Archeage Items Guide. Crafting, Regrading, Tempering and Socketing Lunagems

Crafting Weapons and Armor


Check out the folio (default O key) to learn what components are needed to craft any item. For armor and weapons there are 9 tiers currently and a 10th one that should become available later.


1.Apprentice
2.Craftsman
3.Artificer
4.Artisan
5.Conqueror
6.Illustrious
7.Magnificent
8.Epherium
9.Delphinad
10.Ayanad (Not available Currently)



To make the next higher tier of item you need the previous tier item as one of the ingredients. Up until tier 6 this is very straightforward. When you make the tier 6 item (Illustrious) it creates a seal rather than an item itself. The seal is a package that you open like the quest reward armor/weapon pieces to see what actual item you received. From these seal items can come one of a number of different  items (4 or 7 depending on tier) each with different stat combinations. More importantly only one of the variants at each level is the correct precursor weapon to build the next tier. You can see what the name of the correct variant is by looking at the ingredients for the next tier. For example with Greatclubs the name of the correct item always contains the word "Sunset": Magnificent Sunset Greatclub.



So if you make a Magnificent Wave Greatclub you cannot upgrade that item further and have to restart from scratch if you want to go further. You can also combine several un-upgradeable items of a level to reroll one new item that may or may not be upgradeable. I'm not sure if this takes 3 or 4 items. Currently with the way the economy is you are better off selling the item and starting over then doing this though.



Each time you craft the next tier you have a chance to upgrade the rarity of the item one level from the item you put in. This chance is dependent on the crafting level of your crafter. The chance of this seems to be pretty low. When crafting new armor or weapons from scratch it makes sense to craft tier 2 over and over until you get a rare quality item to use as your base for crafting tier 3. Tier 2 is the first time you can craft a rare quality item and after tier 2 regrading is cheaper than getting the materials again for tiers 1, 2 and 3 multiple times. See regrading later in this guide. For some reason I find tier 2 rares can often be bought cheaper on the AH then they can be made. This may be a short term phenomenon due to the amount of people leveling their crafting right now.


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Regrading


What is Regrading?

If you are new to the game you may have heard the term ‘regrade’ or seen the ‘Regrade Item’ button on your inventory interface and wondered what it was. In this article I will try and explain regrading and how it will be a factor of your game play. I have tried to simplify this as much as possible because it is quite a complex system and this is intended for people who have very little to no information on the subject.

Regrading is the process of increasing the grade of items. Increasing the grade grants a further bonus of all properties. Weapons, armor and accessories that can be Regraded will show "Regrade Available" in orange text at the top of the item information.



As you can see from this picture, the item in Archeage has standard color quality system. And the Regrading system aim to allow you to have a chance to upgrade items’ current rarity to higher tier of rarity.



While, the Regrading wouldn’t guarantee succeed. The possible outcomes of Archeage Regrading as follow:

Success – Item’s grade increased by 1.
Great Success – Item’s grade increased by 2.
Failure – Item’s grade have not changed.
Major Failure – Item’s grade reduced by 1 or 2.
Catastrophic Failure – The item got destroyed during the process.


The base chance for success is estimated to be 30% but there are methods to increase this which will be covered later. The chances of a great failure are nothing to worry about at the start, this doesn’t come into the equation unless the gear is Heroic level quality or higher. Heroic quality and higher gear also has a degrade chance which will reduce the grade of an item, an example being your item could go from Heroic to Rare. It is random but it is nothing to get frustrated over, it is just how gear works in the game – you always have a target to reach.

According to my personal subjective experience, there is a list below of what can occur at what rarities, and my perceived percentage.


Grand > Rare - Success 30%, Failure 70%
Rare > Arcane - Success 30%, Failure 70%
Arcane > Heroic - Success 25%, Failure 75%
Heroic > Unique - Success 20%, Failure 30%, Major Failure 50%
Unique > Celestial - Success 10%, Failure 10%, Major Failure (1 grade) 20%, Major Failure (2 grades) 60%
Celestial > Divine - Success 5%, Failure 5%, Major Failure 5%, Catastrophic Failure 85%


What Materials Do I Need?

The materials required to regrade an item depend on the type of item you want to regrade. You will need to craft either a Weapon Regrade Scroll, an Armor Regrade Scroll or an Accessory Regrade Scroll.

Each scroll requires a different gem to craft.

•Weapon Regrade Scroll – 1 Sunpoint and 1 Blank Regrade Scroll
•Armor Regrade Scroll – 1 Moonpoint and 1 Blank Regrade Scroll
•Accessory Regrade Scroll – 1 Starpoint and 1 Blank Regrade Scroll

Each gem can be purchased on the auction house if you have money to spend, otherwise you can grind it from monsters in the library. They drop coin purses that can be opened and there is a chance to have a gem in it. Currently in game in the crafting menu you can click on each gem and it shows a cost of 5 Loyalty Tokens so I am not sure whether or not this is a plan for patron accounts in future.

Blank Regrade Scrolls are crafted at a Paper Press, found in large cities. To craft one Blank Regrade Scroll you require:
•10x Paper
•1x Dawn Lake Light Essence
•1x Blue Salt Hammer

Paper can also be crafted at a Paper Press. You need 1x Lumber and 1x Blue Salt Wedge to craft 2x Paper. Dawn Lake Light Essence is acquired from extracting the oil from fish. You either need 3x rare fish, 20x uncommon fish or 100x common fish to make one Dawn Lake Light Essence. For more information on fishing, you can refer to our fishing guide. The Blue Salt Hammer can be purchased from a general merchant for 1 gold. Once you have the materials for the type of regrade scroll you want you can craft it at a Printing Press.


