Today’s dev blog comes from character artist and designer Kaoru Araki. Enjoy!

Hi everyone, nice to meet you! My name is Kaoru Araki and I’m the person responsible for weapon design. (I’m sorry it couldn’t have been someone more exciting!) Anyhow, I’d like to take the opportunity to talk about weapons.

First of all, this world features 3 main occupations: the Fighter, the Strider and the Mage. Then there are 6 more advanced occupations: 3 hybrid occupations and 3 expert occupations. Each occupation has certain skills, and the more you battle the more skills you’ll acquire. You gain skill points as you fight and your skill level increases. When your skill level increases the number of slots you can equip with a skill increases. You can equip skills that you have bought at the guild and customize to your own battle style.

For each occupation there is a main weapon and a subweapon. Let’s go ahead and touch upon the weapons for each class:

Basic Occupations

Fighter
Main: One-Handed Sword (This is your basic weapon.)
Sub: Shield (Used to defend and provoke, there are also skills that can be used to attack.)

Strider
Main: Double Daggers
Sub: Bow (Although this is the Strider’s sub, it’s actually used quite often.)

Mage
Main: Staff (Small staff – you might think you’re gonna bash enemies with these, but actually you fire magic bullets from them.)
Sub: None (Mages’ strength is the number of skills they can equip.)

Advanced Occupations

Mystic Knight
Main: Mace (The maces in this game are bigger than your usual mace), One-Handed Sword (This is your basic weapon)
Sub: Magic Shield (You’re able to enchant them yourself), Shield (Used to defend and provoke, there are also skills that can be used to attack.)

Warrior (I personally like this occupation so I tend to make my pawns this class and ogle them.)
Main: Double-Handed Sword (I personally like this weapon the best), War Hammer
Sub: None (Their strength is the number of skills they can equip.)

Assassin
Main: One-Handed Sword, Double Daggers
Sub: Shield, Bow

Ranger
Main: Double Daggers
Sub: Large Bow (I’ve never used this, but it seems awesome.)

Magick Archer
Main: Double Daggers, Staff
Sub: Magic Bow (Effects of this weapon are always changing.)

Sorcerer
Main: Large Staff　
Sub: None (Their strength is the number of skills they can equip.)

So this is what you can expect from the occupations and weapons. Also, you can strengthen your weapons up to 3 levels. You might be able to strengthen them with certain items you’ve managed to collect.

So don’t be too hasty thinking “What is this? I don’t need this!” and just go selling off or throwing away everything you come across – first go to your region’s weapons shop and see what happens. That item you thought you had no need for might be just the item you need to strengthen your weapon.

There are several different ways for you to acquire weapons: as a reward for defeating enemies, from treasure chests, as loot, presents, DLC… And it’s unlikely you’ll get all of them on your first playthrough. If you come across a weapon you’ve never seen before, it’s possibly DLC or there’s still stuff for you to do in the game!

And I’ll leave it at that. Good luck collecting all of the weapons!