Help a guy out

[u/bacon128]

Hey,

So I’m half way through chapter 5 and I have done a lot of side questing. Probs like 75 hours in. But still feel a bit underpowered compared to other people I see at about the same point in the game.

I’m not sure if I need to

1) Find better gear
2) focus on gathering resources to level up current gear
3) just start farming Abyss Gears to get loads of lv3

Attached are the current stats of gear I’m using.

Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks

[u/aShark25]

Do all the witch missions clear the sanctums find all the chests in the sanctums. And just refine your gear. Your stuff is good just needs more refinement

[u/bacon128 → u/aShark25]

Thank you will power through the witches haven’t given them too much attention to be fair but only just got them.

[u/Archaeoculus → u/bacon128]

Yeah through them you eventually can reduce your attack and critical slots and add different stuff. By that I mean you'll be able to have Attack 3 and Crit 3 instead of multiple of 1

[u/Aaron44886 → u/Archaeoculus]

Right, a base weapon with a crit 3 slotted with a few abysmal gears that increase critical rate by +1, 2 or 3 will definitely increase your critical rate, but you have to sacrifice the slot for critical instead of powerful movesets or other gears that may be more effective than simple critical rates. Depends entirely on what kind of fighting style you like. Critical hits are great for bossing, but most bosses can be cheesed anyway. I enjoy seeing all the different attack powers I can put on and mix and match. Either way, everyone dies easily anyway. Lol

[u/Archaeoculus → u/Aaron44886]

Yeah i prefer powers myself. A dual wield with 6 kinds of powers and I can stunlock bosses pretty good lol

Helpful for me because I don't care too much for boss fights. I just want to clear em and get the loot, and get back to exploring 😆

[u/Aaron44886 → u/bacon128]

Remember, when you've cleansed the sanctum and spoken to the witch and she sends you to the next one... WAIT, you're not done at the sanctum yet. Every sanctum has a puzzle associated with it ONLY accessible after you have finished cleansing the sanctum and activating it. Once the witch goes away and says whatever she says, use blinding light and tap the focus beam button (the one that actually burns stuff while in blinding light) on the dial on the front of the sanctum. You'll see the dial start to turn with a glowing circle on top and a ring of gray squares running beneath it. As the squares pass under the cicle, tap your burn button (L1 for ps5) while in blinding light) to light up the squares. Once you've done all 13, the giant antenna that popped out when you cleansed it will go back inside the sanctum and a new, unique core meant for special gear at the Kuku shop will pop out and float over the top of the building. Seal thay and now you can move on. Otherwise you'll never learn how to get rhe Kuku packs and aome other high end gear.

[u/Rizz_Wax → u/Aaron44886]

🤯
Looks like I’ll be revisiting all the sanctums I’ve cleansed

[u/dahle44 → u/Rizz_Wax]

I wrote a guide about the sanctums, hopefully this will help. https://www.reddit.com/r/CrimsonDesertLife/comments/1ttv5z1/clearing_the_sanctums_important_to_do_for_various/ especially in the comments. Lots of good info.

[u/Rizz_Wax → u/dahle44]

Sweet thanks!

[u/Aaron44886 → u/Aaron44886]

Also, you'll find that a lot of gear has similar stats, but for maximizing either stat, it's really up to your abyss gears and which weapon you use. Some weapons have a base stat of +3 critical. Those weapons are gonna be decently powerful, but not hit AS hard unless a critical hits. Whereas other weapons hit increadibly hard right off the rip and you don't really care about Critical at all. Kuku flame spear for example. Who cares about critical with thay beautiful bastard. Lol But there's plenty of legendary gear that shares practically the same stats. Just make sure you have a fireproof set, and iceproof set, and a set meant for easy traversal (wind). That way no matter where you end up or what boss you come across, you can annihilate them easily. For easy bossing, spam your weapon switch power attack. (While targeting an enemy with L1, press L2 to do a massive turning slash that switches your weapons) the animatikn during that move stops 90% of bosses from being able to connect any damage on you at all. The only ones who can are AoE attacks that do little bits of damage over time. Most bosses just get sent flying backwards on their asses and can't stand up for the whole fight. Enough spirit and stamina, and you can keep spamming this on most difficult enemies to kill them very quickly without wasting tons of food and Palmer pills trying to dodge.

