Refinement

Upgrade NPCs in the major towns refine (upgrade) equipment to make it stronger. An item starts at +0 with no prefix; once refined, its level shows in the name, for example +5 Stunner. In Renewal every item can go up to +20, but levels above +10 use a separate system and gear above +15 is very rare.

Upgrade NPCs stand in Prontera, Morroc, Payon, Alberta, Juno (armory basement), Einbroch (Blacksmith Guild, 2nd floor), Lighthalzen (weapon shop basement) and Malangdo. Middle and lower headgear, costumes, non-equipment and items marked as not upgradable cannot be refined; some accessories now can.

The ore you need depends on the weapon level; all level 1 armor uses the same ore. The fee is charged on every attempt.

Icon	Equipment	Ore	Fee
	Weapon level 1	Phracon	50z
	Weapon level 2	Emveretarcon	200z
	Weapon level 3	Oridecon	5,000z
	Weapon level 4	Oridecon	20,000z
—	Weapon level 5	Etherdeocon	50,000z
	Armor level 1	Elunium	2,000z
—	Armor level 2	Ethernium	30,000z

• 5 Rough Oridecon or 5 Rough Elunium can be turned into one pure ore for free at the upgrade shop. Locas in Izlude converts them in bulk.
• To go past +10, the item must already be +10. Each try needs 100,000 Zeny plus a Bradium (weapon levels 1-4) or a Carnium (armor level 1). Dietrich in Prontera makes Bradium from 3 Oridecon and Carnium from 3 Elunium, for 50,000 Zeny each.

Up to the safe level a refine always succeeds. Beyond it, a failure destroys the item for good together with its Cards and Card Slots and enchants, and the Zeny and ore are lost.

• Weapon level 5 and armor level 2 do not break below +10; a failure only drops them by 3 or 1 levels depending on the ore. Above +10 they can break.
• Above +10 a failure may break the item, but more often it loses 3 refine levels.
• Protection items exist: HD ores only drop the item one level instead of breaking it, and a Blacksmith Blessing (usable from +7 to +14) keeps the level unchanged on failure.
• A Refining Certificate, used at the Refining Researcher in Prontera, sets a worn level 1 armor or level 1-4 weapon straight to the level printed on it (up to +19) with 100% success.

Chance of success per step with normal ores on iRO. Every step below +4 is 100% for these items.

Each refine adds attack (and magic attack) to a weapon: +2 per level for weapon level 1, +3 for level 2, +5 for level 3, +7 for level 4 and +8 for level 5 (which also gains 2 P.ATK and S.MATK). Past the safe level, weapons also get a random over-upgrade bonus on each hit. A +20 level 4 weapon gains 200 to 424 attack and magic attack in total. On armor, each refine raises hard defense, by 1 per level at +1 to +4 and growing up to 5 per level at +17 to +20.

In Pre-Renewal (Classic) the maximum is +10. The ores and fees are the same for weapon levels 1-4 and armor; Phracon (200z) and Emveretarcon (1,000z) are bought from NPC shops, while Oridecon and Elunium drop from monsters. Each level adds +2 attack to weapon level 1, +3 to level 2, +5 to level 3 and +7 to level 4, and about +1 equipment defense to armor.

• Safe levels on subscription servers were the same as today: +7, +6, +5 and +4 for weapon levels 1-4, and +4 for all armor.
• Most free-to-play servers had no safe levels at all with normal ores; Enriched ores brought them back.
• Subscription-server rates matched the Renewal table above up to +9, but the last step (+9 to +10) was 20% for weapon levels 1-3 and 10% for weapon level 4 and armor.