Armor Enhancement

By Enhancing and armour you increase the level of it in the game and with that it's strength. Every armour has statistics (usually called stats). That is a value of it's strength in attack points and defense points. Enhancing an armour to a higher level increases those stats. You can find the stats of every known armour on it's page on this wiki.

Armor enhancement takes place in the Fusion Master building. To do it you first choose an armour to enhance, then add 1 to 4 other armours to it. The interface has 4 Enhancement Slots available so you can not add more than 4 armours at a time. You will need many armours to enhance a standard armour to it's maximum level. So you will have to add many armours to reach it.

Leveling up is not free. The added armours vanish and using an enhancement slot costs gold. The price of enhancement slots increases with the level the armour reaches. It starts at 150 gold per slot at level 1 and moves up to (unconfirmed) 30,000 gold per slot for levelling up an Epic Armor above level 74.

The amount an armour is leveled up by another armour is measured in Enhancement Points (EP). Every level requires a number of EP and that number increases with every level.

All armours also have a fixed value in EP. That value is higher if the armour matches 1 or more elements with the armour to be enhanced and lower if it does not. For instance Basic Earth Armor adds 6 EP if used to enhance an armour containing earth (like Swampstone Platemail ) and 5  if the armour does not contain earth (like Behemoth's Vanguard).

Usually armours of higher rarity have a higher EP value but that is not always the case. You can find a (probable) EP value of every armour on it's page on this wiki.

EP values of a few Armor types:

Fusion Boost Armor is specially designed for enhancement. It has a rather low rarity and only 1 enhancement level. The attack/defense stats are very low too. But the enhancement value is very high.

The enhancement value of an armour increases when it is enhanced to a higher level. The increase is (unconfirmed) 1 EP per level higher than level 1. So if a Basic Water Armor is enhanced to level 10 it will have it's base enhancement plus (10 - 1) EP. If used for enhancing an armour containing water it adds 6 + 9 = 15 EP.

Enhancement Costs and Benefits
The per level increase in attack/defense stats is different for every armour. The enhancement costs per level and the sizes of the levels in EP are constant. The following table shows the prices of a enhancement slot for every enhancement level and the size in EP of every level for Legendary Armor and Ultra Rare Armor. Also the accumulated amount of EP to reach a certain level from level 1 is shown.

This table is a work in progress. Currently the EP values are accurate up to level 27 and probably right up to level 35. Above level 35 the values are speculative. It is combined from a table published on the blog page Enhancing_Armour_(1)_-_Some_basic_data and a table posted here.

Enhancing an Armour - an example
Suppose you have a Behemoth's Vanguard + armour at level 14 and you want to enhance that to level 15. How do you do that? For that you open the Fusion Master (click on the building or in the menu)

From here the content of the "old unstandardized page" is maintained. This needs editing and possibly removal
There are many different ways to upgrade (enhance) your armor and increase its level. Some ways are more time efficient or some are more gold efficient.

The information in this post was not written by me, but by a person called Radlonghammer on the Funzio forums for K & D

Misconception
The idea that farming Snakeskins is the only way to quickly level armor is one of the most commonly held beliefs of K&D players, and is not entirely accurate. Up to a certain point, Snakeskin as enhancement material is absolutely the most GOLD EFFICIENT means, but is absolutely NOT the most time efficient, nor is it the fastest.

Enhancement Basics
In order to understand, in detail, the effectiveness of an armor when enhancing another armor, it's critical to understand the concept of Enhancement Points. The more EP you throw at an armor, the more it will level.

All armors have two EP values; one when it is used to enhance an armor with at least one matching elements, and another that is approximately 20% lower when used to enhance an armor with NO matching elements. Here are some basics:


 * Common Armor (Basic Fire, Spirit, Earth, Air, Water) Give 6 points if matching, 5 points if not.


 * Uncommon Monos (Seafoam, Dragonflame, Mystic, Wing Warrior, Stonescale, and Nemesis armors) give 10 points if matching, 8 if not.


 * Rare, Single Star Duals (Snakeskin, Atlantean, Crius, Chimera, Hydra, Living Flame, Flamestorm) give 24 points if matching at least one element, 20 points if matching none.


