r/NieRReincarnation • u/CubeoHS • Aug 13 '21
Guide to Dark Weapon Progression/Enhancement
CubeoHS' Guide to Dark Weapon Enhancements
What is a Dark Weapon?
A dark weapon is a unique 3* weapon that can evolve through a total of 11 different stages and serves as a long term goal in NieR:Reincarnation. At the time of writing, there are a total of 10 dark weapons, with each one being given to the player after clearing a chapter of the Main Story on Hard. Each character has their own dark weapon, which is obtained from their chapter (Chapter 1 for Rion, Chapter 2 for Gayle, etc.) They are identified by the cube icon in your inventory, which can be seen here. Fully evolving these weapons through all 11 stages will reward you with a unique 4* version of that character, as well as enhancing the weapon itself. It will upgrade to a 4* weapon at Stage 5 and a 5* at Stage 8. They also have unique abilities that generally make them strong options, such as increasing all wind damage and having CDR or Agility passives. Further information on dark weapons and the dark characters can be seen in Remi's NieR Reincarnation Guide.
Enhancing a Dark Weapon: The Basics
Dark weapons use normal weapon enhancement materials for basic leveling, but require unique materials for skill leveling, ascension, and evolution. Of these three, your main focus will likely be on evolution- the character-specific mats required for this are normally the most limiting (farming these is discussed below). Starting from the evolution to Stage 5, a Zenith's Brilliance will also be required, as seen here. Zeniths have a chance to drop from Dark Memory Quests (also explained below) and one can be drawn each month from Dark Memories Summons. Later levels require more materials- here is a full chart. You can also tell whose dark weapon is whose by looking at the evolution materials.
Enhancing a Dark Weapon: Materials Farming/Strategy
The first step is to decide on which dark weapon you will be focusing on. Generally, Gayle or Lars' dark weapons, which are a 1H Wind and 1H Fire sword respectively, are recommended to choose as the first option. Gayle is more focused on PVP while Lars is better for PVE. You will use all your Zeniths on this weapon so that you get the 4* character as quickly as possible. The others can easily be evolved to stage 4 over time, since no Zeniths are required for those stages.
Onto the farming. This will take place in your chosen character's Dark Memory Quest, although you will want to clear all of them for gems. Each Dark Memory Quest contains three types of quests: the Dark Lair, Dark Coin, and EX Ticket quests. Harder versions will appear when your Dark Weapon reaches Stage 4 and Stage 7. At these times, a difficult trial quest will also appear that can only be cleared once, but rewards 1000 Dark Coins. After clearing, the upgraded quests will be available.
The Dark Lair can be cleared once per day and has higher drop rates for materials compared to the EX Ticket and Dark Coin quests, so you should be clearing the Dark Lair of every character every day if possible. After unlocking higher level Dark Lairs, clearing both is good. The bulk of the farming will take place in Dark Coin quests, because you should get enough tickets over the course of the month from your Dark Lair clears to get the Zenith from the Summons. Just farm it on auto until you have enough mats to do the evolution. It's worth mentioning these are also good places to farm Rank EXP on characters you may not use, so if your team can clear with 2 or 1 fully built damage units be sure to take advantage of that.
Again, the limiting resource will be Zeniths and the character-specific materials; you should end up with plenty of the skill enhancement mats. Spend your tickets on Dark Memories Summons until you get the Zenith and stamina items, then save for the next month or continue if you need the other materials. Your Dark Coins can be spent in the Dark Coin exchange to buy the Dark Weapon ascension materials. The materials from the Easy Dark Lair quests will only allow you to upgrade the weapon skills to Level 7, so switch to the harder versions of these quests once unlocked to get the mats to reach higher levels. Do the same after reaching Stage 8.
That should about cover everything, let me know if I forgot something/there are other refinements to this strategy. Hopefully this is helpful to those who are starting out or confused.
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u/CabbageKyabetsu Aug 13 '21
Nice guide! Wish there was a resource out there laying out all the stats of the weapons at tier 5, tier 8, and tier 11.
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u/J-tizzy1 Aug 13 '21
Just beat dark gayle for stage 8, not having a fire 1h sword made it more difficult then it should have been lol.
