Gearing and Upgrading in Chrono Odyssey

All information on this page is from the Closed Beta Test version of Chrono Odyssey. Systems, numbers, and names may change. We will keep testing and update this guide as new information releases.

The strength of your character comes from your gear, and the strength of your gear comes from tier, rarity, and how your stats and prefixes are allocated on the item. There are many ways to get gear in the game, from killing monsters to mighty bosses. You can find gear in dungeons or craft some of the strongest gear in the game.

As you get better gear and begin upgrading it via the Enhancement Station, you will gain Equipment Score. This score is primary indicator of an item's, and your, overall power, making your attacks stronger and more effective. You also need Equipment Score to do higher difficulty content.

Think of gear power in two layers: entry score and real performance. Equipment score gets you into content (Entry), but Tiers set the stat ceiling and your gears' enhancement caps. Rarity makes each gear stronger and also determines how many traits it can roll. The prefix adds the primary stat line, while being the main source of a build, and traits supply the unique passives. Sockets and gems fine tune your build.

• Equipment Score comes from upgrading your gear. The higher your Equipment Score, the closer you get to unlocking content.
• A gear's tier is the level band ceiling for stats and enhancement caps for upgrades.
• Item rarity increases base stats and the number or strength of your traits.
• Variant (stat prefix) is how stats are allocated on that same base item and typically makes a build.
• Prefix is the additional attribute line. Traits are the passive effects the item can roll and can be extremely strong.

You can get gear a few ways in Chrono. You can craft, loot, or target vendors, bounties, trials, and more. Crafting lets you aim for the stat profile you want and fill slots on demand, forming specific builds. Drops from solo and group dungeons, Chrono Gates, and world bosses provide upgrades and uniques. Trials are mainly for strong trait pieces you will later transfer onto better bases. Bounties and vendors round things out with recipes, shards, and stopgaps when drops are not on your side.

• Crafting: Weapon Crafting, Armor Crafting, Accessory Crafting
• Drops: Solo and Group Dungeons, Chrono Gates, World Drops, World Bosses
• Trials: Strong Perk pieces that you can later move onto better pieces of gear.
• Bounties and Vendors: Recipes, Shards, etc.

Upgrading in this game is done via enhancing your items at the Enhancement NPC in the main city. Each success increases the item level (+1 to +7 early, higher caps at higher tiers) and bumps key accessory stats (attack, crit, haste, resistances depending on the piece). Enhancing costs Enhancement Shards and a decent amount of gold. Shards come in several colors that match the item rarity: green for uncommon gear, blue for rare, and purple for epic or higher tiers.

Vendors throughout the world sell a limited supply of shards daily, typically five per NPC per reset. The higher your enhancement level, the more shards and gold the process will cost. Unlike in most other MMORPGs, enhancement attempts during the closed beta did not appear to fail or downgrade gear. Instead, it focused on cost scaling rather than risk. Like I said, it was quite pricey to enhance weapons. The enhancement cap depended on the item tier. The early-game equipment typically stopped at +7, while high-tier (Tier 5) gear can reach +15.

Enhancing is one of the most important progression systems in the game, as your total Equipment Score determines access to certain dungeons and open-world bosses. Always enhancing your primary and secondary weapons will significantly impact your combat and damage more than anything else in the game. Even when you are not actively wielding your back up weapon. Also, enhanced gear stacks with other progression systems like Perk Transfers, Socketing Gems, and Crafting the high Tier gear. Together, these systems form the foundation of long-term gear improvement in the game.

When crafting any item, it has a chance to come with a Jewel Socket. The chance for a socket goes up the higher tier item you are crafting. These are special slots that allow you to put Gems in that will increase your damage, give you stats or a long list of things. Gems can drop in any dungeon content, bosses, world bosses and world mobs, and can also be salvaged from higher tier gear later. Gems work differently than other MMORPGs:

• All sockets are randomized upon craft and previewable before finalizing the item.
• Each Gem is related to a specific skill in your class. Once socketed, it boosts that skill by +1 level or provide an additional modifier (like more damage, reduced cooldown, higher crit chance, or damage over time and many more options).
• Some high tier weapons allow multiple sockets, and there is a separate tab at crafting benches (icon looks like a Jewel Socket Imbuing on the minimap) that lets you insert, replace, or remove Gems for a nice chunk of gold.
• The amount of sockets, as well as your Gem rarity both scale with your item tiers and your equipment score.
• Sockets also interacts with your Enchantment and Enhancement tiers, making the higher tiers of gear (T4 to T5) are more likely to roll sockets.
• Gems are Bind on Equip once you socket them.

Perks are special passive effects that come attached to weapons and gear, granting extremely unique bonuses such as different types of procs, DoT amplifiers, execute windows, resource economy, or conditional crit and haste spikes. These effects are not tied to your class, meaning you can freely mix and match perks to customize your build and playstyle. Perks can appear on crafted gear, as well as dropped or enhanced gear. The number and strength of perks scale with the items rarity too:

1. Common (Green): 1 basic perk.
2. Rare (Blue): 2 moderate perks.
3. Epic (Purple): 3 to 4 perks. Sometimes includes rare unique effects.