 * Super Rare, Two Star Duals (Embersteel, Monks, Exorcists, Flowstone, Forgemasters, etc.) give 50 points if matching at least one element, 40 points if not.

Furthermore, if an armor has been enhanced itself, it gives additional Enhancement Points equal to every level beyond level one. For example, your maxed nemesis that might no longer once the boss is gone gives 10 matching element points, plus 29 (Level 30-1) for a total of 39 enhancement points.

Enhancement Strategies
Now that you know what an armor gives, let's take a look at what it costs. As with everything in K&D, cost must be looked at as both a function of gold and a function of time.

All Basic armors feature the same cost to craft (300 gold) and the same time to craft (5 minutes). Knowing that, we can calculate an Enhancement Point (EP) payoff per gold spent, and per minute spent.

With matching elements: 50 gold/EP, and .833 minutes/EP Without matching elements: 60 gold/EP and 1 minute/EP

The Uncommon Monos cost 500 gold and 30 minutes to craft, so:

With matching elements: 50 gold/EP, and 3 minutes/EP Without matching elements: 62.5 gold/EP and 3.75 minutes/EP

The Rare, Single Star Duals have varying crafting costs, and Snakeskin is by far the cheapest at 3000 gold. Like all armors of this class, crafting time is 2 hours, or 120 minutes. Snakeskin costs:

With matching elements: 125 gold/EP, and 5 minutes/EP Without matching elements: 150 gold/EP, and 6 minutes/EP

SNAKESKIN ALTERNATIVE #1
Suppose you're using Snakeskin to level an armor with neither the Earth nor the Water element, such as Livingflame (Fire/Spirit) or Rocfeather (air/spirit). An alternative to the Snake might be to craft Wing Warriors or Mystics, and level them up to L11, where they will pay the same 20 (10 = L11-1) EP as the non-matching Snakeskin. To do so, you will need 500 gold for the Mono, and 300 gold each for 8 basics. You will also pay enhancement costs of 150 each slot x 4 slots to level your mono from L1-L6, and 400 each slot x 4 slots to level it from L6-L11. (Note the increase in enhancement cost as the level of the armor to be enhanced rises. This is a very important cost component to be considered later.)

Anyhow, our L11 mono cost us 500 for the mono, 2400 for the 8 basics used to enhance it, and 2200 in total enhancement costs, for a total gold cost of 5100. This is obviously more expensive than the 3000 for the Snakeskin.

Timewise, we've spent 30 minutes to craft our mono, and 5 minutes each for the 8 basics (40 minutes) for a total of 70 minutes, far less than the 120 minutes the snake took. Let's look at our payoff vs. the Snakeskin:

Unmatched Snake: 150 gold/EP, and 6 minutes/EP Matched L11 Mono: 255 gold/EP, and 3.5 minutes/EP

It should be clear that while the Snakeskin gives us our 20 EP cheaper, does NOT give it faster!

Very Important Point
Crafting time ceases to match up with real life time once you have multiple armories. Let's suppose you have four armories, and look at the same example again, but using real life time to craft either 4 Snakeskins or 4 L11 Matching Monos, to exploit all 4 enhancement slots.

With 4 armories, you will craft your 4 Snakeskins in 2 hours of real life time, and your 4 L11 monos in 70 minutes of real life time. Same amount of real life time as the example above, but with FOUR TIMES THE PAYOUT, 80 EP vs. only 20. Hence:

Unmatched Snake x4: 150 gold/EP, and 1.5 minutes/EP Matched L11 Mono x4: 255 gold/EP, and .875 minutes (52 1/2 seconds)/EP!!!

Not only should this demonstrate that Snakeskin is NOT the fastest way to level armor, but it should also underscore the importance of having multiple armories at work when leveling armors is a high priority!

If you can afford the additional gold cost, and want to level an armor more quickly, you might well consider this alternative to Snakeskin.

SNAKESKIN ALTERNATIVE #2
Let's look at the Snakeskin vs. the Super Rare (2 Star) Dual Elements. Let's say you're leveling a Spirit/Wind Armor such as Roc Feather or Sky Guardian. In this case, Exorcist's Vestments would be a good choice of enhancement armor. Like all of the 2 Star Duals, however, it can not be crafted and is only available through chests, possible event rewards, and fusion.

