To upgrade your equipment, you must use smelts. There are currently four different types of smelts: Smelting Stones, Lucky Smelting Stones, Heaven Stones, and Extreme Stones. This page explains what each type of smelt does and gives the various percent chances of success.

You can look towards the bottom of the page for an explanation of how to upgrade with the smelts.

Smelting Stones -
These are often referred to as "smelts" or "normal smelts." For the rest of this section we will call them Smelts.All Smelts look the same, despite the fact that they have different levels. To see the level of a Smelt, click on its icon in your inventory and view the description. Smelts may be used to upgrade anything that is equal to or below their level. So, for example, if you wanted to upgrade a level 13 weapon, you would need to use Smelts from other level 13 weapons, or Smelts from the level 15 gloves, or 16 shirt/pants, or... well, anything higher than that. You could not use a level 12 Smelt on a level 13 weapon.

Smelts have a 33% chance of success and a 67% chance of failure. If the item you are trying to upgrade is below +3, a Smelt failure will result in "no change." If the item is +3 or above, a Smelt failure will result in a ruin. When an item ruins, you lose it permanently.

This type of smelting stone may be gotten by transmuting equipment via the Transmuter.

Lucky Smelting Stones -
These are often referred to as "luckies," "lucky smelts," "LS," or "LSS." For the rest of this section we will call them LSS. It's basically a green-tinted Heaven Stone. LSS may be used on equipment of any level, but only up until +6. If a piece of equipment is +6 or higher, LSS may not be used.

On any item below +6, LSS have a 100% chance of success for that use only. Using an LSS to get from +3 to +4 does not guarantee that your item will not break if you try using, say, a normal smelt to get from +4 to +5. LSS guarantee 100% success for just that one upgrade.

This type of smelting stone can only be bought in the Item Mall. They're currently priced at 199 AP, or USD$2 per stone. Since they are tradeable, they may also be bought from other players via merchant mode, merchant mart, or trading.

Heaven Stones -
These are often referred to as "HS." That's what we'll call them for the rest of this section. HS may be used to upgrade any equipment of any level and +. Heavenly, right? Not quite.

HS have a 1/2 chance of success and a 1/2 chance of failure. The chance of failure has three sub-possibilities: downgrade by -1, ruin, or no change. This all translates to 50% success, 16.6% downgrade, 16.6% ruin, and 16.6% no change. Because of the downgrade factor, HS are dreaded by those who need to upgrade their equipment past +6. Upgrading with HS is often compared to a rollercoaster ride, with less than 5% of players ever finally ending up at the + they were aiming for.

An ROPI or ROPII may be used for insurance, however, an ROPI may only be used for items that are +5 or higher and an ROPII for +10 or higher. Using an ROPI for insurance changes the possibilities to +1, +0, or -1 (only valid for items +5 to +9). Using an ROPII for insurance changes the possibilities to +1, +0, -1, or reset to +10.

Know that there are many rumors floating around about HS success rates and the percentage chance of each result. Player-run tests have shown the +1 chance to be about 40%, no change change to be about 40%, downgrade -1 chance to be about 15%, and break chance to be about 5%. However, there has been no official word on these numbers, so do not take them as solid fact. The only official thing we have heard from the developers is "50% success and 50% failure."

Extreme Stones -
These are often referred to as "ES" or "extremes." For the rest of this section we'll call them ES. ES may be used on any equipment piece of any level up until +14. ES may not be used to get from +14 to +15.

ES have a 100% chance of success. Unfortunately, they may only be used once per piece of equipment. Equipment that has not had an ES used on it will display the messagein the equipment's stat window. If an ES has been used, then there will be no message at all. Please keep in mind that the equipment pieces in shops do not indicate whether or not an ES has been used on them yet -- you only find that out after buying.

This type of smelting stone may be won in events, bought from Magical Shopkeeper Coen for 100 reputation points, or bought in the Item Mall. The current Item Mall price for ES is 795 AP, or USD$7.95 per ES.

Chaos Smelting Stones -
These are often referred to as "CSS". For the rest of this section we will call them CSS. CSS may be used on equipment of any level, but only up until +12. Multiple CSS may be used on a single piece of equipment. If a piece of equipment is +12 or higher, CSS may not be used.

On any item below +12, CSS have a 100% chance of success for that use only. Using an CSS to get from +3 to +4 does not guarantee that your item will not break if you try using, say, a normal smelt to get from +4 to +5 afterwards. CSS guarantee 100% success for just that one upgrade.

This type of smelting stone can only be bought in the Item Mall and from other players via merchant mode, merchant mart, or trading.

To upgrade, you must have both the smelt type you want to use and the equipment piece you want to upgrade in your inventory. You may only upgrade equipment that belongs to your class type. Why? Because the next thing you need to do is equip the piece you want to upgrade--and you can only equip things that belong to your class. After you've equipped the correct equipment piece, select the icon of the smelting stone you want to use and drag it from your inventory, up into the top half of the window. Don't release your mouse button until you see the name of the equipment piece appear. (See the screenshot on the right for an example.) After the equipment's name appears, let go of the smelt. The upgrade window should pop up, looking something like the ones below.
	This is the upgrade window you will get if your item is +0, +1, or +2. Once an item reaches +3 it is at the end of the "safezone." The safezone is the number of +'s you are allowed to go to without risking having your equipment break. This item, Dursk Wand, is currently +0, so their is no risk of breaking--only of no change.
	If your item is +3 or higher, the window displayed on the left will show up. If you look at the item name, you will see that it is Dursk Wand +6. +6 is higher than +3, so the upgrade message has changed and now warns you that their is a chance of your equipment breaking because its level of + is beyond the safezone. The "Insurance of smelting stone" mentioned is actually a Rune of Protection I. There is also a Rune of Protection II, which is used for higher +'d items. These are both discussed on the Runes of Protection page. This message will show up when you use a LSS on an item between +3 and +6, however you may ignore it. There is no chance of breakage with a LSS, they simply have not coded a different message for it yet. This is because the community wanted the LSS released before the developers had a chance
to completely finish everything. In the future, they may add in a message specifically for upgrades done with LSS. Until then, don't let the "this may possibly break" message worry you--thousands of LSS have been used and none of them have ever failed or broken equipment.
Look below for screenshots of the four different possible outcome messages and the smelt type/situation they apply to.

	Smelt Lucky Smelt Heaven Stone Extreme Stone		Heaven Stone
	Smelt if item is +3 or above Heaven Stone if item is +3 or above		Smelt if item is below +3 Heaven Stone