Refinement raises an item's +level, and each level adds a slice of base attack or defense. What it costs you is a dice roll. Every click at the blacksmith spends ores and zeny, and once you push past the safe thresholds a failure can drag the gear back toward +0, or shatter it, depending on the season's rules. This guide is about the odds under the hood: what the success rates actually look like, why a "good" chance still burns through a stack of ores, and how the disciplined players sidestep the trap. If you only want the no-risk path, our Safe Refinement guide covers the +15 mode that skips the gamble entirely. This page is for understanding the gamble itself.
Refine odds start comfortable and fall off a cliff after +7. Low levels sit near 60–80%; high levels do not. There is no rigged streak, just variance that averages out over many clicks. Protect best-in-slot gear at +8 and up, farm your ores before you click, and remember a solid +7 with good cards clears most content.
Every click is a roll against a fixed rate
The core mechanic is honest, even if it does not feel that way at 2 a.m. after a break. Each attempt rolls against a success rate that is either published or datamined for that specific +level, and the roll ignores everything that came before it. Your last ten failures do not "owe" you a success. Refinement is best read as incremental power with escalating variance: the higher you climb, the wider the swing between the lucky player who hits the target in a handful of clicks and the unlucky one whose ores quietly fund the server economy. The bands below map roughly to how the community treats each stretch.
| Refine band | Success odds | What it is | Scout's call |
|---|---|---|---|
| +1 to +4 | High (roughly 60–80%) | Tutorial territory | Click freely, no protection needed |
| +5 to +7 | Moderate, still forgiving | Core progression | The value zone; a +7 weapon clears most PvE |
| +8 to +11 | Drops sharply | Where risk begins | Protect best-in-slot; skip on alts |
| +12 to +15 | Low per attempt | Whale / patient-farmer bracket | Batch stones first; always protect |
Treat those rates as directional, not gospel. Patch weeks can quietly nudge ore drops and success chances, so recheck community notes after any maintenance. And never take one player's screenshot streak as the global truth. A single run of five successes or five breaks tells you almost nothing; only a large sample reveals the real rate.
Why 70% odds still empty your ore bag
Here is the part that catches people out. Without a pity system, refine attempts follow a geometric distribution. You keep rolling until you win, and the tail is long. A rate that sounds generous on paper still hands out ugly streaks often enough to sting, because "70% per click" is not "70% of the way there after one click." Averages hide the pain: half your attempts land faster than expected, but the other half run over, sometimes badly. That is why our advice always leans on expected ore counts rather than best-case ones. Estimate the stack you will likely need across the whole push, farm that much first, and you convert a nerve-wracking gamble into a chore you already have the materials to finish.
Pity stops and protection stones
Two systems soften the variance, and knowing which one is live matters. Some seasons bolt on hidden pity or hand out safe-refine tickets that guarantee a stop at +5, +10, or +15. Watch the current-events board for where those tickets drop, because they change the math dramatically when available. The more reliable cushion is protection. Protection stones go by different names patch to patch (Refine Protection, Blessed Ore and similar) but they all do the same job: on a failure you still pay the materials, yet the item does not shatter or fall in level.
- Always protect +8 and above on a best-in-slot weapon. Above that threshold, one avoided break can save you an entire re-climb.
- Optional at +5 to +7 on budget or alt gear, where a break costs little and the base item is cheap to replace.
- Never protect throwaway testing gear: unless the protection is somehow cheaper than re-buying the base item, which it usually is not.
Event bundles frequently discount protection, so hoard it for weapon pushes rather than sinking it into armor cosmetics. If you play the market, Merchant seasons are when discounted protection flips, but know the price floor before you try to arbitrage it. For the wider gearing picture, our equipment guide covers which pieces are even worth this treatment.
Power RNG versus cosmetic RNG
Refine is only one of several places the game asks you to gamble. Card albums, enchant rerolls and gacha costumes all pull the same psychological levers, so it helps to sort them into two buckets. Power RNG (refine and enchants on the gear you actually fight in) should always tie back to a measurable gain, whether that is DPS on a parse or a clean MVP clear. Cosmetic RNG (costume boxes and vanity rolls) pays out in looks, not clears, so it deserves a separate and much smaller budget.
Whichever bucket you are spending from, farm the deterministic materials first. Ores and zeny come in on a predictable schedule; boxes and rerolls do not. Stack the sure thing before you touch the lottery, and keep an eye on the player economy. Prices on ores, protection and refined gear swing hard around events and are half the reason to time your pushes at all.
Refining without going broke
The blacksmith is designed to drain your surplus zeny, and the players who come out ahead are simply the ones who set rules before they sit down. A few that hold up:
- Set a hard stop. Decide the number in advance ("the main weapon caps at +10 until next month") and honor it whether the run goes well or badly.
- Farm to the estimate first. Run your ore maps until you are around 80% of the way to what a cost estimate says you will need, then start clicking. Not before.
- Bank at safe milestones. Park armor sets at +5 while your weapon chases its target, so you are not splitting scarce ores across too many pieces.
- Mine your codes. Redeem-code mail often includes ore pouches. Claim it before a big push, when free materials are worth the most.
- Walk away from a break. The real trap is chasing losses after a shatter. Log off, craft on an alt, come back tomorrow with a clear head.
Timing helps too. New gear tiers routinely retire old +15 vanity pieces, so lining your pushes up with content releases beats hammering a weapon that is about to be outclassed. And align spending with your class: Gunslinger and Assassin lean on weapon refine early, while Priests gain more by hardening shields and armor for survival than from another point of staff attack.
Common questions
Is refine actually random, or is it rigged against me?
Every click rolls against a fixed, stated rate. There is no hidden curse on your account. Long losing streaks are ordinary variance, not sabotage. Log your attempts and you will watch them regress toward the mean over time.
What happens if it breaks and I had no protection?
That depends on the season rules in force. Some patches knock the item down several refine levels; harsher ones destroy it outright. Read the blacksmith tooltip before every high-level click so you know which rule applies.
Should I pour ores into my weapon or my armor first?
DPS classes push the weapon first, since raw attack is where refine pays off fastest. Tanks and supports spread more evenly. They need the armor and shield HP to survive MVP fights.
Do I need to chase +15 at all?
No. A stable +7 paired with good cards handles most of the PvE in the game. The +12 to +15 climb is a luxury for min-maxers, not a requirement. Perfection is optional.