Dynasty Warriors: Origins reveals a plethora of new systems and mechanics to strengthen your protagonist in the postgame. We’re talking expanded level caps, new game plus, a brand new difficulty level which grants new skills and weapons, and…weapon reforging. If you’re au fait with Dynasty Warriors and its innumerable spinoffs, weapon reforging should look pretty familiar: If you have two copies of the same weapon, you can merge them to either mix-and-match skills or wholesale increase a weapon’s strength. Do this enough times, and you can theoretically get a +99 weapon with insane attack power. Neat, right? Well…
I come to you today as someone who has mastered every nook and cranny of Dynasty Warriors: Origins. With my shiny platinum trophy under my belt, I have conquered all the challenges, seen every sight, and felled entire armies by myself. And throughout all of that, not only did I never need reforged weapons to overcome any postgame challenges, I almost made an otherwise easy-to-get trophy way harder on myself. Here’s the breakdown.
Why weapon reforging is awesome…in theory
Let’s cut to the chase: weapon reforging technically offers you the best weapons in the game. As you progress into the endgame, you can find weapons as high as Grade 7 as drops in battle. If you grind out enough Grade 7 weapons, you can merge them into an armament with a whopping 623 Attack stat and a slew of six passive skills of your own choosing. It’s those passives that are key here; normally weapons feature a mix of common and rare passive traits, but nothing’s stopping you from loading your weapon with all rare traits that will push your damage per second to the moon.
Nothing in the game will quite match the power of a fully upgraded Grade 7 weapon. But you will find weapons that come awfully close, and therein lies the rub.
Grade 8 Luan weapons are so much easier to get
Yes, while Grade 7 weapons are the best equipment you can find as drops, you can attain mythical Grade 8 “Luan” weapons by completing challenges on the postgame-exclusive Ultimate Warrior difficulty. Considering you can attain these weapons early in your postgame grind, they offer a huge jump in power. We’re talking attack power on par with a fully upgraded Grade 7 weapon and a suite of six passive abilities that aren’t great, but are still perfectly acceptable for a non-forged weapon.
Luan weapons are all unique, so they can’t be upgraded or edited at all via weapon reforging. This is why a maxed out Grade 7 weapon can still outperform a Luan weapon in the end. But is the minor difference in power worth the massive difference in effort?
Why Luan weapons are better than Grade 7 weapons in practice
Getting a maxed Grade 7 weapon involves a huge grind. For reference, even after completing everything in the game, I didn’t get a single Grade 7 weapon past +40 with the drops I naturally acquired. Conversely, many Luan weapons aren’t even locked behind especially hard postgame challenges. For example, the Lurking Luan sword is locked behind the “Final Battle against the Yellow Turbans” mission in Chapter 1, and I completed this challenge with time to spare even though I was several levels below the recommended level 71.
By the time I reached max level through naturally completing Ultimate Warrior missions, I had ample power to defeat anything and everything the game could throw at me. Taking the time to grind out maxed Grade 7 weapons would have been total overkill.
The best way to get the Deadly Perfection achievement
Still, you don’t want to ignore weapon forging completely. The Deadly Perfection achievement is unlocked by fully upgrading a weapon, so you can’t miss this if you want 100 percent completion. Fortunately, as long as you’re not gunning for a fully upgraded Grade 7 weapon, this one is pretty easy.
To easily get Deadly Perfection, just save your game and spend all your money on upgrading any weapon Grade 6 or lower. Since you can find and outright purchase weapons with +20 modifiers already on them, this is significantly easier to grind out as long as you have the cash. In fact, a +99 Grade 6 weapon will perform about on par with a +13 Grade 7 weapon, so you could choose to use one if you’re starting Ultimate Warrior. But if you’d rather save your cash, you can reload your game after getting your trophy.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a fully upgrade Grade 7 weapon! If you’re down for the grind, it’ll certainly make the rest of your postgame challenge easier. But if you’d rather save your time, you’re not missing much.
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