Knowing how to upgrade items in Avowed is crucial as it's the main way you'll improve your attacks and defenses against foes in The Living Lands. That sounds obvious, but it's important to understand that, with no level scaling in Avowed, you can wander into enemies that will kill you in a few hits while also being horrific damage sponges. It also doesn’t help that you can't freely upgrade, requiring both a camp workbench and specific materials for each upgrade tier, so here's everything you need to know about upgrading your weapons and armor in Avowed so that you can better survive The Living Lands.
Avowed item upgrades explained
To upgrade a specific weapon or armor piece in Avowed, you need to visit the workbench at any Party Camp, select the item you want to upgrade, and spend the required upgrade materials from your inventory. This increases the quality of the item by one and improves its stats.
After selecting an item at a workbench, you can also see its upgrade track, which displays the current quality tier of the item. There are four item quality tiers in Avowed – Common (green), Fine (blue), Exceptional (purple), and Superb (red) – each of which are split into four sub-tiers – for example, Common, Common +1, Common +2, and Common +3. That means you would need to upgrade a Common item 15 times for it to reach its maximum potential. There are also Unique items that have bespoke perks and abilities, which can also be upgraded in the same way as above, but it is more costly to do so.
Upgrading any item requires upgrade materials of the correct type and of a quality matching the item. Thankfully, you can't upgrade rings, amulets, necklaces, boots, and gloves, so you only need to worry about your weapons and body armor. The materials you need for an item upgrade are always listed below the upgrade track for any item:
- Weapons require metals or woods depending on the type of weapon. Bladed weapons require metals while wands, bows, and grimoires require wood.
- Armor requires skins, such as pelts and hides.
- All item upgrades also require universal herbs of some kind.
- Adra is needed to improve a Unique item from one quality tier to the next – Common +3 to Fine or Fine +3 to Exceptional, for example.
So, to upgrade a Common Sword to a Common Sword +1, you need Iron Chunks, which is a Common weapon upgrade material, and Paradisan Ladder, which is a Common herb used in all item upgrades.
Note that Avowed Party Camps are the only places you can access workbenches in Avowed, so you should be resting frequently to upgrade your gear, keeping you as strong as possible - and when looking at your Avowed Attributes, increasing your Might will help too. It's also a good idea to look out for the shiny anvil icon next to any items in your inventory, as this means you have the necessary materials to upgrade it.
How to get upgrade materials in Avowed
You can't upgrade your weapons and armor in Avowed without having the right upgrade materials, so knowing where to find them is critical to bolstering your gear and ensuring you don't get eviscerated by enemies. Here are all the major ways you can find various upgrade materials in Avowed:
- Find upgrade materials as you explore and loot: Herbs, such as Paradisan Ladder, grow out in the wild, while metals, woods, and skins can often be found in chests, lockboxes, and on dead bodies. Look out for the plant icon on your compass and the white X for any lootable dead bodies.
- Buy materials from shops: It's definitely worth checking in with merchants every so often and clearing out their upgrade material stock if you can afford to do so. However, merchants rarely sell Adra and it's very expensive when they do.
- Break down your gear: Weapons and armor can all be broken down in your inventory to delete them and get upgrade materials in return. Admittedly, you won't get very many, but it's much better to break down gear than sell it in the early game.
- As quest rewards: Side quests send you all over The Living Lands. Providing opportunities for you to scavenge materials or you might even get a larger cache of them as a reward. Depending on your choices in the Escape Plan side quest, you can get a decent batch of Common materials.
- Crafting them using lesser materials: When you start using Fine gear or better, you'll need superior materials, which you'll find as you progress through Avowed, but you can also combine low-quality materials into superior ones if you have a surplus you don't need. You can do this at a camp workbench.
- Defeat bosses to get Adra: Bosses have all sorts of loot on them, which often includes Adra. You'll come across Adra as you play through the main quest, but defeating bounty bosses can be a good way of getting more on the side.
In summary, thoroughly exploring The Living Lands, completing side quests, and spending your hard-earned cash on upgrade materials will ensure you're always well-stocked and ready to upgrade your items in Avowed.
As well as upgrading items, you should also make sure you know how Avowed fast travel works, and how to change your appearance in Avowed if you want a new outfit for your upgraded armor.
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