I once posted about "Multiplied Equipment from Smith's Reforge" (https://lemmy.world/post/9169425), which have been patched in the latest update and I'm fine with that (tho maxing RoW in a farming run become so much harder now). What's unfortunate IMO is that now cursed (but identified) equipment also can't be selected for an Upgrade reward from Smith. I always consider Smith's Upgrade reward as another SoU, and you can apply SoU to a cursed equipment with some chance to remove the curse. So is it possible to revert some of the patch to let player still select cursed equipment for Smith's Upgrade reward?
PS. Far from the best in Engrish, hope this post is understandable and not offensive.
Most of the time I use smith's reward on late game armor. So I think as a warden (with barkskin) it's just at the right time considering a +1 mail are enough for cave yet I personally need late game armor for the city.
I usually take the ghost leather armor and use that until right around the blacksmith, when I dump all of my SoE into plate. That's really the only strategy that has worked for me so far. This run I'm trying scale on a huntress since I was going to die if I didn't upgrade my armor. We'll see how it goes. But I was saving another scale so I could do the transmute option with the BS, and I never found a scroll of identify the whole run up to that point.
Edit: it didn't work. I died at floor 24, with no healing potions, no dew, and no food.
Try to use explosives (bomb, trap, stone) to determine whether an equipment have any upgrade (it'll survive explosion if it does). If you got a remove curse ready you should find at least +1 mail quite often.
I usually need that gear to sell. I suppose I wouldn't need to sell as much stuff for healing potions if I had better armor earlier. I'll try that next run. Thanks!