User:WBURKE1/Tikba's Enhancive Guide

What is an enhancive item?

An enhancive is an item that, when worn or held, gives you a bonus to a stat or skill. Only armaments give enhancive bonuses when held -- all others must be worn.

Enhancive items say they are enhancive, and list their bonuses, when RECALLed. They almost always have level requirements to give their benefit. A small number have other requirements.

A single enhancive item can give multiple enhancive bonuses or "line items."

Enhancive items have enhancive charges which are drained over time when the item is used. A crumbly enhancive item will crumble to dust when its charges run out; otherwise it will simply deactivate.

Each stat and skill has an enhancive cap which limits the maximum enhancive bonus you can have for that stat or skill.

Some spell or maneuver bonuses are also considered enhancive bonuses for the purpose of the enhancive cap.

How do enhancive charges work?

This information is taken primarily from discussions with Estild when the author was an Envoy. The explanation of the information is my own.

• Each enhancive item has an enhancive cooldown, which lasts an unknown (but on the order of minutes, not hours) amount of real time.
• Enhancive items are periodically checked when in use. Taking many game actions will immediately cause a check. However, simply sitting AFK will also cause 30-60 checks an hour for items in use. Thus, checks are constant and unavoidable -- they are essentially an enhancive "heartbeat."
• When an item's enhancive cooldown has not expired, checks have no effect.
• When an item's enhancive cooldown has expired, the next check for that item will make a degradation roll, which may result in the loss of a charge. Regardless of the result of the roll, the cooldown is reset.
• The number of enhancive line items has no effect on the enhancive cooldown.

Thus, the most important factor that affects loss of enhancive charges is time in use. The enhancive cooldown only resets while you are logged in and using the enhancive item, and the enhancive cooldown controls the degradation roll. You should not worry about generating enhancive checks -- they will happen constantly. If you want your enhancive to last longer, take it off, pause enhancives, or log out.

Why are sone enhancive bonuses Bonus and some Base/Rank?

They just are. There were proposals to combine enhancives into one type (either Bonus or Base/Rank) and eliminate the other type, but they were not carried out.

Does this matter?

Generally not. In most cases, enhancives convert seamlessly between Base/Rank and Bonus -- an enhancive that gives you 2 Wisdom Base will give you 1 Wisdom Bonus, etc. Thus, ranks enhancives and bonus enhancives will simply combine.

Cracks appear when enhancing a skill in which you have fewer than 40 ranks, as a rank will then give more than 1 bonus. The enhancive cap applies to the enhancive bonus, which may cause your enhancives to cap at a lower level than you expect. For example, an enhancive that grants 10 Ranks of a skill you have 0 ranks in will grant 50 bonus, immediately reaching the enhancive cap. If you train 10 ranks in that skill, it will then be granting 40 bonus, giving you some headroom for further enhancement. This is rarely important in practice, since the skills you want to enhance significantly are generally skills you have also trained significantly.