Gear is found and upgraded per expedition, so every run is a fresh scramble for the right tools. Match your weapon's damage type to the Nightlord you're chasing and lean into your Nightfarer's skill.
Gearing up
- Loot weapons from chests, bosses and merchants; upgrade at the smithing points.
- Pick affinities (fire, lightning, holy) that hit the target Nightlord's weakness.
- Talismans and passives from the run round out survivability and damage.
- Your Nightfarer's skill and Ultimate matter more than any single weapon — build around them.
Upgrade priorities
- Get one weapon to a solid upgrade level rather than spreading materials thin.
- Prioritise a weapon that carries the right status (Bleed, Frost) for the Nightlord.
- Grab defensive talismans if your squad lacks a dedicated tank.
- Don't ignore ranged options — poking a boss safely often beats greedy melee.
Weapon picks by role
- Bruiser: a high-poise weapon with Bleed to stagger and shred tanky bosses.
- Marker/ranged: a bow or a caster staff to exploit weaknesses from safety.
- Duelist: a fast weapon that rewards clean dodges and counters.
- Whatever you pick, upgrade ONE weapon hard rather than several halfway.
Four rarities, and the level each one demands
A gold weapon on the ground is not a gold weapon in your hands. Rarity sets a
character level you must reach before you can wield it properly.
| Rarity | Colour | Wieldable from |
|---|---|---|
| Common | White | Level 1 — every Nightfarer starts with one |
| Uncommon | Blue | Level 3 |
| Rare | Purple | Level 7 |
| Legendary | Gold | Level 10 |
Which means a gold drop on Day 1 is a promise, not a weapon. The pace on the
walkthrough page puts you at level 6–8 by the first night boss:
that is Rare territory at best. Legendary comes online during Day 2, so early gold goes in the bag and the fight in
front of you is won with the purple one.
Upgrading, and the twelve affinities
| From | To | Costs |
|---|---|---|
| Common | Uncommon | A Smithing Stone (1) or a (2) |
| Common | Rare | Both stones together |
| Uncommon | Rare | A Smithing Stone (2) |
Every non-legendary weapon carries one of twelve affinities: Standard, Magic,
Fire, Lightning, Sacred, Cold, Poison, Blood, Frenzied, Sleep, Rot and Occult. That list is what the advice above
means by «match the Nightlord’s weakness» — and the weaknesses themselves are on the
Nightlord page.
Common to Rare in one step is the upgrade people miss. Holding both stones lets
you skip the middle tier entirely, so a common weapon with the right affinity can leapfrog a blue one you happened to
find. Affinity first, rarity second.
Still to verify
Cross-checked on 5 September 2026 against the Fextralife wiki and Game8 — which agree on the four wield levels, the Smithing Stone paths and the twelve affinities. They also show Common weapons are white, not grey as this page previously said, and that has been corrected above. Rarity thresholds remain the kind of number a patch moves. What is still unverified is the only thing reading cannot settle — nobody here has played it.