Upgrade component
From Guild Wars Wiki
Upgrade components are enhancement items that are used to enhance or upgrade existing armor or weapons. They are applied by double clicking the enhancement and then clicking the desired item once.
- Upgrades are obtained by salvaging them from items already containing them using either a Perfect, Superior, or Expert Salvage Kit. Only items with an Item rarity of blue or greater drop with upgrade components, and the item must be identified to be allowed to salvage the upgrades.
- All items are upgradable with suffix upgrade components such as staff wrappings, runes, or bow grips.
- Although most items are upgradable with prefix components, a few have no associated prefix upgrades. The weapons and offhands without prefix upgrades may be inscribable for their second bonus instead. (see below)
- Weapons and offhands from the Nightfall campaign, from the chests at the end of Factions' elite missions, from the Hall of Heroes chest, and all PvP weapons and offhands are also inscribable. For mainhand weapons, this is in addition to their existing modifiers. Because all inscriptions look alike, they are colored to distinguish which type of item they modify. These colors are shown in the table below.
- All upgrades can be identified to increase their value before being sold to the merchant. Thanks to this, a weapon that would be sold to the merchant for 1
can be identified and salvaged to get more gold, after deducting the 16 from the salvage and the 4 from the identification. Since many upgrades will be sold for 26...100 once identified (an additional 4 for identification), gold is always earned that way for items that cost less than 25.
There are numerous types of upgrade components:
| Item type | Prefix | Suffix | Inscriptions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Armor | Insignia | Rune | - |
| Axe | Axe Haft | Axe Grip | Equippable item, Weapon, Martial weapon |
| Hammer | Hammer Haft | Hammer Grip | |
| Sword | Sword Hilt | Sword Pommel | |
| Daggers | Dagger Tang | Dagger Handle | |
| Scythe | Scythe Snathe | Scythe Grip | |
| Bow | Bow String | Bow Grip | |
| Spear | Spearhead | Spear Grip | |
| Staff | Staff Head | Staff Wrapping | Equippable item, Weapon, Spellcasting weapon |
| Wand | - | Wand Wrapping | |
| Shield | - | Shield Handle | Equippable Item, Shield |
| Focus item | - | Focus Core | Equippable Item, Focus item |
Naming
Prefix upgrades will add their own adjective before the name of the item you're upgrading. So for instance, if your character was wearing Tyrian Armor, adding a Radiant Insignia would change its name to Radiant Tyrian Armor.
Suffix upgrades will add their own adjective after the name of the item you're upgrading. For instance, adding a Rune of Minor Vigor to Canthan Armor would change its name to Canthan Armor of Minor Vigor.
Items dropped or upgraded with two components will display both names at once. If a player had a 'clean' (unmodified) sword, and added to it a Fiery Sword Hilt and a Sword Pommel of Fortitude, it would become a Fiery Sword of Fortitude.
While inscriptions do not affect the name of the item they modified, the inscription will be shown complete with its own name in the item's hover display.
PvP
Weapons found by role-playing characters that are at least uncommon will have at least one upgrade component attached. When these items are identified, their upgrade components are unlocked for PvP on your account. You can also choose to salvage out the upgrade components for use in other items.
