Socketing

Weapons and armor may come with sockets, which can be imbued with gems, which is called "sharding". Sharding weapons and armor can bring great benefits to your character. Different gems are empowered with different attributes. For example it can raise your physical attack, magical attack, physical defense, magic defense, accuracy, evasion, HP, MP, etc... Sharding can also bring unique glow effects to your weapon/armor (see below). To combine your gems to a higher level you can visit the Jewelcraftsman located in every town. (See: Jewel Crafting for making higher level gems to place in sockets.)

Gems can be bought, combined, dropped from monsters, rewarded from quests, or found in some 'Lucky items'.

Weapons can be equipped with up to 2 sockets and armor can be equipped with 4 sockets, maximum. Sockets can be added using socket stones, a cash shop item, at the PW Boutique Agent. Higher level and legendary weapons or armor require more socket stones. See the table below for the amount of socket stones needed:

Weapon Grade	Socket 1	Socket 2		Armor Grade	Socket 1	Socket 2	Socket 3	Socket 4
1	5	10		1	1	2	3	10
2	10	20		2	2	4	6	20
3	15	30		3	3	6	9	30
4	20	40		4	4	8	12	40
5	25	50		5	5	10	15	50
6	30	60		6	6	12	18	60
7	35	70		7	7	14	21	70
8	40	80		8	8	16	24	80
9	45	90		9	9	18	27	90
10	50	100		10	10	20	30	100
11	500	1000		11	100	200	300	1000
12	1000	2000		12	200	400	600	2000
13	4000	8000		13	800	1600	2400	8000
14	6000	12000		14	1200	2400	3600	12000
15	8000	16000		15	1600	3200	4800	16000

Sharding Results

By adding shards (a.k.a. "soulgems") to sockets you can modify the appearance of armor, if you meet certain requirements. Here's a list of what shards are required and what the results are:

Two grade 5+ HP shards (Citrine) = purple glow

Two grade 5+ MP shards (Turquoise) = blue glow

Two grade 5+ physical defense shards (Garnet) = orange/reddish glow

Two grade 5+ magic defense shards (Sapphire) = white glow

Two grade 5+ evasion shards (Amber) = yellow glow

Two grade 5+ elemental shards (Alabaster, Aquamarine, Amethyst, Ruby, or Topaz) = green glow

Two grade 5+ shards of different types = sparkles

Four grade 8+ HP shards (Citrine) = lightning effect

Four grade 8+ MP shards (Turquoise) = blue crystal effect

Four grade 8+ physical defense shards (Garnet) = burning fire

Four grade 8+ magic defense shards (Sapphire) = strong white mist

Four grade 8+ evasion shards (Amber) = bigger/stronger yellow glow with sparkles.

Four grade 8+ elemental shards (Alabaster, Aquamarine, Amethyst, Ruby, or Topaz) = strong green glow with sparkles

Four grade 8+ shards of different types = sparkles

(Grade 5 shards are "Average" and grade 8 shards are "Immaculate".)

Note: You cannot put shards into sockets if the gem's grade is higher than the armor's or weapon's grade. This means that a grade 4 armor cannot be made to glow, because it cannot be sharded with grade 5 shards.

Weapons glow for a different reason:

Three-star (purple name) = Blue glow. Obtained from a few quests, boss drops, or rarely (10% chance) from weapon manufacturing.

Legendary (gold name) = Gold glow. Obtained by using materials and a mold (dropped from dungeon bosses) at a Legendary Weapons forge.

Twilight (green name) = Usually a green glow (there are a few blue glowing ones). Obtained by using Twilight Temple materials at a Twilight Weapons forge.

Frostcovered (green name) = Glow green like Twilight Temple weapons. Gotten from Frostcovered City drops.

Frostcovered (gold name) = Red lightning effect on some weapons. Made from "The Past of Frostcovered City" items or Frostcovered Sign·Force (Token Pack items).

Sage and some level 100 weapons (red name) = Red glow. Sage weapons are obtained from Messenger of the Sages, which requires Rank 6 (35,000+ rep) and all 7 badges. The level 100 weapons either require Rank 8 (200,000+ rep) or four level 99 souledges and other high level items.

Nirvana = vary in glow and color. Created in the Nirvana Forges from other weapons.

So, weapons glow based on their type, and you cannot make a non-glowing weapon glow.

However, if the weapon is grade 7 or better and has two sockets, you can add two concentric rings of sparkles that circle around the hand(s) holding the weapon(s) by sharding with two grade 7 or higher shards. The shards and their resulting sparkle colors are:

Grade 7+ HP shards (Citrine) = purple sparkles

Grade 7+ MP shards (Turquoise) = blue sparkles

Grade 7+ physical attack shards (Garnet) = red sparkles

Grade 7+ magic attack shards (Sapphire) = white sparkles

Grade 7+ evasion shards (Amber) = yellow sparkles

Grade 7+ elemental shards (Alabaster, Aquamarine, Amethyst, Ruby, or Topaz) = green sparkles

(Grade 7 shards are "Flawless".)

So, for example, if you have a grade 7+ weapon with two sockets and you add a grade 7+ Citrine and a grade 7+ Sapphire, you would get purple sparkles and white sparkles that rotate in concentric circles around your hand(s) when you equip that weapon.

For a complete list of the gems that can be put in sockets and the bonuses they give to armor and weapons, see: PWI Game Info > Advanced Info > Imbue

Best Shards

At high levels it may be hard to determine what the best shards are to put in your gear. A calculator that shows your best choice(s) can be found here: PWI Socket Calculator