haarhaarhaar

Thanks! Yeah, I thought so, but still a shame.

Obviously very subjective, but here are my reasons: I think Roy's level up ability helps sword users the most (because broadly speaking swords are slightly lower Mt), and Advance is most relevant for sword users who mostly don't have ranged options. There's not a huge amount in it for Roy though. For Marth, it's mostly so that you can get KOs from Lodestar Rush with high-Mt weapons. Divine Speed/Break Defenses help sword users, but they help everybody so being able to run another weapon alongside swords is also useful. For Celica, she wants units that can use tomes so that Resonance works outside of being engaged, and so that you can use Echo with things like Excalibur (for effective damage), Nova (multiple kills), and Thunder tomes (chip multiple units, or apply debuffs to multiple units at range). Ike wants axes because they're more powerful than swords for Great Aether. Can recommend the Hurricane Axe in particular - lots of damage against otherwise tough enemies with relatively minimal setup. Eirika is basically my personal preference - I really liked having her on Griffin Knight Chloe (who was independently built for high-Avo but has low strength), and I think lances, which are balanced between weight, hit and damage already, make the most of Eclipse Brace/Blue Skies. But like Roy, there's not much in it.

Generally, no - for at least some emblems (ie Byleth) their weapon buffs are pretty irrelevant, and there are only a couple where the weapon buffs are important. Off the top of my head, Roy, Marth, Celica, Ike and Eirika all like units who possess the same weapon type. But the points made above about the first three of those emblems still stand, and in the case of Ike/Eirika, other parts of their kit are so good that you shouldn't feel bound to putting them on units with complementary weapons. If you've got the DLC, you can learn Weapon Sync from the 3H kids, which boosts attack by 5 (or 7 for the advanced version) if you're wielding the same weapon as a synced emblem, or when you're engaged with any emblem. Units running brave weapons or doubling regularly really appreciate that flat boost to attack (it's cheaper and available much earlier than Str+5 or Mag+5) so that's one particular case where you might really want to match up unit and emblem weapon.

Has anyone discovered a way to change the RNG on the Ancient Well? I've tried a few different things, but no luck so far. Most recently, I put in two brave weapons and a Peshkatz (for a 5-star upgrade chance), and got out 600 SP worth of SP books, a Croissbow... and a Peshkatz. I appreciate any SP I can get, but I did feel quite shortchanged by that. Also, are there any non-Wrath learnable skills that boost crit rate?

Thanks for the advice! I think you're right, will be swapping Byleth and Corrin between those two characters and seeing which combinations I prefer. This is good to know! I haven't really been abusing staves as much as I could thus far, so I'll be happy to give that a go. Almost immediately after I put up last week's log, I found out about Wave 3, which has changed things up for me again. Not least, I think I'll have lots more SP than I was expecting, so I'll be able to put some high-cost builds into practice. Yunaka will be keeping Wind God, because I can get her Lunar Brace. And below I've got my writeup of the new DLC levels, as well as finally cracking on with the paralogues I've been ignoring. Divine Paralogue 5 (Veronica) Divine Paralogue 6 (Chrom/Robin) Skirmish - Bandits' Hideout Paralogue 4 (Lyn)

Yeah, there will be almost definitely be generics coming alongside her, and the other bosses. If you aren't using DLC, then I'd suggest making sure to bring and engage Corrin for this, and then have her seal movement on that group if you need to buy time to kill them all. Zephia is obviously the priority kill at that point, so focus your cannons on her - unless you've actively baited her she should have a physical weapon equipped rather than Thoron, making her much safer to attack. You're likely to face off against Zephia's group just past Marni's starting point, and there are emblem recharge points around there so you should hopefully be fine to use Corrin even if you've already used her this map.

Can recommend Wolf Knight Panette. Has been doing wonders for me, and I imagine Thief would work out similarly for her. My Hero Kagetsu has been very solid, but he'll still need a bit of investment to be a powerhouse in combat. Hero is great, but not sure it's Kagetsu's best class. Aggroing the second wyrm (furthest west of your starting point) will aggro all remaining bosses on the map, if you're still planning that part out. Zephia's movement gap also works slightly in your favour, as once you bait her she will reach you well before the other two bosses do, and can be ganged up on more easily. The boss with Leif can very much be Ike-tanked because he only makes use of Leif's kit. Ideally, you've beaten the other bosses on this map before you deal with these last three, though. I learnt from experience how tough this map can be if you get that wrong.

