Once you reach level 50 you can upgrade your story quest gear into Hiram gear. From this point onwards you will need to put in a lot more work to upgrade your gear. The upgrading system works similarly to that of the story gear, but there are important differences. Please note that this upgrade guide is made for Archeage Unchained.
There might be some things missing from this guide. I am still learning how upgrading works in this game, but this information is up to date (2019) and, at least for the most part, correct.
The first step in upgrading your Hiram gear is by getting Hiram infusions for your gear.
Hiram Infusions
Cloaked Hiram infusions can drop from mobs in Auroria and are also given as rewards from quests. There are three types of cloaked Hiram infusions you can get as a reward. To open one you need to spend labor and you get one Hiram infusion with a grade from grand to celestial. This depends on the type of cloaked Hiram infusion you are opening as shown in this list:
- Unidentified Hiram Infusion (20 labor) – Gives grand, rare or arcane Hiram infusions
- Mysterious Hiram Infusions (25 labor) – Gives rare, arcane or heroic grade infusions
- Radiant Hiram Infusions (40 labor) – Gives arcane, heroic or celestial grade infusions
Hiram infusions can then be used in much the same way as the story quest infusions. However, you will need a lot more of them to upgrade your gear and it will cost a lot of gold. The experience your gear gets from infusing it also depends on the type of infusion used.
I recommend that your first step towards getting Hiram infusions will be by completing the daily Hiram quests in Diamond Shore which can rewards you with three “Mysterious Hiram Infusions”. You can also proceed to do the rest of the daily Hiram quests.
The Daily Hiram Quests
The best way to get Hiram infusions is by completing daily quests in Auroria. Here are a few daily quests that drop Hiram infusions and Hiram awakening scrolls. I am not sure if this list shows all the daily Hiram quests, but these ones are found in the following regions:
- Diamond Shore – Kill 50 enemies – Rewards with 3 unidentified Hiram infusions
- Exeloch – Kill 50 enemies – Rewards with 4 unidentified Hiram infusions or 5 Hiram awakening scrolls
- Sungold Fields – Kill 50 enemies – Rewards with 5 unidentified Hiram infusions or 10 Hiram awakening scrolls
- Reedwind – Kill 100 enemies – Rewards with 4 Mysterious Hiram infusions or 5 Hiram awakening scrolls
- Western Hiram Mountains x3
- Illusion Cave 1 – 3 x Radiant Hiram Infusion or 7 x Radiant Hiram Awakening Scroll
- Illusion Cave 2 – 3 x Radiant Hiram Infusion or 7 x Radiant Hiram Awakening Scroll
- Hiram Camp – 3 x Radiant Hiram Infusion or 7 x Radiant Hiram Awakening Scroll
- Eastern Hiram Mountains x4
- NW corner – 5 x Brilliant Hiram Awakening Scroll
- SW corner – 10 x Radiant Hiram Infusion or 2 x Brilliant Hiram Awakening Scroll
- NE corner – 5 x Brilliant Hiram Awakening Scroll
- SE corner – 20 x Radiant Hiram Infusion or 4 x Brilliant Hiram Awakening Scroll
You need to be at level 52 for the first four daily missions and at level 55 for the later mission. Note that these quests also reward you with awakening scrolls which we will discuss later.
There are quite often raids organized to do these daily quests. They are usually mentioned in Nation chat when active. Doing them as part of a raid is so much faster than alone that I really recommend it even if you’re not yet at level 55 and can only get the first four quests.
Other Ways to Get Hiram Infusions
You can grind mobs in Auroria which drop both Hiram gear and Hiram infusions. The Hiram gear you loot from Abyssal Legion mobs can be used in the same way you would use a Hiram infusion. The offset is that you need to spend labor to uncloak the Hiram stuff you loot before you can infuse it to your own gear and it gives much less experience.
You can also get Hiram infusions from taking part in a Crimson Rift Raid event. To get the full benefit you need to accept three Crimson rift missions from the appropriate NPC. Each mission gives 2, 3 and 4 Hiram infusions. Again these are organized into raids (they need to be) much in the same way as daily Hiram quests.
On top of this, doing instances rewards you with Hiram infusions in addition to honor points and stuff, so they are also worth doing.
Upgrading Your Hiram Gear With Infusions
Starting with a quick recap from when you upgraded your story quest gear. To upgrade your Hiram gear you need to move the piece of gear you wish to upgrade into your inventory, open the “Upgrade Gear” window and press the “Synthesis” button. Then you need to place your gear into the “Base Costume” box and select the Hiram infusions and/or Hiram gear you are going to use to upgrade it.
You will see that you now get a multicolored bar. The first color of the bar is the guaranteed experience increase you get and the other colors are possible additional experience increases based on some RNG thingy.
