Refinement System

Overview

Equipment in Ragnarok Online can be 'upgraded' or 'refined' by upgrade NPCs in each major towns to make them more powerful. All equipment has a maximum upgrade level of +10, starting from +0. +0 items do not have any prefixes, but once they are upgraded, the number of upgrade levels will be displayed on the equipment - e.g. +5 Stunner.

Also, you can turn in Rough Oridecon and Rough Elunium to create single refined Oridecon and Elunium, which are needed for upgrading Lv. 3 / Lv. 4 weapons, items and armors, respectively. The Kafra Shop offers Enriched versions of these two ores, which, when used by a special upgrade NPC, increases the chance of successfully upgrading an item.

Upgrade NPC Locations

• Inside Prontera (prt_in) 63,60
• Inside Morroc (morocc_in) 73,38
• Payon (payon) 144,173
• Inside Alberta (alberta_in) 29,59
• Basement of Juno Armory (juno) 119, 137
• 2nd floor of Einbroch Blacksmith Guild (einbroch) 255, 108
• Basement of Lighthalzen Weapon Shop (lighthalzen) 194, 35

Upgrade Requirements

To upgrade equipment, make sure you have the following:

• Equipment
• Money
• Reagent

Not all item types can be upgraded. The following item types cannot be upgraded:

• Mid and Low Headgears
• Accessories
• Any items that are not equipment
• Any equipment that specifically says it cannot be upgraded

Reagents and Cost

To upgrade, you need to provide a reagent in order to upgrade your equipment. Reagent required differs depending on weapon level of the equipment. As for armors, they all take same reagent regardless of type.

Money taken also differs depending on weapon level of the weapons.

Following list shows reagent + money required.

• Weapon Lv. 1 - Phracon (200 Z from NPC Shop) + 50 Z Fee
• Weapon Lv. 2 - Emveretarcon (1,000 Z from NPC Shop) + 200 Z Fee
• Weapon Lv. 3 - Oridecon (Monster drop) + 5,000 Z Fee
• Weapon Lv. 4 - Oridecon + 20,000 Z Fee
• All Armor Types - Elunium (Monster drop) + 2,000 Z Fee

Refining Rough Oridecons and Eluniums

When you collect 5 Rough Oridecons and Rough Eluniums, you can convert them into a single Oridecon or Elunium by talking to an NPC in the upgrade shop. Note that you can make only one pure Oridecon or Elunium each time you talk to the NPC. This service does not cost any Zeny.

Effects Gained

When you successfully upgrade, you gain following effects:

• Weapons
  • Weapon Lv. 1 - Every +1 upgrade gives +2 ATK (+3 ATK for every overupgrade).
  • Weapon Lv. 2 - Every +1 upgrade gives +3 ATK (+5 ATK for every overupgrade).
  • Weapon Lv. 3 - Every +1 upgrade gives +5 ATK (+7 ATK for every overupgrade).
  • Weapon Lv. 4 - Every +1 upgrade gives +7 ATK (+13(?) ATK for every overupgrade).

• Armors
  • Every +1 upgrade gives +1 (it's actually only 0.66) Equipment DEF (not VIT DEF).

Upgrades are useful, as for weapon upgrade, it reduces damage range between min - max damage (allowing you to do better average damage), it also increases your damage range. For armors, it reduces damage you take by 0.66% per every upgrade level.

Safety Level

The Safety Level is the maximum level of refinement that can be given to equipment with guaranteed success (0% chance of failure). Anything past the safety level has chance to fail, and failure means your equipment will be permanently destroyed, including any cards and other enchantments it may have had. You won't be refunded Zeny and the ore used to upgrade if it fails. Give careful thought before deciding if you want to upgrade a piece of equipment beyond its safety level.

Premium (subscription) servers offer the following safety levels when upgrading with regular ores:

• Weapons
  • Weapon Lv. 1 - Safety Level +7
  • Weapon Lv. 2 - Safety Level +6
  • Weapon Lv. 3 - Safety Level +5
  • Weapon Lv. 4 - Safety Level +4
• Armors
  • All armor types have Safety Level +4

There are no safety levels on almost all free-to-play servers worldwide when upgrading with regular ores. By using Enriched Elumium and Enriched Oridecon however, these safety levels are re-enabled.

