Elsword Online Enchanting and Upgrading Guide

Elsword Online Enchanting and Upgrading Guide by Dreamslayer

NOTE: If enough people acknowledge the guide and ask for it, I may include pictures of the actual effects on a bow, getting the aftershade pictures would be harder..but I might do that…For now, I’ve included pictures of the elstones, and  pictures of my KR Renas with Wind Stage 3 and Light Stage 1. I have pictures of poison stage 1, stage 2, and darkness stage 2, but they’re on my other computer..I’ll update those later, as said, if there’s enough support for this. Based on the KR, so percentages/formulas may be slightly off, but close enough to give a very good approximation.

If you’ve ever wondered how people have flaming weapons or weapons shining with light, here’s your answer!

First off, Enchanting.
Enchanting is the process of adding elstones to armor or weapons to increase elemental resistances/add elemental attack effects, respectively.

To enchant, you have to have elshards.

Elshards look like this.

If you enchant your weapons, you will get elemental effects based on your enchant added to your attacks.
If you enchant your armor, you will receive elemental defense against an element.

I will explain what each means in depth in a little bit, but first, you might be wondering how many you’d need.

If I remember correctly (I might be SLIGHTLY off, but pretty close), the amount needed is based on the formulas:

Weapon Elshard Requirements:

Stage 1: Level of weapon/2 (add one for Unique weapons; i.e (Lv. of weapon/2 + 1)
Stage 2: Stage 1 requirement * 3  (+ 3 for uniques)
Stage 3 requirement: Stage 1 requirement * 6

Armor Elshard Requirements:
Stage 1: Level of armor/7.143
Stage 2: Stage 1 requirement * 3 + 1 (for Uniques)

So for instance, let’s take a Lv. 50 Unique weapon.
I’d need 26 shards to enchant it once. To double enchant it,
I’d need 81 shards. To triple enchant it, I’d need 156 shards.

Armor is a lot easier to enchant, and only goes up to double enchant.
Same Lv. 50, but in armor, I’d only need a mere 7 shards to first enchant,
and 22 for second enchant. Pretty simple, right?

Now, to explain what each means in depth.

Weapon Enchanting Weapon enchanting is when you put Elshards into your weapon.
The weapon will then glow with one of two effects, with one of 6 colors based on enchant.

Note: To increase the level of the actual status effect (only for statuses that have this capability), you have to re-inflict the status while the target is still suffering from it. For example, if I want burning 3(!!!), I have to first burn the target (Burning 1 (!), then burn them again while they’re burned, resulting in level 2 burning (!!). I then would have to burn them again while they are still suffering from Lv. 2 burning to raise it to the maximum Lv. 3 burning status (!!!). The reason I use ! is because the stage of statuses that work in this manner is measured by the number of ! above the afflicted character’s head.

 – Mystery Elshard = If used directly on a piece of equipment, will yield a random enchant.
However, you can buy a machine called an Elshard Mystery Identifyier for 2000 ED  from the alchemist, and use it to transform the mystery into an elemental stone. The process is irreversible, and the stone you get is random. It will be one of the six below.

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Effect Group 1

– Fire Elshard: Adds chance of inflicting burning with each attack. Burning can stack up to three stages. Each stage inflicts higher damage than the last. It’s also the only status that can be potentially fatal (haven’t had a chance yet to test in NA, but it can kill you in KR) Chance and burning damage rise with level of enchant:

Stage 1: 6% chance of burning with each attack, small damage. Effect is a small fiery cloud around the area where you grip your weapon.
Stage 2: 8% chance of burning with each attack, higher damage than stage 1 per burn. Effect is a large, fiery cloud covering your weapon.
Stage 3: 10% chance of burning with each attack, higher damage thatn stage 2 per burn. Effect is a large, brightly burning fiery cloud covering your weapon that leaves streaks of flame in the air behind you when you swing a melee weapon. If you’re Rena, it changes your arrows, making them larger and a ephemeral red type color, but does not create a graphically different effect on your kicks.

Burning effects are pure damage, and each stage inflicts more than the last. Burning 2(!!) being 2x the damage of burning 1(!), and Burning 3(!!!) being 3x the damage of burning 1, if I remember correctly.

– Poison Elshard: Adds chance of poisoning the target with each attack. Poison can also stack up to three stages, with poison 3 being extremely deadly. Chance and poison damage increase with level of enchant.

Stage 1: 6% chance of poisoning target with each attack. Inflicts periodic damage. Effect is a small, not very thick green cloud around the area where you grip the weapon.
Stage 2: 8% chance of poisoning target with each attack. Inflicts higher periodic damage than stage 1. Effect is a larger, thick green cloud covering the weapon.
Stage 3: 10% chance of poisoning target with each attack. Inflicts higher periodic damage than stage 2, and reduces all speed by 30%. Effect is a noxious, very thick green cloud that covers your weapon, leaving green streaks behind when swinging a melee weapon. If Rena, changes arrows to a shiny green and makes them larger, but does not aesthetically change her kicks.

