Whether you’re playing on the hardest difficulty or just want to get a leg up in combat, sometimes the only thing to do is grind out a few levels. Welcome to Culture of Gaming.
Today I’m teaching you how to get OP early in Hogwarts Legacy. It’s worth starting this article by saying the only way to get better at something is to practice, and no amount of gear or talents is ever going to replace hard work. Hogwarts Legacy’s combat is challenging, especially on the hardest difficulty, but that doesn’t mean a few tips and tricks won’t go a long way to making that bitter pill a bit easier to swallow.
Talents
First, let’s talk talents. These unlock relatively early on in the game after completing the Jack dos Rest Main story quest that takes you through the large spider deck. At the time of making this article, talent points are limited, and the max level within the game caps you.
That means you need to make smart decisions about what talents you choose.
Here are a few choices to think about that will give you a massive quality-of-life boost or significantly change your combat gameplay. First up is spell knowledge ranks one, two, and three, which grant you additional spell pages. This is really essential as you begin to unlock more spells, experiment with combinations, and want to start stringing together long sequences of attacks.
It’s an essential building block for fully fleshing out your combat arsenal. Another no-brainer in the query is basic cast mastery, which reduces the cooldown of your spells. For every basic cast you land, this means more harder hitting spells off, cooldown much sooner. Accio mastery is another solid option. This will pull multiple enemies to the player based on how close those enemies are to the spell’s intended target.
This is great for setting up big AOE attacks. Disarming Curse in the dark arts tree is another great early pick, which gives your expeliarmos the added curse effect, which increases the damage that target takes while cursed.
In conjunction with disarming cursed is Ancient Magic Throw expertise in the core tree. This allows you to use those same weapons you’ve just stolen from your enemies and cast them back as projectiles right into their face. This is a great synergy pick.
Finally, in the core tree, Protego Absorption enhances your shielding charm, filling up your ancient magic meter for every block and even more for perfect blocks.
To be honest, we’re shocked there’s a system within such an accessible game that’s this rigid. We’d expect to see a respect system or even a full power fantasy experience where you can unlock everything. But I’m actually okay with this.
Gear
Making choices in an RPG should feel like a big deal, and restricting some of that freedom is the only way to do that. Does it mean you can become a wildly overpowered witch or wizard? Not really, but you can make some smart choices early to get yourself closer to Dumbledore status. One way to ensure you’re making an impact during a fight is by having the right traits assigned to your gear. Traits are passive stat boosts, and you’ve most likely seen them on a wide variety of gear you’ve picked up.
That’s all good, but the key to becoming OP early is having the right traits that enhance the abilities you use in combat. Unfortunately, there’s no great method for hunting down exactly what you need. Well, not really.
First off, let’s take a look through your challenges.
Some of the categories, mainly combat, have several scenarios that reward traits. Focus on traits that enhance abilities or give you bonuses that will directly impact your playstyle. This will all depend on your individual preference, so I can’t give you any sweeping recommendations here. You know which spells work best for you, and you’re going to need to hunt down traits that enhance those specific spells.
The second thing you’ll need to do to accomplish this is clear out bandit camps that dot the Scottish countryside. Once you clear out the camp, you’ll find a labeled chest. These will always contain a trait, but unfortunately, that trait is random.
We tested this in multiple games and couldn’t come up with a duplicate. It’s not the end of the world, but that means a little more farming. Luckily, these bandit camps are easy to clear out, and once unlocked, that trait can be permanently used at your loom in the Room of Requirement.
Yes, you will need to progress through the first few hours of the main story before you unlock the Room of Requirement, but honestly, the first few hours of the game are light on combat, so it hardly matters getting OP before that.
If the goal is increasing your power, traits are the single best way to do that in a targeted fashion. Just be sure you have enough magical creatures in your vivarium to keep your stock of beast materials high. Rank one traits require Puffskin fur to socket. Rank two traits require Dorry Call Feathers to socket, and rank three traits require Kneazle fur to socket.
You can track these creatures down directly from your map, so it shouldn’t be too challenging to stock up.
Arenas
Speaking of challenges, here’s something you might not know. Hogwarts Legacy features two battle arenas, three if you purchase the deluxe edition of the game. These battle arenas are repeatable, which means they’re farmable, but what exactly are we farming for? Well, if the goal is to get OP quickly, then it’s important to focus on leveraging the most out of the arenas.
You get some XP for clearing each wave of enemies, but the real benefit here is how easy the arenas complete challenges such as defeating Dark Wizards or spiders. For every tier of a challenge you complete, you get a few hundred XP, and that’s rather valuable early on. This is a nice alternative if you’re like me and don’t want to hunt down field guide pages. The added value here is that those challenges are also tied to cosmetic unlocks and, more importantly, trait unlocks, which, as we know from a few minutes ago, are important. If you really want to cheese the system, drop the difficulty to story mode and roll through the arena. I’ll admit this is quite the bear on the hardest difficulty, so if your objective is to suck up as much XP as possible quickly, don’t be afraid to make the switch to an easier difficulty because the XP gain is exactly the same.
Now, another thing tied to all of this is gear, which is such a crucial part of progression. I think it’s only right then that you’re equipped with some of the best swag a wizard can find. There are two things I want to talk about here. First, be on the lookout for these ornate chests. These will always contain a legendary item. It’s important to understand that no matter the chest, ornate or not, loot will always drop around your current level at the time of finding that piece of gear. That means you can, in theory, not loot these ornate chests until later on in the game. But that’s not really the point of this article. Now, is it? There’s a decent number of these in Hogwarts and in Hogsmeade, but many are locked behind rank two and rank three locks.
With Alohomora fully upgraded, you can now access everything within the wizarding world. Make sure to use Revelio to locate some of these ornate chests or quick legendaries.
Chests are all well and good, but they’re a one-and-done deal. We need a better way to make sure we can get gear. That’s where Gladrags Wizardwear comes into the picture.
Gladrags Wizardwear
This shop is chock full of powerful gear, and since the goal here is to get OP quickly, there’s nothing wrong with purchasing what you need. The real catch here is you need Galleons to purchase gear. Some other creators will tell you to go hunt down ice chests or fly through some hoops, but honestly, I’m not interested in playing hide and seek. I’d rather focus on a reliable way to consistently make coin, and that, my friends, is where our simple and quick farming method comes into the picture.
Now, I won’t go into every detail. But I will say that with this method, you can get tens of thousands of Galleons an hour, more than enough to purchase whatever you need. This entire loop of gold farming and buying gear is just insane because Glad Rag restocks its supply, and that means you can continue to purchase gear time and time again, and this all keeps up with your current level. That’s insane. And if the goal is to get OP quick, this is an essential part of that process.
Final Thoughts
We hope this quick guide to getting OP helped you get a leg up in your Culture of Gaming adventures. Culture of Gaming has a ton more planned for Hogwarts Legacy, so stick around so you never miss a new article. I also invite you to join the Culture of Gaming community on Discord. We recently reworked our entire server, so if you’re looking for a place to hang out, win free prizes, talk about great games like Hogwarts Legacy, and group up with friends, check it out. From everyone here at Culture of Gaming, thanks for reading and play on.
