How does stat scaling improve with enchantment?

Question

According to the various wikis, when you "reinforce" a weapon in Dark Souls (enchant it, really) the stat scaling improves somehow. However, after checking weapon pages, the actual stat scaling "class" doesn't seem to improve - for instance, a dagger with class A dexterity scaling will still have class A dexterity scaling if you enchant it into a dagger + 1, though it does improve base damage. (And it looks like some ascensions will change stat scaling, but I'm not at that point yet)

So, this means that the bonus you get from stat scaling must improve somehow. Has anyone figured out what the equation is for this?

(I'm primarily asking because my current sword, the Drake's Tail Sword, has high base damage but doesn't scale at all, and I want to know when to replace it.)

Answer 1

You are correct in saying that stat scaling doesn't really improve at all, beyond a minor improvement from ascensions (a sword might go from E --> D for example). In general, the stat classes that each weapon has in the game won't change much, even after being ascended fully.

Compared to Demon's Souls, upgrading a weapon to its max in Dark Souls provides less benefit because of this.

The bonus damage from stat scaling does increase for +n weapons, albeit it's a minor, linear increase (for example, a Battle Axe from +0 to +2 made its bonus damage from stats go +20->+22->+24). Thanks Tacroy

If you need to know when to replace your Drake's Sword, I would say get rid of it when you have high enough stats in one of the "damage" stats (Strength/Dexterity/Faith) and you have an adequate amount of resources to reinforce a scaling weapon to its max.