Success chances - Subscription-based servers

Success chance with normal metals

Chances to successfully refine an item on premium (subscription) servers with normal metals are:

Upgrade	Lv. 1	Lv. 2	Lv. 3	Lv. 4	Armor
+4 -> +5	100%	100%	100%	60%	60%
+5 -> +6	100%	100%	60%	40%	40%
+6 -> +7	100%	60%	50%	40%	40%
+7 -> +8	60%	40%	20%	20%	20%
+8 -> +9	40%	20%	20%	20%	20%
+9 -> +10	20%	20%	20%	10%	10%

Upgrade	Lv. 1	Lv. 2	Lv. 3	Lv. 4	Armor
+0 -> +5	100%	100%	100%	60%	60%
+0 -> +6	100%	100%	60%	24%	24%
+0 -> +7	100%	60%	30%	9.6%	9.6%
+0 -> +8	60%	24%	6%	1.92%	1.92%
+0 -> +9	24%	4.8%	1.2%	0.384%	0.384%
+0 -> +10	4.8%	0.96%	0.24%	0.0384%	0.0384%

Success chance with enriched metals

Success chances using Enriched Oridecon/Elunium are:

Upgrade	Lv. 1	Lv. 2	Lv. 3	Lv. 4	Armor
+4 -> +5	100%	100%	100%	90%	90%
+5 -> +6	100%	100%	90%	60%	60%
+6 -> +7	100%	90%	75%	60%	60%
+7 -> +8	90%	60%	30%	30%	30%
+8 -> +9	60%	30%	30%	30%	30%
+9 -> +10	20%	20%	20%	10%	10%

Note that red colored numbers mean no improvement over normal Oridecon or Elunium.

Upgrade	Lv. 1	Lv. 2	Lv. 3	Lv. 4	Armor
+0 -> +5	100%	100%	100%	90%	90%
+0 -> +6	100%	100%	90%	54%	54%
+0 -> +7	100%	90%	67.5%	32.4%	32.4%
+0 -> +8	90%	54%	20.25%	9.72%	9.72%
+0 -> +9	54%	16.2%	6.075%	2.916%	2.916%
+0 -> +10	10.8%	3.24%	1.21%	0.2916%	0.2916%

Originally, the Blacksmith's skill Weaponry Research was believed to add 1% refining chance per skill level (up to 10% at skill level 10) to the Blacksmith. This has been proven to be false. However, the Mastersmith skill Upgrade Weapon will increase self-weapon refining chance by 0.5% per job level after job 50. At job 70 the smith has a +10% better chance to successfully refine a weapon than an upgrade NPC does.

Success chances - Free-to-play servers e.g. iRO Valkyrie

Note: iRO Classic Loki server, despite being a F2P server, uses subscription server upgrade success rates.

This is the approximate upgrade success chances using regular metals on a server without safe upgrade limits, such as iRO Valkyrie, pRO Valkyrie/Valhalla and most other F2P servers (Cumulative chance with these figures from +0 in brackets):

Upgrade	Lv. 1	Lv. 2	Lv. 3	Lv. 4	Armor
+0 -> +1	90%	90%	90%	90%	80%
+1 -> +2	90% (81%)	90% (81%)	90% (81%)	80% (72%)	80% (64%)
+2 -> +3	90% (73%)	90% (73%)	80% (65%)	80% (58%)	80% (51%)
+3 -> +4	90% (66%)	80% (58%)	80% (52%)	60% (35%)	60% (31%)
+4 -> +5	80%	80%	60%	60%	60% (18%)
+5 -> +6	80%	60%	60%	40%	40% (7%)
+6 -> +7	60%	60%	50%	40%	40% (3%)
+7 -> +8	60%	40%	20%	20%	20% (0.6%)
+8 -> +9	40%	20%	20%	20%	20% (0.1%)
+9 -> +10	20%	20%	20%	10%	10%

Success chance with enriched metals

Success chances using Enriched Oridecon/Elunium are:

Upgrade	Lv. 1	Lv. 2	Lv. 3	Lv. 4	Armor
+0 -> +1	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
+1 -> +2	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
+2 -> +3	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
+3 -> +4	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
+4 -> +5	100%	100%	100%	60%	60%
+5 -> +6	100%	100%	60%	40%	40%
+6 -> +7	100%	60%	50%	40%	40%
+7 -> +8	60%	40%	20%	20%	20%
+8 -> +9	40%	20%	20%	20%	20%
+9 -> +10	20%	20%	20%	10%	10%

Note that red colored numbers mean no improvement over normal Oridecon or Elunium.

Socket Enchants

For more details on the system, see Socket Enchant.

Players may use this system to add an additional card slot into selected pieces of equipment. They are divided by "ranks", which will require different amount of zeny and items (more expensive stuff will be required the higher the rank of the item you plan to upgrade). Success rates will also depend on the rank; higher rank items will have lower success rates.

When successfully enchanted, items will gain one or more slots to insert a card into. However, there are some exceptions. Some items have different effects as a result of successful enchant.

Hidden Enchants

For more details on the system, see Hidden Enchant.

This new system allows players to add stat bonuses to selected body armors. The gear is randomly given +1 to +3 of one of the 6 stats. Success rates vary according to the type of armor. Each attempt costs 400,000 zeny, but no items are needed other than the armor itself.

See Also

• Upgrade Weapon (Mastersmith Skill)
• Refinement and Cost calculator--JuicyJuices (talk) 03:50, 16 February 2017 (UTC)