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Originally Posted by mongo13clikke
Any tips/links on weapon & armor upgrade paths? Im totally undecided and already collected lots of stuff for upgrading, im the using drake sword almost exclusively, should I use the moonlight soul on it or wait for a better weapon? Also the golden ember you get...Andrei asks if he can BORROW it, do you get it back? Is he the only one you can give it to?
Don't worry about the blacksmith, they all ask to see new embers when you get them. If they can't use them, they'll give it back. The four (?) blackmsiths can all get your weapons/armor to +5, but not all will offer the same special upgrade paths.
In fact, you'll only need the blacksmiths to ascend each item once, the rest you can do yourself. e.g You need the Catacomb blacksmith to ascend an Estoc+5 to a Fire Estoc, and then just use bonfires to go Fire Estoc+1, Fire Estoc+2....
As to what to use, I say just go with what you like. Any weapon can be made pretty lethal through upgrading so it's really just personal/playstyle preference.
For which upgrade path to follow, I think this depends on if you plan on playing NG+ or further, as some upgrade paths remove all stat scaling so once you've maxed that weapon out it can't get any more powerful.
For example I have a Lightning Iaito+5 and an Uchigatana+15. Both are maxed out. The Iaito is more powerful now, but the Uchi will continue to get more powerful as I pump more points into Dex.
Drake sword is ridiculously overpowered for such an early weapon, it drastically changes the early stages of the game imo, in pretty much the same way as the Royalty class did for the first few levels of Demon's Souls. I tried not to use it when working through the levels, but it was usually being wielded in two hands and swung like a madman by try 3 of most of the early bosses