In Lost Ark, honing gear is an important way to increase your damage and item level. Item level is a statistic used to unlock different Guardian Raids, Abyss Raids, and quests, so it’s important to hone your gear as high as possible, whenever possible.
To start honing your gear, visit a Gear Honing NPC. You can find them in most towns, with a symbol that looks like a hammer on the map.
When you talk to the NPC, you’ll be brought up on a menu that lets you upgrade your gear. You can upgrade your Hat, Pauldrons, Chestpiece, Pants, Gloves, and Weapon here. When you upgrade a gear, they’ll go up one level and get an increase in stats. You can see which stats will be increased and how much on the right side of the screen.
You’ll need a few materials to hone gear in Lost Ark. First, you will need a specific type of Stone Fragment, Destruction Stone Fragments for your weapon, and Guardian Stone Fragments for the rest of your gear. You can gain these materials from quests, Chaos Dungeons, and Raids.
You also need Harmony Leapstones, which you can gain from quests, Chaos Dungeons, Raids, and Daily/Weekly Missions. You’ll see how many of a certain material you need to level up a piece of gear on the screen.
Each time you try to level up a piece of gear, you’ll also need a certain amount of Harmony Shards. You can get these Shards in a similar manner. You’ll see how many Shards you need while upgrading your gear.
By the time you hit Level 7 gear, your gear has a chance to fail when upgrading. This starts at 90% Success Rate, which progressively gets lower the stronger your gear. You can use Star’s Breath to increase your Success Rate.
Hit Gear Honing, and then hit Check Results. If you succeed, your gear will level up, and your Item Level will increase. However, if you fail, your gear will stay at the same level, and you’ll get an increased Success Rate next time you try to level up the same gear.
It’s important to note that you can buy all the above materials in the Lost Ark Shop, specifically in Mari’s Secret Store. This gives a tiny pay-to-win element to the game, as those who spend more will be able to increase their Item Level faster, but it’s not an extreme amount of pay-to-win and is mostly just for convenience.
That’s all you need to know about Gear Honing in Lost Ark. Increase the level of your gear as fast as you can, so you can unlock more content in the game.
