Best Weapon Enchant Combos

[Nobear]

I tried to start a conversation about this as a follow-up to another thread, but I figure it's better to have it in a separate thread.

 

The idea is that, although the resistance/vulnerability system in PoE is forgiving enough that you can power through the game with minimal thought to it, I like the idea and I like to prepare a fight with the best weapon of multiple choices for a given enemy. This led me to want to plan out what the best combos are. Admittedly, this would get expensive for a dual wielder, which I don't have in my party. I am doing this for my two tanks, and I know some of you may consider this not worth it, but I enjoy this dimension of the game. So far I have these:

 

1) Slash/Corrosive Lash/Wilder Slaying: I chose this because ogres are vulnerable to Corrode, and there are also plant enemies which are vulnerable to both Slash and Corrode.

 

2) Crush/Shocking Lash/Vessel Slaying: I chose this because animats are vulnerable to Shock, and they are also resistant to both Pierce and Slash, leaving Crush as the most effective physical damage type against them.

 

3) Pierce/Burning Lash/Spirit Slaying: I chose this because spirits are vulnerable to fire, and it's the physical damage type left over after the first two combos.

 

I figure these combos ought to serve me well in at least some capacity for most of the game. They will each have their specialties, and when there is no clear winner I can default to using the weapon I consider best in other ways. Does anyone have thoughts or suggestions on this?

 

PS Let me tack on a quick question here: I just got Resolution (6/12 Enchant slots already used). I put Corrosive Lash on it, bringing that to 8/12. If I put a Slaying enchant on it, will this limit the quality I can eventually make it? Would I otherwise (if left at 8/12) be able to upgrade it to Exceptional and then Superb, or would the rules against overriding enchantments prevent this anyway?

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

 

I enchanted weapons and armor to specific foes. Mostly, spirits.

 

So I enchanted things, mostly pierce weapons and crush weapons, to have the spirit slaying modifier and burning last fire damage, as they almost universally don't like that, so they take a lot more damage this way.

 

My armor, I often enchanted with freeze damage reduction as a lot of them deal cold damage attacks that pierce.

 

It made the shade/phantom/spectre fights so much easier.

 

I think you face a total of 8~9 ogres total in the game that I can remember depending on if you even fight them, so I didn't worry about that. They're really easy to mess up as their Will is low anyways (depends on party, but a little Lore and some Confuse goes a long way here).

 

The nasty Primordials are pretty common in a lot of the mid-game content, and they're nasty with their spells and hard to kill to boot. So slaying for primordials is probably good since they're so nasty. I didn't find Beasts to be worth while as the only hard to kill beast in the game is a Dragon really, and you can always enchant something for those specifically if you wanted.

 

I didn't bother with anything versus animats, because there's so few in the total game. Like Ogres. And they're not particularly hard, as they don't do a lot of damage (unlike Ogres).

 

Very best,

[AshenPlanet]

Combinations would really work in whatever way you wanted, so your suggestions would be just fine.

The only thing I would add is weapons for a Flames of Devotion paladin or turning wheel monk may be better off with burning lash, and swift fists with lightning lash, since you are already doing a specific elemental damage type, and it's better to add to that than to use a different element and go through 25% of the DR again.

 

Dual-weilders don't really pay any extra, because 2handers cost double the components for enchanting.

As for your question, you get 12 points total.

Fine is 2, exceptional is 4, and superb is 6

Any lash is 2.

Kith slaying is 4, and any other slaying is 2.

 

For your example of a 6/12 fine weapon, you are paying 4 points for the non-enchantables - that leaves 8 points for everything else.

If you are planning on superb, then that leaves you with only 2 points which would be best spent on a lash, which is more universally useful than a slaying.

Keep in mind, you can only make 2 superb 1-handed weapons or 1 2handed weapon throughout the whole game.

If you choose to go to exceptional, which you should, as exceptional is a better use of points than either slaying or lash, than that leaves you with 4 points.

You could either go with kith slaying or any lash + any non-kith slaying.

So, to use your examples, you could use corrosive lash / Wilder slay.

 

The most difficult opponents in the game are spirits and beasts, if that factors into what you'll want your best weapons saved for.

 

[Nobear]

Thank you both very much for the intel, that you delivered without story spoilers. It's useful to know what monsters are most common or rare in the game. I have cleared level 4 of Od Nua, so you are saying there won't be many more ogres than that (until the expansion)? I didn't know you could only enchant 1/2 Superb weapons. I hope the expansion will bring more for that.