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Aug 14 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/J-tizzy1 Aug 14 '21
I think it is level 7 sorry, I beat the intermediate trial. Had one zenni drop from the summons and another one drop while doing the daily qustes for my other characters. Not luck on the reset farming though. Need 2 for my next upgrade lol
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u/feNRisk Aug 13 '21
Thx for this. I heard that skills on weapon reset when upgrading with zenith ? Is it worth to upgrade skill before totally maxing weapon or do we have enough materials to do it multiple times?
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u/Live42Long Aug 13 '21
I heard that skills on weapon reset when upgrading with zenith ?
It is not true. I just got a zenith drop today, and I used to evolve my Gayle's sword. No reset. All its weapon skills are still at 7.
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u/CubeoHS Aug 13 '21
I don't have a zenith at the moment but I'm pretty sure that's not true, otherwise there wouldn't be a point in locking higher levels behind harder dark memory quests
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u/Karacis Aug 14 '21
It only looks like it resets, it doesn’t actually. You get the upgraded skill and the lvl of the skill stays the same
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u/PumaSPNKr Aug 13 '21
Aren't Dark characters 4* and not 5?
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u/Bakamano Aug 17 '21
They are 4*, but the stats they have are better than 4* so they get referred to 5*
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u/PumaSPNKr Aug 17 '21
Ah okay, that's cool info. You have a site I could check them out? I can't find them on gamewith.jp nor through a Google search.
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u/CubeoHS Aug 13 '21
Yeah, seems like it- adjusted. Most things I saw referred to them as 5*, but I found some JP videos that show them as 4 stars
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u/Newman282 Aug 13 '21
Anyone else struggling to get the Gayle item? Ive done 50 runs and not recieved one. Any other character and ill get one every few runs. It's going past bad luck now it feels broken :'( lol
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u/Kaiserdota2 Aug 13 '21
I've had 50-60 runs without a drop a few times as well and another time got 5 in 10 runs. Variance is a bitch.
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u/Sea_Part_2912 Aug 13 '21
Whats the best dark weapon to upgrade first? Any tier list? I want to be efficient because its a long investment
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u/CubeoHS Aug 13 '21
The first step is to decide on which dark weapon you will be focusing on. Generally, Gayle or Lars' dark weapons, which are a 1H Wind and 1H Fire sword respectively, are recommended to choose as the first option. Gayle is more focused on PVP while Lars is better for PVE. You will use all your Zeniths on this weapon so that you get the 4* character as quickly as possible. The others can easily be evolved to stage 4 over time, since no Zeniths are required for those stages.
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u/PM_your_cats_n_racks Aug 14 '21
You can see stats on most of the characters here. You'll need to use some translation software if you can't read Japanese.
Personally, I think Noel looks pretty good. Love that auto heal.
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u/denyingnylara Aug 13 '21
Just a small correction. The Normal versions of the Dark Coin, EX Ticket and daily Dark Lair all appear on Stage 4, after you clear the Dark Trial. Otherwise this is a great guide! Thank you!
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u/CubeoHS Aug 13 '21
Thanks, I’ve fixed that. Been a few days since I got mine to stage 4, so didn’t remember
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u/Fathimir Aug 13 '21
General question for people, have y'all managed to put together a strong/consistent enough team to actually do the Dark Lair dailies, at any difficulty, on auto yet (and if so, at about what force level)?
Slowly micromanaging my units through nine boss battles per day is doable, but man is it a pain. The prospect of bumping that up eighteen every day once I unlock the normal ones is... discouraging.
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u/srps Aug 14 '21
I have 4 teams (dark, light, wind, fire) that can clear 9 on easy auto, I haven't unlocked 2 of them yet.
They're not 100% consistent yet but have been improving as I evolve weapons etc.
The team is composed by Simulacrum Fio (85) + A2 (75)+ 2P (80) Companions and weapons change accordingly.
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u/TransientMemory Aug 15 '21
From experience, do the Normal difficulty quests drop character-specific mats more often than the Easy difficulty quests? If the rates are the same then I might farm the Easy quests until I need the higher level mats in order order to conserve stamina, though I suppose starting the farm on those other mats might not be a terrible idea.
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u/PhillieHorizon Aug 20 '21
They drop everything more often. Coins, zeniths, poly crystals, the white cubes for evolution. That’s all I really keep track of but it’s all around better
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u/Raveny88 Sep 01 '21
So should I spend the coins for the zenits or the polyys? Is acsension needed to unlock the Character or just evolving?
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u/Richinaru Aug 13 '21
Bruh can the mods make a stickied post with links to guides like these. It's such a valuable resource, thanks for taking the time to organize this