AION 2 Gear Progression Guide — Enhancement and Transfer

AION 2’s gear progression is a stack of interlocking systems, and the details that matter most — what a transfer keeps, and what it destroys — are easy to miss. Almost everything published about it comes from the Korea/Taiwan service, so this page labels every claim instead of presenting it as global fact. The one first-party global data point is the September 17-18, 2026 Launch Scale Test, and it only proves that gear, crafting and trading exist.

The gear stack in AION 2

Nine upgrade layers sit on top of the base item, and each one is fed by a different currency or material. All of the following is KR/TW reference — NC has not published a global gear breakdown:

• Enhancement — the main upgrade track, reported from +1 to +20.
• Breakthrough — a progression step reported beyond ordinary enhancement.
• Extraction (+10 Extract) — a reported layer tied to the enhancement-10 milestone.
• Potential — an additional stat layer rolled onto the item.
• Mana Stones — applied or socketed stats.
• Theo Stones — a second socketed stat family.
• Soul Binding / Soul Imprinting — binds the item to your character and adds a character-tied layer.
• Synchronization — a system reported to link gear progression across items.
• Gear Transfer — moves progression from one item onto another.

Think of these as nine separate ledgers rather than one bar: a high enhancement number does not tell you what a character’s potential, stones or imprinting look like. The crafting guide covers how the materials these layers consume enter the economy, and the kinah guide covers the currency side.

Enhancement: Kina plus Enhancement Stones

Enhancement is the track most players mean when they say “upgrading gear”, and its cost structure is the one point that is reported consistently: it consumes a fixed combination of Kina plus Enhancement Stones rather than pure currency (KR/TW reference, Fextralife). That matters for planning, because it means enhancement is gated by two resources at once — you can be rich in Kina and still stall without stones, or sitting on a stone stockpile and still stall without Kina.

The reported range is +1 to +20. What is not confirmed for global is the cost curve, the success rates, whether failures downgrade the item, and whether any pity or safety mechanic exists. We do not print those numbers because no global source has published them, and the global build is not playable before October 5, 2026.

Stone supply is the bottleneck worth understanding early. On the KR/TW service the daily dungeon is a reported source, with the yield scaling to how many mobs you clear (reported up to 10,000), and Duty and Command quests also pay out Enhancement Stones and crystals. Those details are KR/TW reference and community-tracked, not global drop tables:

The Scale Test’s own gear evidence is thin by design: the test disabled the cash shop and every payment entry point, so anything it showed about progression was earned, not bought.

Breakthrough, Potential and Mana Stones

The three secondary layers are where a lot of players lose money, because each one is cheap to start and expensive to finish. The table summarises what each reportedly does and, just as important, whether it survives a transfer:

The verifiable rows all cost Kina, which ties every one of them to the same economy the Abyss guide tracks on the reward side. The three socketed layers are also the ones a transfer reportedly discards, so they are the last place to spend on gear you plan to replace.

Soul Binding and Synchronization

Soul Binding — also written Soul Imprinting — ties an item to your character. It carries over on transfer, which makes it one of the two layers worth committing to rather than a throwaway step. One patch is reported to have granted Unique-or-better gear a 100% extra imprinting effect (u4gm, secondary); treat that as a regional patch note rather than a global rule, because NC has published nothing equivalent for the global build.

Synchronization is the least documented member of the stack. KR/TW material describes it as a system that links gear progression, but the mechanism, its cost and what it actually changes are not written up in any source we can verify. We flag it rather than describe it, and it belongs on the list of things to check the moment the global client opens.

Transfer: what carries over and what does not

This is the most useful mechanic to understand before you spend anything, and the rule is specific: when you transfer progression to a new item, Enhancement level and Soul Binding carry over, while Potential, Mana Stones and Theo Stones do not (KR/TW reference, secondary source). The table makes the split explicit:

Worked through, it changes how you spend. Suppose you push a level-30 weapon to +10 and socket it with Mana Stones. When a higher item-level weapon drops, transferring keeps the +10 and the imprinting, but the Mana Stones are gone — so you re-socket from scratch on the new weapon. Now reverse the order: enhance the weapon you intend to outgrow, but hold the stones until you have the item you expect to keep. The first sequence pays for the same enhancement once and the same stones twice; the second pays for each once. That is the whole argument, and it holds regardless of the numbers, which is why we can state it without quoting any.

Gear Score and item level

Gear Score (item level) is the aggregate number that decides whether you meet a dungeon or raid requirement. It is the summary of the nine layers, not a tenth one, and it is what group leaders will actually look at when they invite you. KR/TW guides quote target values — for example a 2200 gear score route over roughly 7 to 10 days — but that is a secondary KR/TW reference figure, not a global benchmark. Do not treat any gear score number as a launch target until the global build exists; the required values depend on the content that ships, and part of that content is still unannounced.

Five gear mistakes that cost you Kina

1. Socketing gear you plan to replace. Potential, Mana Stones and Theo Stones reportedly do not transfer, so socketed spend on temporary gear is spend you repeat later.
2. Buying stones before the item. Enhancement is capped by both Kina and stones; buying stones to enhance a weapon you are about to replace reverses the two-resource plan.
3. Chasing gear score as a number. The aggregate hides which layer is weak; a score target does not tell you whether to enhance, socket or imprint.
4. Treating KR/TW costs as global. Every cost curve and rate on this page is regional. Building a budget from them is a forecast, not a price.
5. Reading “unconfirmed” as “not present”. Breakthrough and synchronization are reported but undocumented; ignoring them can leave one of the nine layers untouched when the client does expose it.

The global gear details NC has not published

The structure is legible; the numbers are not. Everything below is genuinely unpublished as of September 24, 2026, and should be read as “wait for launch”:

Until launch, the crafting guide covers how materials enter the economy, the Arcana cards guide covers the card layer that adds stats, the Daevanion boards guide covers the talent layer, the stigma guide covers the skill-shard layer, and the dungeon list covers where gear drops.

Sources and verification

• Nine-subsystem list and the fixed Kina plus Enhancement Stone cost — KR/TW reference (Fextralife and secondary guides)
• Enhancement range (+1 to +20) — KR/TW reference, secondary source, not a confirmed global ceiling
• Transfer rule (enhancement level and soul binding carry; potential, Mana Stones and Theo Stones do not) — KR/TW reference, single secondary source
• Daily-dungeon Enhancement Stone yield, scaling with the clear and reported up to 10,000 — KR/TW reference, Fextralife
• Duty and Command quest rewards (Kina, Enhancement Stones, crystals) — KR/TW reference
• Unique-or-better gear “100% extra imprinting” patch effect — secondary (u4gm), regional patch note
• Gear score targets (e.g. 2200 over roughly 7 to 10 days) — secondary, KR/TW reference, unverified
• Launch Scale Test, September 17-18, 2026 — crafting and player trading were playable while the cash shop and payment entry points were disabled (official)
• Global subsystem list, costs, rates, thresholds and layer mechanics — not announced as of September 24, 2026

Evidence level: KR/TW reference and secondary throughout; Official only for the fact that gear, crafting and trading exist in the global build. No cost, rate or gear score value on this page is a verified global-build measurement, and nothing here should be treated as a launch budget.