Poison 1 is pretty small damage, but can still hurt. Poison 2 is where things start getting worrisome. Poison 3 is absurd. It drains your health at a rapid clip, will take about half your health gauge, and will slow you down the entire time you’re poisoned by about 30%.

 – Water Elshard: Adds chance of freezing the target with each attack. Can stack up to three times. It slows down targets afflicted and reduces their defense. The defense reduction isn’t godly overpowered in any stage, though, as far as I’ve noticed. I doubt it’s actually as significant as it says it is..

Stage 1: 6% chance of freezing target with each attack. Slows target down and reduces defense. Effect is a blue cloud surrouding the region where you hold your weapon.
Stage 2: 8% chance of freezing target with each attack. Slows target down more and reduces defense more per level than stage 1. Effect is a thicker, blue cloud surrounding your weapon.
Stage 3: 10% chance to freeze target with each attack. Slow target down more and reduces defense more per level than stage 2. Effect is a shiny, azure cloud surrounding your weapon that leaves blue streaks in the air when you swing a melee weapon. If Rena, changes your arrows by making them sky-blue and larger than normal arrows. No cosmetic changes to her kicks.

Level 1 Ice slows you down a minimum of 20% (stage 1) and a maximium of 33% (stage 3) and reduces your defense by a small amount (stage 1, I can’t remember exactly offhand) up to 22% (Stage 3). Stage 2 is in the middle.
Level 2 Ice slows you down by a mimimum of  40% (stage 2) and a maximum of 66%(stage 3) and reduces your defense by a larger amount (stage 1) than Lv. 1, up to 44%(stage 3). Stage 2 again takes up a middle ground.
Level 3 Ice slows you down by a mimimum of 60%(stage 1) up to a maximum of 99%(stage 3) and reduces defense significantly(stage 1) up to 66%(stage 3). If you get Ice 3, you’ll be moving at a crawl. Heaven help you if it happens in pvp.

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Effect Group 2

 – Wind Elshard: Adds a chance of inflicting 40% more damage and ignoring all enemy defenses for a hit (hereafter referred to as piercing damage). What that means is that no matter what the enemy defense is, it ignores it, takes your base damage against the enemy for the hit, and increases it by 40%, then reports that as damage.

Example: I shoot a normal enemy for 20,000 damage with my Rena. I shoot that same enemy, just enhanced with an absolute magic barrier that reduces my arrow damage to 1. My wind effect goes off with my next arrow. It completely disregards the barrier and the magical defense of the enemy, hitting it for 28,000 damage. Chance of the effect happening increases with level. My personal favorite effect, and my signature as a Rena..almost no other Rena users I meet in KR use Wind. Most use Light, Ice or Dark, mostly Light.

Stage 1: 8% chance of inflicting piercing damage. Effect is a shining white diamond-shaped light with a circular ring around the four corners of the diamond.
Stage 2: 12% of inflicting piercing damage. Effect is a shining white diamond-shaped light, dimmer than stage 1, but with streams of energy flowing out from the center light to the circular ring around the corners of the diamond.
Stage 3: 15% chance of piercing damage. Effect is a shining sphere of light, brighter than stage 1, with streams of energy flowing out from the center to the outside, while crescent blades of white energy spin around wildly within the bounds of the circular ring around the outside. Pictures:

I included multiple pictures of this to try and show you how the energy spins wildly and freely inside the sphere.

 – Light Elshard: Adds chance to petrify target on hit. Petrified targets are unable to move, and have super armor for the duration of petrification. They can still be damaged, but petrified targets receive a 10% defense boost while petrified. Also resets knockdown count, but in pvp tends to auto-knockdown after the petrification wears off. Useful for extending dungeon combos though. Also, an enemy mid-action who is petrified will have the action cancelled, useful for stopping a boss’ attack.

Stage 1: 6% chance of petrification, lasts for two seconds. Effect is a bright golden diamond with a circular ring around the outside of the diamond. Image:

Stage 2: 8% chance of petrification, lasts for three seconds. Effect is a diamond-shaped light dimmer than stage 1, but with energy flowing from the center to the outside.
Stage 3: 10% chance of petrification, lasts for four seconds. Effect is a circular core of golden light that radiates a stream of energy to the outer ring, but with blades of crescent golden energy flying around within the bounds of the sphere.

 Dark Elshard : Gives a chance to drain the enemy(snatch) with each attack. Effect increases with level: A Lv. 50 weapon will drain more HP than a Lv. 49, but not as much as a Lv. 56 weapon.

Stage 1: 6% chance to drain a small amount of HP and 10 MP(about 1150 for a Lv. 46 elite bow for my Rena) from the opponent. Appearance is a bright purple diamond-shaped light, with a dark circle connecting the four corners of the diamond.
Stage 2: 8% chance to drain a larger amount of HP(about 2300 for a Lv. 46 elite bow on my Rena) and 20  MP from the opponent. Appearance is a diamond-shaped core of dark light dimmer than stage 2, but with purple energy flowing from the center to the outside.
Stage 3: 10% chance to drain an even higher amount of HP (over 3000 for a Rena with a Lv. 46 elite bow) and 30 MP from the opponent. Appearance is a circular core of bright purple light with the streams of energy found in stage 2, but with dark crescent energy blades flying around within the bounds of the sphere.

