I have never used an ego before in playing mabinogi. How much of a hassle are they to raise? I heard they cost a lot of hours and money to take care of and are high maintenance. Is that true? I am wondering if that effort is worth the effort so I avoided an ego. Also, I decided to switch weapons to high min damage weapons. Isn't it better that I do this for now TILL I reach end-game and can afford balance enchants and an EGO?
I think that might make more sense, because taking high-max weapons in early game when I don't have the equipment to compensate for it, makes dungeon raids take forever against stronger enemies. I switched to knuckles and other weapons with better min damage and I am not suffering as much anymore.
After a point, you won't need balance enchants to reach 80% balance on weapons. The better blunts for giants are around 30% balance anyway (I think) and don't require too much dex to hit 80% from there. Refine should do a large chunk of it (9%) with 17% more coming from CM rank 1 (dex included). That leaves you around 56%. That's 24% balance from 80 which is 96 dex. Weaving, while hell, can get you another 43dex, and metalurgy (you'll most likely rank this for refine anyway) another 11, and prod mastery for your stamina will get you another 17. That's only 25 more dex you need to hit the cap and that can come from other skills and leveling with ease.
That said, it might be better for you to focus on your combat a bit and use better min dmg weapons.
As for an ego, I don't really know on pro. Someone would have to tell you if the new gem powders are any good or not, at speeding up the process a bit. Other than that, I'd say Ego's are slow and boring to raise. They also can't be blessed and lose dura a bit fast (Unless that was changed bless wise, don't know). Only a few weapons are even worth egoing, but they do pack a huge punch!