Gear system

[Smithdog]

I really don't understand how it works. now i know Asian MMO's are very different from the typical western, and tbh this is my first Asian MMO but can someone answer me these questions

1. is the armour and weapons you get at the start the armour and weapons you HAVE to keep throughout the entire game just to upgrade?

2. why is everything you find whilst questing complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

3. i'm level 20 and i still look exactly the same.. am i doing something wrong?

4. what is the upgrading system

5. why does weapon/armour crafting exist if i'm only going to use the gear i got given to use from the beginning? is it just cosmetic or?

6. Can someone just explain the gear system in general. my head is well and truly battered with this game lmfao BUT i'm weirdly enjoying it.

[Landshark]

1) Keep your explorer gear, you will be upgrading this gear all the way to level 50+.
Also keep all infusions and awakening scrolls, you need these to upgrade your gear during this time. Finally never destroy your bow. (side-note, if you ever need to breakdown your explorer gear, only use Adventurer's Evenstones, not the regular ones).

2) The loot you get from questing can be broken down using evenstones for crafting materials.

3) You're look will change as you upgrade your explorer gear (this starts at level 30). The first time you 'awaken' your gear it becomes lvl 28 minimum. You can also swap out the look of your explorer gear for a new look. This is a process and you should check out youtube videos on this before trying it.

The basics of it are to use adventurer's evenstones to breakdown your explorer gear. This returns all/any infusions and awakening scrolls back to your inventory, then destroys the explorer gear item. You can buy new gear at the armor or weapon vendors (west faction there's one in Marionople, not sure about east faction). With the vendor you can choose the style. Once you've got the style you want, you can reapply all those infusions and awakening scrolls onto you gear.

For gear upgrades (this goes back to your point #1), you first use green infusion to bring you gear to 'arcane' level. Then use your first awakening scroll (will make it level 28 minimum at this point). Next you have to use blue infuions to bring the item to 'heroic'. Once at heroic you can apply the next awakening scroll (which changes the minimum level for gear, so be careful). Once everything is awakened twice, you need to use purple infusions to bring it up to 'unique' (I think?), then you can apply the final awakening scroll to bring it to 'hiram' status. From that point on you can only apply hiram infusions you get from daily quests, etc.

Youtube videos will explain this better than I have.

4) Not sure if you are referring to gear upgrades like I described above or not..

5) Weapon/armor crafting I think is useful for endgame. I've never done any myself. There is tons of other crafting/farming options though.

6) I think I described some of that above. Just know that yes it's a complicated/deep system, but it gives you goals to work towards, which for me has been a ton of fun. :) I just got my gear up to hiram status yesterday. Also, each level of awakening I think also changes the look of your gear. Hiram gear is gold colored and different than my previous gear.

You should also understand how gear stats work. I won't explain it in detail here (again there are good youtube videos on this).

The basics is, T1 awakend gear gets 1 stat. T2 awakened gear gets 2 stats. And Tier 3 (hiram) gear gets 3 stats. You can reroll the stats on T1 and T2 gear pretty easily to get what you want, but once your gear reaches T3 (hiram), the first two stats are locked forever, so choose wisely.

[neoVictrix]

So the stuff you get as quest rewards. You keep a hold of that and feed it infusions and awakening scrolls until it becomes Hiram equipment (when you reach the 50s). You'll then keep working on that with hiram dailies and such using hiram infusions. Both the quest equipment and hiram equipment allow you to reroll secondary stats when its grade (rarity) increases.

Equipment via mob drops and dungeons aren't worth using unless you know what stats you're going for. For example, if you're a healer, you're going to benefit from spirit, so you want equipment with spirit so you can do better heals.

Crafting for the game has moved to late-game, so you're looking at 50s to actually start making any sort of equipment. Everything else still happens before that in terms of fishing, potion making, and so on.

Until fusion alembics are available again (because they were supposed to be earned with diligence via the archpass), you're going to look the same unless you get a costume. Once you get your hands on fusion alembics, you can turn some other equipment into image items iirc.

[Landshark]

Regarding gear stats, I found this website really helpful in understanding all the stats (some of it is using outdated names, but overall it's accurate).

https://archeage.gamepedia.com/Attributes

Also, if you open the character menu in-game (C on the keyboard), on the bottom-right of the character sheet is a button that expands the details of your characters stats.

There's LOTS of ways to build a character's stats. Just gotta think of how you want to play and then base the stats around that.

Basic example: If you are melee, you probably want STR and melee attack.

Ranged (archer) wants ranged attack.

But for the skills in Vitalism class, it's based off Healing Power, not magic, so you'll want to boost healing power stat.

All of that info is in-game, just hover over skill icons to get an idea of which skill uses which stat. Then figure out if you want to have defense against melee, magic, ranged, a combination, etc. Maybe you want more health or maybe more evasion or blocking. Lots to choose from!