If you started Exos Heroes at launch or are new to the game, obtaining and maximizing your fated gear is the current end game goal. While many of you may look at fated gear as simply the best and final equipment that you can obtain; to truly maximize the potential of your heroes you will need to understand the multiple ways of increasing stats and prioritizing guard stones on all your fated equipment.

This guide will focus on the process of utilizing your equipment in the most efficient manner in order to improve your performance in both PVE and PVP content. 

1. Resources Required to Polish and Forge Fated Equipment

Forging and polishing fated equipment to a max star grade of 6 and max level of 60 is the first step to unlocking additional stat bonuses. 

The first step in maximizing your equipment will be to polish and forge each piece until it reaches a 6-star grade and level 60. Polishing your equipment will increase its level while forging is essentially the process of increasing a piece’s level cap to a max of 60. The resources to polish equipment can be found at the Solar Trade Route and the resources required to forge equipment can be found at the Lunar Trade Route. Both resources can also be obtained through world map explorations.

Below is a table for a visual reference of the amount of XP required to reach the max level of each star grade and the materials/gold required to forge at each level. 

II. Weapon Awakening and Special Reforging

Once you reach the level cap of 60 for your equipment, you will notice the options of Special Forging and Weapon Awakening (for weapons) or Magic Enhancement (for armor) are available in the weapon details. Weapon Awakening is the process of increasing the base stats of a weapon (up to 10 times) and requires gold and a five-colored fate stone, which can be obtained through the Holy Dragon Grounds. Special Reforging is the process of increasing the level cap by 2 up to a max of 10 levels.

This process involves fusing equipment of the same type and grade which I would not recommend. for fated gear at this stage. This can be done much easier with legendary armor as it is a much more common drop than fated armor. Your priority for fated weapons should be to first max awaken the weapon to level 10 for maximum damage output as it only requires gold, thus being more resource-efficient. Awakening increases max attack value by a fixed amount of 30 for each level reaching a max of +300 additional attack.

Weapon Awakening for weapons increases base attack by 30 for each level.

As many in the Exos community were requesting the maximum attack bonus one could achieve with high base attack, content creators Temisnim, Viro, SourPK, and Vavien helped to create a great hero database for all players to use as a reference for building heroes and maximizing efficiency.

Here is the link to the “Exos Bible” for you to reference. Below is a copy of their data for the entire range of attack stats a fated weapon can have and it’s max value when fully awakened.

III. Benefits of Magic Enhancement for Fated Gear

Magic enhancement for armor pieces becomes available after reaching level 60. 

Similar to weapon awakening, magic enhancement becomes available on all armor pieces once you forge and polish the item to level 60. In contrast to awakening, enhancing armor will add or replace substats to the item as opposed to only increasing the base stat. While you may think this is negligible, it is actually a huge benefit that can greatly increase the performance of your attack or defense type hero.

Although the added/replaced stat is chosen at random, all potential substats are considered for any armor piece which allows you to focus on specific stats that most benefit your hero. For example, if you wanted your FC Rera to always move first, you can focus on adding attack speed to your helmet/armor/boots as it is currently only a default substat for weapons/gloves/accessories. In addition, it will stack substats already present on the item. Essentially, you can have a fated glove with two attack speed substats or a fated armor with two block substats.

While I am sure you all realize the added benefit enhancement provides, this is a very heavy resource-driven mechanic which is why it is the current end game grind for top tier players. It requires gold and Ores of Fate which currently can only be obtained by obtaining a D rank or higher in the Embodiment of Avarice or dismantling other fated equipment; I do not recommend the latter. That said, when this does become an option for you priorities should be to focus on adding block to defense types and critical hit chance for attack types. 

The benefit of enhancing is that it allows you to focus on specific substats that would most benefit a hero

IV. Guard Stone Effects and Set Bonuses on Fated Gear

Utilizing a full set of nature guard stones is the current trend for First Guardians/Dragon Emperor Knights due to the great synergy with their passive.

The last topic to touch on is the impact of guard stones and break mechanics with fated gear. Below is a table from the aforementioned “Exos Bible” that summarizes the Guard Stone benefits and break effects for each type for your reference. You can also reference the Exos Bible for Guard Stone recommendations for the most commonly used heroes.

As the current meta is constantly shifting, these are only current recommendations based on feedback from players at the game’s current state. With the release of element enhancing in the near future, the use of guard stone mechanics will undoubtedly become more crucial in building your heroes for defensive and offensive strategies.

My current recommendation for those with First Guardians/Dragon Knights is to utilize nature sets as much as possible as the increased dodge can be a game-changer and the synergy when broken can tilt a battle in your favor. The fixed damage taken each turn when broken (with a nature set) triggers The Great One mark and will stack dragon’s blood and also trigger wrath counters. So your FC Rera/Ana can essentially still kill an enemy while broken even though they cannot perform any actions for 7 turns! 

 Basic Table of Guard Stones and Their Set Bonuses and Break Effects *Credit to Creators Viro/Temisnim/SourPK/Vavien 

In closing.

I hope this guide has expanded your knowledge on fated equipment and the benefits they will have on maximizing your account’s potential. While this may be a lot of information to digest at once, be reminded these are mostly end game features that will take time to complete.

That said, as you now have several end game goals to target, continue the grind and may the RNG gods bless you with many pieces of fated equipment to use at your disposal!1

Credit again to “Exos Bible” creators Temisnim, Viro, SourPK, and Vavien!