from shops. Anyway, I bought Fine plain armor, then looted a Fine unique armor. At level 8, I upgraded my materials and then that armor to Exceptional. Then I could loot the remaining three unique armors, at Exceptional, getting me 3 Awakened Adra from scrapping them.

Next up I looted a Fine unique onehander, but given that I need 5 Awakened Adra to get it to Exceptional, I had to get 6 more plain Adra, and at this point my options were mostly looting unique weapons as there was barely any plain Adra left from other sources. By the time I had an Exceptional onehander, I had only two weapons left to loot, but they were (on purpose) twohanders, which scrap into 2 Awakened Adra each. (If you want to step out of Dawnshore with an Exceptional twohander the optimal way, upgrade a onehander to Exceptional, then loot the twohander. Sorry.)

So, Dawnshore end result was:
Exceptional onehander (Common grimoire)
Exceptional armor
4 Awakened Adra
~10k skeyts

What I could have done better is to not loot herbs until I had Scavenger 1, and to demand payment for a few quests. I've also completely disregarded the ability to purchase uniques, either to use or to scrap for Adra. I simply didn't have that kind of skeyts to spend.

Anyway, this strategy kind of snowballs and it gets easier and easier to keep doing it, meaning in Emerald Stair I bought my Exceptional grimoire, upgraded it to Superb and then looted all the weapons, until I could afford to upgrade my armor to Superb, etc. My story is a little skewed by the fact I don't use a unique grimoire, so I need less Adra but more plants. 

Now I am not even halfway done with Shatterscarp and I need no more Adra, ever. That's also with very little purchasing of Adra in Emerald Stair or Shatterscarp. Also, I'm not using the bonus money necklace anymore. So, if you've been paying attention that means I'm not limited by Adra or skeyts but by upgrade herbs. And that has kind of sapped the joy out of it, since there is very little strategy involved. Explore for herbs, hope for Scavenger proc (I share your assessment that it doesn't seem save scummable) and hope for chests to grant herbs. I'd like a system where we can convert Adra into herbs and vice versa.

Some people seem to be getting herb restocks in shops, but that doesn't seem to be intended. And given this, I certainly agree about no template weapons. Herbs are your most precious resource. I could have optimized my strategy by not upgrading my grimoire and just waiting to buy a Superb version in Shatterscarp, and had more herbs that way.

And lastly, an idea someone shared on Discord that I haven't been able to test: Iron Fists instead of spending money on a Fine weapon, but I don't know if that makes you loot Fine uniques.

[Silvaren]

I did one full playthrough on PotD in a non optimal way. I left Dawnshore with exceptional Philosopher's Riddle and exceptional Seven Strivings and fine Stelgaer's Pride. I dismantled all the rest before. I managed to upgrade 2h weapon to superb in the middle of Emerald Stairs and at the end of that zone I improved my armor to superb. I was able to upgrade my weapon to legendary at the beginning of Shatter Scarp.

I did 2 PotD speedruns of Dawnshore but I tried different things - first was making a template common weapon and I run out of herbs with exceptional wand +1. Second time on PotD I tried do this with bow and it was pointless because I didn't consider that it will require more materials. Third try was on normal difficulty (for science and mostly because of lack of time, most people are playing on normal, games are balanced around normal difficulty). I bought fine pistol and then loot Caeroc's Pride. The rest is in the first post.

The idea with necklace increasing looted money is good. I used it too, but most of the time after rescuing the ambassador. I also intimidate and persuade people for additional gold. 

Somehow I missed that PotD increases number of materials required for upgrade xD Is it adra only or iron/wood and herbs too? I know higher difficulty increases vendor's prices for sure. It reduces rewards too, like skeyts given by two arguing people near shipyard whatever you pick - junk or galeon as the best ship. On normal it's 500 skeyts, on PotD it's 300.

I'm currently playing on PotD with full run in mind. For now I'm using spear and shield, but I plan to focus on Citzal's Spirit Lance.

Unarmed combat perk is interesting choice but I doubt that it will have impact on looted uniques. It can be easy to verify.

[omgFIREBALLS]

9 hours ago, Silvaren said:

Somehow I missed that PotD increases number of materials required for upgrade xD Is it adra only or iron/wood and herbs too? I know higher difficulty increases vendor's prices for sure. It reduces rewards too, like skeyts given by two arguing people near shipyard whatever you pick - junk or galeon as the best ship. On normal it's 500 skeyts, on PotD it's 300.

It's a 1.3 change:

• Upgrading weapons on Hard and Path of the Damned will now require more upgrade materials: Hard: +1 Plant Materials per upgrade, +1 Adra Materials per tier upgrade, Path of the Damned: +2 Plant Materials per upgrade, +2 Plant Materials per tier upgrade

Didn't know about that argument, so hey, I'm making 300 (or 360?) more skeyts next time, thanks  

[Silvaren]

1 hour ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

It's a 1.3 change:

• Upgrading weapons on Hard and Path of the Damned will now require more upgrade materials: Hard: +1 Plant Materials per upgrade, +1 Adra Materials per tier upgrade, Path of the Damned: +2 Plant Materials per upgrade, +2 Plant Materials per tier upgrade

It makes sense. I finished my second playthrough on PotD and just after closing the game, update was available to download.

EDIT:
Also I tested Iron Fists. This skill won't scale unique weapons to its enchantment level.

Edited 5 hours ago by Silvaren