Succession Crafting is the Season 3 crafting system in AION 2, added in the April 8, 2026 update. It addresses a long-standing pain point in MMO crafting: when you create or upgrade a new piece of gear, you do not have to re-grind the enhancement, breakthrough, and Soul Binding state from scratch. The system carries that state forward from a sacrificial source piece to the new target piece, which preserves the work you have already put into your loadout while letting you swap up to a new tier.
Two Systems
Succession Crafting is split into two parallel mechanisms. Both are accessed through the standard crafting UI and use marked recipes that explicitly enable succession.
System | What It Does | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
Standard Succession | Transfers enhancement stage, breakthrough stage, and Soul Binding data from a source piece to a newly-crafted piece of equivalent or higher tier | Used when crafting a fresh weapon or armor piece in the same slot; lets you sidegrade or step up a tier without redoing the upgrade grind |
Advanced Succession | Upgrades a Unique-grade piece into Heroic-grade while preserving every layer of accumulated state, including Daevanion enhancements layered on the source | Used at the high end when transitioning to a new equipment generation; the practical bridge between Unique and Heroic gear |
What Carries Over
The crafting window now reflects the succession state of any source piece selected for transfer. Players can preview the carried-over data before committing the craft; the preview includes the resulting enhancement stage, the breakthrough stage on the target's tier, and any Soul Binding flags. This visibility prevents accidentally consuming a heavily-invested piece on a craft that does not actually preserve the layer the player cares about.
Layer | Carries Over? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Enhancement stage | Yes | Carries directly; no penalty when stepping up a tier |
Breakthrough stage | Yes | Carries directly within the same equipment line; cross-line breakthroughs are gated by recipe type |
Soul Binding | Yes | The bound flag transfers; if the source was bound to your account, the target is too |
Daevanion enhancements | Yes (Advanced) | Advanced Succession only; Standard Succession does not carry the Daevanion layer |
Set bonuses and substats | No | These reroll on the new piece; the new craft determines its own substat profile |
Recipe Marking
Succession-eligible recipes are flagged in the crafting UI. The marker indicates whether the recipe supports Standard or Advanced Succession (or both), so players know up front which system they are using. Recipes without the marker are standard crafts: they produce a fresh piece with no state transfer, identical to the legacy crafting flow.
Strategy
Plan ahead at the breakthrough wall. The biggest single use case is stepping up to the next tier without redoing your breakthrough chain. Save your most-invested piece as the source rather than dismantling it for materials.
Use Standard Succession at mid-tier. Standard Succession is the right tool when you craft a new piece in the same slot at equivalent tier; it lets you sidegrade for substat shopping without touching enhancement progress.
Save Advanced Succession for the Unique-to-Heroic step. Advanced Succession is the only way to keep your Daevanion enhancements when transitioning from Unique to Heroic gear. Wasting it earlier in the curve discards the Daevanion layer for no benefit.
Coordinate with Daevanian Yustiel. Yustiel-tier accessories sit on a parallel track; Succession Crafting governs weapons and armor while Yustiel governs accessories. Plan the two grinds together so neither outpaces the other.
Limits
Succession Crafting does not bypass tier gates: you cannot use it to skip an entire equipment generation. The source must be of equivalent or directly-adjacent tier to the target, and Advanced Succession in particular has tier-pair restrictions encoded in the recipe. Treat the system as a state-preserving upgrade path, not as a fast-track to top-tier gear.
Materials, Kina costs, and recipe access continue to gate the craft itself. Succession does not reduce the resource cost of the craft; it preserves the upgrade state on top of the base craft cost.