How to upgrade weapons and armor in Avowed

Upgrading weapons and armor in Avowed is crucial as it's the main way you'll improve your attacks and defenses and defeat the dangers of the Living Lands. With no level scaling in Avowed, you can't expect to use the same Common Dagger from the start of the game while your abilities and attributes carry you through the rest. Without upgraded gear, enemies can kill you in a few hits while also being horrific damage sponges. However, upgrading your gear isn't easy, especially early on, as you need lots of specific upgrade materials. To clear up how this system works, I've laid out everything you need to know about upgrading your weapons and armor in Avowed so that you can better survive the Living Lands.

How to upgrade Avowed gear

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. 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, but since Avowed Party Camps are the only places you can access workbenches, you should be resting whenever upgrades are available.

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), Superb (red). Each of these tiers are split into four sub-tiers that each provide small – for example, Common, Common +1, Common +2, and Common +3. That means you would need to upgrade a normal Common item 15 times for it to reach its maximum potential. Thankfully, you can't upgrade rings, amulets, necklaces, boots, and gloves, so you only need to worry about your weapons and body armor.

There are also Unique weapons and armor in Avowed which have bespoke perks. They are sometimes given out as quest rewards or can be looted from bosses, but are often secreted away, particularly through treasure maps, such as the Avowed Intimidating Feline Codpiece map. Unique gear can also be upgraded in the same way as above, but you need Adra to upgrade them to the next quality tier (Common +3 to Fine, for example). Unique gear also has access to a fifth quality tier known as Legendary (gold), so the maximum tier for any Unique gear is Legendary +3.

All Avowed upgrade materials explained

Upgrading any item requires upgrade materials of the correct type and matching quality. The materials you need for an item upgrade are always listed below the upgrade track for any item:

• All gear upgrades also require a universal herb: Paradisan Ladder (Common), Hylea's Talon (Fine), Admeth's Wyrt (Exceptional), Cave Coral (Superb), and Bloodwrithe Toadstool (Legendary)
• Weapons require metals or woods depending on the type of weapon.
  • Bladed weapons require metals: Iron Chunk (Common), Steel Chunk (Fine), White Steel Chunk (Exceptional), Living Iron Chunk (Superb), and Living Steel Chunk (Legendary)
  • Wands, bows, and grimoires require wood: Softwood Branch (Common), Hardwood Branch (Fine), Petrified Wood Branch (Exceptional), Blackwood Branch (Superb), and Glasswood Branch (Legendary)
• Armor requires skins and hides: Pelt (Common), Tanned Hide (Fine), Stelgaer Hide (Exceptional), Balarok Skin (Superb), and Dragon Hide (Legendary)
• Adra is needed to improve a Unique item from one quality tier to the next:
  • Adra for Common +3 to Fine
  • Awakened Adra for Fine +3 to Exceptional
  • Corrupted Adra for Exceptional +3 to Superb
  • Adra Ban for Superb +3 to Legendary

How to get Avowed upgrade materials

Knowing where to get the right upgrade materials to upgrade your weapons and armor in Avowed is critical to bolstering your strength so you can tackle tougher enemies. In general, you'll find all the materials you need as you play through the main quest and reach each new region, but there are other ways to get upgrade materials in Avowed if you find you're running low:

• Explore and loot everything: Metals, woods, and skins can often be found in chests, lockboxes, and dead bodies. Look out for the plant icon on your compass and the white X for any lootable dead bodies.
• Each Universal Herb can be found in one region only: Look for the Universal Herb icon on your compass as you explore each region as these herbs are needed for every upgrade, so you need a lot them. The icon looks like a branch with three leaves of different sizes growing out of it, not to be confused with the regular plant icon.
• Buy materials from shops: Check in with merchants and clear 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 in your inventory can be broken down into upgrade materials – you can see exactly what you'll get in the weapon's inventory profile. You won't get very many materials back, but it's much better to break down gear that you don't need rather than sell it. Breaking down Unique gear is also a good source of Adra and its variants.
• 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: If you have surplus lower-tier materials that you aren't using, you can use a camp workbench to convert that surplus into superior materials that you have need for, which lets you circumvent the region-lock on certain materials. Conveniently, you can break down higher-tier materials into lesser ones too.
• 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 and explore, 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 look for your upgraded armor.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.