Basics: Relics

Every commander comes with a unique piece of gear, which you can unlock after he reached a certain respect level.

This unique piece was formerly known as "Unique", but now is named a "Relic".

To acquire one of these is not very easy as you cannot get them through luck and just randomly pull them from chests, but you have to spend a considerable amount of time playing the game and usually also spending money. If you are F2P player, it will take you a long time to be able to unlock one of these gear pieces.

The special part of these pieces is - and that is why they are unique - that you can use them only on that one specific commander. It is not possible to apply them on any other commander.

This makes them extremely valuable. Aside from their value, they are also very expensive, which makes them rather low ROI compared to other gear pieces.

On the right side you can find the "Relic" menu option.

Think First

Due to their costs, the most important thing to do before you touch any Relics is to make absolutely sure you are 100% certain that you want to use THIS commander and that you want to really use this Relic. You will see further below that there is no turn-around once you have the relic and only an extremely expensive turn-around after you strengthen them.
I say it upfront: My advice is to NEVER reforge a relic as it makes you lose account value.

Now, if you can afford it, get the basic Relic for your commanders. The basic Relic as such is affordable and gives you a little extra buffs, which can come in handy. If you have several options on Relics to acquire, but can only afford one or maybe two, make sure to look at the buffs and consider what might be the best option for your personal army composition that you're using.

Advice No. 2: Do NOT enhance Relics unless very specific landmarks are reached. I strongly recommend to prioritize your regular gear sets first. Optimize these before you touch the enhance button before you are maxed out on your gear. Enhancing a Relic works way different from strengthening a gear piece. You will see that below.

I also strongly recommend to ask for advice before you spend anything at all on a Relic. Ask your friends or fellowship/warband mates what they would do. Which Relic they would pick. There are always knowledgeable people in all teams who can give good advice and provide for different perspectives.

Acquiring the Relic

To acquire a Relic you need Pure Mithril, depending on which tier your commander originally was: 

• 40 Pure Mithril for Epic commanders (purple, previously Mighty/blue) - t1 tier
  e.g. Grima, Gorbag, Khaldoon, Hirgon, Haldir, Dwalin, ...
• 50 Pure Mithril for Legendary (gold, previously Epic/purple) - t2 tier
  e.g. Celeborn, Balin, Imrahil, Gothmog, Shadow, Lurtz, ...
• 60 Pure Mithril for Mythic (orange, previously Legendary/gold) - t3 tier
  e.g. Gil, Thranduil, Dain, Sauron, The Undying, Saruman, ...

If your commander was t1 or t2 originally, your commander also needs to be ascended to Mythic tier to unlock the Relic:

• Reach respect 10
• Ascend for 150x respect item of commander + 40x respect item of a chosen t3/Mythic commander
• You have to performed all three of the tasks to unlock the Relic

Aside from reaching the respect level and - if needed - ascension, these requirements are not too difficult and doable. Some might take a few seasons and the combined efforts of your team, but eventually it is pretty much doable in most cases.

Enhancing Relic

Costs:

• Level 1: 2 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 3 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 4 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 6 random pieces of gold gear
• Level 1: 10 random pieces of gold gear

This amounts to a total of 25 pieces. You can choose whichever gear piece that you do not need. It does not matter which gear slot they are. However, you cannot use Worn-out pieces, like you would be able to on regular gold gear. We will come to this later and why this is an important factor.

Gain:

Now, as I mentioned above, enhancing a Relic works very different from strengthening your gear piece. You don't increase every stat little by little every level until it is (Basic value)x3 at max level. Instead you add to ONE of the buffs randomly, but in the full amount of its basic value:
e.g. if the random stat's base value is +6, you receive +6 on top for one Enhancement

This means that theoretically you might end up with 5x buffed [Commander] HP. For me personally, the random factor was very random, but mostly spread out evenly(-ish) across the options.

See example here with my GtW Relic
I enhanced it 5 times and got
1x [Commander] Command
2x [Commander] Focus
- x [Unit] Attack
2x [Unit] Defense

As you can see the enhancement applies to any of the stats, except the unique's special effect.

The special effect, which is a very unique effect to each Relic, can be leveled up by refining your Relic. 

Refining Relics

The way how you refine your Relic works still the same as it always did and it still does the same as it used to do in the classic version of the game.

You use Pure Mithril to upgrade the special effect of your Relic.

