How Gear Progression Works in Neverwinter

Today I’d like to write about an everyday topic in any MMO: Gear Progression. Everyone knows, the more you progress, the higher your stats, the better will you perform. But not every section of gear has the same influence on your overall progression and it’s good to know what contributes the most. Especially with the latest dungeon Fangbreaker Island this is more relevant than ever. You are only able to access this dungeon if you can manage to get over 3,100 item level. So let’s take a look how your gear progression and also stat progression in Neverwinter works in different areas.

Enchantments

Demonic EnchantmentThe enchantments granting the most stats are triple enchantments (Black Ice, Draconic, Demonic). With 13 unlocked slots you get 11,960 stat points out of Rank 12s. To upgrade them is very expensive however because of the snowball system. Additionally they suffer from the mess that is Module 6. Thanks to two different progression curves Rank 11 and 12 contribute roughly 40% to your stat progression. 13x Rank 10 only gets you 7,176, a whopping 4,784 less than Rank 12. In terms of item level 13x Rank 12 nets 1,066. Add the five utility slots and this numbers increases to 1,476.

Artifacts

All Artifacts on mythic grant 10,400 stat points. The upgrading of Artifacts is relatively easy because it follows a more linear type of investment and progression. To upgrade your Artifacts to the max level you need 41,878,540 RP. This may sounds much but it’s absolutely doable over time utilizing the double events. RP for Artifacts are among the cheapest because so many types can be used and being smart about upgrading means you can save a bunch of ADs by using feeders.

Say you bring a matching Artifact to rank 59 and then use it to refine your main one. The RP needed would be 293,535 and you would get 619,600 RP in return (+326,065). If you do this on a double RP weekend you basically half the cost and double the RP (+1,092,433). So yeah, upgrading Artifacts is dirt cheap compared to other areas of the progression.

Unfortunately item level does reflect that. Four Artifacts on mythic generate 640 item level. And considering the low stat increase from rank 139 to 140 (full mythic) you should probably only get your main Artifacts to mythic and leave the others at rank 139 without the upgrade. That means for about 9,900 stat points you only get about 550 item level. That’s only about the half of what Enchantments generate with the same stat increase.

Armor

No Joke. Armor gives you the biggest chunk of your stat progression. Elemental Dragonflight Armor offers you a massive 24,057 stat points. The strange thing is, it only nets you 568 item levels. You really get much out of the armor, more than double the stat ratings of Enchantments. But it only has half the item level to show for it.

Artifact Equipment

Golden Dragon Weapons Concept ArtA huge portion of your stat progression is in your Artifact Gear. At max level it grants you 11,880 stat points (four pieces). It adds utility, attribute and set bonuses (in case of the Twisted set that’s another 3,840 for example), has the highest damage of all weapons and also offers damage bonus for your At-Wills and passive class powers. But you once again only get lousy 550 item level from the Artifact Gear itself. As comparison: The four unlocked enchantment slots would grant 328 item levels for only 3,680 stat points with Rank 12s.

Rings

One of the best rings are the Underdark Legendary +5 Rings. Each ring can grant up to 1,350 stat points which means both add 2,700 stat points for 290 item levels. To take this into perspective, the best rings in the game give you only about 4% of your total stat progression. So don’t worry if you never get the perfect rings for your gear. It doesn’t matter that much. It is only important that you have rings with two slots. Because once again enchantments can magically boost our item level. Four slots with Rank 12 Enchantments generate 3,680 stat points and 328 item levels. Which means the rings are a good way to get to the requirements of Fangbreaker Island.

The same applies to the remaining gear which is Shirt, Pants and Reinforcement Kits. Shirt and Pants give you 1,364 stat points and generate up to 280 item levels. The stats of the Shirt and Pants are not really important, important is the item level and the fact that you get the two enchantment slots. Armor Reinforcement Kits are also kinda off, generating 280 item levels for 1,200 stat points.

Conclusion

In our example can get up to 4,084 item levels (including 5 additional utility enchantments) and 63,561 stat points from gear. That means enchantments contribute 36.14% to the overall item level but only 18.82% to your overall stat progression. Meanwhile Armor generates nearly 40% of all your stats, but is only worth 14% of your item level. If you now take into account that a BIS companion can add over 34,866 stat points for basically zero item level, it is quite obvious that the metric doesn’t say much about your progression. Boons add about 10,000 stat points as well without being represented in the item levels. Here’s a full table of all categories and what they contribute:

[su_table]

Category Stats % Item Levels %
Enchantments 11,960 18,82% 1,476 36.14%
Artifacts 10,400 16.36% 640 15.67%
Armor 24,057 37.85% 568 13.91%
Artifact Equip 11,880 18.69% 550 13.47%
Rings 2,700 4.25% 290 7.10%
Underwear 1,364 2.15% 280 6.86%
Reinforcement 1,200 1.89% 280 6.86%
SUM 63,561 100.00% 4,084 100.00%
Companion 34,866 0
Boons 10,000 0

[/su_table]


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6 thoughts on “How Gear Progression Works in Neverwinter

  • November 21, 2016 at 8:45 am
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    Don’t you mean “Demonic” instead of Giant Enchantment above?

    • November 21, 2016 at 10:45 am
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      We’ll check with the author, ty

  • November 21, 2016 at 11:57 am
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    Double enchantments grant the same amount of stats and triple enchantments. 13 * 840 = 10920 for r12’s if my maths is correct

  • November 21, 2016 at 9:51 pm
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    No.
    Double Enchantments grant 840 and Triple Enchantment grant 920 at Rank 12. It was reworked a few patches ago.

    • November 22, 2016 at 11:24 am
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      Thanks for clarifying. The article’s screenshot shows the old numbers.

  • November 22, 2016 at 1:53 am
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    Confirmed that enchantments have been updated on Xbox One for double enchantments at 20% and triple enchantments at 40% respectively

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