Weapon Mods
Weapon Mods put rare special modifiers on a melee weapon, missile weapon or caster, using two salvage materials that reroll them in different ways. It is the weapon-side counterpart to Equipment Mods.
Overview
A weapon can carry up to four special modifiers. There are twenty-two to draw from, and you cannot choose which ones you get - both materials reroll, and the appraisal panel tells you afterwards what you ended up with and how strong each roll was.
Specials are separate from the weapon's tinker budget. A weapon still has its ten tinker slots, and an imbue still reserves one of them, but a special costs nothing out of that budget: neither material adds, removes or reforges a tinker any more. Tinkering and weapon mods are two independent things you can do to the same weapon.
Applying either material is a use-on-target action: put the salvage in your pack (not equipped), then use it on the weapon, also in your pack and not equipped. The game asks you to confirm before either salvage is spent, since neither can be undone.
Materials
| Material | What it does |
|---|---|
| Tourmaline | Reroll: throws away every special the weapon holds and draws a completely fresh set - a new count, new modifiers, new strengths. This is the only way to change how many specials a weapon carries. On a weapon with none, it is how you get your first. |
| Amethyst | Swap: removes one random special and replaces it with one different modifier, leaving the rest of the set alone. The count never changes, so this is the way to fish for one better modifier without risking a set you are happy with. On a weapon holding no specials, it simply adds one. |
Neither material touches the weapon's tinkers, its imbue or its slayer. A weapon finished by a Prismatic Drift Stone is sealed against both.
Only melee weapons, missile weapons and casters can carry a special. Shields and ammunition cannot. A weapon with no workmanship cannot hold one either.
Roll intensity
Every special on the appraisal panel carries a bracketed percentage - how strong that particular roll is, against the best that modifier can reach:
- Devastation [67%]: +4 critical damage rating
- Quickening [83%]: +20% attack speed
100% is a perfect roll. The percentage is what the quality tiers below are scored on, so it is worth reading before you decide whether to reroll.
Quality tiers
Add up the intensity percentages of every special on a weapon. Cross a threshold and the weapon takes on a permanent visible aura, announced in teal when you earn it:
| Tier | Total intensity across all specials |
|---|---|
| Exceptional | 300% |
| Elite | 350% |
| God | 375% |
With four specials the ceiling is 400%, so Exceptional is an average of 75% per modifier and God is an average of nearly 94% - these are meant to be rare. A reroll that drops the total back below a threshold loses the aura, and you are told when that happens. An aura that has just faded may keep showing until the weapon is next redrawn - relog or re-equip and it will be gone.
The modifiers
There are twenty-two special modifiers in three groups. Four are written onto the weapon as a rating you can see on the item itself. Nine change what happens in the moment of combat, and nine more are utility modifiers - they do not add damage, they cover everything around it: costs, regeneration, enchantments, defense.
Five older modifiers - Swift Flight, Life Leech, Mana Leech, Stamina Leech and Overload - were retired when the utility wing arrived. They no longer roll from any pool and no longer do anything; a weapon still carrying one gets nothing from it, and a Tourmaline reroll replaces it from the current catalog.
The values below are the ceiling at a perfect roll on a maximum-workmanship weapon; a typical roll lands lower, and your appraisal panel always shows what it actually rolled.
Weapon-property modifiers
| Modifier | At a perfect roll | Weapon types |
|---|---|---|
| Devastation | +6 critical damage rating | Melee, missile, caster |
| Weak Point | +3 critical chance rating | Melee, missile, caster |
| Bloodthirst | +6 damage rating | Melee, missile, caster |
| Shield Bypass | 50% of a shield ignored | Melee, missile |
Combat-triggered modifiers
| Modifier | At a perfect roll | Weapon types |
|---|---|---|
| Heft | +22 damage | Melee, missile |
| Leverage | +0.3 to the weapon's damage multiplier | Melee only |
| Tension | +0.5 to the weapon's damage multiplier | Missile only |
| Attunement | +0.28 to the weapon's elemental damage multiplier | Caster only |
| Focus | +25% critical chance | Melee, missile, caster |
| Execution | +50% critical damage | Melee, missile, caster |
| Ambush | +30% damage against a full-health target | Melee, missile, caster |
| Quickening | +24% attack speed | Melee, missile |
| Second Wind | Restores 12% of your maximum vitals on a killing blow | Melee, missile, caster |
Utility modifiers
| Modifier | At a perfect roll | Weapon types |
|---|---|---|
| Efficiency | Attacks cost 50% less stamina, or spells 50% less mana | Melee, missile, caster |
| Recovery | Your natural health, stamina and mana regeneration is 50% faster | Melee, missile, caster |
| Mana Well | A killing blow restores 5 mana to every equipped item that can hold it | Melee, missile, caster |
| Cleanse | A killing blow strips one harmful enchantment off you | Melee, missile, caster |
| Longevity | Your self-cast buffs last 25% longer | Caster only |
| Quick Refresh | Your self-cast buffs cast twice as fast | Caster only |
| Siphon | 10% chance on hit to steal a beneficial enchantment off the target, at full duration | Melee, missile, caster |
| Arcane Defender | Deflects frontal physical blows like a 25-armor shield, with no shield equipped | Caster only |
| Panic Reload | +10% attack speed while an enemy stands within 6 meters of you | Missile only |
A weapon draws only from the modifiers marked for its type. Since the utility wing arrived, every weapon class has a deep pool - a caster is no longer short-changed on a four-special reroll.
Getting the salvage
Both materials drop as ordinary salvage, and both are sold by Salvage-Broker Bevan Tolliver in the Marketplace:
| Item | Uses | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Sealed Bag of Tourmaline Salvage | One | 1 Trade Note |
| Sealed Bag of Amethyst Salvage | One | 1 Trade Note |
| Sealed Tourmaline Hammer | Ten | 10 Trade Notes |
| Sealed Amethyst Hammer | Ten | 10 Trade Notes |
Use a sealed bag or hammer in your pack to break the seal. A bag is spent on one application; a hammer holds ten and crumbles to dust when the last one is used. Ten applications for ten notes is the same price per use as buying bags, so the hammer is a convenience rather than a discount.
See also
- Equipment Mods - the armor-side sibling system.
- Serpentine Salvage - rerolls an item's enchantments rather than its modifiers.
- Custom Crafting - all the ways gear can be reworked, in one place.
- Salvage-Broker Bevan Tolliver - sells both materials as sealed bags and as multi-charge hammers.