Spellbinding

Overview

Spellbinding is a unique craft skill that allows you to destroy an item, turning ("binding") its enchantments into totems. These totems can then be used to fill the enchantment slots on other pieces of looted or crafted gear. The person using the totem doesn't need any craft skill to apply them. Currently, spellbinding can be used on weapons, armor, and shields... but not jewelry.

The difficulty of a spellbinding attempt is based on two factors. One is the "item level," and the other is the amount of spells on the item you're pulling spells from (see Major and Minor section). For items under level 50, the item level is equal to the minimum level needed to wield it. For items above level 50, the item level is determined by its Arcane Lore requirement.

Creating Totems

To determine which spells can be bound, look at the spell's name. If it has an orange name, it can be bound. If it has a white name, it can't.

Open your crafting tab. Under Spellbinding, you'll see many different Bind Enchantment recipes. This refers to the type of item you're pulling the spells FROM. Choose the appropriate one. You'll notice there's a major and minor recipe for each type.

Major and Minor Recipes

A minor spellbinding recipe will destroy the item, turning one spell at random into a totem. For items with only one spell, only a minor recipe is needed.

A major recipe will destroy the item, giving you a totem for each spell that was on it. If you want to bind enchantments from an item with several spells, you'll need a major recipe to make totems for them all. Majors are significantly more difficult to do skill-wise, though. A major recipe requires 30 more skill (10 item levels worth) than an equivalent minor.

For items with a mix of white and orange-text spells, ignore the white spells for purposes of determining minor or major. For example, if you have a weapon with Frangere, Armor Ward and Inferno, you can use a minor recipe. Since Frangere and Armor Ward are white text, they are ignored and you'd pull the only possible orange-named spell at random, Inferno.

Materials

Once you've chosen the recipe you need, put the item you want to pull spells FROM into the slot in the craft recipe. The item level and materials will now change. The higher the item level, the more materials are required. Every spellbinding recipe requires three things:

Refined Trait - Dramastic, Moonglass, Runewood, Steel or Tukalite. This is generally the major "cost" of the recipe.
Store-bought Trait - Flawless Pyreal for minor recipes, and Gathered Deruwood for major recipes. Bought for 50 gold from NPC vendors.
Essence - This can be any one of 14 essences that appear on Monster Trophies. Each monster trophy counts as two essence types.

The refined and store-bought trait required will increase with item level. Only one trophy essence is ever needed.

Spellbinding Lookup Chart

The following table shows the relationships between the item type, traits and essences needed for each item type, and which trophies have that essence. Mouseover the icon to see the actual name of the trophies (also note that some trophies may share the same icon.)

Item Type	Traits	Essence	Trophies
Melee Weapon (Minor)		Anger
Melee Weapon (Major)		Wrath
Missile Weapon (Minor)		Cunning
Missile Weapon (Major)		Guile
Magic Weapon (Minor)		Courage
Magic Weapon (Major)		Valor
Human Armor (Minor)		Reason
Human Armor (Major)		Inspiration
Tumeork Armor (Minor)		Empathy
Tumerok Armor (Major)		Wisdom
Lugian Armor (Minor)		Tenacity
Lugian Armor (Major)		Fortitude
Shield (Minor)		Caution
Shield (Major)		Vigilance
Empyrean Armor (Minor)		Cunning
Empyrean Armor (Major)		Inspiration

Using Totems

Assuming you have the skill and materials, you'll create one or more totems. A totem can be applied by anybody. Simply applying it doesn't require any player level or craft skill. However, once you put a totem into an enchantment slot, the item will be "bound" to you. This means you can still drop and trade it, but nobody but you will ever be able to wield it. Totems come in three types:

Armor Totems
Shield Totems
Weapon Totems

Other than armor/weapon/shield, a totem doesn't "remember" the specific type of item it came from. You can use a totem pulled from a missile weapon to enchant your melee weapon, for example, or use a skill totem from gloves and put it on your helmet.

The only thing affected by the original item is the level or arcane lore requirement. A totem's requirement is 5 levels and/or 25 arcane lore less than the item it came from. This requirement must be met by the ITEM that receives it, not you. Even if you're level 40, you can't put a level 35 totem on a level 30 item.

Harmonic Stones

A spellbinder can also turn Lodestones into Harmonic Stones. These stones allow a weapon to become more honed with use, gaining increasing permanent damage bonuses against particular monster types:

• Decay (evil or undead)
• Arcane (magical, or derived from energy)
• Martial (weapon-wielding)
• Nature (plant or animal)

At this time, only crafted weapons have the ability to receive these harmonic bonuses.

The recipe requires a lodestone and 10,000 to 50,000 coal, depending on the "tier" of lodestone. The type of harmonic enchant you get is as follows:
Clouded Lodestone = Arcane Harmonic Stone, grows to 40%
Marbled Lodestone = Martial Harmonic Stone, grows to 40%
Mossy Lodestone = Mossy Harmonic Stone, grows to 40%
Rusty Lodestone = Harmonic Stone of Decay, grows to 40%
Translucent Lodestone = Neutral Imbuing Stone, grows to 20% against all creature types

The Harmonic Stone will have a maximum level requirement determined by the tier of lodestone used:
Crumbling = level 1-24
Brittle = level 25-39
Rough = level 40-54
Smooth = level 55-69
Shining = level 70+ (no maximum)

Unlike totems, these level requirements must be met by the PLAYER, not the item. No craft skill is needed to apply them, though.