There are five smithing styles in Dragon’s Dogma 2, which are used in the enhancement process when you upgrade a weapon or piece of armor. Each style focuses on a specific stat or stats. For example, the Battahli Style generally focuses on increasing your Strength while Elven focuses on Magick. Although upgrading your gear in any style is good enough to finish the game, if you’re looking to min-max to get the absolute best out of your gear, you will want to choose a style that represents your playstyle. In general, the Dwarven Smithing style appears to be the best due to the huge increase in knockback power and resistance, although other styles have their place with specific weapon types. Read on to find out what the smithing styles are, where you can use them, and what is the best.

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Sara in Brokkr’s Smithy will enhance your equipment in the Dwarven Smithing Style.

What is the Best Smithing Style?¶

Firstly, this opinion is subjective for the most part due to everyone having a different playstyle, although, some Smithing Styles just outperform others. For your equipment during the early portion of the game, you will want to enhance it in the Vermundian Style. This style is a jack of all trades, master of none; meaning it’ll give you a reasonable boost to all your attributes, but it won’t greatly enhance any stat. As you reach the mid-game you’ll want to use Battahli for melee weapons and Elven for Magick as each one will greatly enhance Strength (Battahli) or Magick (Elven). Finally, as you reach late-game or post-game, the choices will be either Battahli, Elven, or Dwarven, and this is where the question of what is the best smithing style comes into play.

Weapon Stats¶

Here you have two different weapons; one for melee and one for magick. Staring with the melee weapon, there isn’t too much difference up to rank 3, and then Battahli pulls ahead for Physical Attack. However, the added damage you’ll get when you knockdown enemies and attack their weak points more often makes up for the decrease in damage. Furthermore, you’ll be at less risk as the enemy will spend more time on the floor. There is a caveat to this though as some vocations have skills that can knock down enemies such as Thief (Ensnare) and Warrior (Knoll Breaker), and in this case, the Battahli may pull ahead.

With the magick weapon, it’s a bit more complicated due to how the knockdown effect works on spells. Generally, spells have different knockdown powers, so you’ll get more use from the Elven style unless you’re going for a very specific spell build.

Weapon	Smithing Style	Rank	Physical Attack	Magick Attack	Knockdown Power
Dragon’s Vein (Dagger)	Dwarven	1	30	0	34
Dragon’s Vein (Dagger)	Dwarven	2	43	0	43
Dragon’s Vein (Dagger)	Dwarven	3	59	0	52
Dragon’s Vein (Dagger)	Battahli	1	33	0	0
Dragon’s Vein (Dagger)	Battahli	2	49	0	0
Dragon’s Vein (Dagger)	Battahli	3	82	0	0

Weapon	Smithing Style	Rank	Physical Attack	Magick Attack	Knockdown Power
Dragon’s Wit (Archistaff)	Dwarven	1	11	40	24
Dragon’s Wit (Archistaff)	Dwarven	2	16	57	30
Dragon’s Wit (Archistaff)	Dwarven	3	23	79	36
Dragon’s Wit (Archistaff)	Elven	1	6	44	0
Dragon’s Wit (Archistaff)	Elven	2	13	66	0
Dragon’s Wit (Archistaff)	Elven	3	19	110	0

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(1 of 4) Dragon’s Vein, getting enhanced with the Dwarven Smithing Style.

Armor Stats¶

For armor, the style you enhance it in doesn’t matter as much as weapons because the differences are negligible, but the Dwarven Style will give you Knockdown Resist, which helps with you not getting stun-locked as often, so we recommend that. Keep in mind that this will add more weight to the armor but when you finish it off in the Wyrmfire style it’ll reduce it by half. In general, if you’re not bothered about the Knockdown Resist, then choose Battahli for defense or Elven for Magick.