A lot of life stuff has been going on since my last log update, meaning I haven't managed to complete my write-up till now. On the plus side though, I've done more chapters than usual, and I have a couple extra sections as well. Glad to be back! Skirmish - Tea-Field Village Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Now I have all the emblems, I'm going to start pivoting my units into their final builds. If people have any suggestions for my units I'm all ears - I can already foresee choices which I'm not sure about (see below): Who gets Byleth? Yunaka's Six Rings

Agreed about not yet finding a solid use for Corrin's vines - everything else has its place. I'd say I use either ice or fog the most on Corrin As far as Camilla is concerned, I like her on Seadall, but mainly for Soar - the Dragon Vein ability (ice that boosts Mv, as seen in Tiki's paralogue) is cool, but I use it rarely because dancing. I'd say the healing effect on both Corrin and Camilla is underrated, as it's basically a free non-wait action that can provide mild healing for lots of your party. I don't even use Chain Guard much, but topping up HP on units is rarely a bad thing.

Lethality (Marisa S) has been surprisingly good with my crit build Yunaka. Very niche, but interesting.

Can confirm brave weapons don't affect chain attacks (if this is what you're referring to).

I've seen more than one Silver/Gold Corrupted in a single skirmish - I don't think it's a bug though, as this was a late-game skirmish. Having two of the same weapon is weird though. I do struggle with this as well - anecdotally there seem to be more male enemies than female after they join, but I can't say I've been paying too much attention to it. Unlike previous games gender and unit class aren't tied together (which is an improvement!), but it also means I don't normally find out till the combat itself.

They may have the ability to (SF says they do), I just don’t recall anyone in Soren’s paralogue using one so can’t confirm. Agreed, Enchanter seems pretty much support-locked so Micaiah may be the best emblem for them. Yeah only DLC class we’ve seen so far. I’m guessing DLC recruits will have their own classes, so maybe 3-4?

Class skill is Convoy - unit can withdraw from and send items to the Convoy on their turn. They only had B Arts I think (but they weren’t running more than Steel/Shielding iirc). I couldnt see anything on their stats that indicated how they cast enchantments, or what enchantments they had. Which suggests the ability is like the Dancer’s Dance ability, which also doesn’t show on Seadall when you look at his stats while he’s a green unit.

Yeah I get where you're coming from here. Before Ch 11 I'm only running 2 mages in all likelihood, so they get Celica/Micaiah unless I need Micaiah to raise someone's level quickly. 12+ unit deployments in story chapters start becoming much more common from Ch 14 on, when magic-boosting emblems begin to return - this is the point where I'm likely to consistently field 3 mages. Once you get Eirika you actually have to think quite hard about what those mages want to equip, and that's before considering the DLC if you have it. Furthermore, certain hybrid builds can use Sigurd/Roy/Ike pretty profitably. You don't have that many magic emblems, but you tend to run fewer mages compared to physical units. So the competition might actually be fiercer. Throw Bond Rings into the mix, and you have to be really confident that their one niche can outdo everything an emblem does for that unit.

Yeah he doesn't, when I was considering/testing Thoron on him I switched him to Sage temporarily. He's normally in High Priest though. If Celine procs Ignis, or Alcryst gets Luna, it's a flat damage boost, regardless of the power of the original attack. It should be pretty apparent that getting "30% chance of 6 more damage" twice per combat, is better than getting "30% chance of 6 extra damage" once per combat. Yes - the second half of the sentence you quoted was responding the "put heaviest engraves for max damage" point. I was saying you should also do this for Thoron and it ends up helping Thoron as much, if not more (depending on how much you forge up Thoron or if you use Great Thunder).

