Anvil upgrading seems broken

[krammer68]

I thought I remember recently you could upgrade anvils without hammers. I cannot find a level 1 dungeon to get a Bronze hammer to upgrade my copper anvil, but have 2 Iron hammers in the bag waiting to get the copper one. I can see where you can eat like 17 bronze bars, a sword and a couple of iron bars to "upgrade" the XP level of the copper anvil, but this is unclear on if it will change the copper to a bronze. Can someone explain how this works and why it seems more difficult like it was in the early days when you had to have hammers to upgrade?

[glass zebra]

The upgrade system works similar to how you upgrade equipment, but instead of using those pink crystals for XP, you use the listed ingredient type and then you pay the tier upgrade cost like for items.

Each upgrade takes 1k xp and you can still use the hammers like before (they give 1k XP), but now also have the option to use other resources to give XP to the anvil until it reaches 1k XP and needs the listed cost to upgrade to the next tier.

[krammer68]

Thanks for the reply, so just to be clear - the random materials to give the 1000 xp first to upgrade it, then the materials to "Ascend" it will change it to the next material tier (if you don't have the hammers). Is that right?

[glass zebra]

Yes and the hammers can be used to instantly bring them to those 1000 XP.

[onilink_]

I see the upgrade system for anvils seems to pose some difficulties to many peoples.
In game I will add a '?' icon associated to some tutorial pages.
I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.