Enchantments

This page focuses on enchantment strategy. A comprehensive list of the Equipment enchantments is listed on the Equipment page, including drop-only enchantments that may not be created with Gemstones.

Enchantments effects may be added to equipment that has an empty slot (and is therefore higher quality than common) using the correct Gemstones and an empty slot, at the Blacksmith in the camp. Enchantable gear includes helmets, armor, weapons, and offhands. The enchanting table must be unlocked and appropriately upgraded at the fortress to enchant at the blacksmith. Empty equipment slots are created when an enchantment is removed from a piece of equipment, using currency crystals - it costs 50 crystals initially and 25 crystals more each time you do it to that piece of equipment. Equipment also gains an empty slot when you upgrade its quality at the blacksmith - as although the rarity is upgraded, no enchantment has yet been added.

Unlike many games (like minecraft, for example), merging two items together will NOT merge the enchantments - only the first item’s enchantments will be preserved.

Once an enchantment is created with a gem at least once, it will be visible as an option by selecting the correct gem - unlocking its display function.

Equipment and weapon enchantments stack with each other - for example having 2 pieces of equipment with the martial art enchantment (+10 percent damage each) will do more damage than only a single piece of equipment with the enchantment; a berzerker using bounty hunter on both weapons will be more effective than if only one weapon has it; and so on.

## Enchantment Strategies

There are a variety of effective strategies to follow in enchanting your gear. This is more of a mid-game tool - generally focusing upon your fortress will be a much higher priority until you can hit the 450 armor cap and carry multiple crosses of life. Typically, you will want to be able to reliably make it to camps and not die (and carry at least 5-7 crosses of life or thereabouts), so that you don’t die and lose all that equipment you’ve spent tens of thousands of crystals and/or millions of gold on!! If you aren’t at that point, spend longer powering up your fortress and your hero.

Some enchantments are drop-only and cannot be created. In the earlier game, direct boosting effects like +3 damage (wrath) are valuable; in the late game however the %-based damage boosts tend to be very useful, to stack with the effect of very high damage weapons and in particular chaos rings.

Equipment: “Defense” on each piece of equipment with have a noticeable enhancement on survivability in most cases and will stack on top of the 450 armor cap, raising defense beyond the 90 percent absorption level. Thirst for blood and martial art are both %damage boosting, and very valuable all game phases including the Endgame, and they might be considered “S tier” - make sure the thirst for blood is the first enchant in the list for “min maxed” value to be optimized, as this will increase damage more than if martial art is first. Wrath is valuable in the early game but rarely the best once enchantments are being custom added. Heroes that need mobility (archer and wizard particularly) benefit from the drop-only enchantment BATTLE MARCH. Spark of life (+10hp) is a reasonable fourth enchantment if mobility is not needed and the extra HP is needed - a necromancer using breath of death may find this particularly useful. Late game warriors may choose one of the monster-specific defense enchants as their last one, due to their already immense HP - for example 20% extra defense vs demons.

## Optimal Weapon Enchantments

Early game: Wrath is valuable early game and for grim paladin farming, as is defense (for its flat armor increase effect) - these fall off in the deepest dungeons of the Endgame however, where chaos ring damage becomes key. They become less useful in the middle game as the heroes rising star-based attack and defense make them less valuable - but not to the degree of the endgame.

