JRPG equipment upgrade.

[Carpincho Pampeano]

Do you upgrade as soon as you get something better? Let's say your character right now is using armor with 10 Def, the shop now has one with 11 Def, do you upgrade as soon as you can or wait for a 15 Def to be on sale? I hate having to change equipment so i always wait for something with at least 50% more stats.

 

[Thac0]

Whenever I find a new shop I buy as much of the good stuff as I can, while selling everything I no longer equip. Then I start saving up for the next shop. With this method I can usually get 75-90% of the good stuff from a shop by the time I reach it for a large power boost, and it is not usually worth to grind for the few items too expensive to immediatly buy, as the next shops cheap items will be stronger anyway.

 

[Falksi]

Depends on the type of game.

If success is decision based I'll usually go with the stats to give myself an edge. If it's action based then, so long at my stats are high enough so that I'm not handicapped and can put up a fight, I'll go with what looks coolest.

The whole lootfest shit is tiresome, and changing gear every few minutes annoying.

 

[deuxhero]

Weapons virtually always come first since killing enemies faster means getting more money faster. Defense boosts typically can wait till I'm in town with money instead of dedicated grinding unless the game is really tuned. Even if I have the money, if there's a new dungeon alongside the new shop, especially if the game features a way to quickly escape dungeons (escape rope, exit spell etc.) I try to do shallow raids before buying non-weapon stuff to make sure I don't buy something I could find.

 

[Morenatsu.]

I don't upgrade anything until the game is literally impossibles!

 

[Angelo85]

Usually I upgrade +ATT or Weapons every other shop, just because I'm too worried to spend too much money and can't afford something supercool if I upgrade every single time.
+DEF or Armor usually I also upgrade every other shop, but I only buy one or two sets (depending on the combat mechanics either for the Tank or the most vulnerable Character) and pass the old best +DEF items on to the rest of the party. So in other words I cycle through them.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Unless I don't have enough money (as in the earlygame of the Trails of Cold Steel games), or there is an extremely limited number of items to buy (Fire Emblem 4), then I almost always upgrade my whole party's equipment the next time I can.

 

[Volourn]

If I am rich, buy way.

I try to make sure all my members have the best defense possible espicially mages since they tend to have less hit points unless it is a game where you can physically block attacks on your mage which, of course, is impossible in most JRPGs.

Then, I give weapons to my fighter so they can kill enemies in 1 or 2 hits instead of second stringers who can't kill anyways ie. upgrading a mage's ability to do 8 physical damage comapred to 6 previously is useless. L0L