You'll need to really watch your resources early on since maxing everything takes serious planning. The guardian shield starts opening up upgrades as you progress through the story, and specialty rönds like nine realms unlock when you're deeper in. Your best window for gathering those rare materials is right after beating main bosses - they drop crucial upgrade components, and you'll want to hit those muspelheim trials hard once they're available. The timing on resource gathering is pretty specific here

Look for those glowing legendary chests in each realm when you get the right traversal abilities, and definitely farm the niflheim maze runs when they unlock since they're great for dust of realms. The real key moment is beating valkyrie queen gna, who drops some essential components you'll need for those higher-tier upgrades. Keep an eye on your hacksilver reserves too - selling duplicate gear at the dwarven shops helps a ton when you're pushing those final upgrades

For the most efficient path, focus your early resources on your favorite shield setup first since materials are pretty tight at the start. The late-game cleanup is where you'll get those final rare materials needed for full optimization - just make sure you're hitting all the favors and trials since they're critical for maxing everything out. Expect to sink about 60-80 hours if you're going for complete optimization, especially when hunting down those fortified remnants and luminous alloy drops