Honing in Lost Ark: When does it unlock and how to use it for gear enhancement

Seeking ways to improve and enhance gear scores constantly is one of the biggest parts of any MMORPG, and Smilegate’s Lost Ark is no stranger to this very fact.

Having an element of grid to the live service game helps to improve its overall health and popularity by allowing players to have an endgame goal when logging onto the MMO every day.

Gear Honing is how Lost Ark allows adventurers to scale their favorite weapons and armors and make them endgame content-ready.

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Gear scores play a big part in how easily one can clear out dungeons and raids, and with a lower score, players will naturally struggle with some of the problematic quests that the MMO will have to offer.

While it might sound like a complicated system at first, Honing is not too difficult to grasp. But for players who are new to the game and still struggling to understand the mechanic, today’s guide will talk about everything that one needs to know regarding the gear scaling system in Lost Ark.

What is Honing and Gear scaling in Lost Ark?

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Roughly put, Honing is an in-game system that allows players to enhance their weapons and armor further than the base stat levels that they get for it. As the adventurer rises in level, so can their favorite weapons and armor, and to do that, one needs to invest a bit of time and resources in Honing.

Upgrading Gear is essential for tackling some of the more difficult in-game content in the MMO. Some of the late-game content will be very difficult for adventurers whose gear scores do not meet the minimum requirements for participating in them.

Hence, learning the Gear Honing mechanic is a must for all players who wish to see it through to the endgame in Lost Ark.

However, Honing gear does come at a price as it will require materials like the Harmony Shards, Stone Fragments, and Harmony Leapstones in the initial levels. As the weapons start to gain levels, the material requirements will change, and the Shards and Fragments will eventually turn into Ores and Stones.

Unlocking Gear Honing in Lost Ark

To unlock Honing, adventurers are first required to hit level 50 and have made their way to Vern Castle. From there, they will need to complete all the story quests marked in blue until they unlock the Chaos Dungeons and Gear Honing system.

Upon doing so, the endgame content will finally be made available to players, and they will be able to explore brutal raids, dungeons, and quests freely. These missions will eventually help them get their first gear set, which they can enhance through the Honing system.

How to use the Honing system in Lost Ark?

To enhance weapons, players will need to travel to the hammer icon on the map, which is the marker for the blacksmith, or as this MMO would like to call it, the Gear Honing NPC.

Entirely all of the gear upgrades will take place here. To get started, players must first interact with the NPC and bring up the Honing menu, which will contain the interface and the upgrade button.

Upon selecting the desired gear to be “honed”, players will need to click on the “Upgrade” option, immediately bringing up the gear upgrade menu. Adventurers will need to select the number of honing materials and silver they are looking to invest in the enhancement and then click on “Upgrade” again.

A meter will soon appear that will oversee the process. Once it reaches 100%, players can also click on the “Gear Honing” option to choose extra honing material, pick the upgrades they want to be added, and even manipulate the success rate if need be.

If the honing of gear fails, then it will just consume the resources instead of harming the weapon. Additionally, it will also improve the success rate of the following honing process, which players will check by noticing the energy bar in the Honing menu.

Upon reaching armor and weapon level, six players will have access to implementing Star’s Breath during a Honing to improve the success rate of the process drastically. However, it’s advised that adventurers keep this resource for when they reach further into the game or if the success rate of their favorite gear is well below 90%.