Yeah, that makes sense! I agree that broadly speaking, mages should want to attack and kill low-Res enemies. But I think Thunder/Thoron's 3-range means that every enemy should be assessed for this build, because so few enemies (and very few bosses) can counter at that range, and it allows you to trigger chain attacks/debuffs safely on top of damage whenever you can't kill. Again, I tried a similar comparison, and got a mixture of similar and different results. I only just got the Olwen ring, so I had a look at Ch 18 (my next story chapter) with it versus Thoron. Specifically, I used a Thunder+3 with Tiki (+2 Mt) for Olwen (+1 Mag) vs a Thoron+2 with the Soren engraving (+2Mt) and Soren equipped (+3 Mag). Clanne and Celine (Lv 8 Mage Knight and Lv 7 Vidame respectively) were straightforwardly better with the Thoron against everything (though no ORKOs, of course). Ivy (Lv 12 Lindwurm, recommended level for this map is Advanced Class Lv 5) isn't able to ORKO anything, even armours, with Dire Thunder, although she could do it with a chain attack or two, and Dire Thunder does do better damage than Thoron against the armour. Very happy to concede the point there. My premier mage, Jean (Lv 14 High Priest, promoted at Lv 15 Monk and has had Starsphere for 10 levels at least, I switched him to Sage to check Thoron and took his ring off him to compensate for the Mag disparity) is only just able to ORKO armours with Dire Thunder, and is short of that by a few points with Thoron. But for both Ivy and Jean, Thoron does better against the fliers and mages on this map as well. Ivy + Kagetsu's Brave Assist is enough to ORKO Lindon whether using Thoron or Dire Thunder. To recap, over-levelled Jean gets Dire Thunder ORKOs against armours on this map, but I'm otherwise not getting ORKOs with Dire Thunder. For mages with really good Mag, relative to the story, Dire Thunder does between 5-10 points better damage against low-Res units like Berserkers (which is in line with your findings), but there's a similar gap for Thoron against high-Res units like Griffin Knights (like I said before, this does matter to me for the Thunder line of tomes specifically). For mages like Clanne/Celine, with average Mag relative to the story, Thoron is straightforwardly better than Dire Thunder at this point. It seems to me a big difference in our results is in the quality of units that we're using. The fact that I can get ORKOs at all with Dire Thunder points to the fact that it is good, and usable for me personally. But for units like Clanne and Celine (or other mages without DLC influence), where the average enemy Res stat has already caught up roughly to their Mag stat, it's Thoron or bust. It sounds like units such as Citrinne (and indeed, my Jean) will outpace enemy Res for longer, but not all the way through. Given this, I think my original point about the similar results and longevity of early Thoron still stands. I hope it's clear that I'm not saying Dire Thunder doesn't deserve to be used if you do get it, especially early on. Which is why my original post differentiated between early access to Dire Thunder and later access. But the difference between it and Thoron is not hugely pronounced (if present at all?) when Dire Thunder is first available. Indeed, with your method of farming rings and the Great Thunder ability you flagged, even the damage disparity between Ivy/Jean's Thoron and Dire Thunder I observed on my own file would shrink to a couple of points against low-Res enemies, and would extend by a few points against high-Res enemies. And Clanne and Celine might actually stay usable for longer. Agreed, definitely an advantage for Dire Thunder. Yeah you're right Master Seals are in short supply when Dire Thunder first becomes available, and everybody wants one. And as you say, some classes actively don't want Thoron because they can't use it. Mages are good candidates for early promotion because staff access, but that still doesn't mean Thoron fits everyone, whereas Dire Thunder can. Tbh, this is probably a better take than my own. I mostly wanted to make the point about early Thoron being surprisingly competitive and late Dire Thunder being less competitive, which this gets across less spikily.

I maxed Brodia's donation level recently, then immediately save-scummed out of it because I was underwhelmed by what I got. The only rewards to really care about beyond Lv 2 are the S-rank weapons you get at Lv 5, which are the only rewards exclusive to donations (you're pretty much soft-capped to 1 per run). And maybe the extra metals in Brodia, although I doubt it'll make a massive difference long-term. As far as the S-rank weapons are concerned, I've just looked and SF has them listed. They look cool, particularly the Firene one, but I don't think I'd pay 85,000G (cost of donation Lv 3-5) for them, which is enough money to forge up primary weapons for at least a few of your A-team. EDIT: Some of the costumes are cool though, if you care about that kind of thing.

Also, on further investigation I don't think I was right about this. I mean, it's still true that if you raise bond levels from 1 to 5, the ring order will move forward by 4. But the movements are different as you go for higher bond levels. Bond Levels 6-10 move the Gacha forward by 5 per level. And I'm not entirely sure what happens for Bond Levels 11-20 - am testing at the moment, but I don't really understand what I'm seeing just yet. EDIT: Raising bond levels via the Arena doesn't just move the order forwards, it reboots the order altogether, I think. Actually, I'm going to just stop speculating on this since I'm clearly not on solid ground - but for people who look into this kind of thing, please investigate!

