At the start of Chapter 6 you’ll unlock the Smithy, who can henceforth be found in the Plaza of the Somniel. This craftsperson will offer a variety of services, including allowing you to upgrade your weapons and exchange various types of metals. This page will discuss how to upgrade, refine and engrave weapons.

Weapon Upgrades in Fire Emblem Engage¶

You have two options for upgrading weapons in Fire Emblem Engage, both of which are services offered by the Smithy in Chapter 6 and beyond: Refine or Engrave. Both will be discussed below.

How to Refine Weapons in Fire Emblem Engage¶

Perhaps the more traditional of the two ways to upgrade weapons, refining weapons adds an enhancement bonus at the expense of iron, steel, silver and/or gold. Some weapons can even be refined into a different weapon entirely! Either way, the process is the same - talk to the Smithy and pick the “Refine” option, then select a weapon you possess and wish to upgrade, then select a refinement option.

Refinement is generally done in enhancement tiers, say, for example, you take an Iron Lance - you can upgrade it to an Iron Lance +1 up to an Iron Lance +5, with greater stat boosts and expenses at each tier:

As you can see, the stat gains per enhancement are fairly minor, but then again, so are the costs - especially at the lower ranks, and every little bit can help. For a modest (by early-game standards) you can end up giving your entire army some much needed boosts by refining weapons, and as a further positive, resources spent on lower-tier upgrades count towards further upgrades. For example, if you upgrade an Iron Spear into an Iron Spear +2 you’ll expend 40 Iron and 600 G, which will reduce the upgrade costs of turning that Iron Spear +2 into an Iron Spear +3 by the same amount, so there’s no penalty for slowly climbing the ladder as you acquire resources.

How to Engrave Weapons in Fire Emblem Engage¶

In addition to refining weapons, you can also engrave them. To do this, just select the “Engrave” option while talking to the Smithy, pick your chosen weapon, and choose an Emblem to engrave onto the selected weapon. Different Emblems will give different boosts to weapons. For example, engraving an Iron Lance with Marth (Beginnings), Celica (Echoes) and Sigurd (Holy) yield the following results:

As you can see, engraving Emblems grants modest boosts to weapons, although there are some limitations. First, each Emblem can only be applied to one weapon at a time. If you want to apply it to a second weapon, the Emblem’s engrave effect will be removed from the first weapon. Second, each time you engrave a weapon it’ll set you back 100 Bond Fragments, which is fairly trivial, but you may want to be frugal early on.

A weapon can be both refined and engraved at the same time. Also, staves generally cannot be upgraded.

How to Exchange Metal at the Smithy¶

In addition to upgrading weapons, you can also swap metals by talking to the Smithy and picking the “Exchange” option. Once done, pick the metal you want, and you’ll get the option to swap Iron, Steel and Silver for each other. Just be wary, as the exchange rates favor the merchant - it’s not a free process, and if you end up swapping back and forth between metals, you’ll incur losses. The exchange rates are as follows: