All lord equipment requires some of the basic materials to forge, and the better the equipment, the more is required.
You get a lot of materials during normal game play, but you will likely still find yourself short when wanting to forge the better pieces. What the best way is to get materials also depends on the various credits you might have, price wise there is not a very strong preference.
Besides from the various shops where you can often buy the basic materials directly or where you can buy small material chests (contains one of each of the four basic materials) or mini material chest (contains one of the basic materials, random), you get the materials from killing monsters and from most of the (seasonal) events, even from gathering resources on the kingdom map you frequently get some basic materials.
It is also possible to get them from Lucky Shot (either do many shots to get large amounts or just one or a few shots to have a chance at a small amount).
If you don't have enough materials and not enough credits to purchase them, you can consider spending gold, but even if you spend gold, there are various alternatives and buying it directly from the gold shop might be the worst. If you need large amounts of materials the Merchant Fair might be the way to go. If you are able to find a piece on sale that contains the materials you need, it can be a very good buy. Consider for example a scenario where you need a rare material and lots of Cerussite to craft the Deathseeker Talisman, spending 30k to buy and dismantle a Warmonger necklace to get the required rare material and 4800 Cerussite is a great deal.
The Black Market in the same building (Exchange) is another way to get materials below sales price.
Before deciding to spend any kind of credits you might want to consider to first dismantle a piece if the piece you are about to forge will replace an existing piece. Dismantling a piece provides you with all the materials (and steel and gemstones) you have used to forge it, and this might provide you with part (or all) of the materials you were lacking.
Shop | Description | Building Block Quantity | Shop Credits |
---|---|---|---|
Alchemist's Corner | Cerussite, Pine, Bronze or Animal Hide | 15 | 560 |
Spirit Altar and Store | Cerussite, Pine, Bronze or Animal Hide | 1 | 2 |
Trial Shop | Cerussite, Pine, Bronze or Animal Hide | 1 | 7 |
I am trying to keep this as correct and complete as possible, but if you notice any mistakes or missing information, please let me know by leaving a comment below.