Upgrades | Basics Dark Souls II Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Every weapon and piece of armor can be upgraded using special materials, which increase their stats and make them more suitable for different modes of gameplay.
There are two ways of modifying the gear:
- Reinforcement - allows you to increase basic stats of a weapon or a piece of armor to a maximum of +10 (1-10). Every level of reinforcement increases base power by 10%.
- Infusion - the process of placing new effects or type of damage into a weapon. There are nine different effects. Placing one of them deletes the previous one. Additionally, infusing a clean weapon causes its base power to be reduced by about 30% and its scaling from Strength/Dexterity by 1-2 levels (the attributes give lesser bonus to the damage), but it adds damage from a given effect/changes the basic damage. This doesn't apply to Raw and Mundane effects.
Below you will find a table with descriptions of Reinforcements of Infusions:
Name | Smith | Description |
Normal | Lenigrast, McDuff, Ornifex | Standard weapon and armor reinforcement up to +10. Every level adds 10% to physical base power. Requires: Titatinte Shard (1-3), Large Titanite Shard (4-6), Titanite Chunk (7-9) and Titanite Slab (+10) |
Boss Weapons & Armour | Lenigrast, McDuff, Ornifex | Reinforces up to +5. Each level adds 10% to physical base power. Requires: Twinkling Titanite (1-5) |
Special Weapons & Armour | Lenigrast, McDuff, Ornifex | Reinforces up to +5. Each level adds 30% to physical base power. Requires: Petrified Dragon Bone (1-5) |
Raw | McDuff | Increases physical base power by 14,4%, but decreases stat scaling. It is best to use it on a weapon which already has low scaling. Requires: Raw Stone |
Bleed | McDuff | Adds bleed effect to a weapon. Decreases base power by 30,5%, but adds 112 bleed base power. Decreases Strength/Dexterity Scaling by 1-2 levels. Requires: Bleed Stone |
Magic | McDuff | Adds magic damage to a weapon and increases Intelligence scaling. Decreases base power by 30,5% and Strength/Dexterity scaling by 1-2 levels. Requires: Faintstone |
Dark | McDuff | Adds dark damage and increases dark scaling. Decreases base power by 30,5% and Strength/Dexterity scaling by 1-2 levels. Requires: Darknight Stone |
Fire | McDuff | Adds fire damage and increases fire scaling. Decreases base power by 30,5% and Strength/Dexterity scaling by 1-2 levels. Requires: Firedrake Stone |
Lightning | McDuff | Adds lightning damage and increases lightning scaling. Decreases base power by 30,5% and Strength/Dexterity scaling by 1-2 levels. Requires: Boltstone |
Mundane | McDuff | Associates the power of a given weapon with the lowest attribute. Decreases base power by 50% and scaling from default attributes. Useful almost only for players with rather equal attributes. Requires: Old Mundane Stone |
Poison | McDuff | Adds poison effect to a weapon. Decreases base power by 30,5%, but adds 112 poison damage. Decreases Strength/Dexterity scaling by 1-2 levels. Requires: Poison Stone |
Enchanted | McDuff | Increases Intelligence scaling and decreases scaling form all the other attributes. Doesn't add any magic damage and doesn't decrease base power. Useful for magic classes with a lot of Intelligence. Requires: Magic Stone |