Comprehensive Gear Upgrading Guide

Guide

- 14.12.2023

Guide written by Jenazad

Comprehensive Gear Upgrading

So you’ve run hunt a thousand times and have a bunch of items but don’t know what to upgrade, whats trash, and why. I intend to go over everything possible here.

Character Archetypes

The main archetypes of characters

First lets talk about the main archetypes of characters, I’ll break them down into 4 main categories.

There are dps, bruisers, tanks/healers and debuffers. But keep in mind there are EXCEPTIONS to these archetypes but I’ll also try to tell you what mainstats to look out for.

DPS

Dps are generally full damage no bulk damage dealers that want to hit really hard.

Most DPS generally want :

Attack
Speed
Crit chance
Crit damage

On their gear :

Crit damage OR Crit Chance

Attack %

Speed

Bruisers

Bruisers are bulky damage dealers that needs tank stats while also balancing their damage.

Bruisers usually want :

Attack
Health
Defense
Speed
Crit chance
Crit damage

Because they’re greedy. They want everything but effectiveness and resistance (mostly).

Crit Chance, Crit Damade Hp % OR Defense %

Attack %, Health % OR Defense %

Speed, Attack%, Health % OR Defense %

Tanks / Healers

Tanks/Healers are focused on full tanky stats and resistance to debuffs or cleanse and usually scale off hp.

Tanks/healers want :

Hp
Defense
Speed
Effect resistance
SOMETIMES effectiveness

They normally use :

Hp % OR Defense %

Speed, Hp% or Defense %

Debuffers

Debuffers are about disrupting the opponent and mainly want speed and effectiveness and some tanky stats.

Debuffers want :

Hp
Defense
Speed
Effectiveness
SOMETIMES effect resistance.

The main difference here is that while tanks/healers want to be bulky, debuffers emphasize speed and effectiveness normally as their focus but would also like to get some tanky stats as well.

Item Sets

Let's quickly talk about item sets

Most sets are used in the game but the ones generally considered the weakest would be revenge and unity set. Rage set is also more exclusively used in PVE not PVP but almost every other set is used in most content. However it can be important to understand that the set impacts how useful the mainstat and substats can be.

An item with amazing stats can be marred by the set. An example could be getting stats such as hp defense eff.res and effectiveness on a crit chance set piece as only dps want the set but only more tanky characters want that lineup of stats. That said if it has the potential to be a good item it can still be worth rolling even on an awkward set as long as it rolls well, who knows when you may use it.

One thing to note when crafting is you should prioritize crafting weapons helms and chest pieces which are known as left side pieces because they always have the same mainstat and use conversion gems for the necks rings and boots known as right side pieces. It can be ok to craft some “right side pieces” on occasion to extract them for cores but its unlikely you will get great gear from crafting them. Using this method you will get very strong left side pieces which will allow your right side ones to be weaker overall.

Stat Combinations

What combinations of stats are good or bad?

Something important is that most combinations of stats are fairly good. The stats considered weaker most of the time are normally flat attack, flat health, and flat defense. Flat stats other than speed normally give much less stats that their % counterparts although flat defense is far better than flat health or attack in this regard and some characters actually prefer it.

While these stats can be good they are normally what can ruin an item as well. One rarely will want flat hp on anyone but a pure tank, and even then rolling into it can ruin an item. Flat attack is similarly only normally good on a dps and even then is much less value than attack%.

This is not an ironclad rule, but generally items with 2 non speed flat stats are not very good unless the other 2 stats are good with one of the flat stats and fit one of the archetypes.

Also, Purple items you want all 3 stats to be useable on a character while red pieces should also have 3 of the 4 stats be useable together. You CAN roll items with only 2 good stats if it’s on a neck ring or boots as they’re harder to come by, but be warned the item has a high chance of failure unless it only hits the stats you want.

When it comes to stat combinations normally effectiveness and effect resistance are not very good on dps or bruisers.

An example is crit chance, crit damage, flat attack and flat hp could still have some potential assuming it misses the flat hp or too many rolls into flat attack, but an item with crit chance, flat hp, flat defense and effectiveness would be immediately useless. Generally dps and bruiser stats dont mix well with effectiveness and effect resistance.

One final important thing to keep in mind is that for some items all that matters is their overall equipment score. Even if the stats aren’t amazing together for most characters there are units with strange builds for example senya that could use an item with attack%, hp%, effect resistance and flat hp, which you might not be interested in rolling, but if it misses the flat hp could be useful for someone like her.

Gear Rarities & Speed Checking

Lets talk about the gear you'll be rolling and how to approach it.

What is the potential of blue, purple and red gear, and what is speed checking?

Blue gear

This is all trash, destroy it. No one will ever use blue gear unless beyond desperate.

Purple gear

Now onto purples. When early in Epic Seven, even to late game purple pieces of gear will be your basis of gearing and youll be using a lot of these pieces. You normally want a purple piece of gear to have every substat be one a character archetype would want, that way, rolling into any stat will be beneficial. If the fourth stat added is weak as long as the other rolls go well the piece can still be useful and even modgemmed to remove the final roll. I still use some purple gear on characters to this day so don’t rush past them until very lategame.