Armor	Smithing Style	Rank	Physical Defense	Magick Defense	Knockdown Resist
Vashara Scaleskin (Warrior/Mystic Spearhand)	Dwarven	1	12	7	55
Vashara Scaleskin (Warrior/Mystic Spearhand)	Dwarven	2	23	10	62
Vashara Scaleskin (Warrior/Mystic Spearhand)	Dwarven	3	34	14	69
Vashara Scaleskin (Warrior/Mystic Spearhand)	Battahli	1	23	7	0
Vashara Scaleskin (Warrior/Mystic Spearhand)	Battahli	2	32	9	0
Vashara Scaleskin (Warrior/Mystic Spearhand)	Battahli	3	43	10	0
Silhouette of Sorcery (Sorcerer/Mystic Spearhand)	Dwarven	1	6	44	22
Silhouette of Sorcery (Sorcerer/Mystic Spearhand)	Dwarven	2	13	66	24
Silhouette of Sorcery (Sorcerer/Mystic Spearhand)	Dwarven	3	19	110	27
Silhouette of Sorcery (Sorcerer/Mystic Spearhand)	Elven	1	9	21	0
Silhouette of Sorcery (Sorcerer/Mystic Spearhand)	Elven	2	13	30	0
Silhouette of Sorcery (Sorcerer/Mystic Spearhand)	Elven	3	16	40	0

So, to answer the question of what the best smithing style is to enhance your gear in is this. For most melee weapons, it’s the Dwarven Style, and for magick weapons, it’s Elven. However, if you’re using skills that can knock or pull enemies down, the Battahli style will edge out for melee weapons. For armor, it’s more subjective depending on what you’re fighting, but we’d recommend Dwarven in general.

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(1 of 4) Dvarapal, getting enhanced with the Dwarven Smithing Style.

All Smithing Styles¶

Here are all the Smithing Styles in the game and where you can access them, including what each style offers you. Note that the locations of these shops change post-game after evacuating their respective city, town, or village, where you’ll find them at the Seafloor Shrine.

Dwarven Smithing Style¶

Arguably the best smithing style, the Dwarven Smithing Style will imbue your equipment with Knockdown Power and Knockdown Resistance, while also providing a small bonus to both Defense and Magick Defense. This style allows you to take more hits without getting stunned while also making it easier to knock down foes. You can access this at Brokkr’s Smithy (Map Marker) in Bakbattahl.

Elven Smithing Style¶

The Elven Smithing Style will greatly enhance your Magick and Magick Defense, but it won’t add a lot if any to your Strength and Defense. Predominantly used for Mages, Sorcerers, and Magick Archers, you’ll gain access to this style as soon as you reach Sacred Arbor (Map Marker), which is situated northwest of Vernworth. Note that you will need to have a pawn that has the Woodland Wordsmith Specialization to read what you’re purchasing or enhancing.

Battahli Smithing Style¶

The Battahli Smithing Style focuses purely on Strength and Defense but won’t add a lot if anything to Magick or Magick Defense. You can access this style by visiting Awaran’s Arms (Map Marker) for weapons and Bodas’s Armory (Map Marker) for armor. Both of these shops are situated in the Mercantile Ward of Bakbattahl in between the two inns.

Vermundian Smithing Style¶

The Vermundian Smithing Style is the first smithing style you’ll get access to. This style moderately enhances all of your attributes, which is great for early-game equipment, but it won’t offer you much at the later stage of the game. You can enhance your equipment in this style at Roderick’s Smithy (Map Marker) for the weapons and Bjorn’s Armory (Map Marker) for the armor. These stores are situated in the Merchant Quarter of Vernworth.

Wyrmfire Smithing Style¶

The Wyrmfire Smithing Style is unique as it can only be used when your equipment is already maxed at three ranks. This style will give you another rank which will halve the weight of that piece of equipment while also greatly enhancing its stats. This style can only be used at The Dragonforged found inside the Baywayside Shrine (Map Marker) off the eastern coast in Battahl. You will eventually want to enhance all your equipment in Wyrmfire when they reach rank three, but keep in mind that it will cost you Wyrmslife Crystals to do so.