Etching

Etching is a craft skill used to make consumable scrolls that can be applied to armor and weapons. Characters must be level 60 in order to begin Etching and etching scrolls can only be applied to level 60 gear or higher.

Applying etching to various pieces of gear provides stats buffs like power, crit rate, endurance, attack speed + cooldown reduction, aggro or healing. Many of the etchings are obsolete. Most classes just use Energetics for attack speed and cooldown reduction. ( certain classes, mainly Gunner and Berserker can use power too Well no more, since gunner now scales with attack speed).

Etching powder, Etching dust, Etching sand, and Etching grit give tier I etching for weapon/gloves, armor/shoes, necklace/earring, ring/belt. Base materials are crafted from various Silexes (crafted from essences) and Titan's Fire, Titan's Peace, Titan's Earth, or Titan's Storm. Essences are gathered. Titanic materials are dungeon drops and also rarely found when gathering. Titans' materials are best found in Naslow's Treasure Maps' treasures. Hidden Wooden Chest, Hidden Silver Chest, Hidden Gold Chest drops give lot of these materials. (Naslow's Treasure Maps were temporary replaced with Jackpot Dungeon Drops.) (As of patch v108 release is seems materials are removed from Naslow's chests. Pit of Petrax sometimes drops 1-2 per run. Check tradebroker). Material for higher tier etching is processed from lower tier material with refined pure/vivid/lucid titanic materials.

Etching was completed revamped in December 2018 Fishing-Crafting-Gathering patch. With the new system etching is acquired from shop-like interface after crafting base material for etchings.

Tier II and III etching are available with various tokens, least from Pilot's Tokens and Island of Dawn tokens. First quest of Apex quest line ("Velika Banquet") used to give set of tier III etchings.

After patch 102 low level dungeons drop non-tradeable tier IV etching scrolls. (Equipment etching from Gossamer Vault, RM, AQ accessories etchings). These etchings cannot be dismantled. (You now really hope you had farmed etchings before patch v108 where they are really rare drops.)

After patch v108 etching drops are very rare, but they are tradeable.

Tier V etchings


Tier V etchings ("Refined Stone") were introduced in October 2020 patch v99.

Totally new materials are Solar Essence, Lava Essence, Glacial Essence and Frost Essence for weapon, hands, body armor and foot armor etchings. Lightning essence is for accessories (ring, earring, necklace, belt, brooch) etchings.

New essences only drop from hardest dungeons: Bahaar's Sanctum, RMHM, CSNH. As of patch v108 in August 2021 new Essences only seems to drop in 504 ilevel dungeons: Some materials are dismantled from Exodor gear and Warlord accessories.
 * Stormed Citadel
 * Catalepticon
 * Fusion Laboratory
 * Grotto of Lost Souls (Hard)

Required materials are:
 * (weapon, hands, accessories) / (body, foot armor)
 * crafted from feedstock (weapon/armor) + Manaforce Refined Duranium Ore (processing Artisan needed)
 * Manaforce Refined Duranium Ore (600) / War God Essence (20) (for accessories)
 * dismantled from Exodor gear or Warlord accessories
 * Solar/Lava/Glacial/Frost/Lightning Essence (6) (dungeon drop)
 * Etching fragment (dismantled from tier IV etchings)
 * Craft Kits (10000)

New etchings use similar shop-like interface where you craft base material and pick etching. New etchings last at release time 30 or 60 days depending how much material is used. They were made permanent in KTERA December 2020 patch (February 2021 in NA/EU).

Effects on Tier V etchings
Weapon and hand armor etching have same effect as Tier IV Energetics and additional amplification effect. Etchings have two versions for magic and physical classes (Fearless Power for physical and Wise Power for magic). Body and foot armor etching is changed from 10 Endurance to new style Physical/Magic Resistances. Healers want to switch to new foot armor etching since their buff skills get bonus from magic resistance, and lancers to new body armor etchings with physical resistance.

Accessories etchings no longer have crit factor or combat speed versions, just amplification and crit power stats which replace power stat. Neither new etchings give extra HP. You might want to stay on tier IVs accessories etchings for PVP (Relentless Pumped IV gives 3 power and 2000 HP).


 * Weapon:
 * Increases Attack Speed by 5%, decreases skill cooldowns by 3%.
 * Increases Magic/Physical Amplification by +1,966


 * Hand armor:
 * Attack speed +5 %, skill cooldowns -3%
 * Magic/Physical Amplification +1,966


 * Body armor:
 * Increases Physical Resistance by 3,500
 * Magic/Physical Piercing by 492.


 * Foot armor:
 * Increases Magic Resistance by +3,500
 * Ignore Magic/Physical Resistance by +984


 * Necklace, Rings, Earrings:
 * Magic/Physical Amplification +983
 * Magic/Physical Crit power 0.015

Simplified Path to Raise Etching

 * If you have the gold you can buy the Advanced Etching Tome from the Dark Merchant in Highwatch or any Etching Materials vendors to become a Master.


 * Kundra in the West Chamber of Artisans in Kaiator has a introductory quest at level 65 which gives you Azure, Crimson, and Earth Silex designs as well as Etching Powder Design. This will require silex either you make yourself or buy off Trade Broker to create Etching powder, sand, grit or dust.
 * Gather up Hidden Wooden Crates and Hidden Silver Crates from dungeons. These will give you a very large supply - 200/300 of each Titan's Fieldstone.
 * Buy recipes and begin refining Titan's Fieldstones. This requires Nature's Aura that drops only from gathering plants and is expensive.
 * At level 500 test for Artisan.
 * Buy higher powder and Vivid Fieldstone Recipes and continue gaining skill until 800.
 * At level 800 begin Master test. This will require you to go back and learn and create many recipes. You may or may not have to create etching powder, sand, grit, and dust to get up to the right quantities and create enough level III of any of these types.


 * Revival Fruit is used to reset your skill base back to 500 if you decide to change it.

Old Etching System


Old etching system used scarab powder refined from scarabs that were gathered from either ores (Elemental scarabs), plants (Straw scarabs) and essence nodes (Aurora scarabs).

Ore > Elemental Scarab > Elemental scarab powder Plants > Straw Scarab > Straw scarab powder Essence > Aurora Scarab > Aurora scarab powder

Scarab powder was crafted with Engraver's Kit to tier I etching that had 3-day duration. Crit in crafting would give White Dendrite that was used to craft tier II etching, again 3-day duration, but crits gave permanent version.

Tier III etchings were crafted from permanent tier IIs with Pure Titan's Fire/Peace, Aterstod Oil and Engraver's Kits. This would again give 3-day version, but crit produced permanent etching. Design were random and rare dungeon drops.

Tier IV etchings were released in October 2017 patch ("Arsenal" / "Might of the Mechanic"). Tier IV etchings were insanely expensive to craft, to the point it never made sense to do it. Trick was to try to crit while crafting tier IIIs, which gave material for tier IVs. Luckily some world bosses buffed to level 68 dropped boxes that gave random T4 etching, to the extend that tier IVs were never as expensive as tier IIIs. It was possible to dismantle bad etchings back to powder and get desired etching from 2 random etchings. With the introduction of tier Vs this is now changed to give material for tier Vs. With change to Harmonious Imbalance design main limiting factor is now how much Nature's Aura you can gather.