Weapon Enchantment

Weapon Enchantment is the process of giving weapons elemental Archmagick attributes; enchantments can be either permanently imbued on a weapon as part of its attributes, or temporarily bestowed by a Mage, Sorcerer or Mystic Knight.

Overview

 * See also : List of Enchanted Weapons and Category:Elemental Weapons

In Dragon's Dogma, a weapon will deal either physical or magickal damage, or sometimes a weapon can perform both types of damage depending on its nature and/or the nature of the skill or spell selected by the character. A weapon may then be enchanted with one of the five Archmagicks, giving it additional magickal damage specifically targeted at an enemy's weakness; conversely, enemies can be resistant to specific elements which can cause the wrongly chosen enchantment to work against the attacker.

An enchanted weapon will also be able to inflict element-specific damage or Status Effects; for example, a Fire enchanted sword or staff gains the ability to inflict the Burning debilitation.

For both physical and magickal weapons, a temporary enchantment will add a static amount of magick damage. This boost affects Core Skills (like Magick Bolt or Empale) and physical weapon based Skills, but does not seem to affect spells or skills with innate element damage, e.g., Stone Forest, Backfire or Toss and Trigger's explosion.

Enchantment spells



 * For lists see Category:Enchantment skills

In addition to permanently enchanted physical and magickal weapons which may be found or bought, any weapon may be temporarily enchanted with an Archmagick, giving the benefits of an enchanted weapon for a short period of time.

In general, an elemental spell will temporarily overwrite any permanent or previous temporary elemental enchantment, however, these spells do not stack. Therefore casting a weaker variant of any element on an already temporarily enchanted weapon will overwrite the first enchantment's effects with that of the lesser secondary enchantment.

Mage, Sorcerer and Mystic Knight all have enchantment spells of varying power and effect; spells are available in variants matching all five Archmagicks:

Boons, Trances and higher level spells
Mage and Sorcerer Boon, Affinity and Pact spells enchant an individual target's primary and secondary weapons with an elemental Archmagick.

Mystic Knight has Enchanter, Trance and Invocation spells which are respectively parallel to Boon, Affinity and Pact spells. The Enchanter, Trance and Invocation spells are shorter in duration, more powerful, and affect the entire party with a single cast as long as all members of the party are within range of the Mystic Knight's spell.

Both enchanter and boon type spells enchant the main and secondary weapon of the recipient, however Magick Shields are unaffected by either.

The magick boost from one rank of spell to another (e.g., Boon to Affinity) is generally small. The increase in power is noticeable in terms of secondary effects; for example a Dark Affinity-enchanted weapon is more likely to give a Critical Hit than a Dark Boon enchant.

Additionally the durations of the spells increase:

Although more than two Boons may be cast sequentially by a pawn when requested, a Mage or Sorcerer pawn will stop after casting two Affinities or Pacts when requested and must be asked a second time to complete the elemental buff of the entire party. This specific command is "help" (left d-pad).

Self enchantment
The Boons, Affinities, and Pact spells can be cast on the caster, and the Trance based spells always enchant the invoker's weapon. Certain Mystic Knight enchantments can only be cast on the caster's own weapon.

Damage
Enchanted melee weapons do both physical and magickal damage - each quantity is separate - and weapon enchantment, whether innate or temporary, does not affect the physical damage done in any way.

It is thought that a weapon wielder's core magick has no effect on the damage done by a permanently magickally enchanted physical weapon. This does not apply for magick staffs, and the damage from magickal skills such as Great Cannon is also calculated differently.

Augments such as Acuity and Attunement boost damage from both permanently and temporarily enchanted weapons.

Spell Enchantments
The boost from an enchantment generally increases damage except when the enchantment is inappropriate, such as enchanting a Stagnant Surge archistaff with holy to attack a holy-resistant Saurian Sage. However even when an unenchanted weapon has an inappropriate temporary enchantment added (such as an ice enchantment when facing a Snow Harpy) - the overall damage will generally be increased, though only by small amounts - as long as the creature's resistance is not total to that element.

The lowest level spells (such as Holy Boon) give a large initial increase in spell power and hence increase damage; the higher tier spells (i.e., Holy Affinity compared to Holy Boon) only increase power minutely, and only increase damage by a few HP. It makes no difference whether an enchantment is self-cast, or cast by an ally, all other things being equal.

It is thought that the innate magick power and level of the enchantment caster increases the power of the enchantment up to a certain level - however once the caster has 300 Magick, and has reached Level 40, there are no further increases in power.

Once the enchanter is fairly experienced, the enchantment is just as effective regardless of the level, magick power or weapon carried by the caster: for example a level 149 pawn with 643 magick, using a silver rarified Talarian White to cast Holy Affinity on an Arisen increased the damage done by the Arisen's Magick Bolts on an Ox by on 10 hp compared to a much lower level pawn at level 69 with only 275 magick, casting the same spell with an un-upgraded Rusted Staff.

A permanently enchanted staff overenchanted with the same element does receive a boost in spell power. Thus, as an example, it is worthwhile to enchant Divine Axis with Holy Boon, as it results in an increase in damage, as well as causing the Focused Bolt spell to become the more potent temporarly enchanted type. (See Focused Bolt for more details on the two types.) More generally when an unenchanted weapon and a permanently enchanted weapon are over-enchanted with a temporary spell, the weapon's initial element or lack of is not a factor in the magickal damage - so for example a 3* Divine Axis and a 2* Cast Stone (magick strengths 279 or 280) do almost the same damage against all foes when overenchanted.

Extending enchantments

 * The augment Perpetuation extends the duration of temporary enchantments when this augment is equipped by the caster by approximately 30%. Exceptions include some Mystic Knight shield spells, Dark Anguish, Abyssal Anguish; duration of these spells is not lengthened by Perpetuation. The Mystic Knight's shield spells are instead directly affected by the bonus enhancement "Boosts the power of normal and magick shields." for arm armor which affects damage output rather than duration.
 * Perpetuation stacks with Dark Arisen equipment that "Extends duration of attribute boosts applied to you." For example, a Pact cast by a pawn with Perpetuation on an individual with Gauntlets or Claws bearing this attribute lasts for six-and-a-half minutes.
 * Dark Arisen armor with the permanent attribute "Extends duration of attribute boosts applied to you." extends the duration of all applied elemental enchantments.