Lost Ark Gear Honing Guide

What is Gear Honing?

Gear Honing is the system that lets players upgrade their equipment to vertically progress in Lost Ark. Unlike any other traditional MMORPGs, when you fail equipment, they might get downgraded or even destroyed, but in Lost Ark, it's totally different. They have a pity system called Artisian's Energy that gives you a chance to have a 100% success rate at a specific attempt. Gear honing can be done easily by talking to Gear Upgrade NPCs throughout Arkesia.

Gear Honing uses a few materials found in Chaos Dungeon, Abyssal Raid, and Guardian Raid. Using these materials will let you upgrade your gear to a maximum Honing Level of +20-25. Do note that in the early stage of the game (Tier 1-2), you only need +15 in all equipment to unlock further content. In this guide, I'll teach you how to hone your gears efficiently.

Steps in Honing in Lost Ark

There are various steps in upgrading your gears; if you follow this correctly, you will be alright.

1. Find a Gear Honing NPC in the town. (You can easily locate him by finding the hammer icon on your map)
2. Interact with the NPC and press Gear Honing.
3. Choose a piece of equipment on the left-hand side to upgrade.
4. Fill the XP Gauge by using Shards and Silver
5. (Optional) Add Success Chance Materials such as Star's Breath, Moon's Breath, Blessings, or Honing Books.

Note: Success Chance Materials are optional but increase your chance of succeeding on your gears. Moreover, this helps fill the Artisan's Energy faster, making your upgrade easier in the long run.

What Gears Should I Prioritize?

In Lost Ark, different gear slots provide different bonuses to one's class, so you must know which gear you should prioritize before upgrading. It's also important to note that all gears have a 100% success rate until +6 and start getting harder past this point. Prioritizing your gear will yield you the most bonuses for your role while you upgrade your item level (iLVL).

For DPS classes such as Sorceress or Shadowhunter, you must prioritize upgrading your Weapon, Gloves, and Pauldron in the following order. Meanwhile, it's extremely important to prioritize your chest piece, pants, and helm if you're a support class like a Paladin or Bard. This is because weapons, gloves, and pauldrons provide additional Atk. Power while the chest piece, pants, and helm provide HP (Health Points) that improve their healing and shield capability.

Note: Save your Success Chance Materials in Tier 3 for your weapon since this part is the most expensive and harder to upgrade. Only use this once you're upgrading past +15.

What is Artisan's Energy?

When upgrading your gear, each tap or attempt will cost you a set of materials, gold and even silver. This cost depends on the level of your item and only changes once you successfully tap it. However, each unsuccessful attempt will grant you a percentage of Artisan's Energy. This energy allows you to have a guaranteed success after you reach 100%. Consider this a pity system in the game, which makes upgrading equipment less punishable compared to some games, such as Black Dessert Online, where once you fail, the item is completely gone.

Note: The Artisan's Energy will reset back to 0% when upgrading your gear successfully.

What is Gear Transfer?

Upon interacting with one of the Gear Honing NPC, you will come across another menu called 'Gear Transfer'. This process is known as 'soft reset,' which means transferring your progression to a new piece of gear. For example, you reached 600 iLVL and wanted to progress to tier 2 equipment. You need to transfer your tier 1 gears to tier 2 to start honing again from +0-15. This is mandatory since you won't be able to progress vertically if you don't do this step.

Tip: If you're tier 3 and above and you will get your legendary gear, make sure to transfer your Skill Tree to your inventory before using Gear Transfer. This way, you will be able to retain the level of your tripods when transferring your gear to a higher tier.

What Are Honing Materials?

Two types of honing materials in the game are Bound and Unbound. Bound means you can't sell these materials and make a profit, while Unbound materials will let you list them in the auction house. These honing materials are:

XP Shards: These shards grant item XP that will enable you to hone a specific item. Moreover, these shards are consumed per honing attempt.

Honing Stones: These stones have two variants: the Destruction (Red) and Guardian (Blue) Stone. The Destruction Stone is the most expensive honing stone and can only be used for a Weapon upgrade. While the Guardian Stone can be used for your Armor.

Leapstones: This is why Lost Ark is a time-gated RPG since you will have a limited amount of this material in the game. People pushing their main or alternate characters buy these materials for a price.

Fusion Materials: These materials are needed when you're in tier 2 and tier 3.

Where Can I Farm Honing Materials?

You need to clear various content daily/weekly to make the most of the materials you can farm.

Chaos Dungeon

Unbound Honing Stones can be found here as well as other bound materials like XP shards, leapstones, and silver.

Guardian Raid

This raid drops Unbound leapstones that you can sell or use later. On top of that, it also provides Unbound Honing Stones and accessories.

Chaos Gate

This is one of the activities that will give you a chance to get a Secret Map that allows you to enter a dungeon that will drop Unbound Success Chance Materials and XP Shards.

Abyssal Dungeon

Abyssal Dungeon only drops bound materials after you clear the dungeon and buy the chest. It's always worth it to buy the chest for its price.

Boss Rush

This optional activity yields 30-50 Bound leapstones per week. Remember to activate your Weekly Una's Task before entering this dungeon.

Cube

Another Optional activity that can both provide success chance materials and engraving books.

Crafting

You will need to craft your Fusion Materials by spending a lot of time farming life-skill materials obtained through Fishing, Hunting, or Excavation. This is also a good source of passive income that will yield you about 1000-3000 gold daily.

Conclusion

Overall, Gear Honing System in Lost Ark requires time and patience, especially in the later content of the game. It could be frustrating or rewarding to some players since it's purely RNG. I've spent most of my time questioning how would 80% success rate could fail like 5x and reach Artisan's Energy. As a veteran Lost Ark player, remember: It's always 50-50 regardless of the success rate unless you reach pity.