Sometimes MMO games drop the ball when it comes to explaining early game mechanics to players. It can be understandable when it comes to mid or end game content, but to have such an important part of Archeage’s early game go completely unmentioned is a poor performance of the game’s development.
I’m guessing that (since you are reading this) you have realized that the first set of gear (weapons and armor) you get early in your story quests of Archeage can be upgraded to increase its stats and grade. But the game doesn’t tell you at all about how that is done. Or for that matter, that you should do it, which is really frustrating as it makes life so much easier from level 1 to level 50. To then add insult to injury, the story quest gear will be upgradeable to Hiram gear once you hit Auroria. So if you missed this part and threw the materials away you will be at a huge disadvantage.
Anyway, let’s look into how to upgrade Archeage’s story quest gear.
The Gear and Materials Needed.
The only gear that you can upgrade in this manner is the story quest gear which is labeled “Explorer’s Gear”. You should have gotten it in weapon and armor crates as a story quest reward. If you have already thrown some of it away (or all of it as I did) fear not. You can buy this gear from weapon and armor merchants, just be sure to buy the “Explorer’s” variety as the other gear cannot be upgraded in this manner.
You will also get Story Quest Infusions and Equipment Awakening Scrolls from completing story quests. Do not throw those away or delete them as you cannot get them back. This is the most frustrating part of this system as it means that a simple mistake will cost you gear score and make the leveling experience a little harder overall. There is a workaround if you’re missing a rank 1 infusion, but it might be considered an exploit. You can read about it at the end of this page.
Also, you want to make sure that the upgraded equipment is still usable by your character, so check the level requirements of the gear and compare it with your own level to see if it is the right time to upgrade your gear.
First Upgrade With Story Quest Infusion Rank 1
Story Quest Infusion: Rank 1 is the first item you use to upgrade the story quest gear. To do so you need to complete the following steps.
- Open up your inventory.
- Press the “Gear Upgrade” button near the bottom of the inventory window.
- Open the Synthesis tab at the top of the “Gear Upgrade” window.
- You should now be at the right place to perform the synthesis. Right-click the piece of gear you wish to upgrade and place one or two, Story Quest Infusion Rank 1 in the material section. Only enough for what is needed to reach Arcane grade.
- Press the “Synthesis” button and you should now have an Arcane grade piece of gear.
You can do this for all your Explorer’s gear as you get more Story Quest Infusion Rank 1 items.
Second Upgrade With Equipment Awakening Scroll Rank 1 – Level 28 Gear
Equipment Awakening Scroll: Rank 1 is the second item you use to upgrade the story quest gear. This will reduce the gear’s grade but will give the gear a bonus to a single statistic. To do this you need to complete the following steps.
- Open up your inventory
- Press the “Gear Upgrade” button near the bottom of the inventory window.
- Open the Awakening tab at the top of the “Gear Upgrade” window.
- Right-click the item you want to upgrade and an Equipment Awakening Scroll Rank 1.
- Press the “Awakening” button and you will get a grand item that has a single bonus stat.
- Check which bonus stat you got and decide if it suits your character.
Once done you can check which stat you got for your gear. If you got a stat that is useless for your character you can buy an Adventurers Everstone to revert the upgrade and get back the Equipment Awakening Scroll and Story Quest Infusion you used. This will destroy the item, but you can always buy the armor and melee weapons from the respective merchants. Do NOT do this with the bow as you cannot buy another explorer’s bow. This has been fixed now and you can get a new bow. Then just repeat the previous steps until you have all your gear Awakened with stats that are useful for your character class.
Third Upgrade With Story Quest Infusion Rank 2
Now you need to repeat the steps for the first upgrade. Remember to just add the proper amount of rank 2 infusions to get to Heroic grade.
Forth Upgrade With Equipment Awakening Scroll 2 – Level 40 gear
Again, just repeat the steps for the second upgrade, this time using the rank 2 Equipment Awakening Scroll. This will again lower its grade but give it another stat.
This time you should not destroy the item if you’re not happy with the stats. You can instead go back into the “Upgrade Gear” window, open the synthesis tab and in there press “Replace Effects”. Then you can select the stat you wish to reroll and click Replace. Doing this will spend a change attempt. After each attempt, you get to decide if you wish to keep that stat or not, which is really neat. This means that you can do the attempt even if you have a good stat and see if you get the stat you were hoping for.
Don’t worry about saving these attempts as you get another three attempts the next time you upgrade your gear.
Final Upgrade Steps for Your Story Quest Gear
Eventually, you will get rank three Story Quest Infusions. These can then be used to upgrade your gear even further in the same manner as explained before. The next Awakening Scroll you get will then finally turn your gear into Hiram gear. But before you do that you should make sure that the statistics of your gear are suitable for the class you are playing. Reason being that after you turn your gear into Hiram gear there is no turning back.
Upgrading Into Hiram Gear – Level 50 Gear.
When you use the Equipment Awakening Scroll level 3 on your gear it will turn into Hiram gear, which requires you to be at level 50 to be able to use it. So wait until you hit that level before awakening your gear into Hiram gear.
This is the final step of the story quest gear upgrade and from this point onward, you need to learn how Hiram gear upgrading works.
A Workaround If You Lost a Rank 1 Infusion.
This workaround was found by u/whatistrueishidden on reddit so I will just add a screenshot of his method posted on the Archeage subreddit here.
So that’s about all there is to upgrading your story quest gear. If you found this guide useful then please share it with your friends and allies in Archeage. I also have a few other guides on Archeage Unchained if you are interested. In any case, good luck getting to that Hiram Gear.