So I swapped my Mystic Knight (badass class!) to fighter so I can get the +10 carry weight augment. Having plenty of gold, I bought the most expensive shield Caxton had available, since thus far, barring the gold weapons, more expensive has equaled better. it's a cool-looking shield with a starburst pattern. Thing is, I can't figure out why it cost so much. It's like 100k gold but doesn't seem to justify the price. Its stats are only so-so. It hasn't got any obvious enchant. The description mentions something about evil enemies being afraid of it or some-such, which would imply a Holy enchant, but it's not got one. I just took the description at its word, then, and figured it would frighten some foes or something.

Well, I've been using it for a bit, and I've not noticed any reaction from the enemies I've seen, so I'm scratching my head. Is it perhaps some specific type of enemy that it affects? Or maybe something changes when you upgrade? I've only got it to one star atm, since I don't have the materials to go further. I'm hoping I didn't waste my money. I was going to switch my pawn back to fighter when I was done and returned to MK class and give it to her. Now I'm thinking I'll have to buy and upgrade some other shield.

(Unrelated, I just yesterday discovered that you can skip upgrade levels. Like, If you have the materials and money for a 3-star upgrade, you can skip one and two star upgrades, even if you don't have the materials for them! I've saved a lot of cash already.)

Lol yeah, u upgrade based on what materials you have don't have to worry about sequence or anything ^_^

I think you are taking the weapon descriptions a little to literally :) hehe, they just like to put some interesting information there for no real reason other than to fill space, everything u need to know about a weapon is in the stats if it only has a physical and no magic stat that means it does not have any elemental enchantment.

Elemental enchantments are really only good if u only have one caster in the group and you want to free up their skill slots, because if u do what I do and have a mage or sorc main prawn u can train her pretty well to apply the extremely useful weapon buffs quite often you can also press the "help" button on your d-pad before you are about to enter combat or before you go through doors and wait a second and your supporter will generally buff your weapon then too. Reason I say this is because the mage's enchant overrides your weapons enchant and u will notice weapons without permanent elemental buffs of similar quality always have a considerably higher physical damage stat.

As for the usefulness of your shield, shields have a much lower damage stat than weapons because they are for utility, blocking and stagger attacks not for dps but u generally get what you pay for so u can compare it to other shields of similar quality but u wont find something considerably better until you find one that's a lot more expensive. Also factor in which one u can upgrade further.

The prices for higher tier items get inflated a lot towards the end. You will at a point find items costing about a million that are not actually that far off from the 100k item range in terms of stats.

If I had to guess it's mostly a temporary money sink for people dicking around in postgame, pimping themselves out and trying different vocations and mixing and matching gear for looks as well as stats.

It is just flavor text dude. On the other hand stat wise the Orilux shield is like the .... 4th or 5th best normal shield in the game? So it isn't like you made a bad purchase.

Aw poo. I was hoping maybe it like scared undead or something.

There definitely ARE items that have effects that aren't listed in the stats, though. Like I have a ring that makes me rarely get knocked over, and I swear since I equipped the Farewell Cape I've never been affected by certain ailments (farming the drake, got hit by his fire many times, and never got set on fire, whereas with the ebon cape I'd burn almost every time). That last one might be in my head. Stupid cape got dragonforged, so now it's better than most others even though I hate how it looks!

Lol cape stats are so crappy u would be crazy to wear anything other than the monagemous cloak. I am very fortunate I can usually work it into my gear to look nice most of the time, works well with rogue-ey gear and some warrior

Oh! then again few people would probably have that cloak now that I think about it coz I doubt many ppl went to a lot of effort to save Fournival from prison ^_^ this cloak heals your whole party for a % when you use curatives on yourself.

Anyway I see how you got that idea that the descriptions aren't just generally talking $hit because indeed certain items, but really only rings and a few cloaks that I've seen are made for the special effect and those items more often than not don't have normal stats and the description will be very specific and not vague or abstract.

Capes/shoulders are honestly just flavor and looks with only a few exceptions. Just go with what you feel looks cool on your dude.

Funny interesting tibit the shitty tattered cloak you get after defeating a certain big boss, that has bad, even negative stats is actually very decent when dragon forged with a lot of resistances.

@Tennmuerti said:

Capes/shoulders are honestly just flavor and looks with only a few exceptions. Just go with what you feel looks cool on your dude.

Funny interesting tibit the shitty tattered cloak you get after defeating a certain big boss, that has bad, even negative stats is actually very decent when dragon forged with a lot of resistances.

Damn straight. You knew Savan's cape had to be good in the end! At Dragon forged level it gives 2% resistance to all elements and 10% resistance to all status effects.

@Karkarov: Speaking of gear I'm having a real shitty time getting any good random drops from Everfall chests, and it's bumming me out seeing all the pawns decked out with blessed/crimson/etc armor sets, lordly cloack, dragonblood ring, dragonmaw mask and some other stuff.

@Tennmuerti said:

@Karkarov: Speaking of gear I'm having a real shitty time getting any good random drops from Everfall chests, and it's bumming me out seeing all the pawns decked out with blessed/crimson/etc armor sets, lordly cloack, dragonblood ring, dragonmaw mask and some other stuff.

Yeah, the drop rates are actually atrocious. Something like 2% for the cool stuff like the Philosophers robe or Ancient Cape. My Pawn is still using a 3 star dalmatica ;p! Problem is I left everfall early on game 1 and now the only items I have that might be better can't be upgraded because it requires everfall mats.