Interesting! Yeah, I don't think I appreciated exactly how much the gacha could be cheesed. Mae's ring is not something I had considered at all - but surely it further enhances the case against Dire Thunder. It comes from Celica, so you can get it with your ring farming method the moment Thunder becomes available. Forging up a Thunder to Thoron and giving that unit Great Thunder will give you pretty much all the kills you could get with Dire Thunder (maybe even more over time!), with greater staying power in your army. Of course, with your method you could get both Great Thunder and Dire Thunder only by spending some real time on it - but if you had to choose one, surely Dire Thunder loses. Interesting you say this - this is pretty different to what I found at the same position. Actually, part of the communication gap here may be in the characters I'm using. My primary mages at Ch 17 are Jean (High Priest) and Ivy - thanks to the DLC both have been over-levelled relative to the story chapters since about Ch. 15, and they could certainly use Dire Thunder effectively now, as their Mag stats are 26+ IIRC (although I prefer Emblems on them for various reasons atm). Prior to that point, neither of them were regularly halving HP bars with Thunder (except armours ofc). I still think they'd be better off getting Thoron + an emblem going forward. I also have Celine and Clanne, who I'd been using pretty regularly until recently, but they are obviously sub-par mages in the midgame and beyond. Celine has 17 Mag as a Lv 7 Vidame - for comparison, promoting Citrinne to Sage from base gives her 17 Mag. Lindon has 19 Mag at base, if I sent my Chloe into Sage at Ch 17 she'd have 18 Mag. Point being, quite a lot of mage types at this juncture are dealing worse damage (because of their Mag stat) with Dire Thunder than with Thoron for a lot of enemies. I'm happy to accept that certain characters (Citrinne, maybe Anna?) can do well with Dire Thunder - but the relevance of Thoron isn't diminished by that (in fact, with Mae's ring it still looks like the better option). I can believe that Dire Thunder is a good option earlier on, although as I say, Thoron is cheaper than forging up a Thunder for similar killing power and longer staying power in your inventory. But I found that for much of the midgame a Thunder+3 with Tiki engraving (+2 Mt) was not able to halve an enemy's HP for a majority of units, even on my better mages, meaning it wouldn't ORKO with Dire Thunder. On your point about emblems, the DLC massively changes your dependence on bond rings, for obvious reasons. It wouldn't be fair to assume it now in discussions like this, but I think players generally run 2-3 mages in a 12-unit party (and I don't think unit deployments go beyond 10 at all in the first half of the game?), which the DLC would cover. But I definitely take the point that at the time when Dire Thunder is doing its best work, equipping a bond ring instead of an emblem is also freeing up resources for everyone else (or actively keeping them in the fight after the story thing). I think it's fair to say that Dire Thunder does its best work in the early-to-midgame. But Dire Thunder with a base Thunder + Ike/Roy engraving is weaker than a base Thoron without any engraving. Given that the Thoron could get you more kills right now and is relevant for much longer, the only reason not to invest in one straightaway is if you literally can't afford forging at all (200 Iron, 20 Steel, 1 Silver, 3000G to get a Thoron from the Thunder tome Citrinne is carrying in ch 7 - pricey, but building Dire/Great Thunder should be a priority once you get funds in Ch 8 anyway). If you don't have the resources (and that is a concern) then yeah there's no choice between free Thunder and unaffordable Thoron. This is true, but applies relatively evenly to both Thoron and Dire Thunder (maybe slightly more for Thoron? not sure how to weight it actually). Agreed, but you can't rely on their personal class skill procs, and like I said above, doing the same thing but making a Thoron for it instead will get similar, if not better, results.

