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Getting good gear in EverQuest II takes a lot of hard work and when you finally score that perfect piece of equipment, the first thing you want to do is find the right adornment for it. The trouble is, adornments are expensive so trial and error isn’t really a good game to play with something that can set you back several plat, so before you buy, learn the basics of these little gems of goodness that can make your good armor, great!

Adornments 101

You’ve heard people talk about them and you see them on the broker, but what are they exactly?  Adornments are items that you can add to your gear to provide additional stats and effects that players may find useful. Options include adding to your resists or haste, boosting crit or double attack chances, raising mitigations, or adding a proc. You pick and choose which effects you want!

Generally, you’ll want to adorn only high quality items that you intend to use for a while. Spending money adorning interim gear is a fairly expensive and pointless habit that most won’t be able to afford.  You’ll also want to splurge for the best adornments that you can afford, or better yet…find a crafter pal that can make them for you at a lower cost than what they go for on the market.

When you go to buy adornments, keep in mind that there are certain rules that apply which are what we will cover next.

Finding the One

Finding them is easy. Adornments are primarily crafted so you can find a wide variety on the broker. There are also a couple of select NPCs that sell adornments in the Sentinel’s Fate city of Paineel and from the battleground merchants that offer more specialized adornments.

Let’s take a look at a typical adornment and break down what everything means.

Like all items in EQ2, you’ll first see the name of the item and its quality type (Handcrafted, Mastercrafted, Fabled, Heirloom, etc). You can use any quality of adornment with any quality of equipment. 

Next you will see a slot color. Adornments come in White (the most common), Yellow, Blue (PvP only), and Red. The adornment you choose must match the slot type for the piece of gear you wish to adorn. You cannot, for example, use a white adornment on a yellow slot.

Below the slot color you will see a brief description that will tell you what type of armor or weapon the adornment can be used on. Adornments are specific to item types so you’ll need to pay attention to this description to ensure that if you want an adornment for your chest piece that the description says it will work for the chest.

Finally, you will see a level for the adornment. This is also very important as the adornment level needs to coordinate with the item you are choosing to adorn. For example, a level 60 adornment needs to be applied to a level 60+ item. Higher level adornments won’t work on lower level items so that level 60 adornment will not apply to a level 50 item.

Some adornments will also have a blurb at the item of their tooltip that are specific to proc adornments or class specific adornments. These are not usual, but if you see one just be certain that it is for the class that it will be adorning.

Ready, Set, Adorn!

So now you know the basics and hopefully you have your adornments and super cool gear in hand ready to get that baby pimped. First thing, repair that gear! Your armor or weapon that you want to adorn needs to be in tip top shape before it will accept an adornment.

Now that’s done, you can get this done. Just right click the adornment from your inventory and select to use it. Your cursor will now glow. Hover over the item you wish to adorn, if you have done everything right, it should glow a bluish color indicating that it is acceptable to use on the chosen item. If the adornment isn’t right for the item, the cursor will glow red. Click the item you wish to adorn and it will apply to the item. With the adornment applied, you can hover over your item to see it.

Now that you are all decked out in your fully maximized duds, remember that adornments don’t have to be permanent. If you find a better adornment that you’d rather use, you can apply it to the item and it will cancel out the previously consumed adornment. Some items have two adornment slots of different color types allowing you to use multiple adornments, just be extra careful that you aren’t overwriting a current adornment that you want because once gone, you can’t get it back.

My boots before adornment has been added.

New and improved boots with adornment in place.

Adorning as a Tradeskill

Adorning, which had previously been a all crafting class ability, is now its own secondary tradeskill class. Transmuting has become a regular skill that all players have, very much like gathering and mining, and has been replaced by the secondary profession of adorning. If you previously had chosen to become a transmuter, you have been automatically made a adorner with the Sentinel's Fate game update.

To pick up the adorning secondary class, visit the NPC Tyla Maki on the Butcherblock Mountain docks (/waypoint 761, 26, 598) or the NPC Noora Maki in Kelethin near the pet merchant (/waypoint 414, 88, 234).

Now that you know how to adorn, go forth and create better gear! You’ll find these little additions to your weapons and gear can make an impact on your gameplay experience and are well worth the effort.