Advanced Honing System Guide

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.

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).
• Honor Shard
• Radiant Honor Leapstone
• Refined Obliteration Stone
• Refined Protection Stone
• Prime Oreha Fusion Material
• Solar Grace
• Solar Blessing
• Solar Protection
• Gold
• Silver

As mentioned before, each gear piece must be tempered using Agris's Scale or Alcaone's Eye 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 Agris's Scale or Alcaone's Eye to temper.
• Weapons require 30x Agris's Scale or Alcaone's Eye to temper.
• Alcaone's Eye can be used as a substitute for Agris's Scale at a 1:2 ratio.

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, and Solar Protection.

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

The value for armor pieces is measured in STR/DEX/INT, while for weapons it is measured in Weapon Power. All armor pieces provide defensive stats as well, but only the offensive stats are measured. Here are the effects your character can receive from this system:

Costs & Efficiency

Besides the reduced variance for success, one of the main benefits of this system is the reduced cost, allowing you to reach item level 1630 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.

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. This is recommended for characters above item level 1630.
• 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. This is recommended for characters under item level 1630.

Echidna Raid Rewards

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.

Additionally, Agris's Scale and Alcaone's Eye can also be exchanged at the raid vendor for rewards.

Item		Cost	Requirement	Limit
	Desire Growth Material Chest	10x Agris's Scale
	Desire Growth Material Chest	5x Alcaone's Eye
	Echidna, Master of Desire (Jukebox Song)	15x Alcaone's Eye	Snake's Tears Achievement (1 clear)	1 per roster
	Mount: Wings of Longing	40x Alcaone's Eye	Snake's Tears Achievement (1 clear)	1 per roster
	Echidna Emoticon Pack	30x Alcaone's Eye	Snake's Tears Achievement (1 clear)	1 per roster
	Metallurgy: Welding Compound (Metallurgy: Welding Compound x1)	8x Alcaone's Eye		1 per week
	Metallurgy: Professional Welding (Metallurgy: Professional Welding x1)	4x Alcaone's Eye		1 per week
	Tailoring: Mending Compound (Tailoring: Mending Compound x1)	2x Alcaone's Eye		5 per week
	Tailoring: Professional Mending (Tailoring: Professional Mending x1)	1x Alcaone's Eye		5 per week
	Metallurgy: Professional Welding (Metallurgy: Professional Welding x1)	8x Agris's Scale		1 per week
	Tailoring: Professional Mending (Tailoring: Professional Mending x1)	2x Agris's Scale		5 per week

Summary

• Clear Kazeros Raid: Echidna to obtain Agris's Scale and Alcaone's Eye.
• Visit the Gear Honing NPC in any major city.
• Use Agris's Scale and Alcaone's Eye to temper your gear.
• Hone to obtain item levels and stats!

Credits

Written by Raeinor
Reviewed by Perciculum