Unique Variant

A unique variant Jelly Helm with an increase to elemental defense is denoted by a star.

When crafting an item, there is a low probability that you may get a randomized unique variant, a special version of that item with an added bonus. Unique variants seems to occur approximately 10% of the time while crafting. You cannot choose the unique variant you obtain; however, variants can be transferred when that item is upgraded. "Unique variant" is commonly abbreviated as UV.

These bonuses appear apart from, and are not affected by, other bonuses that come with the original item.

Crafting

Receiving a unique variant while crafting a Haze Bomb.

There is a small chance of creating a unique variant each time that you craft a new item. This is the only way to obtain unique variants: pre-made items purchased from vendors will never have a unique bonus.

When crafting or upgrading, unless an existing unique variant bonus is explicitly transferred to a new item (as described below), each step in the item creation process provides a new chance at a new unique variant. For example, a unique variant may appear when initially crafting a cutter, as well as when the cutter is upgraded into a striker. For items with long crafting chains, this may provide as many as five chances at obtaining a unique variant bonus per item.

When upgrading, it is possible to transfer an existing unique variant bonus on the base item to your upgraded item. In the upgrade menu, the option to transfer the unique variant bonus to your upgraded item is pre-selected. If you de-select this option when upgrading, the resultant item will not retain the existing unique variant bonus. It will, however, have a chance at becoming a new unique variant, with a new unique variant bonus or nothing.

When upgrading a unique variant, the recipe screen will have an option to "Transfer Unique Variants."

A transferred unique variant crafting message looks the same as the initial creation of a unique variant.

Crafting Strategy with Alchemy Paths

Due to the ability to transfer a variant through multiple steps, a relatively economical way to obtain unique variants is to mass produce the first item in a crafting chain. For example, a unique Ash of Agni (crafting cost: 800 energy) can be produced by crafting a large number of haze bombs (10 energy each) and upgrading only the haze bomb that has a unique variant.

Types of Unique Variants

A normal Haze Bomb (left) compared to a Haze Bomb with a unique variant of "Damage Bonus vs Slime: Low."

When viewing equipment in your arsenal, you will see the equipment's icon, whether or not the item has a unique variant (yellow symbol), and its star level.

Weapons

In general, weapon bonuses will make your weapon more effective. These bonuses are separate from bonuses that the weapon would naturally gain. For example, a gun can have a unique reduction in charge time, in addition to the standard charge time reduction bonus that it gains when it reaches level 5.

Bonuses, however, are not equally useful for every weapon. For example, an increased attack speed bonus is arguably more useful on a sword than a bomb, as bombs must be charged to be effective.

Any weapon can gain one of the three basic bonuses listed below. Each possible bonus can vary in ability rating from low to ultra. It is presently unknown whether these bonuses are a fixed value, or a percentage of the weapon's default power.

• Attack speed increase (ASI)
• Charge time reduction (CTR)
• Damage bonus vs (construct, gremlin, fiend, beast, undead, slime)

For example, a Striker can have "attack speed increased: high" or "bonus damage vs beasts: moderate," but not both.

Armor

Armor unique variants focus on adding protection against damage or status effects. Unique variants can add defense against attacks that the armor would not normally protect against.

The size of these bonuses does not depend on the stats of the item, and instead are set to fixed numerical protection bonuses ranging from low (5 points) to ultra (25 points). For high-level items, base armor values can be very high- as a result, bonuses to status resistances are more noticeable than bonuses to damage protection. Possible types of unique variants are:

• Bonus damage protection from (normal, piercing, elemental, shadow): pick one damage type
• Bonus status resistance against (stun, freeze, sleep, poison, fire, shock, curse)- pick one status effect

For example, a Wolver Cap can have "bonus protection vs shadow: moderate" or "bonus freeze resistance: low," but not both.

Bonus damage protection, much like base damage protection, increases with the star-rating. For example, a low elemental UV on a 4* shield could appear longer than a medium elemental UV on a 2* shield.

Ability Ratings

Unique variant bonus amounts are described by ability ratings, whether or not the stat is displayed by a bar. On armors, the boosts can go up to a Maximum! (6) rating, although Ultra (5) cannot be obtained. For weapons, boosts can go up to a Very High (4) rating.