Advanced Honing System Guide
Last Updated:June 4, 2025|Changelog
Advanced Honing is a system that increases your character's item level and your power through raw stats. Just like traditional honing, it interacts with the same materials, but it has a different structure. It is not meant to be a significant power increase like Transcendence or Elixirs, instead providing an easier way to increase your item level.
It is important to note that this system has no interactions with traditional honing, which keeps the current levels you have and remains available regardless of Advanced Honing progress.
This guide assumes you are already familiar with the basics of traditional honing. If you need to learn about that first, check out our Gear Honing Guide.
Unlocking the System & Materials
These are the materials you will be using when interacting with this system:
- Agris's Scale
- Used to temper gear, unlocking levels 1 - 10.
- Acquired directly from the
Echidna Kazeros Raid (Normal Mode).
- Alcaone's Eye
- Used to temper gear, unlocking levels 11 - 20.
- Acquired directly from the Echidna Kazeros Raid (Hard Mode).
- Thundercrack Horn
- Used to temper gear, unlocking levels 21 - 30.
- Acquired directly from the Mordum Kazeros Raid (Normal Mode).
- Thunder Globe
- Used to temper gear, unlocking levels 31 - 40.
- Acquired directly from the Mordum Kazeros Raid (Hard Mode).
As mentioned before, each gear piece must be tempered before you can hone that item. This process is similar to filling the Honor Shard requirement in traditional honing, with the main difference being that you only need to do it once per 10 honing levels.
- Armors require 12x materials to temper for level 1 - 20, or 24x materials for level 21 - 40.
- Weapons require 30x materials to temper, or 60x materials for level 21 - 40..
- Alcaone's Eye can be used as a substitute for Agris's Scale at a 1:2 ratio. The same is true for Thunder Globe and Thundercrack Horn.
Honing Interface & Progression
Unlike traditional honing, this system has a fixed progress bar instead of a varying chance to succeed the enhancement. Once the bar reaches 100 points, the hone is successful. The aim of this change is to greatly reduce the variance between successfully honing within a few attempts and reaching pity. Each successful hone adds 1 item level to that piece, resulting in a maximum of 20 item levels gained from this system.
Each attempt has a chance to increase the progress for that level by 10, 20, or 40 points. This chance can be influenced by using a specific amount of Solar Grace, Solar Blessing, Solar Protection, and Artisan's Tailoring: Level 1.
Ancestor's Grace
Every six attempts, your next try will have an additional effect, picked at random. This is represented by the six Protection Orbs in the top right corner of the interface. There are four effects available:
- The progress gained this attempt is multiplied by 5.
- The progress gained this attempt is multiplied by 3.
- Gain an additional 30 progress and restore Ancestor's Grace.
- Gain an additional 10 progress and no materials will be consumed for the next attempt.
- This only affects regular materials. Solar materials will be consumed as usual, and can be deselected during this free attempt.
Because of how powerful these enhanced effects are, it's recommended to use all available Solar materials on the attempts where they are applied.
Effects
As of late-2024, every 5 levels of Advanced Honing achieved for a gear piece will reward you with stats equal to the amount you would gain from the next regular hone for that item. This effectively means that Advanced Honing has dynamic stat gains, but will always be equal to regular honing, so you only have to worry about cost.
Costs & Efficiency
Besides the reduced variance for success, one of the main benefits of this system is the reduced cost, allowing you to increase your item level more easily than traditional honing would. The following costs are just an approximated estimate, and do not include any Solar materials. Your real experience with the system will vary.
