Gear and upgrades
Where your gear comes from, in what order, and what is worth spending on — written for the 5.0 build this server actually runs.
If you read nothing else
- Do not invest in levelling gear. At 8× EXP you outgrow every piece before it matters, so tempering or regrading it is wasted. Replacing it is another story — see the level-20s gap.
- At 50, get into Hiram Guardian gear. It is the ladder 5.0 is built around: it upgrades with materials rather than crafting luck, and it is the only route that reaches endgame from a standing start.
- Push grade first, temper second. Grade is a flat multiplier on every stat the piece has, and it is the gate on moving up the Hiram ladder. Tempering is the long tail you chip away at forever.
- Tempering is safe. Regrading is not. A temper can never break your item. A regrade past Unique can destroy it outright.
The path, level 1 to endgame
Gearing in 5.0 is one long loop rather than a series of separate sets. This is the whole shape of it, in order:
- Level 1–19 — wear what the game gives you
The early questlines hand out gear steadily. Do not regrade it and do not temper it — you will replace it in a couple of hours. Bank your gold and your Labor.
- Level 20–29 — the gap, and how to get through it
Quest rewards thin out badly through the twenties on this build, and this is where most new players get stuck: the story stops replacing your gear, but the mobs keep scaling. This is not you doing something wrong. Fill the gap from drops, the auction house and crafted pieces rather than waiting for a quest to hand you something — and check the stats page first, because wearing the wrong attribute for your skillsets is the other thing that makes this stretch feel impossible.
- Level 30–50 — quest gear picks back up
Rewards become plentiful again from the thirties on. Keep coasting on them; still do not invest in anything you are about to outgrow.
- Level 50 — the handoff
Hiram Guardian gear is level-50 equipment, and this is where gearing genuinely starts. The cap here is 55, and the last five levels are slow, so most players are still levelling while they build their first Hiram set. That is normal — do both at once.
- Grade every Hiram piece to Celestial
This is the step new players skip. A Hiram Guardian piece cannot be awakened until it is Celestial or better, so grade is not a nice-to-have — it is the gate. Feed the piece infusions to raise it.
- Awaken to Radiant, grade to Divine, awaken to Brilliant
Each awakening moves the piece onto the next tier, and drops its grade by two steps on the way — an Arcane piece comes back Grand. That is not a failure and you have not broken anything: the new tier's base is far higher, so the equipment points go up even as the grade colour goes down. Then you grade it back up. Radiant needs Divine to awaken again.
- Temper in the background, forever
Tempering runs on its own track and never interferes with the above. The first seventeen points carry no failure penalty at all, so there is no reason not to be doing it whenever you have the Labor spare.
- Endgame — Erenor
Above Hiram sits Erenor, fed by infusions you get from salvaging world-boss drops. This is a long way out; nobody needs to plan for it on day one.
Not sure which stats your gear should carry? That is the stats page, and which weapon and armour your skillsets want is the classes page.
Following a guide written for Classic or 3.0?
Most ArcheAge guides on the internet were written for 3.0 / Classic, and their gearing advice does not apply here. This server runs 5.0.7.0, which replaced the entire progression those guides describe. If a guide tells you to:
- grind Hasla weapons, or farm Greater Howling Abyss for a gear set;
- build Obsidian gear through T1 → T4, evenstoning Ayanad pieces for Mana Wisps;
- chase Serpentis, Library or Ayanad gear as your progression route;
- upgrade Explorer's Gear with Equipment Awakening Scrolls Rank 1, 2 and 3 (that one is from ArcheAge Unchained — neither that gear nor those scrolls exists on this build, so no vendor is hiding them from you);
…then it is describing a version of the game that 5.0 retired. Those items still exist in the client, which is exactly why the advice looks plausible — but they are not the ladder any more. Hiram is.
The class half of those guides ages far better than the gear half: role archetypes, which armour each build wants, and most skillset pairings still hold. It is specifically the gear routes and the upgrade economy that changed. See also the retired materials below.
What to wear
Gear score is not the whole story. A piece only pays off if its stats feed the damage your skills actually do — see the stats page for why an Intelligence caster gains nothing from stacking Strength.
| Armour | What it gives you | Who wears it |
|---|---|---|
| Cloth | Move speed, and reduced casting delay when you are hit | Sorcery, Occultism, Malediction, Vitalism — anything that casts |
| Leather | Evasion, and extra range on every bow skill | Archery and Shadowplay builds |
| Plate | The highest raw defence | Battlerage and Defense — tanks and melee |
Weapon type matters against players too: piercing and crushing weapons deal bonus damage to plate, and slashing weapons deal bonus damage to leather.
- Melee: a two-hander for damage, or a one-hander and shield if you are holding the front line. Strength gear.
- Archer: bow in the ranged slot with a one-hander or dagger for the stats. Agility gear.
- Caster: staff, or scepter and shield if you want to survive being focused. Intelligence gear.
