Gear Improvement - Fortifying Gear

You have your gear and it is identified, now what? Time to fortify!

Fortification allows you to add extra points to your gear's base attributes and opens up gem sockets on your gear. You will see on each piece of gear a certain max fortification level. Your goal is to max this out to gain the most added points to your attributes as well as having the most gem sockets you can have. You can fortify it using various star material.

Dim Star Debris is for gear below 50.
Recharging Shards is for gear above 50.
Star Crystals - well, just hang onto those for now.


You can get these star mats in a variety of ways.

Dim Star Debris:

• <lv50 world mob drops
• weekly through Shylia Market
• Eyrda rewards

Recharging Shards:

• >lv50 world mob drops
• weekly through Shylia Market
• AoS drops
• some pet journeys
• Eyrda rewards

Star Crystals

• >lv50 world mob drops
• leveling memento boxes
• Shylia Market one time
• Masha gives out for certain achievement levels
• Drops in Dusktown with mantra kill
• Odyssey boxes from Shylia Market
• Eyrda Boutique 
• Prayer
• There is also a rumor that you can fish these up on rare occasion

To fortify, the gear must be bound. Take the gear and the star mats to Gabriel. Choose "Fortify Gear" from his menu.

Gabriel is in the Bazaar in Freedom Harbor

 

Here is a piece of gear before any fortification. Notice that the fortification level is 0/12. It has max fortification of 12 levels. The attributes circled in green will get a boost with every level you fortify.

 

 Place the bound gear into the "Gear" slot. The other slots will auto-load with what you have in your bag. Always start with the lower grade star crystals first. Click the add button until you at least over 90%. Notice that this does cost soul gold. Be sure you have it, or it will switch to your unbound gold!  Then click start.

 

You will see the gear start to glow if the fortification was successful. As you can see in this example, the success rate was 100% with two star debris, but after fortification, 2 star debris is only 90% success rate. Each time you fortify it takes more and more debris, until finally you will need to move on to a higher grade star.

After 5 fortifications, you can see the addition to the base attributes has increased decently and that the piece now has a gem socket open. Every 3 levels, you open a new gem socket, so this piece has a possibility of having four gem sockets. And with each gem placed, you gain even more from your gear.

Fortification is a good thing :)

Note 1: You can fortify with less than 100% success rate, as it is just that - a success rate. Dim star and recharge shards are fairly easy to come by, so keep trying with them until loading all 8 will get you 0% - then move onto the star crystals.

Note 2:  I would not recommend using your star crystals on gear below 70. Star crystals are not easy to come by and should be saved until absolutely necessary. Besides, you really do not need more than 5-6/12 fortification on your gear below that for most purposes. Save the star crystals for later when they will do you more good, unless you plan to purchase those you will need.