Refining

Refining is a method of enhancing your gear by adding bonus stats to it. After each successful refine the refinement level of the equipment will increase up to a maximum of +12. Refining equipment adds HP, attack, defense, or evasion depending on the piece refined. In every major city, The Elder has the ability to "Refine Equipment" for you. The only required items to refine a piece of equipment are Mirage Celestones but there are also refinement aids that will increase your chances of successful refinements. You will need 2 stones for weapons and 1 stone for armor. As your equipment levels up, it will gain a specific effect depending on the type of equipment. For example, if you have a Robe with level 1 refinement and gained a +13 to health then a level 2 refinement would yield 13 × 2 = +26 HP. For more information, refer to the Refining Bonuses chart below.

The higher the upgrade, the more difficult it becomes. Starting from level 1, your success is not guaranteed. If you fail an upgrade, your item returns to level 0 unless you use refinement aids which prevent loss (Explained later).

Refining Bonus

Refining specific equipment has various effects depending on the type of equipment:

Type	Bonus
Normal Weapon	Physical Attack Upgrade
Magic Weapon	Magic Attack Upgrade
Physical Attack Ring	Physical Defense Upgrade
Magic Attack Ring	Magic Defense Upgrade
Physical Defense Ornament	Physical Defense Upgrade
Magic Defense Ornament	Magic Defense Upgrade
Evasion Ornament	Evasion Upgrade
Robes	Maximum HP Increase
Armor	Maximum HP Increase

The actual amount of a refinement's added benefit comes from additional two factors. The base refinement bonus of the item and how high you refine it. The base refinement bonus is equal to the added stats received from refining an item to +1. In general the bonus is higher for higher grade gear but this is not always the case. This refinement bonus can be found in the in-game encyclopedia under Gear > Upgrade:.

The level of refinement determines the multiple of this base refinement bonus you will receive. For example, at +6 you receive 7.55 times as much benefit as you get at +1. The full chart is found below.

Refining Lv.	Bonus Multiplier (slightly rounded)
+1	1x
+2	2x
+3	3.05x
+4	4.3x
+5	5.75x
+6	7.55x
+7	9.95x
+8	13x
+9	17.05x
+10	22.03x
+11	29x
+12	37.5x

Refining With Dragon Orbs

Dragon orbs are an item that can be bought through the cash shop or from other players. Using these alongside the mirage stones will ensure that your refining never fails.

• Note: You must use the dragon orb for the current refine or higher or it will not work.
  • Ex. Using a 1* dragon orb when trying to refine to +2 will not have a 100% success rate, you will need to use a 2* dragon orb or above.
  • Ex. If you want to refine a piece of gear to +6 you would need a 1*, 2*, 3*, 4*, 5*, and a 6* orb to get there with a 100% success rate.

Currently the most cost efficient way to make higher grade orbs is to buy the orbs from other players or in the 1* 10 packs from the cash shop. To convert the 1* orbs into higher grade orbs, you need to take them to any Jewelcraftsman NPC, select the 'combine' option, and go to the last tab 'Orb'.

1* Orbs Needed for Higher Refines:

Orb Wanted	1* Orbs Needed	Total Needed
1*	1	1
2*	4	5
3*	10	15
4*	25	40
5*	60	100
6*	130	230
7*	215	445
8*	405	850
9*	750	1,600
10*	1,370	2,970
11*	2,525	5,495
12*	4,645	10,140

• • For +10, +11, and +12 orbs it is much cheaper to utilize the +10 ocean orb which is often on sale in the boutique. Please refer to the section below for details.
    

After combining the orbs to get to the refine you desire, bring the orbs and the amount of mirages needed to an Elder in any major city.

• • WARNING: Do NOT place your gear into the gear box and click refine like you normally would. This will NOT use your dragon orb and give you 100% success rate.

To use the dragon orbs you must start with the first refine (usually the 1* orb) and place it into the 'Special Materials' box along with placing your gear into the 'Gear' box. Then it is safe to press refine and your gear will be increased to +1. Repeat what you just did with each orb increasing your refine until you are the refine you wanted to obtain.

• • Make sure you do not double click the refine button and accidentally refine it once without a dragon orb and lose all your previous refines!

Producing dragon orbs

If you are going to manufacture your own dragon orbs, here is a guide to how many you need. For orbs of +10 or higher it is cheaper to utilize a mixture of +1 orbs and +10 ocean orbs which are often on sale in the boutique. The orbs that should be purchased are highlighted in orange.