I've seen a few people here and elsewhere talking about how great the Olwen S-rank bond ring is because of its Dire Thunder ability, which allows a unit on Player Phase to attack twice with Thunder. It definitely sounds strong, and I was interested to see how it played. However, after getting the ring and looking at the numbers, I don't think it's nearly as good as it seems, and doesn't deserve to define the early meta around bond rings. Below, I'm going to make the case for why. TL;DR Dire Thunder isn't worth the effort, you're better off getting a Thoron. Section 1 - Rigging Bond Rings People have already noted on these forums that the order of bond rings in the Bond Ring Gacha is fixed. No amount of save-scumming after a battle will change what rings are pulled from the gacha, or the order in which they come. The order of ring rarity does not change even if you change the emblem that you're pulling rings from. So if you've pulled a B-rank ring, then two C-ranks, this order won't change, whether the three rings all come from Marth, or the first comes from Marth and the next two from Sigurd. However, there are ways to manipulate this order. The one that has been most discussed is combat. Apparently, every enemy you kill moves forward the ring order by one - I haven't personally confirmed this, but it makes sense and evidence of this is on YT etc. I can also confirm that raising Bond Levels in the Arena changes the order. Specifically, for every Bond Level you raise, the order moves forward by one. So if you raise Clanne's bond with Marth from Level 1 to Level 5, the ring order will move forward by 4. This latter method is less time-consuming than combat, but requires the expenditure of bond fragments at an equal or higher rate than the gacha, meaning it's far less resource-optimal. Onto Olwen specifically (mild spoilers below): When Leif first becomes available in the Somniel, Maddening players aren't likely to have more than 15,000 bond fragments or so (maybe more or less depending on DLC, donations, and how many you spend on bond levels and rings). Which amounts to 150 rings, if you're willing to spend everything for Olwen. I don't know what the S-rank ring appearance rates are, and there will obviously be big differences in personal experience, but it's clear you don't have a lot of time or leeway in which to pick up the ring before the spoiler thing. While online trials count as combats for the purpose of moving the ring order forwards, only the ones requiring a NSO subscription (Relay/Outrealm) are available when Leif first arrives, and even with the DLC these will be difficult to cheese and are inefficient at providing enemies to kill. A significant investment of player time would be required to move the ring order forwards, with little-to-no guarantee of acquiring Olwen at all, let alone at reasonable cost. Section 2 - Olwen Again After the spoiler thing, Olwen becomes available only once significant time in-game has passed. In fact, the possibility of getting him again arrives one story chapter before a free Thoron. Given this, it'll be fruitful to compare Dire Thunder with Thoron at this point. To optimise Dire Thunder, you want to fully forge up a Thunder tome, and likely add the Ike/Hector engraving to it (highest Mt boost of engravings so far). The cost of creating this is 150 Iron Ingots, 50 Steel Ingots, 5 Silver Ingots, 7500G and 100 bond frags. The money in particular is a significant cost on Maddening, but hopefully you have enough stocked up. Still, you'll get a Thunder with 13 Mt and 90 Hit, which can hit twice with Dire Thunder. On the other hand, the Thoron you get for free can be forged to a Thoron+3 for 9 Silver Ingots, 3500G, and 400 bond frags for the engraving. If you have the resources to make the Thunder above, then you can exchange the Iron/Steel Ingots used there for Silver and have metals/money left over after you've made the Thoron. This tome will have 24 Mt and 75 Hit. When everything else is equal, Dire Thunder should deal more damage than Thoron. However, this isn't how it works out in practice. There are two reasons. Enemy resistance. For Dire Thunder to deal more damage than Thoron when the Mag stat is constant, the mage must deal 12 damage with a single thunder attack. This should always be possible for certain enemy types like armoured units, but won't be possible for many others. Mages, dragons, many story bosses and even some normal enemies with solid Res will suffer less than 12 damage against Thunder at this point in the game - and that's assuming you're using a canon mage with decent-to-high base Mag (good luck Celine/Clanne). For enemies with really strong Res, even the fully boosted Thunder and a decent Mag stat will deal little-to-no damage, whereas Thoron and the same Mag stat will likely deal some damage for a while yet. The Thoron user can equip an Emblem. Olwen can only boost magic by +1, but Byleth, Corrin and Eirika can all do better, as well as boosting other stats to a higher degree and having abilities that synergise decently with certain mage builds. Camilla and Soren too. So the threshold for Dire Thunder to outdamage Thoron should be higher than 12 points of true damage, and the Thoron user could also fulfil another niche in your army while they're at