Indecision about using Durgan steel, etc.?

[Crucis]

Does anyone else get indecisive when it comes to what items to upgrade with rare ingredients? Like dragon scales or eyes, or Durgar steel?

 

The ingredients for upgrading to exceptional, primarily vithrack brains, are easy enough to come by.  But sky dragon eyes, adra dragon scales, kraken eyes, and refined durgan steel are extremely limited.  Not to mention the single instance of the Hellwax mold.

 

On top of that, 2H weapons require 2 instances of the rare ingredient whereas 1H weapons only require 1, which only makes the decision that much more difficult.

 

 

What do you guys do with your rare ingredient upgrades?  What decisions have you made when it comes to upgrades?

 

 

[Rosbjerg]

Look up gear relevant your class and build and boost those, but yeah very indecisive - I hate making wrong choices.

 

But its not something that will break the game if you do it 'wrong'

[Mocker22]

By the time I have those items I normally know what each characters end game weapon will be. The armor upgrades are a lot harder.

[Kaylon]

You have to know what your endgame equipement will be for your party and then it's easier to decide. Now that you have also legendary enchantments you might need to plan even more because you don't want to spend superb/legendary enchantments on the same items.

[Crucis]

The funky thing is that with my current party, led by a rogue PC, I didn't pick a weapon focus for my Rogue PC until I decided to respec him once I'd reached the level cap.  And even now, I'm uncomfortable with my choice.  Mostly because I tend to flip around his weapons a lot.  I don't have this problem so much with the rest of my party, even including the "reserves". 

 

Cripes, when I was going through the monk abbey, I ended up going through 3 different ranged weapons to figure out which would work best against those nasty monks and their non-monk brothers.  First I was using Persistence, but it didn't seem to have the punch against the more heavily armored dudes.  Then I tried using Borresaine, and while its punch was better and I like the occasional stuns, I changed again after I re-added Kana to the party.  And I went back to using Twin Sting, since Kana would be chanting the reloading speed chant.  And that got me all the punch I could ask for.

 

And when he was forced into melee, for a while I was dual wielding Vent Pick and Bleak Fang.  But the damage just seemed so weak (though it's a fun combo), and the lack of a shield made him much to easy to hit.  I ended up using the Superb club and the Little Savior small shield for his weapons to get through the abbey's fights, if I couldn't run away and fight at range.

 

Maybe this is an unconscious RP decision on my part.  Or maybe it's just that I haven't settled on the right weapons for my Rogue PC. 

[Raven Darkholme]

Dual wield Drawn in spring.

@OP

I would go with the rogue for full Durgans and then divide the rest, casters for armor and weapons for offs.

Superb is always hard, but you have weapons which start out superb, try using those, so you have 1 or 2 exceptional weapons, where you REALLY want the unique enchant and use the eyes on those.

Scales matter less I personally prefer shields to armor if you have a pala tank there goes 1 scale.

[ottffsse]

Armour to consider (armour is good to durganized because it is more universal than specific weapons so you can swap your durgan armour between characters) cloth/light:

- vengiatta rugia

-monk robes (tidebringer)

-gwisk Glas

-plates: white crest, sanguine

Hide: blaidh Golan, wayfarer

Medium (rarely used): not really worth it but osrics, golden scales, pikes pride I guess if you have to

 

Weapons

 

Hunting bow: persistence

War bow: rain of gadogh field or sabre marie

Crossbow arbelest etc: wentgär (best), hold wall (optional)

 

Firearms: lead spitter /nothing else not even fellstroke is worth it

 

One handed/two handed: drawn in spring, any superb weapon with vicious or anahilating property that you use, speed is also good, or a good on crit effect like hours of St rembalt, tidebringer, blade of endless paths.

 

Shield: little savior, outworn Buckler (if you have a paladin)

Edited March 10, 2016 by ottffsse

[Crucis]

Armour to consider (armour is good to durganized because it is more universal than specific weapons so you can swap your durgan armour between characters) cloth/light:

- vengiatta rugia

-monk robes (tidebringer)

-gwisk Glas

-plates: white crest, sanguine

Hide: blaidh Golan, wayfarer

Medium (rarely used): not really worth it but osrics, golden scales, pikes pride I guess if you have to

 

Weapons

 

Hunting bow: persistence

War bow: rain of gadogh field or sabre marie

Crossbow arbelest etc: wentgär (best), hold wall (optional)

 

Firearms: lead spitter /nothing else not even fellstroke is worth it

 

One handed/two handed: drawn in spring, any superb weapon with vicious or anahilating property that you use, speed is also good, or a good on crit effect like hours of St rembalt, tidebringer, blade of endless paths.

 

Shield: little savior, outworn Buckler (if you have a paladin)

 

Some thoughts...

 

1. I'm hesitant to use the Durgan steel on any item that would require 2 instances of it to upgrade, due to that cost.

 

2. I'm not sure that it's worth Durganizing the Outworn Buckler.  Oh, not because it wouldn't be worth it, per se.  But because USING the buckler would force the paladin into using one handed weapons.  Now, maybe some pally's are just built for 1H weapon/shield fighting.  But that decision also prevents a pally from using any of the very good 2H options late in the game, like the Abydon's Hammer or Tidefall or the Redeemer, among others. 

 

I upgraded the St Rumbalts great sword to superb for Pallegina to use when there's no spirits or vessels around for the Redeemer.  The Superb version of St Rumbalts is outstanding because IMO its special effects aren't wasted on spells that you have to cast or only get triggered once per encounter.   OTOH, I see the Redeemer as a bit of a "one trick pony".  It's great for slaying vessels (and the Eyeless are vessels and can be slain by the Redeemer, which was oh-so-nice).  But other than vessels, the Redeemer seems like sort of a meh superb great sword (if that's not sort of a contradiction).

 

3.  Don't forget that green plate armor, Argwes Adra.  Probably my favorite plate armor in the game.  And it comes with Second Chance, which seems to me to trump other high grade plate armors' special benefits.

 

4.  I like the look of the Golden Scales armor and it's a Superb armor when stock.  But overall, it's not all that special, because IMO, its special effects are rather meh.  OTOH, I have a fondness for the Kerdhed Pames leather armor because it comes with a +3 RES bonus, which is nothing to be sneezed at, even if it is on leather armor.

 

EDIT:

 

4a.  The Saint's Armor is actually a good candidate for serious upgrading, in large part due to its having Second Chance, which is a very, very nice special ability, at least IMO.  The only down side is that it's not particularly good looking.  Oddly enough, it looks somewhat similar to the Raven's armor which is also scale.  But where the Raven armor looks nicely thematic in black, the Saint's armor just looks a little boring in black.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Crucis

[Braven]

All weapon setups require 2 Durgan. It is one Durgan per hand. So you spend the same with one or two handed weapons. That said, the benefits are best (for attack speed) if two one handed weapons are enchanted and equipped. It helps dual wielders by far the most because of how attack speed multiplies. (Attack speed bonuses of each weapon stacks and helps the speed of both weapons). +15% is really like +35% or more due to how the math works. But only for dual wielders.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Braven