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Enhancement and Breakthrough
October 2, 2026 at 04:10 AM
Removed duplicate in-body wikilinks
Enhancement and breakthrough are the two step-based upgrades that raise the base stats of a piece of equipment in AION 2. Both live in the Integrated Enhancement menu, which also handles manastone and godstone imprinting and Soul Inscription. The numbers below come from NCsoft's patch notes for the Korean and Taiwanese service, which has been live since November 19, 2025.
As of October 2, 2026, NCsoft has not published which of these systems, or which level cap, the global service opened with when Advance Access began on September 30, 2026, so the figures on this page are Korean and Taiwanese service values unless a line says otherwise. NCsoft's global launch events do already hand out Enhancement Stones, the main enhancement material.
How far a piece can be pushed depends on its grade. A Unique piece enhances to +15 and then has five breakthrough tiers on top. A Hero-grade piece enhances to +20 and has five breakthrough stages of its own.
Grade | Enhancement range | Breakthrough | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Unique | +0 to +15 | Five tiers after +15 | Unique weapons have four manastone slots and one godstone slot |
Hero | +0 to +20 | Five stages | Steps from +15 upward were made cheaper and more reliable on February 11, 2026 |
Each enhancement and breakthrough step raises the item's stats, so both feed into Combat Power. Since December 31, 2025, armor and accessories gain twice the Defense and HP they used to from every enhancement and breakthrough step, and since April 22, 2026 each armor breakthrough stage also adds 1 percent to the HP increase stat.
The February 11, 2026 patch reworked the top of the Hero-grade curve. The Kina and Enhancement Stone cost of every attempt from +15 upward came down, and the patch table lists these chances before and after the change. Players who had already enhanced past +15 were refunded the cost difference based on play logs.
Step | Chance before February 11, 2026 | Chance after |
|---|---|---|
+15 to +16 | 20% | 65% |
+16 to +17 | 15% | 50% |
+17 to +18 | 15% | 35% |
+18 to +19 | 10% | 25% |
+19 to +20 | 10% | 20% |
Breakthrough is charged in Kina. The same February 11, 2026 patch cut the Kina price of every Hero-grade breakthrough stage and refunded earlier spending:
Hero breakthrough stage | Kina before | Kina after |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1,000,000 | 600,000 |
2 | 1,500,000 | 900,000 |
3 | 2,400,000 | 1,400,000 |
4 | 4,100,000 | 2,000,000 |
5 | 7,300,000 | 3,000,000 |
Advanced Succession, part of Succession Crafting, turns a Unique piece into its Hero-grade counterpart and keeps its progress. Because Hero gear has five more enhancement levels, the breakthrough tiers of the Unique piece become enhancement levels on the Hero piece. NCsoft added the mapping to the in-game help on June 10, 2026:
Unique piece | Hero result |
|---|---|
+1 to +15 | Same enhancement level |
Breakthrough tier 1 | +16 |
Breakthrough tier 2 | +17 |
Breakthrough tier 3 | +18 |
Breakthrough tier 4 | +19 |
Breakthrough tier 5 | +20 |
The January 21, 2026 succession rules also carried over the bonus chance that builds up from failed enhancement attempts; the April 8, 2026 notes for Advanced Succession list only enhancement, breakthrough and Soul Inscription.
Expedition Odyle Energy Cubes: since November 26, 2025 the cube pays extra Enhancement Stones in proportion to the Odyle Energy spent on the run.
Supply Requests: urgent and weekly requests have paid Enhancement Stones since December 3, 2025, and the Chapter 1 update raised the amount on July 1, 2026.
Wings: dismantling a wing item returns Enhancement Stones, and since May 27, 2026 every kind of Expedition wing feather converts into Enhancement Stones or Soul Crystals.
Global launch events: a two-hour Twitch Drop during Advance Access gives 5,000, and the Transcendence leaderboard event running to November 2, 2026 pays 35,000 to each server's top 10 per class and 12,000 to places 11 to 50.
Official posts spell the material both Enhancement Stone and Enhance Stone; they are the same item.
Gear and Progression · Soul Inscription and Soul Binding · Succession Crafting · Weapons · Accessories · Wings
