Aspects are another layer of customization, with each aspect providing its own unique collection of bonuses as well as a special combat-triggered ability. Your aspect plays a pivotal role in your character’s output and durability, so if dungeon content feels impossible at first, know that your aspect will make you into a true hero. Well, not a true hero in the literary coming-of-age sense, but you won’t get insta-nuked by the first mob on the second floor.
Your aspect bonuses are split into two parts: Your armor and your weapon/spellbook. When your aspect armor is active, you gain a set of passive bonuses. Your weapon/spellbook gains passive bonuses as well as a special ability that has a chance to trigger when you deal damage – which we call a “proc.” Procs come with big visuals and either an instant or narrow window of mega damage and other bonuses.
Those are the benefits of having at least one aspect unlocked, but let’s break-down the parts that can confuse new players. Here are the steps you take to use an aspect:
Open the aspect menu by typing [aspect
Unlock the aspect by spending the respective aspect distillation, aspect cores, and an aspect mastery kit (we will talk more about these items soon)
Fuel your character with arcane essence (double click the arcane essence, target yourself)
Back in the aspect menu, activate the aspect on either your weapon or your spellbook, and your armor for a small arcane essence cost
Go hunting. As you deal damage to creatures, you will automatically consume arcane essence to fuel your passive and active bonuses and gain experience toward your next aspect tier.
When you gain enough experience, you can spend aspect distillations and aspect cores to upgrade to the next tier of aspect, which is a stronger version of the previous tier.
If you run out of arcane essence, change your gear, or die, you need to reactivate your aspect in both places to recover the bonuses.
The upfront set-up and menu-navigation can make aspects seem really complicated, but its role in a normal run is pretty simple: make sure your aspect is activated, make sure you are stocked with arcane essence, attack things.
We did cover a few new items in that sequence, so let’s define their role and how you get them:
Aspect mastery kit – Required for the initial unlock of an aspect, crafted by players
Aspect distillation – Required for unlock and for advancing levels, crafted from aspect extract by an alchemist while the extract itself is found as a loot drop
Aspect core – Required for unlock and for advancing levels, found as a loot drop
Aspect essence – Required to activate and fuel an aspect, primarily acquired by recycling magic weapons and armor. Note: Recycling can be done with a crafting tool as well as a magic recycler, a special secure container for your house or inn room
Lastly, you should also be vaguely aware of one other item: an aspect triumph. This won’t be relevant for you for a long time, but this item is required as part of the upgrade cost to go from tier 14 to tier 15, and it is earned by earning silver in the faction system. Factions is its own system with multiple components, so you can read up on it soon if you like PVP or you can learn about it when you are deep into leveling your aspect.
In practice, you will buy/loot most of your aspect cores and extracts/distillations from other players. You will definitely find cores and extracts while you hunt, redeem event reward tokens, complete treasure maps, and defeat bosses, but you will reach the next tier far more quickly than you will ever find the exact cores and extracts you need as random loot drops, which means that leveling your aspect will require exponentially more gold to rank-up to a new tier.
Fortunately, your ability to earn gold increases steadily with your tier level because every new boost in your farming power helps you to kill more high-value monsters and to do so more and more quickly. You’ll just need to resist spending all your gold on fancy clothes for your character.
On the aspect menu, you can do the following:
Scroll through all of the aspects to select an aspect and review its potential bonuses
Spend a mastery kit, a distillation, and two cores to unlock an aspect
If the aspect is unlocked, you can activate the aspect on your weapon/spellbook and on your armor. Note: weapon/spellbook and armor activations are separate choices in the menu; one click will not automatically activate both areas
If you have met the experience requirement, spend aspect distillation and aspect cores to advance your aspect to its next tier
Your passive bonuses and your chance to proc will run automatically once your aspect has been turned on. You only have to do two things to make the rest run automatically: Go to the Aspect Menu to turn the aspect on, and then keep your character stocked with arcane essence, the fuel your aspect needs to activate and to stay active.
Unlike codices, aspects do not have minimum skill requirements for activation. Technically, any character can unlock any aspect at any time, but certain aspects fit better with certain builds, and players can choose to have up to two aspects active at once.
Big takeaways for this category:
You can’t use an aspect until you unlock it with the required amount of cores, distillations, and aspect kit.
You only need to unlock an aspect once, then you can choose to apply the aspect to your weapon/spellbook and/or your armor.
Your aspect requires arcane essence as fuel, which you can get from recycling magic items.
When you max out the experience of your current tier, you must spend cores and distillations to unlock the next tier and to continue gaining experience for your aspect.
If you die, change gear, or run out of arcane essence, you must reapply your aspect to recover its benefits.
The aspect you choose should complement your base skills.