Infusions and Reinforcements in Dark Souls 2 allow the player to improve the total statistics and scaling quality of equipment, and to ' infuse' those items with elemental stones, giving them elemental properties like dark or poison. In certain situations, Infusions can grant the player an advantage over particular enemies, as many have at least one elemental weakness. This section contains an overview of possible equipment modifications, along with their effects and requirements.
Infusion and Reinforcement Upgrades(BETA pagina sera Traduzida em Breve)
A significant difference to note with Dark Souls II, as compared to the original, is the ability to infuse weapons with elemental properties already present. For example, a weapon with an inherent elemental property, such as the Heide Knight Sword, can still be converted into a Dark Heide Knight Sword, meaning it will deal both Dark and Lightning damage.
Please see Weapon AR and Scaling Calculator for a simple tool to calculate weapon damage output.
How does one upgrade equipment?
Reinforcement refers to incremental upgrades of a weapon (+1, +4, etc.), regardless of its current Infusion or lack thereof. These incremental upgrades can be performed by any blacksmith. Depending on what type and state of weapon you are reinforcing, the required souls and type/quantity of stones needed to reinforce the weapon will differ. Each upgrade increases the weapon's base damage by 10% of its original, un-upgraded base damage; therefore, every +X bonus, when multiplied by ten, represents a damage-increase percentage over the weapon's initial base damage value (+5 = +50% damage, +10 = +100% damage, etc.). +10 weapons, therefore, always deal twice the normal base damage of un-upgraded weapons.
Unique weapons, that upgrade via Twinkling Titanite, follow the same rules but are capped at +5, giving them +50% base damage, which is why they deal more damage initially.
Boss soul weapons increase by 30% per upgrade, rather than by 10%, but stop at +5 (+150%), granting them higher base damage increases than regular weapons, despite their lower upgrade cap. To figure out which weapon (between regular, unique, and boss) will ultimately have the highest damage when fully upgraded, multiply their current base damage by 2, 1.5, and 2.5 respectively. Note that attribute scaling also increases as weapons are upgraded, so keep that in mind when comparing and choosing weapons.
Infusion is the process of applying an elemental property to a piece of equipment. Dark Souls II features a new ascension system that allows players to infuse equipment independently of its reinforcement level. Applying any elemental ore stone to equipment will decrease all attack ratings, damage reductions, and scaling grades not related to that particular element, but will increase all other statistics and add a scaling grade for the corresponding element type. Infusions are not permanent, either, as the effects can be undone by the application of a Palestone.
Notes on Infusions
- Weapon infusion can only be performed by one blacksmith: Steady Hand McDuff.
- McDuff will require a Dull Ember before his services are made available.
- Infusing a shield will increase its damage reduction for that element to varying degrees, depending on the shield, while lowering all other defenses.
- Few shields can be infused to receive 100% damage reduction against specific elements.
- Armor cannot be infused.
Shields with 100% elemental damage reduction after infusion:
| Moon Butterfly Shield | Poison |
| Blossom Kite Shield | Poison |
| Magic Shield | Magic |
| Rebel's Greatshield | Magic/Fire/Lightning/Dark/Poison/Bleed |
| Transgressor's Leather Shield | Dark |
| Watcher's Shield | Lightning |
| Mastodon Greatshield | Lightning |
| Havel's Greatshield | Magic |
| Old Knight Greatshield | Poison/Bleed |
| Greatshield of Glory | Fire |
(Note: The Gyrm Greatshield has 100% Physical and Fire damage reduction by default.)
Blacksmiths
The following are NPCs who provide Blacksmith services to the player:
Infusion Paths, Ore & Boss Soul Weapons