- Healer: scepter and shield, Spirit gear. Spirit drives healing power the way Intelligence drives spell damage.
- Mixing sets is normal. Two pieces of a set for the bonus plus higher-grade pieces elsewhere often beats a full set of lower-grade gear.
The Hiram ladder
Hiram is the gear line 5.0 is built around. You upgrade a piece by feeding it infusions (synthesis material) until its grade is high enough, then awaken it with a scroll to move it onto the next tier. The three tiers on this server are:
| Tier | Awakens with | Requires |
|---|---|---|
| Hiram Guardian | Hiram Awakening Scroll | The piece must be Celestial grade or higher |
| Radiant Hiram Guardian | Radiant Hiram Awakening Scroll | The piece must be Divine grade or higher |
| Brilliant Hiram Guardian | — top tier — | Awakened from a Divine-or-better Radiant piece |
Each awakening unlocks higher item grades and better synthesis effects on that piece, so the ladder is grade → awaken → grade again, not a single jump.
What awakening actually does to the item
The Gear Upgrade window shows you the whole trade before you commit, and the numbers look alarming the first time. Reading it left to right:
- Equipment Points go up. This is the real result — the piece is replaced by its next-tier version, which has a much higher base.
- Rank drops by two grades. Arcane comes back as Grand, Celestial as Arcane. This is normal and it is not a failure. The grade is a multiplier on a bigger number now, and you re-grade it with infusions afterwards.
- Tempering carries over, except that a piece above +20 can lose up to two points — never dropping below +20.
- Crystallization is the only genuinely bad outcome, and the window tells you the chance up front. If it shows a cross, there is no risk on that attempt.
Protecting your work
- A successful awakening can knock a piece tempered above +20 down by up to 2 tempering points — but it will never drop it below +20.
- Sacred Hiram Awakening Scrolls (Hiram Guardian tier) and Blessed Hiram Awakening Scrolls (Radiant tier) are the upgraded versions, made with a Runescribe Quill. They raise the success chance, protect the item from crystallizing on a failure, and preserve its tempering. If you are awakening a piece you have invested in, use these.
- Awakening builds up fail stacks — each failed attempt raises the chance on your next one, so a run of failures is not wasted.
Above Hiram sits Erenor, fed by Erenor Infusions (Clear, Vivid, Lucid, Radiant, Resplendent) that you get by salvaging equipment dropped by world bosses.
Tempering: +1 to +30
Tempering is the second axis, and it is the friendlier one. Each attempt spends Labor and gold and adds a tempering point on success. Equipment can be tempered up to +30.
- Tempering Cubes do the work. They come out of crates dropped by mobs on Auroria.
- Resplendent Tempering Cubes, crafted at a Regal Alchemy Table, can roll a great success for +2 points in one attempt.
- Tempering Crystals are the optional support item — they raise your chance. You can temper without them at worse odds.
- Crystallized equipment cannot be tempered at all.
Success chance per point
| Target | Success | Failure penalty |
|---|---|---|
| +1 to +9 | 100% | none |
| +10 | 85.7% | none |
| +11 | 74.4% | none |
| +12 | 65.2% | none |
| +13 | 57.6% | none |
| +14 | 51.0% | none |
| +15 | 45.2% | none |
| +16 | 39.8% | none |
| +17 | 34.8% | none |
| +18 | 30.0% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +19 | 25.3% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +20 | 20.6% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +21 | 16.9% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +22 | 13.4% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +23 | 10.6% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +24 | 8.3% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +25 | 6.5% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +26 | 5.0% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +27 | 3.7% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +28 | 2.6% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
| +29 | 1.7% | 50% chance to lose 1 point |
These are the exact numbers this server rolls against. Two things worth knowing: a temper never breaks or crystallizes your item — the worst case is a lost point — and there is no failure penalty at all below +18, so the first seventeen points only cost you materials and time. Everything from +18 upward is where the grind lives.
Item grades
Every piece of equipment sits on the same thirteen-step ladder. The grade is a straight multiplier applied to the item's stats, so a Divine piece is worth 60% more than the same item at Basic — before any tempering, gems or set bonuses.
| Grade | Stat multiplier |
|---|---|
| Crude | 0.80× |
| Basic | 1.00× |
| Grand | 1.08× |
| Rare | 1.16× |
| Arcane | 1.24× |
| Heroic | 1.32× |
| Unique | 1.40× |
| Celestial | 1.50× |
| Divine | 1.60× |
| Epic | 1.70× |
| Legendary | 1.85× |
| Mythic | 2.00× |
| Eternal | 2.10× |
Read off this shard's own item data. Basic is the baseline every item is designed around; Crude is what you get from a failed craft.
Regrading: raising the grade
Regrading uses a Regrade Scroll, and optionally a Regrade Charm to improve the odds. The game states the outcomes plainly:
- Great success — +2 grades.
- Success — +1 grade.