| Level 1 - 10 | ||||||
| Armors | x307,500 x167,700 | x1,230 x671 | x53,200 x27,955 | x1,005 x839 | x53,150 | |
| Weapon | x503,200 x280,000 | x1,565 x895 | x55,950 x33,545 | x1,675 x1,398 | x62,900 | |
| Total | x2,040,700 x1,118,000 | x7,715 x4,250 | x266,000 x139,775 | x55,950 x33,545 | x6,700 x5,593 | x328,650 |
| Level 11 - 20 | ||||||
| Armors | x615,000 x335,500 | x1,565 x895 | x72,685 x50,320 | x1,120 x895 | x100,640 | |
| Weapon | x950,500 x559,000 | x2,015 x1,230 | x89,500 x61,500 | x1,845 x1,510 | x140,000 | |
| Total | x4,025,500 x2,237,000 | x9,840 x5,705 | x363,425 x251,600 | x89,500 x61,500 | x7,445 x5,985 | x643,200 |
| Total 1 - 20 | x6,066,200 x3,355,000 | x17,555 x9,955 | x629,425 x391,375 | x145,450 x95,100 | x14,145 x11,580 | x971,850 |
Solar materials are very efficient in this system, and will greatly reduce the costs presented above if used well. The costs include both values in Tier 3 (top) and Tier 4 (bottom), but only materials from one tier may be used on the piece, depending on the tier of the item (i.e. you cannot mix T3 and T4 materials).
For a more detailed breakdown or values for levels 21 - 40, check out our Honing Calculator.
Unlock Order
This depends largely on your current goals for each specific character, and their current item level.
- If your aim is to increase your power, you should focus on the Weapon first, as it provides the most damage.
- If your aim is to increase item level in order to access new content, you should take a more balanced approach, honing all gear equally.
Echidna Raid Rewards
| Normal Mode (1620 Item Level) | |||
| Gate Progress | Gate 1 | Gate 2 | Total |
| Gold Reward | 5,000 | 9,500 | 14,500 |
| Bonus Loot Cost | 2,200 | 3,400 | 5,600 |
| Materials | 3x Agris's Scale | 6x Agris's Scale | 9x Agris's Scale |
| Bonus Loot Materials | 3x Agris's Scale | 6x Agris's Scale | 9x Agris's Scale |
| Hard Mode (1630 Item Level) | |||
| Gate Progress | Gate 1 | Gate 2 | Total |
| Gold Reward | 6,000 | 12,500 | 18,500 |
| Bonus Loot Cost | 2,800 | 4,100 | 6,900 |
| Materials | 3x Alcaone's Eye | 6x Alcaone's Eye | 9x Alcaone's Eye |
| Bonus Loot Materials | 3x Alcaone's Eye | 6x Alcaone's Eye | 9x Alcaone's Eye |
There is a first clear reward of 10x Agris's Scale.
A chest containing 5x Agris's Scale or 5x Alcaone's Eye is available on auction at the end of Gate 2.
Mordum Raid Rewards
| Normal Mode (1680 Item Level) | ||||
| Gate Progress | Gate 1 | Gate 2 | Gate 3 | Total |
| Gold Reward | 6,000 | 9,500 | 12,500 | 28,000 |
| Bonus Loot Cost | 2,400 | 3,200 | 4,200 | 9,800 |
| Materials | 3x Thundercrack Horn | 5x Thundercrack Horn | 10x Thundercrack Horn | 18x Thundercrack Horn |
| Bonus Loot Materials | 3x Thundercrack Horn | 5x Thundercrack Horn | 10x Thundercrack Horn | 18x Thundercrack Horn |
| Hard Mode (1700 Item Level) | ||||
| Gate Progress | Gate 1 | Gate 2 | Gate 3 | Total |
| Gold Reward | 7,000 | 11,000 | 20,000 | 38,000 |
| Bonus Loot Cost | 2,700 | 4,100 | 5,800 | 12,600 |
| Materials | 3x Thunder Globe | 6x Thunder Globe | 10x Thunder Globe | 18x Thunder Globe |
| Bonus Loot Materials | 3x Thunder Globe | 6x Thunder Globe | 10x Thunder Globe | 18x Thunder Globe |
There is a first clear reward of 20x Thundercrack Horn.
A chest containing 10x Thundercrack Horn or 10x Thunder Globe is available on auction at the end of Gate 3.
Summary
- Clear Kazeros Raid: Echidna and Kazeros Raid: Mordum to obtain tempering materials.
- Visit the
Gear Honing NPC in any major city. - Use the raid materials to temper your gear.
- Hone to obtain item levels and stats!
Credits
Written by Raeinor
Reviewed by Perciculum