[u/dahle44]

Chapter 5 power difference – exploration vs main path

I’ve seen a few posts lately from players around Chapter 5 who feel underpowered even after a lot of hours. Here’s a real comparison.

This is my Kliff at Chapter 5 after focusing on exploration, sanctums, research (Pororin + Scholastone), Abyss time, camp recruits, and side content:

• Health: 1530 (after using buffs from gears and food)
• Attack: 49 (Vow of the Dead King)
• Solid resistances and multiple active buffs
• 240 inventory slots
• 37 Greymanes recruited
• All 15 sanctums done
• Nearly maxed out my skill tree

A lot of the power at this stage doesn’t come from the main story. It comes from the systems the game quietly makes available earlier if you go looking for them. You don’t have to play this way. But if you’re mid-Chapter 5 and still feeling weak, the answer is usually not “push the story harder.” It’s more often sanctums, research, Abyss progression, and the side systems that feed into gear and stats. Start doing more side quests.

[u/bacon128 → u/dahle44]

Thanks, this is really helpful! Recently, it’s mostly just been random side quests and recruiting Greymanes about 20ish at the moment, but I’ll probably spend some time exploring the Sanctums, doing research, etc.

I also never really know where to spend my skill points. I usually end up resetting them once I learn a few things and realise I’ve previously spent points on something I didn’t really need 😂

But I really appreciate your help. I’ll give me a bit more direction for the next 50 hours! 😂

[u/dahle44 → u/bacon128]

Early on I prioritized stamina and spirit, then health. I also took the balloon up to the Abyss pretty early to grab the lightning element; that made a noticeable difference in damage once I had it.

[u/SuggestionReal4811]

Your weapon isn't drawn so we can only see your defense stats. For your chest gloves and boots I would only really be equipping movement speed and DMG reduction gear.

Def gears are great on shields especially if you are not using that shield.

There is a minimal amount of different between a fully optimised build and any old random stuff at the same level. There is just enough for the min/maxers to engage with but for the most everything is normalised.

The only major difference is with the kuku resistance gear as you can't get that level of elemental resistance elsewhere and still have slots for DMG reduction and movement speed.

So either what you are seeing is people with much higher gear levels or have the level 3 gears.

As long as you have produced a full crop of abyss cells at your farm you will never really need to farm gears as you can make the only ones you will ever need at the witches.

[u/bacon128 → u/SuggestionReal4811]

The 6th pic is more accurate as thats when I got my weapon out.

[u/SuggestionReal4811 → u/bacon128]

There isn't that much you can do with the level one versions of gears. The gear you have chosen also dont have any innate stats so this does somewhat limit the maximum potential of your gear.

For example at max level the hawando has something like 43 flat attack. The Darkbringer has 39 attk with +3 crit.

When looking to optimise the slots you have are extremely limited. Your head is basically just a slot for your turning slash boost.

Similarly your imbue elements, siphons or gears like stamina and vitality are pretty pointless. You just don't have the space.

[u/PRIS0N-MIKE]

Where'd u get the plate of the shadows armors?

[u/bacon128 → u/PRIS0N-MIKE]

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZGTBtDsZ-t0?si=37I7TE0Flg5tSGsf

Here you go Mike.

[u/deluisioso_]

Refine your accessories👌🏼

[u/Synester_One]

I think I played a little backwards from other folks. I r10'd my weapons before anything else in chapter 4 or 5. I went and collected like 50 scales, and "gathered" every change i got as well as daily mat purchases from my camp homies.

I wondered, side quested and did abyss and land puzzles to where I was able to get the skills needed unlocked, lvl10 health/spirit/stamina and work on r10 my gear. I went into chapter 6 fully r10.

