With Patch 1.3, Dungeon Mutators and Umbral Shards have been introduced in New World. We at MeinMMO will explain to you how to obtain Umbral Shards and how to upgrade your equipment with them.
What are Umbral Shards for? With the Umbral Shards from Patch 1.3, you can upgrade your equipment with an item level of 590+ to a maximum of 625, the current maximum value. Whenever you increase the item level of your gear with an Umbral Shard, you also boost your expertise.
Umbral Shards were originally meant for legendary equipment with an item level of 600. However, the developers decided to also include equipment of level 590+. This equipment remains an epic item even after upgrading to 600 or higher, unless it is a special named item. Those will be upgraded.
Where do you get Umbral Shards? Umbral Shards can be obtained through various means:
- Completion of dungeons with activated mutators
- Crafting an item with an item level of 600 through crafting
- Through the gypsum system (when you open a chest for an item whose expertise is already at 600 or higher)
- For completing a round of Outpost Rush
- For completing boss arenas, you receive 50 shards
- From special quests in the new area Brimstone Sands
- By luck from endgame chests in elite areas
The dungeons, however, are by far the best way. For a mutator level 1 and the reward tier bronze, you get 27 Umbral Shards. At level 10 with the reward tier gold, you can receive up to 6,000 shards. However, you will need a certain set of gear above item level 600 with special perks to complete the maximum level with the best value.
In comparison: Through crafting, you get between 1 and 85, and through the gypsum system, you can get between 6 and 400 Umbral Shards. These values depend on how high your expertise with the respective item is (the most shards are at 625).
For the final level, you need 2,500 Umbral Shards per equipment type
How many Umbral Shards are needed? For each increase in item level, you need more Umbral Shards. To raise a slot from 600 to 625, you need a total of 9,235 Umbral Shards.
How many exactly are needed for each level is revealed in our table:
| Item Level | Number of Umbral Shards |
| 590-591 | 10 |
| 591-592 | 10 |
| 592-593 | 10 |
| 593-594 | 10 |
| 594-595 | 15 |
| 595-596 | 20 |
| 596-597 | 25 |
| 597-598 | 30 |
| 598-599 | 35 |
| 599-600 | 40 |
| 600-601 | 45 |
| 601-602 | 60 |
| 602-603 | 80 |
| 603-604 | 100 |
| 604-605 | 130 |
| 605-606 | 170 |
| 606-607 | 210 |
| 607-608 | 250 |
| 608-609 | 300 |
| 609-610 | 340 |
| 610-611 | 380 |
| 611-612 | 415 |
| 612-613 | 450 |
| 613-614 | 470 |
| 614-615 | 485 |
| 615-616 | 500 |
| 616-617 | 515 |
| 617-618 | 520 |
| 618-619 | 530 |
| 619-620 | 535 |
| 620-621 | 540 |
| 621-622 | 545 |
| 622-623 | 550 |
| 623-624 | 555 |
| 624-625 | 560 |
In total, there are 13 different weapons, 5 armor slots, and 3 jewelry pieces. If you want to bring the entire equipment to item level 625, you will need 193,935 Umbral Shards.
How do I upgrade equipment? First, you need an expertise of 600 with the respective equipment item. Then you need the appropriate number of Umbral Shards.
To perform the upgrade, you then need to right-click on your equipment and select “Upgrade”.
Once the upgrade has been carried out, the item level of the piece and your expertise for that slot will be increased.
However, please note that any equipment you upgrade with Umbral Shards will automatically be bound to your character.
What do you think about the new Umbral Shard system? Do you find this type of upgrade appealing? Or does it come too early? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
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