Crimson Desert Crafting Guide: How to Upgrade & Refine Gear
Pywel does not care about your feelings, and the local bosses will gladly snap your starter sword in half if you neglect your equipment.
Crimson Desert completely ditches the traditional RPG leveling system. You cannot just grind low level bandits until you magically have enough health to tank a dragon. Your base stats are heavily dictated by the metal strapped to your body. If you are getting killed in two hits, it is not because you are under-leveled. It is because your armor is weak and your weapons are dull.
Upgrading your gear is a mandatory survival mechanic, but the game buries the process behind specific terminology and hidden blueprints. You will have to do some legwork before you can forge a decent loadout. I spent hours swinging a pathetic wooden stick at armored knights before I figured out the nuances of the local economy. Here is exactly how to craft new equipment, navigate the smithy, and push your gear to its absolute limit.
The Refinement System
When you want to upgrade a weapon or a piece of armor, you need to find a blacksmith. In the starting city of Hernand, look for the anvil icon on your map to locate Blacksmith Turnali.
When you speak to him, you will not see an "Upgrade" option. The game calls this process "Refinement." Selecting the refinement menu pulls up a list of your equipped gear and everything sitting in your pockets. Weapons are listed at the top, and armor is located further down the scroll.
Refining an item boosts its attack power or defensive stats. You need raw materials to make this happen. Metal weapons typically require a mix of Iron Ore and Copper Ore, while fabric or leather armor requires Thin Hide. If you are constantly running out of rocks and wood, you need to know exactly where to harvest them efficiently. I highly recommend checking out my resource gathering guide so you can stock up before visiting the forge.
The Duplicate Item Trick
You do not always need raw materials to upgrade your gear. Crimson Desert allows you to refine a weapon by sacrificing an exact duplicate of that item.
If you are trying to upgrade a White Wood Bow, you can literally melt down a second White Wood Bow to pay the refinement cost instead of spending ten pieces of timber. This is incredibly useful when you are clearing bandit camps and looting identical, low tier swords that you would otherwise just sell for copper.
The Level 4 Abyss Artifact Trap
Every piece of standard gear in the game has a maximum of ten refinement levels. You can see the current tally in the stat box of the item. However, the game sets a brutal trap for you right in the middle of this progression track.
Refining gear from level one to level four costs standard materials. It is cheap and highly encouraged. The moment you try to push a weapon to level five, the blacksmith stops asking for iron and starts demanding Abyss Artifacts.
Abyss Artifacts are the exact same currency you use to unlock your character skills and increase your base health. You are forced to make a terrible choice. Do you want a slightly sharper sword, or do you want the ability to parry an incoming attack? Early in your playthrough, you absolutely need those points for your skill tree. Push your primary weapons and armor to level four, and then completely stop refining them. Save your artifacts for survival abilities. If you need a refresher on where your points should actually go, read my breakdown of the best early skills to unlock.
Finding Crafting Blueprints
You cannot just walk up to an anvil and forge a massive broadsword from memory. Kliff only knows how to craft arrows and bullets by default. Everything else requires a blueprint or a crafting manual.
Your first stop should be Rhett's equipment shop, located directly in front of the blacksmith in Hernand. Rhett sells the "One-handed Weapons of the World, Vol. 1" manual. Buying and reading this unlocks the blueprints for the Timberham Axe, the Pailunese Riteblade, and the Grace Rapier.
The manual costs 2.50 silver, which is a steep price when you are just starting out. If you are broke and cannot afford the knowledge, take a quick detour and read my guide on how to make money fast.
Special Armor Sets
Some of the best gear in the game is locked behind side quests and research tasks. You cannot buy these blueprints in a store.
If you want a massive defensive spike early in the game, you need to head to Pororin village and complete the "Trembling Woods" quest. This unlocks the local Research Institute. By investing silver into the "Getting closer to nature" research node, you will be rewarded with the Shadowleaf Disguise crafting recipes. The set requires Flawless Timber, Palmar Leaves, and various hides, but it is a massive step up from your starting rags.
Grindstones and Anvils
You will occasionally stumble across random grindstones and anvils sitting in the middle of bandit camps. Do not confuse these with the blacksmith's refinement menu.
These environmental tools offer temporary, incredibly potent buffs. Interacting with a grindstone temporarily sharpens your equipped weapon, granting a raw damage increase for a short duration. Interacting with an anvil does the exact same thing for your armor's defensive stat.
If you are about to walk into a boss arena and you see a grindstone sitting near the entrance, use it. The game is giving you a localized advantage. I have survived lethal encounters with barely a fraction of my health remaining purely because I took the five seconds required to sharpen my blade beforehand.