Costs:

• Mighty / Legendary / Mythic
• Level 1: 40 / 50 / 60
• Level 2: 40 / 50 / 60
• Level 3: 80 / 100 / 120
• Level 4: 80 / 100 / 120 *
• Level 5: 120 / 150 / 180 *

*Disclaimer: I have not seen any actual costs beyond Level 3, but it follows the same pattern as it used to and as we know it from refining other gear

So the total Pure Mithril costs to obtain and max refine a Relic would be: 

• T1 commander: 400 Pure Mithril  
• T2 commander: 500 Pure Mithril
• T3 commander: 600 Pure Mithril

Obtaining Pure Mithril

Since it requires a lot of Mithril to obtain and refine your Relics, here a little overview on how to obtain the Pure Mithril that you need. 

• Tavern: You can obtain Mithril Ore from Tips in the Tavern
  These Mithril Ores can be forged into Pure Mithril in the Mathom House with the function Mithril Combining at a ratio of 10:1
• Gem Store in the Mathom House: You can buy 7x Pure Mithril at 1000 gems/piece every week
• Season Store: For the short time the season store is open you can exchange 200 Season Medals for 1 Pure Mithril. Currently there are two of these offers listed in the shop
• Event Chests: There were some event chests with progression rewards - could be a possibility they bring every once in a while again, but has not been seen for a bit

This means, in total you could get roughly about 60 per season (give or take). In one year that makes roughly 360 Pure Mithril.

Reforge Relics

To say it directly upfront and very clearly: reforging your Relic will reduce the value of your account. 

My advice: DON'T EVER DO IT!

Several people have fallen into the trap and did it without realizing what exactly is happening. They thought it is like using an Elven Hammer to get all used items back to use them in other places. However, it is not.

To start with, the option to reforge your Relic is only accessible once the Relic has been maxed in Enhancements. Meaning: you have put in 25 random gold gear pieces into the Relic. As soon as you have done that the button "Enhance" changes to "Reforge".

If you click on that button, you get to this screen:

You better look closely - and remember: it is a maxed out item which has 25 gold pieces used as material. Look at my item:

As you can also see written there, you get 13 worn equipment pieces back, which will match the gear slots of the first 13 items listed. The order of the listed items is the order of their usage. First ones in get listed first. However, fully viable gold gear gets turned into worn equipment if you reforge your Relic.

So, here again an overview of the reforging process

• Costs: 3000 gems
• Gain: Relic in refinement state as is + 13 worn pieces of the type you used for 13 of the originally 25 full gold gear pieces

What does this mean?

You lose 12 full gold pieces completely and 13 pieces get turned into worn pieces. It also leaves you 3k gems short for being able to do that. 

So you are paying for losing value on your account.

Thus: Whatever you do, do NOT ever break up a Relic!

❌

FAQ

1. Should I get a Relic for my commander?

• If you can afford it/have collected the Pure Mithril and you are certain that you want to use this commander long term, definitely get at least the basic piece. 

2. Should I enhance my Relic?

• Are you sure you want to play this commander long term?
• Before you think of enhancing a Relic you should have all your commander's gear max strengthened
• Prioritize Refining your gear over enhancing a Relic
• Only do so if you generally spend a considerable amount of money on the game
• For F2P or low spenders you get way more out of your buck if you use the limited gold pieces you have on your commanders' 4 gear slots instead
• Consider the factor of randomness when you enhance your Relic
• Calculate what you will get from it - compare with what you would get for using these items on regular gold gear instead
• Enhancing a Relic to level 1/2/3/4/5 amounts in a total of 2/5/9/15/25 gold pieces
  Strengthening a regular gold piece to level 1/2/3/4/5 amounts in a total of 1/2/6/11/19 gold pieces
  => for one completely enhanced Relic you could instead end up with 2x level 4 and 1x level 2 gold pieces or 4x level 3 plus leftover (not considering type of gold piece)
• If you have more than one basic Relic, consider which one might give you the best stats - not all Relics are equally good

3. Should I refine my Relic?

• Before Refining a Relic, consider if it might be more valuable to acquire another Relic instead
• Refining a Relic will upgrade the stats of your Relic's "special effect"
• Make sure that the special effect will benefit your army composition

4. I made a mistake enhanced a Relic, which now I do not use anymore. Should I reforge?

• My personal advice in short: No. 
• You might change your mind again at a later time and then you have wasted all this gold gear and would have to redo it all over again. 
• Reforging costs and reduces the value of your account.

Moral: Make sure you know what you're getting yourself into and that you REALLY think enhancing a Relic is the best way to advance your account

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.