it. At least some of this, you could argue, is mitigated by Thunder's superior accuracy and Engage's hit rate system. Displayed hit rates of 50+ are not true hit rates (here's the table I've been using for them if interested: https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/True_hit). So, depending on your base hit rate, the true hit rate difference between the two tomes here could be as much as 22% on one attack. Which means it's certainly true that Dire Thunder allows for a much higher chance of dealing non-zero damage from a turn, and sometimes that's all you need - any damage is good damage. But when we consider the likelihood of Dire Thunder landing twice, compared to Thoron once, you're somewhere between 1-10% more likely (depending on base hit rate) for Dire Thunder to land twice. There's also the consideration of inherited/personal/class abilities which benefit more from doubling with Thunder than singular Thoron, such as Resonance or Lindon's personal. They exist - but they're limited and often high-cost for inheritance. You could build around them, but I'd be impressed to see a skill combination that massively elevates the Dire Thunder build. Those are still advantages not to be ignored - but remember the costs laid out above, and the scenarios in which Dire Thunder is strictly worse than Thoron. You're spending time (both in-game and real world), an extra 4000G when money may be tight, as well as potentially lots of bond fragments for the opportunity to boost hit rates somewhat, and boost damage against enemies you can already hurt significantly (perhaps with other tomes). Section 3 - Olwen Straightaway What about the lucky few who get Olwen immediately, or near-immediately after Leif arrives? Remember, our cost for a fully souped-up Thunder is 150 Iron Ingots, 50 Steel Ingots, 5 Silver Ingots, 7500G and 100 bond frags. Which is possible at this stage, although fairly demanding for when you first get Thunder. I suppose you don't immediately have to spring for the +5 upgrade, but we'll keep this as the comparison because it's Dire Thunder at its most effective. In comparison, if you bought a Thunder tome (without Silver Card) from the shop and forged it up to an engraved Thoron+2, you'd spend 200 Iron Ingots, 20 Steel Ingots, 5 Silver Ingots, 6000G and 400 bond frags. Again, if you had the resources on hand for the Thunder above, you'd have the resources to make this Thoron and still have a bit left over. This Thoron has 23 Mt and 75 Hit (22 Mt without the DLC, but then the Thunder tome would also have 12 Mt). Damage-wise, Dire Thunder comes out better at this stage of the game than it does later on. Fewer enemies possess Res stats that make Thunder useless, even when the unit's Mag isn't that impressive. Furthermore, However, Dire Thunder's hit advantage is also weakened, as fewer enemies (in fact, I can't recall any) have the Avo to reliably dodge a Mystical unit in the midgame. And your total resources increase relatively dramatically over this part of the game, allowing you to potentially forge up your Thoron further. You're unlikely to hit Thoron+5 for a while after Dire Thunder becomes available, but you should definitely have the resources for it by the end of Ch. 14 at the latest. And your Thoron will still hit very hard all through this period. It requires a lot of luck, with little possibility for manipulation, to get Olwen this early. And while the benefits of Dire Thunder are at their most impressive early on, using Thoron won't leave you much behind Dire Thunder. If you use a hit engraving on Thoron instead, it'll still be competitive damage for the midgame, while outpacing Dire Thunder later on. Anyway, there's my case. Dire Thunder isn't necessarily bad, but it is overrated. Thinking long-term, you're better off with Thoron. Is there anything I've missed?

Agreed. I suppose you could run Leif situationally on a mage if the map has a lot of axe users (or arts users, I guess) and you expect the mage to see combat - but lots of axe users can one-round mages (or get pretty close to it) if they land their attacks on Maddening, with or without Arms Guard. Not sure Leif's a good fit even when you do want a mage to have an enemy phase. Better off boosting Avo for mages, although Ivy + Hector might do alright.

problem is Adaptable prioritises WTA over quite a lot, so when engaged there’s every chance the mage gets one of Leif’s weapons against physical units instead of Elsurge, or a stronger tome. Mages still don’t want Leif’s axe/lance options even if they get Light Brand on occasion. SF claims it’s a Master Bow (it’s in the Bows section of the Engage page)

Yeah I think this is the way to consider it. Even just having one more all-purpose engraving increases your options early on (like buffing a Wo Dao or something).

I really think there's a place for all-rounder engravings, especially early on. You might not be confident in how long the weapon (or unit) will stick around, but you're using it right now so you want an immediate power boost you don't have to think about. If you think about it as a stand-in for forging up a weapon when you can't afford to spend money/metal (and no individual forge level buffs as much as the 3H engraving afaik), it definitely holds up for quite a while.