Red gear

When very very late game red pieces will be what you mostly roll and you will roll few purples unless perfect. A red piece is ok if it has one stat that isn’t great because as long as you dont roll into it more than once you can change it later to one more useful with a modgem.

Something to keep in mind with modgems is that they have diminishing returns based on rolls. The more an item has rolled into a stat the less value the modgem will give when changed so its recommended not to modgem something unless it has 1 or zero rolls into it. One large exception exists when rolling gear and thats if it has a speed roll. High speed rolls trump all other substats and an item can have all trash stats except a high speed roll and be considered strong. I will now explain speed checking. If an item has 3-4 speed or 2-4 speed on speed set it can be worthwhile rolling it even if the other stats all suck. If it rolls speed multiple times in a row from the start it should be maxed to see if it can hit the final roll as well at +15.

When rolling speed if it misses it on the first roll it can still be salvaged on the second upgrade, however 2 misses generally kills the speed check.

Equipement score

Understanding equipment score and using it to roll your gear.

Alright perfect, so you understand everything and you’re ready to actually start upgrading your items. In this section I’ll cover understanding equipment score and using it to roll your gear.

First lets talk about equipment score.

This number is easily one of the most important factors for understanding how well your gear is rolling overall. You can actually sort your gear by equipment score and have it all show; if you scroll down a bit it can give you an idea of what your average level of gear is, keep in mind you should always be less picky with necks ring and boots as they are harder to get. Every time a piece of gear levels it’s score goes up with the mainstat and every 3 also the substat increases the equipment score.

At +0 the mainstat equals 5 score
At level +3 its total is 8
At +6 its total is 11
At +9 its total is 14
At +12 its total is 18
At +15 its total is 25
When reforged its total is 26.

Reforging also increases the substats which adds 11-12 score at the end. Why does this matter? Because when using the equipment score number you need to understand how much the substats are giving you compared to the mainstat to accurately determine if you gear has rolled well. All the numbers I’m about to say are for level 85 gear, 88 gear is akin to already reforged pieces and has higher stat rolls to compensate.

Most substats such as attack%, health% defense%, effectiveness, and effect resistance go from 4 to 8% per roll.
Crit damage goes from 4-7%
Crit chance from 3-5%
Speed from 1-4 (and 5 in rare cases)

These stats will always have a min to max roll of 4-8 equipment score.

Speed, crit chance and crit damage are worth more per point than the other stats and it’s reflected in the equipment score.

Flat stats such as attack, health and defense are valued lower and generally are somewhere around 3-5 equipment score per roll. The highest starting equipment score possible for purple gear is around 28-29.

Now red gear is able to start with up to 37 equipment score which is extremely high, keep in mind a badly rolled red piece can be beaten by a well rolled purple piece despite starting with essentially one extra roll Now these are a lot of numbers and hopefully it isnt making your head spin; but what does it all mean? Well, when looking at an item, as you understand this system more you will be able at a glance to see if an item is good or bad much easier even if you dont know who wants the substats It is not the end all be all however, I have items with insane high scores that have a useless stat making it worth much less than its advertised but its possible a future character could want it. Generally if an item can roll a high score it can be worthwhile to roll unless the stats are very bad together.

When looking at equipment score consider the value of it depending on future rolls. If the item starts with a terrible gear score and has a bad combination of stats it doesn’t have much potential unless it perfectly rolls. An item with a high starting equipment score value can get a bad roll or two and still remain good. Compare the potential of the item with what your higher scores are to better understand how lenient you can be. At the end game people normally will say the final reforged score of 96 is good for a weapon helm or armor, while 90 is good enough for a neck ring or boots. Keep in mind when newer you will have to lower your expectations a lot or you’ll have no gear to work with, you wont have any gear if you dont upgrade so you can probably knock off at least 10 score from both for a lot of your gear when you’re still newer.

Using this, you could have an item at +3 with 34 equipment score the item can hit 96 score if it QUAD high rolls. At +6 with 45 equipment score the item can hit 96 score if it TRIPLE high rolls. At +9 with 56 equipment score the item can still hit 96 score if it DOUBLE high rolls. Finally at +12 with a score of 68 and with a top roll it could still hit 96.

This is one example you could use when upgrading gear to give a sense of understanding of whether to keep upgrading the item or not but make sure you understand that the more you need certain pieces of gear such as a full dps helm, the more lenient you might need to be with its score. You wont have any gear of certain types if you just trash it for having a score you dont find high enough.

Keep in mind this score is NOT the end all be all but simply a tool to visually understand how well the item has rolled. Even if it gets a bad roll it can still be salvaged or vice versa; an item with amazing starting stats could become garbage with a couple bad rolls. Also consider the odds; if an item starts with bad rolls the odds of ONLY hitting high rolls until the end is low and maybe a waste of ressources.

I hope that this guide has helped you in some way. I tried to cover as much as possible.