Strategy Tips For Picking Augments

Clearing a level will always result in the player being offered three random Augments to choose from. Which one to pick is subjective and depends on weapon combos and personal preferences. However, these tips should be useful to keep in mind for new players.

### Using Weapon Slots

* Most Augments fill up a slot in one of your weapons. Since these slots are in limited supply during a run, consider carefully whether filling a slot is worth the possibility that you might not be able to fill it with something better later.
* Super Upgrade Crystals increase the power of your Weapon's Super ability, sometimes exponentially. Some Supers become available more quickly, while others gain the ability to do huge bonus damage. Remember to use your Supers whenever you can, and focus on maxing out a weapon with the Super you find most useful. If this is a priority, you might want to avoid filling up some slots of a weapon with non-super Augments.
* Neither the Shard Of Ferocity (+5 dash impact damage) nor the Shard of Guile (+1 combo limit) require a weapon slot, and they don't cost health, so they are often a safer (but possibly more boring) choice. They represent a "free" power increase. Of course, you may have better options available.

### Managing Your Health

* The Shard of Resolve, which gives you one additional Health Crystal, is nearly always valuable. The more Health Crystals you have, the longer your run will last. All else being equal, this is almost never a bad choice.
* The Shard of Vitality fills up to five empty health crystals. If you're new to the game and can only get through a few rooms, it might be worth using it to fill one or two crystals. Once you get a bit more experienced, remember that health is a resource. Your health crystals will be refilled after each boss room, so if you think you can survive the next big fight, you might just ignore Vitality for something with more long term value.
* Since a Shard of Resolve gives one full health, it's always better than Shard of Vitality if you are missing only one health, and it's mostly better even if you are down by two or three. If you play on Relaxed Difficulty, don't forget that you will refill a crystal in each room.
* Shard of Wrath, Shard of Courage, and Shard of Foresight all *cost* you one health crystal, in exchange for 1 health damage, 2 guard damage, and 1 trait slot, respectively. Since it's best to have as much health as possible, this is sometimes dangerous, especially if you don't already have a lot of health to spare. On the other hand, if you have taken any damage previously, picking these Augments will cost you an *empty* crystal, which may make your decision easier. Then the Augments are basically a free power increase.
* Even if you have only one full health, you can always survive one hit per room. It's up to you whether you want to press your luck.
* Take your overall situation into account when deciding on which Augment to take in order to stay healthy. If you have a lot of extra crystals you can more easily spare one for a damage increase. If you have a lot of empty crystals you can go for big heals, or "heal" slowly with Resolve Shards, or remove the empty ones.
* Naturally if you die or beat the final stage, your potential healing is immediately gone, as are your empty weapon slots. Try not to hoard empty resources as you near the end of your run.
* Shards of Vitality will only be offered when you are below full health, and they seem to show up commonly. This means that if you ignore them, you will continue to get only two useful choices instead of three for many rooms. Therefore, you may consider using Vitality just to give yourself more choices again.

### Increasing Your Power

* Shard of Guile increases your Critical Strike Combo limit, meaning that you can do more damage to the enemy's Health while they are stunned, potentially finishing them off faster. Again, this doesn't cost a weapon slot. Increasing your combo limit will often be the biggest increase to the Health Damage you deal in a single combo that you can achieve, however, longer combos are more difficult to pull off. Consider the current amount of Health Damage you deal in one combo, as well as how much Health the enemies you face have, to work out whether an additional combo strike will allow you to take them out in fewer combos than you currently can. Also worth considering is that is usually no penalty for not finishing a combo, other than missing out on the damage you would get from the additional critical strikes, which might make it worth increasing your combo limit beyond what you can achieve consistently. However, this is not the case with Traits that apply a bonus when finishing a combo, so if you have one of them equipped, that may make an increased combo limit not desireable.
* If you're picking a Trait that boosts one weapon, first spare a thought for whether this will actually be useful with your current play style. It's no help to have *two* weapons with combo-finisher traits, if you can only finish a combo with one at a time. You don't need a trait that activates on alternating attacks, if one of your weapons is weak and not worth using to attack. You shouldn't take a bonus for big swings, if your play style leans toward quick slashes.
* When increasing one type of damage, consider how big the improvement is compared to the overall damage you already have. If your Dash damage is 15, taking a +5 is a 33% increase, which is a big difference. If your Dash damage is already 40, you may barely notice a difference getting it up to 45. If you increase the Health Damage on your Knight-Blooded Crest from 1 to 2, that may be double damage in theory, but it makes no difference if you never plan to deal any health damage by punching.
* Don't forget the multipliers on your damage in some situations. If you are running with a Knight-Blooded Crest then your other weapon has +30% damage. So picking +2 to Guard Damage on that weapon is really a boost of +2.6. This also applies to augments like "more damage with big swings" or "when at full health", etc.
* Look for synergies that combo with your other traits. If you can do bonus damage to enemies that have Soul Burn applied, you might want to add more ways to apply Soul Burn. If you have a lot of bonus Dash damage, restoring your Dash charges becomes more useful. If one of your Supers is maxed, it might be worth filling another slot to make the Super cooldown shorter.

### Weapon-Specific Concerns

* Some weapons give a powerful bonus for finishing a combo, like High Arcanist's Blade (inflicts Soul Burn, causing damage over time) or Mistcutter (inflicts Stasis, freezing enemies). Having a high Combo limit can sometimes make it harder to trigger these effects.
* Duelist's Edge still has a lot of good qualities after you lose health, but it is most effective if you have maximum health. This obviously changes your priority in terms of healing, or makes it more beneficial to delete empty crystals, even dropping down to one.
* It should go without saying, if you see an augment that gives a bonus to blocking, never add it to a weapon that cannot block.

### Miscellaneous

* It might be tempting to pick Aether crystals if you are trying to level up your weapons. Bear in mind, though, that you get more Aether for each room you complete, and a bigger Aether bonus for defeating a boss. This means you'll be better off picking an Augment that improves your power and makes your run last as long as possible. Only pick Aether rewards that are large enough to offset the opportunity cost from not taking other choices.
* As a related side note, the stage 1 and 2 bosses will stop appearing once you have beaten them. Returning to those rooms will only give a quick easy fight followed by a health reset. The bosses will not return until you reset the difficulty level or defeat the final boss. To maximize your Aether, consider crushing a difficulty crystal to reset all bosses before each run. You can select the same difficulty that is already active, and this will still work.
* Soul Burn does damage over time. Applying Soul Burn to one enemy twice will only reset the counter. While you can get a lot of value from traits that apply it, such as Enkindled or Sparklight, you might see diminishing returns if it is already innate to your weapons or supers.