Bastion
Bastion

Weapon Upgrades & Forging — Bastion Guide

Upgrade your weapons at the Forge in Bastion. Spend collected materials to unlock powerful enhancements for your arsenal and improve combat performance.

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Weapon Upgrades & Forging

The Forge is your essential hub for enhancing your arsenal in Bastion. Located within the Bastion itself, this structure becomes available early in your journey. At the Forge, you can spend collected materials to unlock powerful upgrades for each of your weapons, significantly altering their performance and utility in combat.

Accessing the Forge

To begin upgrading your weapons, simply walk up to the Forge building in the Bastion. Interacting with it will open the upgrade menu, displaying all the weapons you currently possess and the available upgrade paths for each.

Understanding Weapon Upgrades

Each weapon in Bastion has a unique upgrade tree, offering five distinct tiers of enhancements. To unlock a tier, you'll need to spend specific upgrade materials. These materials are found throughout the various levels you explore or can be purchased from the Lost-and-Found. Each tier typically offers a choice between two different upgrades, allowing you to customize your weapon to suit your playstyle. You can always re-spec your weapon upgrades at the Forge for a small fee, encouraging experimentation.

Acquiring Upgrade Materials

Upgrade materials are crucial for improving your weapons. Here's how to get them:

  • Exploration: Many materials are hidden within breakable objects, treasure chests, or dropped by defeated enemies in the levels. Always be thorough in your exploration!
  • Vignettes: Completing Proving Grounds challenges (found at the Proving Grounds building in the Bastion) often rewards you with rare upgrade materials.
  • Lost-and-Found: The Lost-and-Found building, once constructed, allows you to purchase certain upgrade materials using Fragments. This is a reliable way to get materials you might have missed or need more of.
  • Story Progression: Some materials are given as rewards for progressing through the main story.

Strategic Upgrade Choices

Consider your preferred combat style when making upgrade choices. Do you favor raw damage, increased attack speed, critical hits, or utility effects? Here are some examples of common upgrade types you'll encounter:

  • Damage Boosts: Straightforward increases to your weapon's base damage. Essential for all builds.
  • Attack Speed: Improves how quickly you can swing or fire your weapon, leading to higher damage per second.
  • Critical Chance/Damage: Increases the likelihood of landing critical hits or the damage dealt by critical hits.
  • Area of Effect (AoE): Expands the range or impact area of certain attacks, useful for crowd control.
  • Special Effects: Unique properties like increasing knockback, adding elemental damage, or granting health on hit.

Example Upgrade Path: Cael Hammer

Let's look at a common early-game weapon, the Cael Hammer, and some potential upgrade choices:

  1. Tier 1:
    • Option A: Reinforced Head: Increases base damage.
    • Option B: Balanced Grip: Increases attack speed.

    Recommendation: For early game, Reinforced Head is generally a solid choice for consistent damage output.

  2. Tier 2:
    • Option A: Sharpened Edge: Further increases damage.
    • Option B: Weight Distribution: Reduces stamina cost per swing.

    Recommendation: Sharpened Edge keeps your damage high, but Weight Distribution can be useful for sustained combat against tougher foes.

  3. Tier 3:
    • Option A: Impact Dampeners: Increases knockback distance.
    • Option B: Serrated Edge: Adds a chance to inflict bleed damage over time.

    Recommendation: Serrated Edge provides excellent sustained damage, especially against high-health enemies.

  4. Tier 4:
    • Option A: Heavy Swing: Increases critical hit chance.
    • Option B: Quick Recovery: Reduces weapon recovery time after a heavy attack.

    Recommendation: Heavy Swing pairs well with Serrated Edge for burst damage potential.

  5. Tier 5 (Final):
    • Option A: Seismic Strike: Ground slam attack creates a small shockwave.
    • Option B: Unstoppable Force: Attacks ignore a portion of enemy armor.

    Recommendation: Unstoppable Force is incredibly powerful against armored enemies, while Seismic Strike offers more crowd control.

Remember, the best upgrades are those that complement your chosen loadout and playstyle. Don't be afraid to experiment with different combinations!