Neverwinter Underdark XBox Primer: Itemization And Masterwork Professions

On February 9th Neverwinter Underdark will be released for the Xbox and to continue the tradition of this site, we are making sure you can start Module 8 off on the right foot with our Primer. We cover all important elements from the added content, the campaign, new items, QoL changes and endgame on Wednesdays until release. Have fun with it!

(*** Latest revision contains updates and suggestions by becky and Tremorra. Thanks guys! ***)

Campaign Gear

Underdark HR Gear
Underdark HR Gear

It’s always a good idea to start with our very own Item Database. Just pick Underdark as Module and your character class to preview the items. If you are not registered and can’t retrieve extended search rows you might have to limit your searches to specific categories. Generally two sets of gear are added to the game. The Dusk one (example) is a very versatile all-around item level 135 set that gives different bonuses in solo, party-play and your Stronghold and comes in two variants. It is the premium addition and only available through Trade Bars and the ZEN market, which means you can theoretically acquire it right after the launch. The Boots are packaged with Enchanted Keys and as by-product prices dropped really quick on the Auction House. Since the 1-set bonus is already a nice solo boost, it’s a cheap and useful get for anyone!

The other set, Drowcraft, also is level 135 and adds two variants of 140 with Elemental Infusion and the Black Ice Profession. Its set bonuses (example) help in fighting Demogorgon, especially the epic version. The set, as well as jewelry that comes with it and new Underwear (example), that has a minor healing set bonus, can be bought for Ichor, which just like Faerzress drops from any Underdark content. It’s capped at 400 per week though, so getting all pieces of the set takes at least 5 weeks (it’s 400 per and 600 for the armor). You also absolutely want to get a cache with 40 Ichors for your first completion of Underdark content per day (similar to the Protector and Element Caches). What content yields the cache changes every day and needs to be looked up in the campaign window. It can either be any Heroic Encounter, one of the skirmishes or normal Demogorgon. Drowcraft gear generally binds to account, but the Underwear is BoE. So in case you want it and like things to go a little faster, you can buy the Shirt and Pants on the Auction House.

Since the item levels are not raised in Module 8, Dusk and Drowcraft offer no new BiS but variation, so there are cases in which you want to keep your Dragonflight or Elven sets. Of course our Ratings Simulator includes all gear so you can check whether the new stuff is giving you a more favorable stat distribution. PVP players have no hard choice to make, because there is no new set for them.

All players however have to adjust to five new Artifact Weapon Sets that are thrown at them and differ only in their set bonuses. Here are the Paladfor examples:

Malacostra
Better get used to seeing Malacostra

The elementary sets come from Archdruid Morningdawn located under the Elemental Tree in Protecter’s Enclave. She also was the primary quest giver in Elemental Evil. To get a set you need to complete Elemental Evil Heroic Encounters in one of the Module 6 areas (Burning = Fiery Pit, Drowned = Drowned Shore, Howling = Spinward Rise, Earthen = Reclamation Rock) and collect 100 Motes. Since only the epic encounters have a 100% chance to drop a Mote, players on PC quickly organized and jumped from instance to instance to complete them. j0shi has recently recorded 50% of a Mote grind for his lowbie diaries. This will give you an impression what to expect. As you might imagine, the AP set bonus is relatively popular in PVE and the Drowned one was an early favorite of PVP.

The Twisted set previewed by Lazalia here comes from the epic Demogorgon end chest. You get one Twisted Ichor in the end chest for silver and two for gold. Since campaign keys are capped and you need additional Demonic Ichor, the weapons are another four week completion given enough gold completions. Legendary Dragon Keys however will also be updated to work with the chests.

Legendary Rings

Speaking of Demogorgon’s end chest: It will drop one of 16 new Rings that come in five tiers ranging from rare to legendary. The +5 Legendary versions only have a tiny chance of dropping and some players are reporting that they’ve not experienced or even noticed a drop albeit running epic Demogorgon multiple times per day. And even if you probably only have a 1/16 chance of getting the ring you actually need.

Some rings grant more stats (example) than another ring of equal item level in case you need that particular stat. Others grant some unique utility (example) and have largely impacted PVP balance. Particularly the Ring of Ambush continues to be an annoyance, but another major problem with the Ring of Cowardice not respecting its ICD has been fixed recently. So that won’t affect the Xbox version.

Masterwork Professions

Newly introduced Masterwork Professions present another way to acquire competitive gear and the only way to actually produce BoE sellable items. Because their item level of up to 140 is on par with other sets, the entry requirements for Masterwork Professions are high by design. You need to have a profession leveled to 25, a Stronghold with a Guild Hall of at least 6 and fight through multiple recipe tiers that all build on each other and only produce the desired resource or item as Rank 3 result. The first Masterwork items appeared on the PC Auction House for several million AD approximately two months after the launch of Underdark and came from well-organized big guilds with lots of resources.

Going through all of this for the item sets (TR examples: Assault, Duelist, Executioner, Raid) generally seems to be undesired, but the Duelist Ring from Jewelry Masterwork for example is very popular on PC PVP. Stronghold weapon sets are also gated behind the professions, because they provide the Armaments (TR).

Gear Preview

Gear Preview
Gear Preview

Attached to the gear is a completely fresh preview feature. So far you have only been able to preview gear through the transmutation UI, which meant owning the item and living with the usability flaws of that system. The gear preview feature takes care of it.

You can enter the preview window from any right-click context menu on gear no matter whether it’s located inside collections, the auction house or another player. This not only enables you to finally preview gear on your character that you don’t own, but you can also choose an animation and can freely rotate the character, which is especially useful for Guardians and Paladins and their shields.

All in all, this is a nice quality-of-life addition and was majorly appreciated on PC.


We hope this gives you a quick overview of what gear is being added with Underdark. You might also refer to the wiki page or the official PC Developer Blog HUB. Next time we’ll be dealing with market and progression changes as well as the endgame! If you have any further questions or additions, make sure to leave a comment or visit our forum.

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One thought on “Neverwinter Underdark XBox Primer: Itemization And Masterwork Professions

  • January 27, 2016 at 10:48 pm
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    A couple additions and one correction – first off, the Twisted Weapon grind can be done in four weeks – 400 Ichor a week (1600 Ichor total) and 8 keys a week (32 keys). You need either 40 silver completions or 20 gold completions, so if you get at least 10 gold completions you’ll have enough keys for Twisted Ichor in less than four weeks of daily runs. Side note, you’ll probably want 2-piece Drowcraft set before you run a lot of epic Demogorgon, but it’s not entirely necessary.

    Also, Dusk Boots (IL 135 and a very nice 1-piece set bonus for soloing) are available on the PC auction house for about 5k, and will probably be fairly cheap on the Xbox AH after a few weeks, since they come free with 20-packs of Enchanted Keys. I highly recommend them for anyone who solos content, or is using Elemental/Protector’s gear.

    Finally, while most Drowcraft gear is BoA, the Drowcraft undergarments are BoE, which means you’ll see them in the AH. They do not contribute to the Drowcraft set bonus, but have their own set bonus that adds a small amount of self-healing. Stat-wise they are not as good as top-tier (non-masterwork) crafted purple gear, but they’re much, much cheaper on PC now, and probably will be pretty cheap on Xbox after a few weeks.

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