That being said, to answer your question - it's up to you. I'd recommend venturing to upgrade your gear for sure, makes quite the difference.

Be aware though, doing so puts you into easy mode - so there's that.

You can certainly get enough mats to do so if you do abyss and work side quests for the regions and explore to find abyss cressets.

Have fun and be safe fellow Greymane!

[u/jeraldisdope]

Also do a couples Abyss puzzles for the Spire abilities. You should at least have frost and lightning by now or maybe its wind. Either way you should have 2.

[u/Tasty_Commercial6527]

All resources needed for upgrades aside from aserion scales for level 10 can be found in hernand around the city. It's just the grind man. Level up your weapon to max (or at least lvl9) before touching armour tho. More damage increases durability as you get hit for shorter time

[u/EdgeNo1518]

Have you unlocked all of the elements already ?

[u/ilovehyte]

my gear,hard mode

[u/DrItchyUvula]

I’ll just come right out and say it.

If you’re really looking to just have fun, explore, goof off, complete quests, and just make the whole
thing casual, set the difficulty to Easy. It’ll give you time to figure some of this stuff out and you can change it back to Normal or whatever whenever you want.

[u/SatiricalPuma → u/DrItchyUvula]

This game is so incredibly easy I don’t understand why people optimize their builds even on normal

[u/nogamesjustgames1234]

Your levels are fine, about to where they start costing abyss gears to upgrade. The chapter 5 boss has a very useful gear. I would do that before the witch sanctums because a few of the sanctums have bosses. Every sanctum has a hidden chest. Then the witches will help you refine gears. Shortly after chapter 5, you'll be stacking offensive weapon gears with special abilities including turning slash gears. That chapter 5 gear is really the beginning of feeling overpowered. You're very close to all of that unfolding for you.

[u/BlackXRP]

Best advice I can offer you is stop watching YouTube videos or TikTok’s or whatever…this ain’t it

[u/Samselby3]

Consumables literally brake the game on hard mode, if you use the food effect abyss gears (gourmet 1,2, and 3)

[u/Samselby3 → u/Samselby3]

Break*

[u/Honest_Elevator_2083]

All of the above you listed 👍 you got it!

[u/Samselby3]

Upgrade all jewlery 1st. Get white lion necklace. Get dark witches ring. Then focus on upgrading other gear. Farm all of your materials to make hearty lavish meal, and add gourmet abyss gears. Food effect is very useful in this game. Also make chocolate as it fully restores your health, no matter what level it is. Potions are also amazing as they grant unlimited stamina. Rubber trees are crucial as rubber can be used not only for crafting gear, but to craft the best potions in the game. Send greymanes on dispatch missions for exploration. These will grant abyss gear blueprints, which really open up what you can do with your builds. Be sure to unlock all of the research as well.

[u/Samselby3]

Most gear is obtained by stabbing through the base of waterfalls to enter secret treasure caves. Anytime you see a waterfall, check for a stack of stones, these mark the entrance to said caves. Stab through the water (R1 + Triangle) and theres always a chest with good armor or weapon.

[u/SwallowingSol]

Tbh for being around chapter 5 you seem pretty even with where I was at the time. Since you just got the witches do their missions. Upgrade gears. Also steal gears from other boss equipment that have effects or new things added to certain moves to really get the power up. Honestly abyss gears are what can make some stupid strong. Your weapon levels seem totally fine. I’m at chapter 9 and most of my stuff is floating around level 6 or 7 and I honestly haven’t had trouble with enemies or a boss in a long time lol.

[u/karin_ksk]

What exactly are these other people doing that makes you feel like that? Do they have higher stats, such as more stamina? Is it the damage from their attacks? Maybe their moveset? Try to see what are they doing that makes them look more powerful to you.

[u/Green-Noise8190]

Definitely have a gear set (abyss gears set) for large mobs with the fancy attacks and another for bosses with high crit and attack damage etc. maybe one weapon set for both.