- Failure — the item stays where it is, drops a grade, or crystallizes.
- Great failure — the item is destroyed.
Crystallized equipment cannot be salvaged, recloaked, or regraded again, and a downgrade can cost you sockets — which destroys the lunagems in them. Everything up to Heroic is effectively safe; the destructive outcomes start once you are pushing past Unique.
Charms are never required, but going without them means lower odds and harsher consequences on a failure. The sane habit is to save them for the pushes that actually risk something — Unique upward — and go bare below that.
Where the materials come from
Hiram scrolls and infusions are quest rewards first and drops second. The daily quest chains that hand them out on this build run through Reedwind, Sungold Fields and Exeloch — the Guardian of… and Raiders of… lines, plus The Abyssal Legion — and let you pick your reward: Hiram Awakening Scrolls, Radiant Hiram Awakening Scrolls, or Mysterious Hiram Infusions.
This is an emulated 5.0 server and some late-game acquisition chains are still being wired up. If a quest or a drop is not behaving, say so on the forums — that is how it gets fixed.
Retired materials — vendor these
5.0 retired the Obsidian-era upgrade economy, and the game says so in the tooltips. If you are following a guide written for an older patch, these are dead ends:
- Weapon Temper, Greater, Super, Prime and Resplendent Weapon and Armor Tempers — “can no longer be produced or used”. Vendor them.
- Weapon and Armor Temper Catalysts — right-click to convert them to Golden Tokens.
- Tempering Burnish and Superior Tempering Burnish — sell to a merchant.
The materials that matter now are Tempering Cubes and Crystals, Hiram Infusions, Hiram Awakening Scrolls, and Erenor Infusions.
The words everyone uses
ArcheAge chat is dense with shorthand. These are the ones that come up while you are gearing:
- Grade
- The colour tier of a piece — Basic through Eternal. A flat multiplier on every stat the item has, and the gate on awakening Hiram.
- Regrade
- Pushing an item up a grade with a scroll. Free of risk through Heroic; genuinely destructive past Unique.
- Temper
- The separate +1 to +30 track. Costs Labor and gold, never destroys the item.
- Crystallized
- What a bad regrade can leave you with. The piece is bricked — it cannot be salvaged, recloaked, regraded or tempered ever again.
- Hiram
- The level-50 gear line 5.0 is built on, and the answer to “what do I farm?” for essentially everyone.
- Infusion
- The synthesis material you feed a Hiram piece to raise its grade.
- Awaken
- Moving a Hiram piece onto the next tier with an Awakening Scroll. Needs the piece at Celestial (or Divine, for Radiant), and returns it two grades lower on a bigger base. The last tab of the Gear Upgrade window.
- Awakening Scroll
- The consumable that performs an awakening. No vendor and no store sells these and they are not in any loot table — on this server they come out of the Hiram daily quest chains. If a guide tells you to buy one, that guide is for a different version.
- Item Fusion
- Appearance only — nothing to do with upgrading. “Change Appearance” puts one item's look onto another and consumes the item you took the look from; “Image Extraction” saves a look off a piece. Your stats do not change. It is easy to mistake for an upgrade system because it sits in a similar window.
- Salvage
- Breaking equipment down for materials. How Erenor Infusions come out of world-boss drops.
- Lunagem
- A gem socketed into a piece of gear. A downgrade that costs you a socket destroys the gem in it.
- Lunafrost
- An enchant applied to a specific gear slot, separate from gems and from tempering.
- Labor
- The resource behind every temper, regrade and craft. Patron is free and always on here, so it refills online and offline — see the getting started guide for the numbers.
- Gear score
- The single number the game puts on your character. A rough guide only — the wrong stats at a high gear score still lose to the right stats at a lower one.
What this server does differently
| Version | AAFree 5.0.7.0 |
| EXP Rate | 8× |
| Drop Rate | 8× |
| Gold Rate | 10× |
| Honor Rate | 8× |
| Vocation Rate | 8× |
| Growth Rate | 9× |
| Labor Rate | 9× |
| Patron | Free, and active on every account — so you get the Patron labor rate without paying for it |
Labor is the real currency of gear progression: every temper, every regrade and every craft spends it. Patron being free here means it refills for you online and offline. See the getting started guide for the exact numbers.
Further reading
These are written for other versions of ArcheAge, so treat the numbers as approximate and trust the tooltips in game over any of them — but the mechanics and the routes are useful. Check the version note above before you follow a gearing route from any of them.
- ArcheRage — Hiram Gear guide (written for 8.0; the best step-by-step on infusions, awakening and the daily routes)
- Saarith — How to upgrade story quest gear (ArcheAge Unchained; its Explorer's Gear and Rank 1–3 awakening scrolls do not exist here — read it for the shape of the system, not the item names)
- AyinMaiden — Hiram gear reference
- ArcheAge Wiki — Builds
Found something on this page that does not match the game? Post it on the forums and it gets corrected.