Overview
What to look out for for the best items in arena for each rank. Find out here.A guide to understanding item quality in arena.
Inept
Aspirant
Novice
Adept
Expert
Or if you want more armor at the cost of some coverage.
Master
The Pole Hammer is still a viable choice, the Pole Axe is used for variety since there are no master rank weapons. Addendum: The Halberd is a great choice at expert and master rank.
Additional information
Besides the best gear for each rank you should have observed that the best leather clothing items are superior(except for inept coat/jacket/trousers which is Thick), the best early cloth items are “Heavy” and lamellar’s best rank is superior. The best shirt is silk. Everything else, look for exceptional.
Notice the difference between a “coat” and a “waistcoat/jacket”, they occupy different layers. The best aspirant rank coat is “padded” in addition to “heavy”.
There are different ranks of the same items(gambeson, coat, waistcoat, plate helms, etc).
The belt occupies its own layer between coat and outer chest item(waistcoat, vest, etc).
You can only get one pugilists gloves, so your hirelings wont have gloves at Inept and Aspirant. They are located near the fireplace in the main arena hangout.
Leather armors(shoulder, forearm, shin, vest) best is exceptional not superior.
There is only one expert plate vambrace(forearm) that will work with the expert gauntlets. Likewise, there is only one expert plate greave(shin armor) that works with expert cuisses(thigh armor).
It should be noted that this guide favors two-handed staffed weapons for range and bludgeoning or slashing type damage. If you prefer shields its not until Master you have enough points to equip the most armor and a shield/weapon combo as shields require alot of points.
Quality level breakdown
Notice sometimes “light” is better than “crude” and vice versa. The same applies to “heavy” and “superior”. Chain armor shares the same quality names. Uses “Rusted”/”Damaged” exclusively.
Lamellar armor appears to be an under developed armor class and lacks levels of quality. It is not strictly better than leather armor.
“Fine” is always equal to normal. Is the only type that uses “Reinforced”.
Leather Coat* shares the same values as Rawhide Coat.(Superior quality leather clothing added after this list was made) *Aspirant rank.
Weapon list
Concerning item acquisition
Winning in arena slightly increases the quality of new items that appear in vendor inventory. Winning against a beast greatly increases the quality of new items that appear in vendor inventory. This effect lasts for a few matches and can be extended by defeating beasts every 3 to 4 matches resulting in multiple “exceptional” items being present in vendor inventory for sale.
Backup Main game and Arena
You can manually back up your saves at %UserProfile%AppDataRoamingExanima and copy “Exanima001.rsg”, “Exanima001.rcp”, “Exanima.set” and “Arena001.rsg” somewhere safe.
Arena001.rsg is for arena, exanima001.rsg and exanima001.rcp are for main game. I’m not sure if the .set is necessary but I’ve included it.