Equipment Upgrades

You won’t have to worry too much about these until you hit lvl 60+ (80, really). You can equip random upgrades you get while leveling or salvage them.

Universal Upgrades - Can be applied to any piece of equipment with an upgrade slot

Sigils - Only apply to your weapon. One-handed weapons will have one slot, two-handed ones will have two. Equipping two of the same exact sigil will NOT stack the effect.

Runes - Only used for armor. Unlike sigils, you actually do want to use runes of the same kind in order to maximize the benefits that they provide. For instance, for superior runes, you’ll want to run six of the same rune since it has 6 stat bonuses. Think of them as set bonuses from other games.

Infusions - Go into ascended equipment that contain infusion slots. The primary function of these is to provide agony resistance, something that is required for fractal progression. For more information, please visit the Fractals portion of the guide. Some infusions provide a cosmetic effect as well, often in the form of auras.

Enrichments - Can be placed in ascended amulets. Provides a variety of boosts including WvW XP, magic find, gold from monsters, and experience from kills. One enrichment in particular has a cosmetic effect.

Glyphs - Used to augment your gathering tool in a variety of ways. Review the wiki article for more information.