Crafting and enchanting. Where do I begin?

[omgFIREBALLS]

I have five-or-so parties up and running. Well up, at least. The latest one is even PotD+ToI. And one thing that holds true for all these is that I barely touch the crafting and enchanting buttons. The only plan I ever have for the materials involves supporting the Hire Five Level Two Adventurers ASAP program.

 

To get a small question out of the way first. That sorry pie the Gilded Vale chef taught me to cook for freeing him from the bandits, is that the only recipe I'll ever learn in the whole game? I thought it was a taste of what's to come but nobody ever seems to want to add to any of my repertoires.

 

Now let's get started on potions and the uhhhh... involved. I'm really not sure what's worth making because they all have short duration effects. It's like I'm supposed to visualize the entire battle before me, how all my actions as well as my opponents' all align so that if I pop the +accuracy potion at this magical moment, I will get some use out of it instead of just say, getting dominated and using it against my own team. Etc. Dishes, au contraire, are rather okay because I can eat before combat and they will last the entire fight.

 

Scrolls. I haven't even considered them.

 

And now enchanting. Certainly I have a lot of juicy options, but I'm worried my supplies are limited and I don't want to pimp up something I won't be keeping. Yet I'm also getting the idea I could take a plain armor and buff it up to be the awesomest armor if I wanted to, and it would be the same as if I took an exceptional one to start with. That's what the x/12 means right? How much more juice I can pump into it?

 

Given my cluelessness, I obviously don't buy any materials either. So for one, what should I look out for and for two, to summarize the post, what should I really, at the very least be doing with crafting and enchanting?

[tnc]

There's a lot of enchanting supplies in the game and you can also buy them and your stronghold generates a plant and creature part every turn i believe. So you'll have tons of enchanting materials by the end of the game. I start enchanting after i get the best unique weapons/armor but you can waste some on weaker equipments and still get away with it. Weapons that have attack speed bonus, bonus elemental damage or endurance leech are the best and you can further enchant most of them. Don't enchant the ordinary equipment it's not worth it. I think the middle of act 2 is a good place to start enchanting, you'll get some of the best equipment by then.

[Faydark]

Yeah I feel enchanting is fairly lacklustre so far as well. All the "best" enchants are only available on certain named weapons. If you want Draining enchant, you gotta use a certain type of weapon etc. They really went overboard on "balance" instead of fun imo on just about every aspect of the game.

[Ichthyic]

level 4 on up is where to start examining what you can enchant.

level 6 you can enchant from any type of enchant group.

some things to consider:

damage reduction on armor is always good, and cheap.

putting fine on your weapons makes them noticeably more effective, though it's double the cost for ranged and two-handed weapons.

IMO, if you only have the mats to to do one "slayer" ability, kith is the one to pick.  second would be tied between spirit and beast.  again, it has a noticeable impact.

things that don't have a lot of impact:

"proofing", except for piercing maybe for your casters or others with weak armor.

putting "fine" on a shield doesn't do much; if you need to save mats, here's a thing you can pass on.  plus, by the time you hit the city, you'll be finding enchanted shields anyway.

for elemental damage, burning or corrosive damage are about equal.  very few things resist corrode, but also very few things are weak to it.  more things resist burn, but there are quite a few common enemies (like spirits) that are weak to it.

so, you can custom design a very powerful weapon specifically to deal with spirits by making it burning and spirit slaying.  if it's a one handed weapon, this also is quite cheap.

 

[Exoduss]

I too enjoy making new parties more than completing the game tbh :D as for enchants id say As soon as you get named weapons that are fit for your PC go for it enchant them atleast with fire damage + quality

The Dissapointer , Stilleto/arbalest from blacksmith are all good choices to tune up to the maximum as soon as u get em

Edited April 6, 2015 by Exoduss

[Ichthyic]

yeah, Hold Wall is definitely the most brutal weapon you can get in Act 1.

was almost sorry to see it get nerfed in the patch.

fortunately, I'm not using the patch, so I still get to one-shot nearly everything with it as an opening attack.

yeah, it probably did need to get nerfed. 

still, looking at the stats for the nerfed version, it;s still worth every penny.  it's still a must-have weapon for act1.

still the first ranged weapon really worth saving mats to enchant.

 

[Exoduss]

Dissapointer is the first tho its better then hold wall cuz its free and enchant to fix it is available as soon as u enter gilded wale but i agree that first 4200 c should be spent on holdwall then combo Hold Wall-Dissapointer-fine pistol can wreck 1 enemy before it even reaches your tank , imo i am not going to new patch for month atleast too many parties on various difficulties waiting to finish the game on this patch

[kickthezombie]

Crafting is a useful ability if you can specialise your set of weapons and armour for a certain task. For example I am out matched by Dragons + Drakes and so I need to stock up on Burn Proof gear and Beast slayering stuff. Then I can take them down in short order. Of course same stuff is not so easy against fampires for example but then you need other stuff.

 

My only problem is sourcing all the ingredients and some ingredients seem pretty rare even if they are very cheap. That gives me a standing quest in itself to try and figure out where these plants and items are found.

 

It is also useful to cook food and create potions and scrolls. Ones I like creating are beef stew and potions of wizards double/ mirrored image  and Potion of Deleterious Alarcrity of Motion. Very handy if you are fond of two handed swords and bows.

[thelebk]

Very neat, would love to see more additions to the authors questions answered. Is hold wall purchased from the blacksmith in Gilded Vale? I don't remember.

[Boeroer]

Yes, it is.

[omgFIREBALLS]

My original post is very old. There's been a number of balance patches as well as White March I + II since then. You should probably request fresh answers to all my questions, or ask them again yourself