Hello!

My schedule has been holiday’ed, so sorry for the lack of posting lately regarding our Mastery project. I do have a very important update though: we’ve been doing a ton of mastery-related content, and I’m excited to share that I am STILL Rank 5! ………

But! This week’s post is a special off-topic entry, because the new Limbus Armor crafting system officially hit the game. And we were lucky enough to get our first piece crafted: the HQ+1 Magnificant Cyclas (MNK / THF / BST / PUP / DNC), and even tossed a couple augments on it.

After grinding through the farming, crafting, and augmentation process, I wanted to share what I learned — because this system looks insanely complicated at first glance… but once you understand the flow, it starts to demystify. It’s still a grind, but at least it becomes a grind you can plan around.

So let’s break it down.

I. Kill CN Bosses (Ultima & Omega)

The first big “unlock” point is Ultima and Omega.

• Ultima & Omega unlock the highest-tier reward chests (Gold).
• Rewards appear to scale with CN progression, likely adding extra drop slots depending on how far your server/community has progressed.

Important Timing Note (Chest Update Cycle)

This part is extremely easy to miss:

• Chests update on a rolling 30-day period
• Month-1 NMs affect Month-2 chest rewards
• You can check the Operator to see NM respawn schedules

In other words: what you kill now may affect what your chest table looks like later, so staying consistent matters.

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II. Open Chests & Collect Materials

Once you’re eligible for the better chest tiers, you’ll run Limbus as usual — but now the payoff includes crafting progression.

Gold chests include:

• 1x guaranteed race-based shard
• 1–6+ crafting materials
  (And some players are reporting 8 or 9 different items from a single chest.)

Race-based shards

Each shard corresponds to a specific race:

• Hume — Shard of Hope
• Galka — Shard of Mercy
• Elvaan — Shard of Trust
• Tarutaru — Shard of Bravery
• Mithra — Shard of Justice

These shards are going to be a major bottleneck later, so don’t underestimate how important consistent chest runs are.

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III. Synthesis (Crafting the Cursed Item)

This part is actually pretty cool.

• Crafters can use the materials dropped from chests to synthesize the new cursed items, and crafting requires a fully completed Escutcheon.
• Results can be: NQ, HQ+1, HQ+2
• The good news: Augments are supposedly transferrable, so you don't need to wait for an HQ+2 to start the augment grind, you can get an NQ today, start augmenting, and transfer those augments to the HQ piece later down the road - more on augmenting in a minute.

Our experience

We tried to brute force an HQ and… yeah.

We broke and lost a few materials early on (pain), but on our second attempt we managed to pull an HQ+1. These synths seem legitimately difficult even for maxed crafters — but because chest material drops seem fairly generous, I do think prices will normalize once more people are grinding.

(At least that’s what I’m telling myself so I can sleep.)

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IV. Purify & Augment (The Real Grind Begins)

Once you craft the cursed item, you’ll need to purify it using the correct Jewel, and then you’ll use additional Jewels to upgrade augment ranks.

Jewels are tied to the gear set / Ark Angel race

Each set is racially aligned with the original Ark Angel set, and will require Racial Shards from that race to craft and augment. You only get your race shard when opening chests and can either sell them and buy the one you want, or trade them to the synergy furnace at a 2:1 exchange if you don't want to wait or don't like interacting with people. These are then crafted in to Jewels at the Limbus Synergy Furnaces, using: 5x Racial Shards, 1x Alabaster Matter, 1x Murky Matter

• Hume — Hope Set (WAR / BRD / NIN), Jewel of Revelation = 5x Shard of Hope
• Galka — Mercy Set (RNG / SAM / DRG / COR), Jewel of Affection = 5x Shard of Mercy
• Elvaan — Trust Set (WHM / RDM / PLD / DRK / BLU / RUN), Jewel of Camaraderie = 5x Shard of Trust
• Tarutaru — Bravery Set (BLM / SMN / SCH / GEO), Shard of Persistence = 5x Shard of Bravery
• Mithra — Justice Set (MNK / THF / BST / PUP / DNC) Jewel of Destiny = 5x Shard of Justice

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The part that hurts

The initial purification and every augment level requires 1 Jewel.

That means for a fully maxed item, you’re looking at:

• 155 Racial Shards
• 31 Alabaster Matter
• 31 Murky Matter

And that’s just to fully push one piece to completion on the Jewel side of things.

Augment Units (Temenos / Apollyon)

On top of Jewels, augmenting also costs either Temenos or Apollyon units, in a progression that resembles earlier Limbus augments.

• ~750 units for Rank 1
• ~1600 units for Rank 2
• …scaling upward
• Total per item: 629,650 units

So, the upgrade costs are not just “expensive,” they’re “oh no” grindy.

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Okay… Let’s Do the Math

Here’s where it gets funny in a way that isn’t funny.

There is a maximum of:

• 50,000 units per Limbus zone per week
• So 100,000 units per week if you max out both Temenos + Apollyon

To max ONE 5-piece set:

You’ll need:

• 775 racial shards
• 155 Alabaster Matter
• 155 Murky Matter
• 3,148,250 units

At a rate of 100,000 units per week, that’s approximately: ✅ 31 weeks of capping both zones weekly…to max out one five-piece set.

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Now the truly cursed part

If you want to max all sets? You’re looking at something like:🫠 3 years of weekly Limbus caps.

And here’s the kicker:

Limbus was initially reimplemented around 31 weeks ago as of this week. So… have you capped both zones every week since reimplementation? No? Me neither.

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Final Thoughts (and a Small Call-for-Help)

Overall, I actually really like the structure of this system. It’s complicated, yes — but it’s also consistent, repeatable, and rewards long-term effort.

That said, the unit grind is extreme, and the shard/matter requirements mean you’ll want to treat gold chest runs like a long-term plan, not a weekend project.

Anyway — good luck out there. I hope you like Limbus.

And for the love of Altana…

Please help people kill NMs when you see them fighting in-game.

It helps everyone progress. And someday you’ll be the one getting slapped by an NM while a full party runs past, minding their own business.