Fortunately, it is an extremely reliable result of fusing Wing Warrior (Slot 1) with Mystic (Slot 2). Although we can't assign a time/gold cost to the required fusion stones, we can consider the cost of the Base Armors and the Cost of the Fusion.

Wing Warrior (500) + Mystic (500) + Fusion (25,000) =26,000 gold. Time is 30 minutes each for Wing and Mystic, and instantaneous for the fusion, so 60 minutes is the crafting time. The Payoff is 50 EP. Therefore:

Unmatched Snake: 150 gold/EP, and 6 minutes/EP ( 20 total EP for 3000 total gold, and 120 min. total crafting time) Matching Exorcist: 520 gold/EP, and 1.2 minutes/EP (50 total EP for 26,000 total gold, and 60 min total. crafting time)

Same example with 4 armories, considering REAL TIME:

Unmatched Snake x4: 150 gold/EP, and 1.5 minutes/EP (80 total EP for 12,000 total gold, and 120 min. total REAL time) Matching Exorcist x4: 520 gold/EP, and 0.3 minutes/EP (200 total EP for 104,000 total gold, 60 min. total REAL time)

Snake loses the speed battle again, and by a TON!

Above is a good strategy, but fusing together basic spirit armor and basic wind armor results to Wind Monarch's Robes. Wind Monarch's Robes is 1 star Spirit/Wind armor, but in enhancing other armors, it gives just as much enchancement points as 2 star Exorcist's Vestment. So by fusing Wind Monarch's Robes, you save even more time and money, since basic wind and basic spirit armor only takes under 5 minutes to craft. This makes it the fastest way to craft armors for enhancing. Same works for other 1 star rare armors, that are non-craftable, like Volcanic Mantle. Just make sure you don't fuse craftable combinations from basic armors, like snakeskin (water / earth), they don't provide as much enhancement points as non-craftable armors.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT
The cost of enhancing armor rises dramatically with the level of the armor to be enhanced. Here's a glimpse at the rising cost scale, by the amount of gold it takes to fill all 4 enhancement slots at various levels of the target armor (I'm giving this in increments of 5 levels. The comprehensive chart may be seen in the spreadsheet):

L1: 600 L6: 1600 L11: 2800 L16: 5200 L21: 7200 L26: 11,000 L31: 16,000 L36: 24,000 L41: 34,000 L46: 44,000 L51: 54,000 L56: 64,000 L61: 74,000 L66: 84,000 L69: 90,000

Obviously, the higher the level of the armor you're enhancing, the bigger component of the cost the enhancement itself becomes. That's a third component that we've not yet considered. Let's look at 4x Unmatched Snake vs. 4x Matching Exorcists when enhancing a Level 51 Roc Feather or Sky Guardian.

4x Unmatched Snake =12,000 in Crafting Cost + 54,000 in Enhancement Cost = 66,000 for 80 EP, or 825 gold/EP 4x Matching Exorcists =4000 Crafting + 100,000 Fusion + 54,000 Enhancement = 158,000 for 200 EP, or 790 gold/EP

While up to this point, we've accepted that Snakeskin is the Slower, but Cheaper alternative, we see that at some point, Snakeskin fails even to be the cheapest alternative!

YET ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT
If you look at the cost progression above as a road on which you have to make a certain number of stops, and pay at a certain number of toll booths, it should become obvious that the fewer stops you have to make, the less total gold you will spend along the way. Simply put, the MORE EP you can add to your target armor per enhancement, the fewer times you'll have to pay the enhancement cost. This isn't a terribly big deal when you're enhancing a Nemesis armor to it's maximum level of 30. When you're enhancing an armor that maxes at L70, however, it becomes a significant cost component, further devaluing Snakeskin vs. the alternative.

In conclusion: Snakeskin is a very valuable component of a proper armor enhancement strategy, but it should never be seen as the only component. When it's time to start leveling those L70 armors to the max, it's time to lessen your reliance on Snake. When Snake is non-matching, and you have more gold than time, consider those L11 Monos!