How Do I Regade?

Once you have your regrade scroll crafted and decided upon an item to regrade you can begin the process.

Open your inventory and click on the Regrade Item button, located next to the sort button, and you will be presented with this user interface.



As you can see there are 3 slots. The Regrade Item slot is where you place the item you wish to regrade. The Magic Scroll slot is where you place your regrade scroll. The Regrade Item and Magic Scroll slots are mandatory to attempt a regrade. The Regrade Charm slot is optional and you can place an item in it to boost your chance of success.

Regrade Charms are available from the in-game store but may be found on the auction house if people are selling them. There are currently four different Regrade Charms available on the store at different price points.

•Green Regrade Charm – Costs 150 Credits. Increases regrade success chance by 75%. Only for Arcane gear.
•Blue Regrade Charm – Costs 200 Credits. Increases regrade success chance by 75%. Only for Heroic gear.
•Yellow Regrade Charm – Costs 600 Credits. Increases regrade success chance by 50%. Only for Unique gear or lower.
•Superior Yellow Regrade Charm – Costs 2000 Credits. Increases regrade success chance by 50%.  For all grades of gear.

Please note that the increase is not a total increase. It does not turn your 30% in to an 80% chance of success, it increases the base success rate by the stated amount. So a base success of 30% with a 50% regrade charm will give you a new success rate of 45% so you can still easily fail the regrade. This needs to be mentioned because there has been a lot of confusion with the regrade charms and the tooltips may mislead some people.



Time to Regade!

Okay so you have come this far, now we can actually begin the process of regrading your items. Once you have opened your Regrade UI and dragged your item in, your regrade scroll and an optional regrade charm your UI will look something like this.




As you can see there is also a gold cost included with the regrade process, this amount is dependent on the item you are regrading and its quality. The most important part of this picture is the table above the gold cost that details the success chance, destruction chance and degrade chance.



At first glance you would say that this table showing the chances for success or destruction/degrade doesn’t give you much information, if any at all. The key to reading this is actually in the color. On this particular scenario the destruction and degrade chance are Blue. This indicates that it is not possible for this item to be destroyed or degraded during the regrade process because it is too low quality already, it is a Grand quality item. The success chance isn’t particular special because it will always have the chance for success.

Once I had a Yellow Regrade Charm the success chance icon changes to the following to reflect the fact that I now have an increased chance of success.



As mentioned this is a Grand quality item so it doesn’t have a chance to be destroyed or degraded. If this was a Heroic or higher quality item then the degrade chance would be shown in Red instead of Blue to notify you of the fact that it could be downgraded in quality. If the item is Unique or above then the destruction chance will also show in Red to tell you that there is a chance that the item could be destroyed entirely.

Once you are ready to regrade, press the Enchant button at the bottom of the UI. Now on my first attempt on this item I actually failed, even with the added 50% success chance from the Yellow Regrade Charm.



So since my item was Grand and it failed there was no change from the outcome with the exception that I have one less Accessory Regrade Scroll and Yellow Regrade Scroll in my possession. I tried it once again with another Yellow Regrade Charm and I got lucky so the regrade was a success. The item was upgraded from Grand to Rare and the stats also increased to be at the level of a Rare quality item.




I believe that pretty much covers the regrade system. I hope this information has helped you in some way because I know that I had great difficulty understanding the system when it was first introduced. Just remember that failure is a part of the system so don’t get frustrated, just try and try again.

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Tempering

What is Tempering?

Tempering is used to reroll an item's basic stats by a random amount, up to a 109% increase. The weapon stats affected are physical attack, magic attack and healing power. The armor stats affected are physical and magic defense. When you Temper an item, it will change these stats by a random percentage.


Which items can be Tempered?

Any piece of gear that can be Tempered will show “Tempering Available” at the top of the item information. If a piece of gear does not show this, it cannot be Tempered.

How do I Temper an item?

To Temper an item, you will need an item that can be Tempered and a Tempering Burnish. The Tempering Burnish can be found in the Marketplace. Once you have both the Tempering Burnish and the item you wish to Temper, use the Tempering Burnish and select the item you wish to Temper .





What if I don’t like the stats?

Once an item is Tempered, it cannot be Tempered again. If you do not like the stats that the item now has, you can purchase a Tempering Flux: Armor or Tempering Flux: Weapon from the Marketplace. Use the Tempering Flux on the Tempered item and it will reset the modified basic stats to their default stat values, allowing the item to be Tempered again.




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Lunagems/Lunastones


Lunagems and Lunastones are lost upon regrading an item. Lunagems and Lunastones have restrictions on their placement. For instance they will say 1-handed weapon, 2-handed weapon or feet slot.

Only one Lunastone can be applied to an item. These are generally more powerful than lunagems. If you see an item with green text between the last stat and the start of the lunagem slots then this is the effect from an applied lunastone. You can replace an existing lunastone with another. This destroys the previous lunastone. Lunastones come primarily from alchemists but there area also really nice ones that come from the honor vendor.


The casting time reduction in the red box in this screenshot is the effect from a lunastone. The blue box shows where the lunagems go.



Lunagems are made by handicrafters and also come from the honor vendor. The number of lunagem slots an item has is a function of item type (chest, legs, etc...) and the rarity.  The first lunagem applied automatically succeeds and all those after have a chance to destroy all lunagems in the item. I have read that you can use a Dawnstone from the general merchant to remove lunagems but have never done this myself.

You can get to the lunagem/lunastone socketing Ui by pressing the regrade button in your inventory and going to the lunagem and lunastone tabs.