There are a lot of systems at play in Where Winds Meet, and a lot of things that just kind of appear sometimes without explanation, or core functions that are buried away in menus within menus. It all gets a bit hard to keep track of when you have 50 different pop-ups on screen at any given moment.
The Arsenal is a system that, graciously, is not available from the get-go, and instead opens up to you as the game advances, letting you ease yourself into it a bit easier. That said, it is still reliant upon your understanding of other systems to really get the most out of it, but at least it will make all that gear farming worthwhile.
What Is The Arsenal?
The Arsenal is a system whereby your old gear that you are no longer using may find a new home. While usually you might use old gear to Tune your newer gear, or recycle it for some extra money, the Arsenal gives you another option for the best of that gear that’s left over.
In a new section as part of the Develop screen is the Arsenal. In here, you can equip old pieces of gear as if you were making a loadout on yourself. You can equip one of each item to the Arsenal, which will increase its tier based on the overall level and mastery of the item, and the number of slots filled.
You start with the Level 41 Arsenal, though you will gain the Level 51 Arsenal at level 56, and so on as you advance through the levels. The maximum tier for any Arsenal is Tier six, where you will get the highest bonus possible. It is possible to over-level an Arsenal, though this will give no additional bonuses.
By default, every Arsenal gives you additional Max HP, as well as additional damage bonuses based on your chosen path for the Arsenal. We’ll go into that a bit further down. However, you can equip all of your Arsenals at once, and the bonuses stack. So the more Arsenals you unlock and stock up, the more the bonuses increase. So even your oldest gear can still come in handy.
Where Winds Meet: Stored Experience, Explained
Here’s what to do with all your Stored EXP in Where Winds Meet.
How Do You Unlock The Arsenal?
The Arsenal itself unlocks quite a bit into the game, though that’s fairly understandable considering it’s intent is to give new life to your old gear, which wouldn’t mean much if it was available from the very beginning of the game.
The Arsenal first unlocks when you reach Level 51, which can be reached after reaching Solo Mode Level six, with the Level 41 Arsenal. At level 56, you unlock the Level 51 Arsenal, and so on. This is how every Arsenal is unlocked, with each of them stacking up on one another.
The idea is that once you reach this new level, you will be using brand-new gear, and enemies will also drop higher level gear. Therefore, the gear you were already wearing will be much less likely to drop, and needs that home in the Arsenal.
Arsenal Paths
As mentioned earlier, the Arsenal offers a multitude of benefits, with a maximum HP increase the foundation across all of them. However, you can also choose a dedicated Path for the Arsenal to give specific affinities a stronger bonus. The following are the Paths you can choose:
- General – Increases Minimum and Maximum Physical Attack.
- Bellstrike – Increases Minimum and Maximum Bellstrike Attack.
- Stonesplit – Increases Minimum and Maximum Stonesplit Attack.
- Silk Binding – Increases Minimum and Maximum Silkbind Attack.
Every Martial Art style on a weapon has a specific Path it follows. For example, the Nameless Sword and Spear are Bellstrike, while the Infernal Twinblades and Mortal Rope Dart are Bamboocut. The Bellstrike Arsenal Path would increase the damage of the former, but not the latter.
Therefore, if you are running two weapons of the same Path, then you should choose the same Path for the Arsenal. If you are running two different weapons, then the General Path would make the most sense as it would apply a base Physical damage increase regardless of the Path, just to a lesser degree than a specific one.
Even though the bonuses will display the same within the Arsenal across Paths, these are just the base numbers. The actual scaling will be different when applied to the weapons.
You cannot set the Path independently for each Arsenal, however. It’s all or nothing. If you want the biggest boosts though, pln your build around a specific Path.
Can You Reclaim Gear From The Arsenal?
There are a few benefits to putting gear into the Arsenal. The first and intended one is to get all those lovely bonuses, obviously. The second though is that once an item is put into the Arsenal, it is removed from your bag, freeing up some space for even more items.
But what if, for some reason, you want to get those items back after retiring them to the Arsenal? Well thankfully, that’s a simple process too. You just take it out and it’s returned to your bag exactly as it was when you put it in. So if you replace an old piece of gear with a slightly better old piece of gear, don’t worry about it disappearing into the aether. You can still use it for Tuning and recycling.
Where Winds Meet: What To Do With Old Gear
You really don’t need a dozen helmets, do you?