Dragon orbs produced

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1	1
2	4	1
3	10	2	1
4	25	5	2	1
5	60	12	5	2	1
6	130	26	11	4	2	1
7	215	43	18	7	3	1	1
8	405	81	34	13	6	2	1	1
9	750	150	63	24	11	4	2	1	1
10										1
11	1155	231	97	37	17	6	3	2	1	1	1
12	1905	381	160	61	28	10	5	3	2	2	1	1

Each row describes how to make a dragon orb. So, for example, to make a 3* orb, you can start with 10 one* orbs, and then make 2 two* orbs which will give you the supplies you need to make a three* orb.
As of the Horizons update, 10* Dragon Orbs have been made a LOT more expensive in the boutique. To make these:

+10/11/12 Dragon orbs from +1

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
10	1370	274	115	44	20	7	4	2	1	1
11	2525	505	212	81	37	13	7	4	2	1	1
12	4645	929	390	149	68	24	13	7	4	2	1	1

Refining Without Dragon Orbs

The basic chances of refining success are as follows:

Refine Level	Mirage Only	Tienkang Stone	Tisha Stone	Chienkun Stone
+1	50%	65%	53.5%	100%
+2	30%	45%	33.5%	25%
+3	30%	45%	33.5%	10%
+4	30%	45%	33.5%	4%
+5	30%	45%	33.5%	1.67%
+6	30%	45%	33.5%	0.77%
+7	30%	45%	33.5%	0.47%
+8	30%	45%	33.5%	0.25%
+9	25%	40%	28.5%	0.13%
+10	20%	35%	23.5%	0.07%
+11	12%	27%	15.5%	0.04%
+12	5%	20%	8.5%	0.02%

If refining fails, the item loses all previous refining and reverts back to +0.

Tisha Stones prevent the item from dropping more than 1 refining level if refining fails. Chienkun Stones prevent the item from dropping any level at all with failure.

Rumors

Duke Blacke sometimes gives players advice on refining. For example, one of his rumors states that refining when nobody else is around improves refining rates, while another suggests that logging out and restarting your computer also improves the refining rate.

Many of his rumors give advice on specific NPCs to use when attempting to refine to a particular level. Note, however, that the Officer NPCs that Duke Blacke refers to can only be used by players who belong to the faction that controls the territory.

While many players claim that Duke Blacke's rumors are true, initial testing suggests that they are simply rumors. For example, tests using large quantities of Mirage Celestones that compared refining in Archosaur versus refining in abandoned towns found no significant difference in the refining rates. Similarly, another test of The Harshlands Officer NPC involving 250 Mirage Celestones found no improvement on +1 refining rates.

Refine	Rumored Officer NPC
+1	The Harshlands
+2	The Frozen Path
+3	Avalanche Canyon, Thousand Wood Ridge, Windswept Grasslands, Courage Path, Land of Buried Bones
+4	Haunted Path, Tradewind Village, The Great Lake, South Barrier Mountains
+5	City of Misfortune, Shining Tide Woods, Stairway to Heaven, The White Ridge
+6	Ancient Wall, Dragon Wilderness, Valley of the Hidden Orchid, Black Mountain
+7	Broken Plain, Silk Ridge, Peach Blossom Grove, Ridge of the Dreaming Cloud
+8	Ancient Peak, Wellspring Village, Deserted Sea
+9	Vibrant Cliffs, Fragrant Hills, Walled Stronghold
+10	Mount Lantern, Sundown Town, King's Feast
+11	Immolation Camp, Dribbling Spring, Swamp of the Wraiths
+12	Forest of Haze, Dragon's End, Plain of Farewells

Recommendations

When to refine

Although you could refine all of your gear all the time, it can be a waste of coin if you refine gear which you are not going to hold on to for very long, or which does not have a good resale value.

Unless you are very rich, you should never refine white named equipment. In your first 60 levels, you should only refine legendary (yellow named) equipment, and even then, only to +1 or +2. Usually you don't need dragon orbs to get +1. When you get your first Twilight Temple weapon at level 60, you can refine it to +1. Later on you can get your equipment to +2 or even higher, but only at level 70+

Refining Twilight Temple items can also be expensive - since you will either want to decompose those items to make later ones, or you need to acquire a second set. Most people will only refine legendary and Twilight Temple gear that they might wear for a while to +4, and only refine their end level gear.

Typical end level gear is either Rank-8, Rank-9 or Grade 15/Grade 16 Nirvana equipment. These types of equipment are upgradeable, but you can transfer the refines for a price. See the Chienkun_Transfer_Charts for costs.

Should you gamble?

Review Warren Forrest's Zoho Sheet - Refining Guide to see if gamble refining might be helpful to you. If you want to include the cost for your own time, you can take the average number of refines you need (cells F25:F37) and add a small fraction of that for "Risk Aversion". For example, if you use 0.1% risk aversion per refine attempt, the 421 tries you might need for a +6 refine could give you 42.1% risk aversion.

See Also

Official forums: Refining for cheap