At the start of the game, as you’re clawing your way through The Shallows and the Mariner’s Keep, any weapon you find will suffice for the task at hand. Once you defeat the first boss, however, you’ll need to start looking at upgrades. There are a few ways to upgrade your gear, but at some point you’ll need to get your hands on Ingots, which are an essential material for weapon upgrades. This page will discuss how to craft Ingots in No Rest for the Wicked and how to use them to upgrade weapons.
(1 of 2) After reaching Sacrament, all manner of gameplay elements will respawn, including ore veins.
After reaching Sacrament, all manner of gameplay elements will respawn, including ore veins. (left), Mining ore veins will yield ore, of course, which can be used to facilitate various upgrades. (right)
Respawns and Weapon Upgrades¶
Defeating the first boss and reaching Sacrament will cause the world state to change and time to flow, which repopulates old areas with new, more powerful enemies and causes them to continuously respawn, respectively. In addition to respawning enemies, resources and treasure will also spawn, and these two are the keys to getting your hands on better gear, which are all but required for the fights that lie ahead. The game never lays down a trail of glowing rose petals for you to follow that leads to this conclusion, so it can be easy for new players to miss, and fighting leveled enemies with outdated weapons can lead to significant frustration.
Respawns are important, as it gives you a way to fuel your own growth - defeating enemies will yield XP which in turn levels you up and allows you to allocate stat points, but the other two types of respawns are arguably more essential. Treasure also respawns, including motes of light and chests, both large and small. In addition to the normal junk you can get out of chests - money, materials, etc., - you can also get gear, and gear scales with enemy level (or rather, the area is what levels up and enemies and treasure both follow suit). This is a fine way to get your hands on better gear, including new types of arms and armor of varying rarities, but on its own it’s less than ideal. Various resources respawn as well, including flora and fauna you can harvest as well as resources that require tools to gather, like dig spots, fishing spots, trees and ore veins. The latter are what will benefit you the most when it comes to upgrading weapons.
Upgrade Fillmore’s Smithy in Sacrament to gain access to a furnace.
Finding Ingots¶
Mining ore veins requires a pickaxe, which you can find, craft or buy - these can also be repaired via the blacksmith. Mining an ore vein will yield ore, coal, and other useful minerals, albeit usually in fairly small denominations, and you’ll want a good bit of it for Sacrament upgrades and more to the point, upgrading weapons.
While ore is useful enough on its own, it can also be refined into ingots, but this isn’t as straight-forward as, say, cooking meals. In order to smelt ore into ingots you’ll need to gain access to a forge, and to gain access to a forge you’ll need to talk to Danos and upgrade Fillmore’s Smithy to Level 2. This costs 10x Pine Wood and 5x Copper Ore, which you’ll need to mine and harvest; there are plenty of these resources in the Orban Glades, although it may take a few runs to get them. You can acquire many of these materials without even fighting, as there are numerous trees and a few ore veins before the gate to the Mariner’s Keep. Once you have enough, invest them into the project, which will take one hour to complete - fine time to take care of other quests or just do some grinding, as you’ll need plenty more Copper Ore for weapon upgrades. If you’re lucky, you may even find a rare weapon to upgrade!
(1 of 3) You can use a furnace to smelt ore into ingots,
Once Fillmore’s Smithy is done upgrading you’ll need to head over there and interact with the Furnace, one of the new amenities added by the upgrade. Here you’ll be able to convert 1x Copper Ore into 1x Copper Ingot at no cost, but it does take time for ore to smelt into ingots (in this case, 2:00 per ingot). Queue up a few and busy yourself with other tasks, then return to claim your ingots. Ingots are required to upgrade most weapons, and will continue to be required for many early upgrades, so you’ll want a lot of them. In addition you’ll need other materials which can usually be prized from treasure chests and defeated enemies throughout the game.
Still, Ingots are the thing you need to go out of your way to create (or if you’re feeling lavish, you can buy them, but creating them via the forge is much easier on your wallet). Six Copper Ingots will allow you to upgrade most starter weapons three times, which will double your damage output. Even a generic tool of slaughter becomes significantly more competent with this relatively small investment, and while No Rest from the Wicked is still a punishing game, there’s a night-and-day difference between having to hit an enemy six times and having to hit them three times.
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