Late game: Bounty Hunter does increased damage against dangerous high level monsters, and is generally valuable for the Endgame player. Unfortunately, giant slayer does not work in the endgame because unused skill points count as “levels” - making that enchantment ineffective, as you will not face monster that are higher level than you when considering unused skill points. Vampirism and searing restore health and mana upon monster killing and are excellent in both early and late game (if the hero needs mana in the late game - warrior for example typically does not), and more powerful monsters restore more - in the late game nearly every single monster will fully restore health and mana, so these enchantments remain very valuable, if your hero depletes mana quickly. Furious onslaught is a powerful enchant to use in the endgame as it increases your 1-hit-kill ability. The drop-only enchantment Pogrom does a flat 15% damage boost without the self-damaging effect of murderer (which does 20% damage) and is popular as a 4th enchant; as is the "reaping" drop-only enchantment in melee weapons because it does more damage with each enemy hit - note that this is reapING, not reapER - they are different enchants! Battering ram can crash through the blocks of enemy melee - a helpful second-weapon enchantment for a berserker - and range increases the utility of the scarlet reaping skill which is extraordinarily powerful for the berserker; it is also very useful for a hunter, and even a warrior. The enchantment “exploder” can be helpful if the late game player is being bothered by monsters with the exploding ability (like the bies), as the “exploder” enchantment overrides the monsters ability, keeping it from damaging the hero. The “crushing” ability has use in the late game obsidian tower at very deep floor level, when facing monster champions with the “hunting for captains” mod, as this will make some monster champions have the “mighty” condition - vastly increasing their armor and HP; similarly any other monster with the “mighty” condition or high level grim paladins are dealt with by the crushing enchant.

Bosses: Demon slayer, pogrom, frost and POSSIBLY godslayer (which may not trigger against all bosses…) may have use in a “boss killer” weapon, as the typical s-tier endgame weapon of “pogrom (or reaping)/bounty hunter/searing/vampirism” will have little use against a boss, as giant slayer/bounty hunter will not boost damage against a boss, and searing/vampirism only work upon monster death…! Murderer is another enchant to use against bosses, as an alternative to pogrom, particularly if the hero has skills to heal mid battle (wizard heal, necromancer breath of death etc) - however the self damaging effect may be a nuisance to some players.

## Enchantment Order Strategy, and Last Enchantment Bug Workaround

On some enchantments, the order with which the enchantments are listed will impact the final damage output. If for example a piece of equipment has thirst for blood and martial art, the final damage output will be higher if thirst for blood is an earlier enchantment in list than if it is after martial art, likely due to the damage formula listed on the Rings page.

For gaining the desired effect on a piece of equipment, the enchantments should be ordered in such a way that the more difficult to obtain enchants are made first. For example - if a weapon of frost (topaz), giant slayer (diamond), vampirism (Ruby) and bounty hunter (Ruby) were approached on an empty legendary weapon (for example, clerics staff for an optimized wizard): topaz would be used first (3 times if needed, to ensure one of those effects were frost). Undesired enchants would be removed once ALL DESIRED ENCHANTS from that gem type are added.

As of February 2023, getting the final desired enchant such a that all 4 legendary slots are filled with the desired enchant, can sometimes be tricky if there are multiple options on that final gem and only one desired enchant, because each time an enchant is removed and re-enchanted, the same enchant will be received - preventing getting the desired enchant. It is recommended to plan for this, and if BOTH enchants (or all 3) are desired, to always perform that gem last - for example if both endurance and thirst-for-blood are desired on equipment, using Ruby last would be helpful.

To reset the last enchantment if it is NOT possible to plan the last enchant to “force” what you want (as in the clerics staff example above), for example if your last enchant was Diamond and you did NOT get giant slayer but wanted it, you would remove the enchant, put the staff in your chest, return to fortress - and then try again next time you reached the camp (which can be done quickly by playing level 1 of the crypt). This will reset and truly “randomize” the enchanting odds, making it possible to potentially get the enchant you want. It may take several tries to do this, and should only be done in the 4th and final enchantment slot, and only then if it is not possible to force the last enchantment to be the one you want.

\*\*NOTE: as of June 2023, there is a bug present wherein if you have a piece of equipment with an INHERENT enchant like the skull helm’s terror, and you leave the game entirely (close the app) with that piece of equipment having a vacant/unused enchant slot, that piece of equipment may LOSE an enchantment slot permanently - limiting it to one less potential enchantment! Exercise caution when going for that final enchantment, and consider cloud saving with automatic cloudsave off as a last resort bug workaround, in case this bug occurs…