Honing Scrub? Honing Hammers? Gold Signs? What do they all mean, and how do I make these numbers go higher?
This guide will cover everything you need to know to hone your equipment in a cost effective way, as well as attempt to fill in some of the missing information about the honing system itself.
Foreword:
Many of the exact details of the honing system have never been fully disclosed, or posted in any guides. As a result, lots of inaccuracies, rumors, and superstitions pop up from time to time about what each of the different honing items do, and how to get the best results. In this guide, I'll attempt to bust some of the common myths of honing, however since there is no official source for this information and most of it is the result of my own testing, I want to note that there could be errors or mistakes, but everything posted here is as accurate as I could make it.
Introduction
Honing is a system added to equipment that allows players to customize additional bonus stats for their equipment. Honing can be accessed from the main menu at the top left of your screen at any time, however it is important that you first understand the bonuses you can gain from using a gold honer, which you can read about later in this guide.
The honing system brought with it a number of new features and items such as the weekly Famous Honer and Master Honer rankings, the Master's Golden Sign, and a variety of assorted material items.
When honing an item, you need any compatible equipment (it should say "Honing Available") and any Honing Polish of your choice. Adding Honing Oil will optionally increase all of the numbers on your resulting hone. If you've reached end-game content and you're perfecting your gear, this is a must-have bonus for your hones.
Equipment Rarity, Stars, and Lines
For the purpose of honing, higher item level equipment will be able to hone for higher stats. An item's rarity determines how many lines of stats that item will get from honing.
Purple Items = 5 Lines
Blue Items = 4 Lines
Green Items = 3 Lines
You can see these "Lines" by placing your mouse over the item after honing it, they are visible near the bottom of the equipment window.
Lower rarity items have 1 or 0 Random Stat Lines.
The two blue lines are the Prefix Stats, every honed item gets a randomly assigned prefix which gets added in front of the item name, and the first 2 stats on that item will always be predetermined.
The green line is determined by Honing Polish. Polish comes in a variety of stats and with effectiveness ratings between 10-100%. Many people falsely believe that the honing polish increases your odds to get a certain stat multiple times, or that higher percentages give you better stats. In reality, the percentage indicates the chance to successfully choose your desired stat for line #3. If you use 50% Vigor honing polish, then line #3 will have a 50% chance to end up as a Vigor stat line and a 50% chance to end up as a randomly chosen stat instead. 100% Vigor polish would always have vigor in line #3.
The red line(s) stats, where applicable, are selected at random and cannot be influenced by the prefix or polish.
The value of each stat is determined randomly, but is based on a number of factors:
- Item Rarity/Level
- Stars
- Gold Sign
- Honing Oil
Drop rate buffs such as Thief Potion, Aromine Pet, Hunter Buff, Drop Costume do not increase the results for honing. Honing is not an item drop, and is unaffected by drop rates.
The number of stars on an item is determined at the moment the item is crafted/bought/dropped by a monster. Items such as Elite Membership Card and Golden Menu can increase your odds of obtaining items with a higher number of stars. Once an item has been created, the stars are permanent and cannot be increased.
Each item has a list of minimum and maximum ranges for any given stat. An Eddga Staff might have a Magic Power range between 800 and 1800, and each hone will randomly select a number within that range.
- 3 Star items will have their minimum and maximum ranges increased by 5.26% when compared to 2 Star items.
- 4 Star items have their minimum and maximum ranges increased by 10.53% when compared to 2 Star items.
- Honing Oil increases minimum and maximum range by the given percentage rate, Golden Sign does not appear to impact the range
- The higher level the item is, the higher the range for each stat
- Every stat has its own specific range for each type of equipment; weapons have the highest ranges of all items.
Items
Honing Scrub
This item will erase the hone on your item and allow you to apply a new hone. These can be obtained from the Kafra Shop or events/random boxes, certain versions of the honing scrub will also charge a zeny fee, while other versions are free to use. Each scrub is one-time use. If the item you're honing is cheap (such as Menace or Desert Scorpion) it can be more cost effective to sell/discard the item with the unwanted hone and try again on a new item.
Precise Honing Hammer
A Precise Honing Hammer can be used to re-roll any of your Random stat lines and your Polish stat line. This can be done as many times as you want, and for any Random/Polish line on your equipment. When you use the Precise Honing Hammer, the resulting stat's minimum and maximum range will be halved, and honing oil/golden sign bonus cannot be carried over. This is good if you have a nearly perfect item with 1 line of a bad stat on it but if your item is not already very good, a halved stat line will probably not help to fix that.
Honing Oil
Honing Oil comes in 5, 10, and 15 percent varieties. Oil is an optional material that can be added to the honing screen next to the Polish, it raises the minimum and maximum range of your resulting hone by the given percentage rate.
Honing Polish
Polish comes in many stat varieties and percentage increments between 10 and 100 indicating their chance to successfully influence the 3rd line of your hone. Polish has no other affect on the stats on your hone, or any other lines of your hone besides the 3rd one. Any polish can be used on any equipment with the exceptions of Magic Attack and Physical Attack which can only be used on weapons, and Defense which can only be used on armors.
Golden Sign Honer
The 'Gold Sign' bonus is bestowed upon ranked honers who gain a special costume accessory called the "Master's Golden Sign" which lasts for 7 days before expiring, there are a few things to know about gold honing:
While it's unclear exactly how the Golden Sign's bonus works, the best explanation I have come up with based on my testing is that the sign increases your odds of getting a value nearer to the maximum end of each stat's range. It appears to do this without further increasing the max range, unlike Honing Oil or Stars. The Golden Sign's bonus appears to increase all stats on a given hone by an average of about 5%.
Master's Golden Sign & Shop Emblems
A gold honers's bonus is derived solely from their back accessory item, while the emblem in the shop title is derived solely from that player's weekly refiner rank. This means a player might have a gold or silver emblem on their shop without actually having a sign equipped, resulting in no bonus. Likewise, a player can use their sign after their weekly rank has already been reset, resulting in a gold hone shop with no emblem. These two things are separate from one another.
Remember to always confirm that the Gold honer you are using is wearing a sign accessory on their backs!
Honing Polish, 10%, 50%,100%?
Honing Polish is a complicated question to answer, and depends heavily on the market value of the other materials you plan to use as well as the cost of the item you're honing.
100%
If 100% polish is cheaper than Honing Scrubs, or if you intend to use Honing Oil then this option is better for you. If you're attempting to gain very specific stats, such as 3 rows of Vigor, then this polish will also save you money in the long run.
50%
If honing scrubs are cheaper or more accessible to you due to sales or events, 50% polish can sometimes be a much cheaper option. You can make many more attempts by choosing the best combination of scrubs and polishes for your budget, 50% polish works just as well as any other hone except that you get less control over your third stat line.
10%
You should only use this if you're attempting to hone for VIT on line 3 (this can only be done by 'failing' the percentage chance of your polish, 10% does this job well) or you don't particularly care about the stats your getting on line 3 in the first place.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found this guide useful! If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment or PM.
Edited by Tonitrua, 23 October 2015 - 04:26 PM.
