In Forspoken, if you want to upgrade your gear and make it as powerful as possible, you’re going to need materials. With upgrade slots in the Cloak and Necklace, you can increase Frey’s stats in multiple ways — you can increase Health, Defense, Damage and much more. All upgrades require materials like Balm Flax, Spinestone, Wild Musk and many more rare materials. Some are easy to find. Some materials — like stone — are a lot harder to come by. If you’re looking for the best way to collect rare materials, you don’t need to randomly explore the environment and hope for the best. Instead, you can complete challenges while exploring. You can repeat these to collect all the resources you’ll ever need.
In addition to rare materials, you can also farm Mana. Mana is a magical resource you’ll earn for defeating enemies or completing challenges. Mana is used in the Magic Menu to unlock new spells and skills from each magical skill tree. By spending mana, you can ‘learn‘ these abilities to improve Frey considerably. There are ways to rapidly earn Rare Materials and Mana — but you’ll want to look out for these specific activities to do it.
More Forspoken guides:
6 Settings To Change First | Secret Necklace & Cloak Guide | How To Upgrade Magic Easily | Float Spell Location | Fourth Necklace Upgrade Slot | How To Use Old Coins & Poppets | Secret Merchant Location
Method #1: Completing FLASHBACK Challenges
Rare Materials and Mana can be earned through a specific repeatable activity — FLASHBACK. These are special events you’ll encounter while exploring the map. Each region will usually feature at least one FLASHBACK. One of the earliest Flashbacks you’ll find is located in The Guardians’ Way region. By using the monument, you can begin ‘A Fortress Overrun‘ — this is just one of many FLASHBACK challenges.
- How FLASHBACK Challenges Work: You can access a FLASHBACK challenge from the Map Menu once it is discovered. Place a cursor over the challenge and press [Square] to immediately begin.
- This is a timed event. You’ll need to defeat enemies within the time limit — the faster you defeat enemies (and keep your Grade high) the more rewards you’ll get.
- By completing the challenge at different tiers, you’ll earn more material rewards and mana.
You can repeat these challenges for more rewards. As you progress, you’ll find harder FLASHBACKs with better materials and more mana. Keep searching and you’ll be swimming in mana! Don’t forget to check optional areas on the map. There are large regions you can skip entirely while moving toward your next goal.
Method #2: Crafting Rare Materials | Mid Game
You can also craft materials — crafting isn’t just for building necklaces and cloaks. Using the crafting menu, you can create different types of stone using monster materials. Crafting for different types of stone and other rare materials becomes available later in the story.
Eventually, Frey will be able to enter the blue mana storms that appear on the map. These storms feature difficult swirling magical enemies you can defeat for special resources that are only used for crafting materials. If you’re in one of the later chapters and need materials, you’ll want to enter those storms and defeat the enemies inside.
Method #3: Farming Enemies For Mana | Early Game
One of the most inefficient methods for earning Mana is defeating enemies in the wild. You’ll earn more mana hunting down stat increasing monuments, exploring Locked Labyrinths, or fighting the difficult enhanced monsters. All of these methods aren’t really suitable for farming, and if you’re the farming personality that just wants to unlock everything as early as you can, there is a better way to simple grind out the mana from enemies.
You can find a very large group enemies directly south of the Blessed Plains Refuge. This is one of the first fast-travel locations you’ll unlock, and the refuge is available once you embark on your quest to defeat Silas in Chapter 4.
- Enemy Farming Location: The Blessed Plains – South of Cipal, starting from the Blessed Plains Refuge, travel south down the mountain to find a large group of zombies. The zombies are in the valley below, between the mountain and the river.
If you pass the river south of Cipal, you’ve gone too far. This area is packed with enemies and defeating them will net you some mana and enemy-dropped crafting resources like clusters. This group can be cleared even faster with Silas’s magic. You’ll find more large groups of enemies to the south, accessible from The Guardians’ Way. There’s another large group of zombies at Dianthus Wood Refuge, right at the entrance to Dianthus Wood.
As you level up, these enemies will give less mana, so for most players, you’re better off progressing the story and taking on challenges designed for your current level. These large groups are especially useful for completing the magic skill challenges required to upgrade your spells.
Those are all the best ways we’ve found so far to boost your abilities and collect rare resources like stone and mana. We’re still exploring the world of Forspoken, so there’s still so much more to discover. Found better ways to boost yourself? We’ll update this article with any new discoveries as they’re found.