Element mixing is also possible. HOWEVER. There is a catch. The stages stack from Stage 1 of each: For instance, if you put fire on first and wanted to combine it with darkness, you’d have to pay the Stage 2 elstone cost in dark elshards, but you’d only get Stage 1 Dark; thus, mixing elements means each isn’t as strong as it could possibly be. Furthermore, you cannot triple enchant three different elements, because you may not double enchant two elements of the same effect group. So, you cannot have wind and dark, wind and light, or light and dark, or fire and ice, or ice and poison, but you can have dark and fire, dark and ice, wind and ice, wind and poison, etc. It’s your choice. If you have a triple-element capable weapon though, you can use double of one element type and single enchant another; so for example, Stage 2 dark and Stage 1 Ice, or vice versa, etc.

Armor Enchanting

Thankfully, armor enchanting is a much simpler affair.

Stage 1: Adds 75 resistance to the element used to enchant.
Stage 2: Adds 110 resistance to the element used to enchant.

Resistance maxes at 500 for an element. With 500/500, you are completely immune to the status effect/ailment that element causes, and damage from that element is heavily decreased.
Mixing elements just adds 75 to both, similar to the way weapon enchanting works: Two stage 1 effects.
For an example of usefulness, water resist would make you immune to freezing, very useful for pvpists.
Poison resist would make you immune to poison, an epic advantage in 4-X if time runs out and everyone gets permanent poison status. No poison for you!

Upgrading

You must use special crystals to upgrade your armor. These crystals range from Lv. 1 – Lv. 5:

Lv1: equipment levels 1-20
Lv.2: equipment levels 21-30
Lv. 3: equipment levels 31-40
Lv. 4: equipment levels 41-50
Lv. 5: equipment levels 51-60

Weapon level (henceforth class) is shown by a + next to the weapon name. All weapons default start at +0.Each attempt to enchant only takes one crystal. The maximum level any piece of equipment can reach is +11.
At +5, the weapon will periodically shine as a light from within runs down its surface.
At +7 and higher, the weapon will gain a rainbow-phantasmagoria coat and continuously shine, with a brighter light from within (aka the +5/+6 effect) repeatedly shines down the length of the weapon. Consider the light Lv. 1 picture from earlier in the guide. That bow is +6. Here’s a picture of it with the light within it shining down its length:

 It runs from Rena’s left down the bow to the side of the bow on her right. I could do multiple pictures to show the progression, but I think you get the point by now. I will provide more if requested, though.

The bow in my Wind Sneaker pictures is one at +8, but it’s very hard to see the phantasmagoric effect in a screenshot; it kinda shifts continuously like a mirage all over the weapon. It’s beautiful to see in-game, though.

Every time the class goes up, the stats of the weapon increase, but the chance of success at raising it to a higher class decrease, as would be expected. At low class levels, the increases in stats seem minimal. After +5, they start to increase substantially. I feel that every weapon has an upgrade curve; the better the weapon (Normal/Rare/Elite/Unique), the better the curve. The weapons also tend to become extremely overpowered at higher + levels. +8 is already significantly powerful enough to decimate dungeons; +11 is insane overkill. An example of what I mean:

 This is the same bow you saw in my pictures for the wind stage 3 enchant at +11. -shoots- 30k!!! -pauses- I wonder why that didn’t critical with 70% crit rate…

ANY weapon that gets to high + levels (defined here as anything higher than +5) will start seeing noticable jumps in stats, several hundred per upgrade. As an example, +7 to +8 is a difference of over 500 points in BOTH physical attack and magical attack.

After +3, upgrade possibilities become:
1: Success!
2: No Change
3: Downgrade by 1

After +5(meaning at +6 and higher), upgrade possibilities become:
1: Success!
2: No Change
3: Downgrade by 1
4: Total Downgrade – returns equipment to + 0 and seemed to permanently lower success rate (only happened one time to me, so I can’t be sure on that second part, but the picture was kinda funny, looked like the weapon broke in half and a purple mist came out, like the soul of the weapon had been destroyed, and the little upgrade guy was on all fours bawling his eyes out)
5: Break – equipment does not lose any +, but becomes completely unusable. Only fixable with a cash repair scroll that must match the level category of the weapon to fix.

The highest you can NATURALLY get to seems to be +7, and that is extremely lucky. After that, you need gems that can be bought from the cash shop that increase chances of success by 10% and eliminate the chance of downgrading; however, even these items do not prevent breaking. So I would advise you to start using them when trying to go from +6 to anything higher. After getting to +7, DO NOT UPGRADE WITHOUT THESE! If you get higher than that, don’t even dream of upgrading without them anymore. I personally wouldn’t even try for +7 without them.

– Dreamslayer, Rank 41 Rena