Perks are randomly rolled when you craft weapons, armor or accessories, this means for example, that two weapons of the same type(for example, two Bows) can feel like two completely different weapons, depending on which perks they've got. Perks are what make your builds flexible, and they let you tailor your weapons towards whatever playstyle you're looking for. Sometimes the Chrono Gate bosses can give you a hard time, and being able to to use some strong defensive perks like Spirit's Protection, which reduces the damage you take by 25% for 5 seconds, would help tremendously. Other times you may want a perk like Momentum, which gives you 10% attack speed and damage.

For other help with perks, check out the video guide below:

Some of the most powerful perks are obtained inside of the Trials. Players can purchase trial keys, complete short combat rooms and puzzles to earn Trial Tokens. These tokens are exchanged for a piece of trial armor, which contains unique perks. Each piece of trial gear, no matter the quality, shared the same pool of possible perks. Below are some examples of powerful perk effects:

• Executioner's Edge: Increased Crit Chance/Damage against low-HP enemies.
• Relentless Flow: Gain Haste/Move Speed after spending a threshold of stamina/mana.
• Catalyze: DoT effects deal increased damage for a short window after a critical hit.
• Arc Surge: Periodically triggers bonus elemental damage on hit (internal cooldown).
• Spellweaver: Reduces key skill cooldowns slightly on multi-target hits.

Although the trial gear will be pretty weak once you get to the higher levels, you can transfer the perks to your stronger gear back at the main city. The process costs a small amount of gold and one Ember Breath per transfer.

Perks can be transferred from one piece of gear to another of the same type, allowing you to keep their favorite effects as they upgrade gear. For example, a perk found on a low green tier chest can be moved onto a blue or purple tier chest piece, or a perk from a sword can be moved onto another sword, etc. To transfer a perk, visit the Perk Transfer NPC found in the main city. Once you interact with this NPC, a transfer menu will open. Select the source item (the one with the desired perk) and the target item (the gear you want the perk applied to).

Each transfer requires a small amount of gold and one Ember Breath. This material can drop from elite monsters, named enemies, and dungeon bosses. Once the perk is transferred, the gear source item will lose that perk permanently, so make sure to double check your target gear before confirming the transfer! Currently, perks can only be transferred between items of the same category. For example, armor to armor, weapon to weapon, accessory to accessory. This restriction ensures that perk balance remains consistent across different types of equipment.

It is highly recommended to keep an eye out for rare or powerful perk effects during your playthrough, as transferring them to stronger gear will give you a significant edge in both PvE and PvP content.

Salvaging allows you to break down any of your unwanted accessories into valuable crafting materials. This system is essential for reusing materials in new crafts or enhancements, and also very helpful in keeping your inventory clean. You will find the Salvage NPC located next to the Enchanter and Perk Transfer vendors in the main city. When salvaging, you will receive a mix of raw resources such as Leather, Cloth, Ingots, Arch, and Oils. Higher rarity items will often yield more materials and occasionally return enhancement shards or other important special reagents. Crafted items, dungeon drops, and quest rewards can all be salvaged.

You should be looking to salvage anything you do not plan to use anymore. Salvaging is one of the best ways to keep a healthy and free flow of crafting materials without spending gold on vendors. Whenever you replace a weapon or armor piece, salvage the old one immediately, then go toss it in storage. This keeps your resources steady and gets you started on the materials for your next craft or upgrade. It also helps you restock Arch, which is used in a wide variety of end game profession recipes.

Helpful Tip: Always salvage green and blue items before you discard or sell them. Even the basic salvages can return key components used for refining, enhancing, or crafting new gear tiers. For best efficiency, keep a small stockpile of materials in your storage chest, since you can craft and refine directly from storage without carrying everything in your inventory.

The goal is to get as strong as you can at that early level. Craft your first set of Tier 1 gear. Enhance those piece, but only the pieces that move you into new content. If you'll replace it soon, then don't waste the shards on upgrading it.

• Gather as many materials as you can while making your way to the first major town.
• Craft the Tier 1 basics as soon as you arrive. Make your primary weapons and armor.
• Enhance your main weapon just enough to pass the first Chrono Gate.(typically +3 to +5 early).
• Go to the Bounty Board and start completing them in order. These not only give you the most experience, but they also reward you with early recipes, shards, and harder to get materials. Check vendors daily for shard limits.
• Keep tool upgrades rolling so your material flow stays high.
• Cook cheap regen food stack and a utility drink.
• Bank Ember Breath and only transfer a great trait once the destination piece will last (usually T3 to T4 and up).
• As soon as you reach the next level bracket, start crafting the weapons and gear for the next Tier.
• At T4 to T5, finalize sockets and start real enhancement pushes on weapon → chest/legs → accessories.

Crix

Staff Author

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This Guide has been written by Crix, a long time tester for Ashes of Creation, with over 1,000 hours playing the game, and a majority of the time being spent on Mages. He is in the guild Enveus and hosts multiple PvP Tournaments. You can find his Ashes of Creation guides on YouTube and his stream on Twitch.