Spear, shield and how attachments actually upgrade

✚ Checked 2026-11-15 · PS5 1.005.000 / PS4 launch build · 3 sources

Two weapons, and neither is a starter weapon

Kratos in this game does not have the Blades of Chaos — the story is set long before he receives them. He fights with a traditional Spartan spear, the Dory, and a shield, the Aspis.

Both take attachments, and each attachment comes with its own upgrade path. That phrase is doing a lot of work: a spear attachment you have invested in does not make your shield attachment better, and materials spent on one path are not recoverable for the other.

The third layer is the one people miss. The Belt of Tyche is a single armour piece that takes gouri attachments, so there is a charm layer sitting on top of the two weapon trees.

Where upgrades actually happen

Upgrades are bought at a campsite, using the Enhance action: blood orbs plus the matching material. That is also where the Self Sufficient trophy comes from — enhance any single attachment once.

What to enhance first

The honest answer depends on whether you are chasing the platinum or enjoying the combat, because the two produce different orders.

There is no universally "best" attachment to publish here, because the game gives each its own upgrade path precisely so that the choice is a build decision rather than a tier list. What can be said with confidence: do not split materials across three paths early. Depth in one path outperforms breadth across three, because the tiers are where the behaviour actually changes.

Blood orbs versus red orbs

Two currencies, two jobs, and mixing them up is the most common early mistake.

• Red orbs (blood orbs in the game's own wording) act as experience. They pay for the three skill trees and they are used in crafting. The Jewel of Ziteo Gouri costs 7500 of them.
• Green, blue and gold orbs refill health, magic and spirit respectively. They are resources, not currency.
• Crafting materials come from chests and kills and are what actually gate attachment tiers alongside orbs.

So the real constraint on attachment upgrades is materials, not orbs. Which is why the sensible plan is: pick one path, feed it every matching material you find, and let the other paths wait.

Gifts of Olympus are not attachments

Worth separating clearly, because the UI groups them near each other conceptually:

• Attachments modify the spear and shield. They upgrade along their own paths at campsites.
• Gifts of Olympus are divine artefacts that grant special and super attacks. Some are ranged (precision strikes, exploding projectiles that hit multiple enemies), some carry their own melee combo to extend the spear's kit, and some are traversal tools.

A Gift is a new verb. An attachment is a modification of an existing verb. Building around a Gift means giving it the orb support to be usable; building around an attachment means deepening a weapon you already swing.

Practical build notes

1. Commit to one range profile. A spear-and-shield kit that also leans on a ranged Gift covers two distances. Three is a spread.
2. Feed materials to one attachment until its behaviour changes. Tiers are where attachments become distinct; a tier-1 attachment of every type feels like nothing.
3. Keep the Belt of Tyche updated alongside the weapon you use. Gouri charms are cheap relative to their effect and they do not compete with spear materials.
4. Re-check your loadout before a boss. The game will not prompt you, and walking into a long-range encounter with a melee-only setup is the most common self-inflicted difficulty spike.

What this page is not

It is not a ranked tier list of attachments. Ranking them would require measured damage and frame data that the game does not publish, and inventing that ordering would make the page wrong in a way that looks authoritative. What it gives you is the structure of the upgrade system and the order that avoids wasting materials.