Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-8433385-20130711190426/@comment-4199297-20130711215207

start with commons and uncommons, then when the enhancement cost becomes too high, switch to snakeskin. Assuming at least one matching element between the enhancement parts and the armor being enhanced: Not sure how exactly levels above 1 carry over in the fusion process.
 * lvl1 common: 6 points
 * lvl1 uncommon: 10 points
 * lvl1 snakeskin: 24 points
 * lvl30 uncommon: 10 + (30-1) = 39 points
 * 2 lvl1 uncommons combined/fused: I think 50 points (and used up a valuable fusion stone)

Someone posted leveling 01-50: basics 01-13 uncommon 13-41 uncommon_lvl11 41-43 snakeskin 43-50 as apparently an optimal strategy w.r.t time/gold tradeoff, but I myself switch to uncommon a bit earlier and to snakeskin in the 30s.

Combining/fusing seems to be mostly used by experienced players to cheaply make 50 point armors to use to enhance the last 20 levels of a level 70 armor.