You can add infusions one at a time or a few at a time. Once the experience from infusing the gear reaches the needed number the gear upgrades to the next grade. When your gear moves up a grade (e.g. Grand -> Rare) it gets slightly better stats as well as one change attempt on those stats.
Change Attempts Explained
You are probably already aware that you can change the innate effect of your gear a few times. If not then let’s go through it. First of all, from the image above you can see that I had 5 change attempts available for this piece of armor. Assuming you also have some change attempts, you then open the “Replace Effect” tab inside the synthesis window to use them. Once there you can simply click on the stat you want to change and press “Replace”. The nice thing is that if you don’t like the new stat you get you can press cancel and you keep the old stat.
For the first tier, you can add infusions to your gear until you get it to Celestial grade. Once there you will need to awaken your gear to upgrade it further.
Awakening Hiram Gear
In addition to grades, each piece of gear has tiers. There are four tiers in total, the base tier you start with and then Radiant, Brilliant and Glorious tiers (T1, T2, and T3). To awaken a piece of Hiram gear it first needs to have reached the highest grade in its tier, which is:
- Celestial grade for Base tier -> Radiant tier
- Divine grade for Radiant tier –> Brilliant tier
- Epic for Brilliant tier –> Glorious tier
- At the glorious tier, you can use synthesis to get an item up to mythic grade.
Awakening also requires the use of Hiram Awakening Scrolls, which are rewarded by some of the daily Hiram quests. There are three tiers of awakening scrolls which are:
- Rare Hiram Awakening Scroll – Use 10 scrolls to awaken to Radiant tier
- Heroic Hiram Awakening Scroll – Use 20 scrolls to awaken to Brilliant tier
- Celestial Brilliant Hiram Awakening Scroll – Use 50 scrolls to awaken to Glorious tier
For your first awakening, you will be by using the rare tier Hiram Awakening Scroll. As mentioned you will need 10 of these for each attempt at awakening a piece of gear from the base tier to the Radiant tier. However, unlike the story quest gear, you now only have a chance of successfully awakening your gear. The chance is based on the tier of awakening and how many attempts have failed so far (failstacks).
If you looked at the image above you might have noticed that the swords statistics are reduced after awakening. So why should you awaken your gear? The answer lies in the fact that a higher-tiered gear can be synthesized to a higher grade. While the base tier only allows you to synthesis up to celestial grade, the brilliant tier lets you synthesis gear all the way to Epic grade (which is much higher).
Failstacking Explained
For each failed attempt at awakening a piece of gear you will also get a bonus to the chance on your next attempt. This bonus is called a failstack and you get a 5% extra chance of success for each failstack you have. For example, if you have failed five times in a row you will have a base chance of 35% (10% + 5 x 5%) on your next attempt.
Crystallization of Gear Explained.
When you fail at an awakening attempt there is a small chance that your gear becomes crystallized. Getting your gear crystallized is a bothersome experience. What this means is that your gear is locked in place regarding upgrades. It’s not destroyed and you can still use it, but you can no longer upgrade it further. Sounds shitty right?
But there is a way out. In the honor store there is an item called “Decrystalization Scroll” it costs 10.000 honor points, which is hefty, but it un-crystallizes your gear so you can continue to upgrade it. There is also another way to awaken gear without risking crystallization.
Increasing Your Chance of Awakening Success
By using a Runescribe Quill on 50 Hiram Awakening Scrolls you can create a Sacred Hiram Awakening Scroll which increases the chance of a successful awakening and removes the chance of an item becoming crystallized. You can get a Runescribe Quill from the prestige shop of your guild or by crafting it. The recipe of a runescribe quill is:
- 100 Glossy Feathers
- 10 Sunlight Archeum Essence
- 10 Moonlight Archeum Essence
- 5 Onyx Archeum Essence
There are also radiant and brilliant versions of the runescribe quills you can use for the higher tier awakening scrolls.
Tempering Your Hiram Gear
On top of the infusions and awakening options, you can temper your gear. Tempering your gear enhances the gear stats by a bit. To temper a piece of gear you will need to get your hand on Solar and Lunar Temper. Thes items can be found in Ancestral Chests which are dropped by ancestral enemies in Auroria.
The chance of a successful temper is 100% up to +10. At that point, the chance of success will start to drop. The gold cost of each attempt will also increase as you go up the ladder.
Socketing Lunagems
Finally, you can socket items called lunagems into your gear to enhance it even more. This can be done with regular gear as well as Hiram Gear. To read all about lunagems and lunastones check this guide out.
So that’s about all I know at this point about upgrading your Hiram gear in Archeage Unchained. Now if you found this guide useful then please share it with your friends and allies in the game. I also have a few other guides on Archeage if you are interested. Anyway, good luck with upgrading your gear.
I just want to say THANK YOU so much for creating this guide. It’s very clear and concise and much appreciated.