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Enhancement and Breakthrough
October 9, 2026 at 12:19 AM
Added the built-in PvE stats of crafted Draconic gear compared with dungeon Potential, and a note on Potential for the global service
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, Soulstone and Theostone imprinting, potential, succession 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 | Sockets on weapons |
|---|---|---|---|
Common | +0 to +5 | No | - |
Rare | +0 to +10 | No | - |
Epic | +0 to +15 | No | - |
Unique | +0 to +15 | Five stages after +15, using Amplify Stone (Unique) | Four manastone slots and one Theostone slot |
Hero | +0 to +20 | Five stages after +20, using Amplify Stone (Heroic) | Five manastone slots and one Theostone slot |
The caps come from NCsoft's official enhancement probability table, which covers every weapon, armor and accessory category. Pendants are the exception: Rare and Epic pendants stop at +10 and the Unique pendant goes to +20 on its own table (see Pendants). Runes stop at +10 and can be destroyed (see Runes).
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.
NCsoft publishes the chance, Kina cost and Enhancement Stone cost of every enhancement step for every item category, grade and item level on its probability page (checked October 7, 2026). The pattern is the same everywhere:
Steps +1 to +10 always succeed.
Steps +11 to +15 succeed at 65, 50, 35, 25 and 20 percent, on Epic, Unique and Hero gear alike.
Hero gear repeats the same five chances for +16 to +20.
Each failure adds 5 percent to the chance of the next attempt at the same step, and a failed item keeps its level; nothing is destroyed except Runes.
Costs depend on the grade and the item's base item level, and each enhancement step also raises the item's item level in game.
Costs for a Hero Greatsword at item level 154, the highest Hero weapon level in the table (the [진] Splendent Genesis and Nemesis Dragon Lord weapons):
Step | Chance | Added per failure | Kina | Enhancement Stones |
|---|---|---|---|---|
+9 | 100% | +0% | 260,000 | 10,400 |
+10 | 100% | +0% | 310,000 | 12,180 |
+11 | 65% | +5% | 550,000 | 14,050 |
+12 | 50% | +5% | 810,000 | 16,010 |
+13 | 35% | +5% | 1,290,000 | 18,050 |
+14 | 25% | +5% | 2,020,000 | 20,170 |
+15 | 20% | +5% | 2,800,000 | 22,370 |
+16 | 65% | +5% | 2,800,000 | 22,370 |
+17 | 50% | +5% | 2,800,000 | 22,370 |
+18 | 35% | +5% | 2,800,000 | 22,370 |
+19 | 25% | +5% | 2,800,000 | 22,370 |
+20 | 20% | +5% | 2,800,000 | 22,370 |
For comparison, a Unique Greatsword at item level 108 costs 214,000 Kina and 8,540 stones for +10 and 1,970,000 Kina and 15,690 stones for +15, and steps +16 to +20 of a Hero Greatsword at item level 128 cost 2,330,000 Kina and 18,600 stones each.
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 uses Amplify Stones (돌파석; Amplify Stone is the global client's item name, and NCsoft's global Transcendence leaderboard launch event pays Amplify Stone (Unique)) plus Kina. Only items at their enhancement cap can break through. The 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 |
Current values from NCsoft's probability page. They are the same for every weapon, armor and accessory category except Seals, which cost more:
Stage | Unique chance | Hero chance | Added per failure | Kina | Amplify Stones |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 66% | 33% | +5% | 600,000 | 6 |
2 | 50% | 25% | +4% | 900,000 | 9 |
3 | 33% | 16.5% | +3% | 1,400,000 | 12 |
4 | 25% | 12.5% | +2% | 2,000,000 | 15 |
5 | 20% | 10% | +1% | 3,000,000 | 20 |
Unique stages use Amplify Stone (Unique) and Hero stages Amplify Stone (Heroic). Seals cost 1,500,000, 2,000,000, 2,600,000, 3,500,000 and 4,500,000 Kina per stage, with 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 Amplify Stones (Unique) or 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 Amplify Stones (Heroic). The guidebook adds that a failed breakthrough raises the chance of the next attempt, which is the per-failure bonus in the table.
Amplify Stone (Unique) is made from 4 Amplify Stone Fragments (Unique) and 2,500 Enhancement Stones through material conversion; fragments also exist at Hero grade.
Since April 8, 2026, missions and Abyss orders reward Amplify Stone Fragments (Unique) (돌파석 조각 (유일)).
Unique pendants also consume Amplify Stones (Unique) from +11.
Earlier versions of this wiki called them Breakthrough Stones; Amplify Stone is the name the global client and NCsoft's global posts use.
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.
Potential (잠재력 강화) is a separate four-stage track in Integrated Enhancement, under Growth, Potential, added on March 4, 2026. It gives gear obtained in dungeons an extra PvE stat; most gear other than crafted gear can take it, and since March 11, 2026 that includes the exclusive Unique gear from field bosses. Potential stages are not carried over by succession.
Piece | Per stage | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
Weapon | PvE Damage Boost +0.6% | +2.4% |
Armor | PvE Damage Tolerance +0.3% | +1.2% |
Accessory | PvE Damage Boost +0.3% | +1.2% |
The material is a Potential Amplification Stone (잠재력 증폭석) for the matching piece, made by material conversion of dungeon equipment of the same or a higher tier and the same category. The guidebook says the tier shows as one to four stars in the stone's name: four-star stones come from converting gear of four-star dungeons such as Dying Dramata's Nest and Cradle of Nihility, and a higher-tier stone can be converted down. Abyss equipment has its own potential track with PvP stats; see Abyss Equipment.
Crafted gear cannot take Potential because it already carries the same kind of stat as a fixed base stat, at a higher value. In the Korean service's official item database, every Draconic crafted weapon has PvE Damage Boost 5 percent (7.5 percent on the [진] tier), every Draconic breastplate has PvE Damage Tolerance 2.5 percent and every Draconic necklace has PvE Damage Boost 2.5 percent. That is roughly twice what a dungeon piece reaches at Potential stage 4.
Global service: as of October 9, 2026, NCsoft had not published a Potential table for the global service. Players on the global service report that Potential there grants PvP stats instead (PvP Damage Boost on weapons and accessories, PvP Damage Tolerance on armor) and that its stones come mainly from the Abyss and the Abyss shop, which would make it a PvP-only investment. Treat this as unconfirmed until NCsoft documents it.
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.
Item Extraction: extracting an item returns Enhancement Stones, including the stones its enhancement steps used; a +20 Hero Draconic greatsword returns over 207,000.
Material conversion: each Verteron or Altgard Empyrean Trace converts into 50 Enhancement Stones (up to 1,680 per server, since December 3, 2025), and since October 7, 2026 the painting remnants earned in Expeditions convert into Enhancement Stones and Soul Crystals.
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.
Shops: since September 23, 2026 the Expedition exchange shop sells the Trial Enhancement Stone Box (bound) for 4,000 Tokens of Overcoming, 10 per server per week.
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.
On the global service, the October 7, 2026 patch set a weekly limit of 20 morphs per server for the Substance Morph recipe that turns Sealed Wings into Enhance Stones. The limit is shared by the server's characters.
Gear and Progression · Item Grades · Soul Inscription and Soul Binding · Manastones and Soulstones · Theostones · Succession Crafting · Item Extraction · Weapons · Armor · Accessories · Wings
