If you’ve just wrapped up your Tier 1 grind in Lost Ark and hit item level 802, you’re probably staring at your new Tier 2 gear wondering what to do next. Figuring out how to upgrade tier 2 gear lost ark doesn’t have to be the frustrating, material-wasting nightmare many new players make it out to be. I’ve run through this progression phase on four different alts over the last year, so I’ve picked up all the little hacks and tricks to cut down on grind time and avoid blowing hundreds of gold on failed honing attempts. This guide breaks down every part of the process, from what materials you need to farm first to the little buffs that can push your honing success rate way higher than the base percentage.
How to Upgrade Tier 2 Gear in Lost Ark: Core Honing Basics First
If you’re completely new to honing in this progression bracket, the first thing you need to know is that each Tier 2 gear piece can be upgraded from +0 to +15, with a full +15 set pushing you to the 1100 item level threshold for Tier 3 content. Upgrades from +0 to +5 have a 100% success rate, so you don’t have to worry about wasting materials early on. Past +5, success rates drop gradually, falling as low as 10% for +14 and +15 upgrades.
Every failed honing attempt adds to your Artisan’s Energy meter, which fills up to 100% for a guaranteed successful upgrade. You won’t lose any existing upgrade progress on failed attempts until you hit +12, so you don’t need to use protection materials before that point. You never want to use solar grace, solar blessing, or solar protection materials for upgrades below +10, because the success rate is high enough that you’re just wasting resources you’ll need for later, lower-success attempts.
Always prioritize upgrading your weapon first, since it gives the biggest damage boost that makes all your farming runs faster. Even a +10 weapon will cut your guardian raid clear time by 30% or more compared to a +5 weapon, which adds up to hours of saved grind time over the course of your Tier 2 progression.
Must-Farm Materials for Tier 2 Gear Upgrades
You don’t need to blow all your gold buying materials off the auction house right away. 90% of the honing materials you need can be farmed for free from daily and weekly in-game content, as long as you stick to a consistent schedule. These are the core materials you’ll need to stock up on:
- Life Shards: The most common Tier 2 honing material, dropped from all Yorn and Feiton chaos dungeons, guardian raids, and daily Una’s Tasks
- Destruction Stone Crystals: Used exclusively for weapon upgrades, farmed from guardian raids and chaos dungeon boss kills
- Guardian Stone Crystals: Used for armor upgrades, far more abundant than destruction crystals so you’ll rarely run out
- Honor Shards: Higher-tier shards needed for upgrades above +10, primarily from weekly abyss dungeons and limited-time event rewards
- Gold: Required for every honing attempt after +5, so save as much as you can from daily Una’s reward sales and loot auction splits
Running two chaos dungeons a day on your main is non-negotiable, as that’s where you’ll get the majority of your life shards and stone crystals. If you have alts in Tier 1 or Tier 2, you can transfer excess bound honing materials to your main through your roster storage – that cuts your grind time almost in half if you have two or three alts running daily content. Only buy materials from the market if you’re 10 or 20 shards short of an upgrade, don’t stock up because prices drop constantly as more players reach Tier 2.
Hidden Buffs to Boost Your Honing Success Rate
Base success rates for +10 to +15 upgrades hover between 10% and 30%, but you can push that up by 30% or more if you use all available free buffs. The easiest buff to get is the Tier 2 honing feast, which you can craft in your stronghold or buy for a few hundred gold from the auction house, giving you +10% success rate for 10 minutes per use. Most active guilds also run a honing success buff for all members every weekend, adding an extra +5% to all attempts for the duration of the buff.
If you’ve researched the Tier 2 honing success boost in your stronghold lab, that’s a permanent +2% to all honing attempts that stacks with all other buffs. You can also get a temporary +1% buff from the pvp vendor if you have extra pvp coins lying around, though that’s a minor boost that only matters for the lowest-success +15 attempts.
Save your solar materials for upgrades from +12 to +15, where base success rates are below 20% – using a full set of solar grace, blessing, and protection can add up to 15% extra success rate per attempt, and prevent you from losing upgrade progress if you fail. I’ve noticed way higher success rates when I don’t spam attempts back to back, so if you have two or three failed runs in a row, take a 10 minute break to run a chaos dungeon before trying again. Tons of other players report the same pattern, so it’s worth testing for yourself.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Upgrading Tier 2 Gear
So many players burn through weeks worth of materials because they make small, avoidable mistakes during the Tier 2 grind. Most of these mistakes happen because players don’t take 10 minutes to learn the basics before they start dumping materials into upgrades. The first and most costly mistake is upgrading low-quality Tier 2 gear. Only upgrade rare (blue) or higher quality Tier 2 gear, because lower quality gear has lower maximum upgrade limits and gives worse stat bonuses, so you’ll have to replace it halfway through the grind and waste all the materials you put into it.
Another common mistake is wasting gold on protection materials for low-level upgrades. Failing upgrades below +12 only costs you the materials for the attempt, no progress loss, so protection pouches are completely useless before that point. A lot of players also skip Una’s Tasks to run more chaos dungeons, but the weekly Una’s rewards give you thousands of honor shards for 10 minutes of work a day, which is way more efficient than running extra chaos dungeon runs.
Don’t waste any materials upgrading Tier 2 accessories until you’ve hit +15 on all your armor and weapon pieces – you’ll replace all your accessories as soon as you hit Tier 3 anyway, so any materials spent on them are completely wasted. You also don’t need to roll for perfect stats on your Tier 2 gear, since you’ll replace all of it within a few weeks of hitting Tier 3, so don’t waste gold on ability stone rerolls or stat reworks for Tier 2 gear.
At the end of the day, the Tier 2 grind doesn’t have to take longer than two or three weeks if you play a couple hours a day, even if you don’t spend any real money on the game. Taking the time to learn how to upgrade tier 2 gear lost ark the right way will save you hundreds of gold and hours of unnecessary farming, so you can get to the far more fun Tier 3 content as fast as possible. If you’re still struggling with low success rates, don’t be afraid to ask your guildmates for extra buffs or leftover materials – most veteran players have stacks of Tier 2 materials sitting in their storage that they’re happy to give away for free. Once you hit that 1100 item level mark, you’ll be able to jump into Punika content and start working on your Tier 3 gear, which opens up all the endgame raids and pvp modes Lost Ark is known for.