Step by Step: Gear effects and how to change them

There are over 100 gear pieces in the game.

Few Superior (green), a few more Fine (blue), a bunch more Exquisite (purple) and plentiful Flawless (gold). 

They all come with different basic traits (might, focus, speed, army buffs) and apart from superior gear they also come with different "Special Effects". Both Fine and Exquisite gear come with 4 different options each while Flawless comes with 5 different options. The different special effects are suitable for different commanders or different situations. 

Most people do not have a bucket full of gear they can simply grab into and apply whatever and whenever they need it. We have to strategize what special effects to choose because once refined we're stuck. 

Except we're not!

The game provides us with different options on how to regain what we put into a gear piece. 

In this post you will learn how to find out what pieces you have and how to salvage these and switch Special Effects as you need them. 

Switch Special Effects

Let's say I want to change the effect from Elves Strength to Sustain. Now, lucky as I am, I have one Sustain Harp in my inventory.

In order to do that without losing a piece for refine, we need the following "ingredients":

• The original 5-star refined piece, which will be broke apart
• The basic target piece with the desired Special Effect
• One expendable piece or worn-out piece.

A friend of mine, Karchilles, calls this the 10+1. In every max refined piece are a total of 10 pieces of the exact same item: in my case the basic Harp with Elves Strength and 9 Harps that I used to refine it.

These pieces were used for the different levels as follows:

• 1-star: 1 piece, 
• 2-star: 1 piece, 
• 3-star: 2 pieces, 
• 4-star: 2 pieces
• 5-star: 3 pieces

=> 1 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 3 = 9 | plus the basic piece is 10

To switch without losses you need one extra (10+1) to do that. So, whenever you have a total of 11 pieces of the same item you will be able to play the "switcharoo" as often as you desire. 

Here is how you do it - follow the instructions step by step:

1. You strengthen the "+1 piece" - your target piece - once
   
   
   In my case I didn't have a worn-out piece, but I was able to spare the Fiddle as I won't need it. 
   
   
2. Now you refine this strengthened piece with your max refined piece once. Don't be afraid, it can be scary when you do it the first time, but you will not lose anything.
   
   If you do it the first time, you will get a popup-window twice:
   - One informs you that you will receive all pieces used for strengthening as worn-out pieces into your inventory
   - The other one informs you that you will receive all extra pieces used for refine as actual items into your inventory
   You have the option to tick a box that says "Don't remind me again", which I did. That's why I cannot show you this box here.
   
   This is what the refining looks like - you can see that it says 10/1 when you choose the max refined piece.
   
   
   
   
   All the other items are transferred directly into your inventory. Let's go check and have a look at it.
   
   
   

   
   And there they are: 9 shiny "New" pieces and the 19 worn-out pieces - everything is in the inventory as promised.
   
   
3. The next step is easy and just the same as you have always done it: strengthen to max and use the worn-out pieces. You will need
   - 2-star: 2 pieces
   - 3-star: 3 pieces
   - 4-star: 5 pieces
   - 5-star: 8 pieces
   in total 18 pieces, which leaves you with 1 worn-out piece like you had in the beginning.
   
   
4. Time to max refine our item.
   You will need 8 pieces (1+2+2+3 for stars 2-5). This leaves you with one extra piece like you had at first. You still have your 10+1. 
   And this is our result: We switched our Harp of Lothlórien from Elves Strength to Sustain.

Obstacles

As we all know, life isn't always as perfect as we'd like it. So it happens that you have a +1 piece in your inventory, but it does not have the trait that you need. In this case you might still be able to get the piece that you need. If you used a piece with the needed Special Effect for refining your maxed item, you are still good to go, but first let's ....

Look and Find Out

You go to your inventory and click on the maxed item that you have already.

Now you click on the little book in the upper right corner.

The game opens up a Window where you can find three tabs:

 - Recommended Builds - the top 3 commanders that most commonly use this gear piece and with which special effect (Attn: This is not necessarily a good advise)

- Special Effect - all available special effects 

- Materials - the materials that have been used for this specific item in your inventory

As you can see in my case I used 19 worn-out pieces to strengthen the basic gear piece as well as the individual 9 Harps of Lothlórien that I used to refine it. 

All special effects that have been put into the basic piece will be recorded with the special effect they have and if the basic piece is disassembled, you will get back the exact same special effects returned into your inventory.

By clicking on the individual pieces you get to see which those are. 

Well, hello there, we found a Sustain Harp. Perfect. Let's free it up!

With this knowledge we can now do the swaps as often as needed. To get your needed item you first do the above process steps 1 & 2, but after we deviate:

1. You strengthen the "+1 piece" - your target piece - once.
   
   
2. Refine this strengthened piece with your max refined piece once.
   You have now a 1-star refined piece, 19 worn-out pieces and 9 freed up pieces. 
   
   
3. You find the item you really want and strengthen it once - like in step 1. 
   
   
4. Now you refine this strengthened piece with the first 1-star refined item. This step is needed to free up the piece that you used to refine it so you don't lose one refine piece.
   Your inventory has now: the target item 1-star refined, 19 worn-out pieces and 9 refine pieces.
   
   
5. Strengthen your item to 5 stars.
   
   
6. Refine your item to 5 stars. Here you can choose to leave any one of the items. If you want to save some time for the next round, think ahead and try to keep that item back, which you might need at a later point. If you accidentally don't think of it, no problem, then just do it the long way with freeing it up first. 
   

And we're done! 

Last not least one thing to keep in mind when you refine a piece with an already refined piece:
The basic item is the one which will be used to refine and the pieces that have been used to refine this piece will come back into your inventory.
So, if my Elves Strength Harp were refined with 9 Sustain Harps, I would receive 9 Sustain Harps in my inventory and the Elves Strength is in the now refined item. 

I hope this helps you manage your gear without losing items unnecessarily to worn-out pieces.