Planar Fragments – A brief guide

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In Starfall Prophecy, one of the new gearing and progression mechanics is known as “Planar Fragments”.  This system started out as a way to replace tertiary stats such as critical hit rate, attack/spell power, crit power, etc. on gear.  Thus, your gear would work for both tank and dps/heal roles, and you would just swap your planar fragment sets depending on your role.

This is still true, but the system has gotten more… complex since this initial pitch.  Today I would like to take some time to delve into the system and help explain it.
Overview of equipment window

This is the first thing you will see when going to equip planar fragments, a new equipment window, and a new inventory on the right.  Simply click on a slot, which has a specific element marker on it, then click and drag a fragment from the right to a slot to equip it.  This might look overwhelming at first, so let’s dig into each portion of this piece by piece.

Fragment Inventory
Planar Fragments have their own inventory system separate from your bag space.  You may carry 200 fragments here.  You can easily move fragments to your bag space by clicking and dragging them to an empty slot in your inventory.
You can access this panel by clicking on “Fragment Inventory” in your character panel.
The inventory is sortable, and searchable, and details each of your planar fragments with a very quick glance.  In the above image, I have highlighted the primary stat of the fragment.
Secondary Stats are also shown.
The fragment’s infusion level is displayed below it.

Finally, you can recycle fragments straight from your inventory.

Individual Fragments
Let’s look at an individual Fragment, and break it down piece by piece.

This is an “Uncommon” (green) quality fragment, so it comes with 1 secondary stat when it drops.  It contains Endurance and Block, clearly this is meant for tanking.

This one’s name contains the word “Martial”, indicating that it is a physical class fragment, perfect for Warriors, Rogues, and Primalists.  A matching “Mystical” phrase exists, meaning the fragment and its potential stats are meant for a Cleric or Mage.

Infusion level details how many times this fragment has been leveled up, starting at 0 and ending at 15.  As a fragment’s infusion level grows, so does it’s primary stat.  It will gain additional secondary stats at levels 3, 6, 9, and 12, if it does not already have them. Since this item has 1 secondary stat already, it will not receive a new one at infusion level 3.  Instead, the current secondary stat will receive a small boost.

It is possible for a fragment to gain the same secondary stat twice, increasing the secondary stat each time.

Each Fragment has a specific element associated with it.  The element serves 2 purposes.  First, it determines what slot it can be equipped in.  Second, it determines what primary stats will be the best for this fragment.  It is important to know that all fragments share the same pool of secondary stat values.  The fragment’s element determines what primary stat provided will be the strongest.  During development, the devs posted a full tier list.

A fragment’s Tier rating goes from 1 to 6, with 1 being the best possible for that element, and 6 being the worst.  In short, you want to seek out Tier 1 fragments, since the primary stat for that fragment will be the highest compared to all other fragments of the same infusion level.  Tier 6 fragments have the worst primary stats, and are better off being recycled.

Here are the stats in order of best to worst for each planar type:

Fire: AP/SP, DEX, CP, INT, Crit Chance, STR, Dodge, Base HP, Block, WIS, Guard, END
Water: Crit Chance, END, AP/SP, Base HP, CP, INT, Block, STR, Guard, DEX, Dodge, WIS
Death: CP, STR, Crit Chance, DEX, AP/SP, Base HP, Guard, WIS, Dodge, END, Block, INT
Life: Block, Base HP, Dodge, WIS, Guard, END, AP/SP, INT, Crit Chance, STR, CP, DEX
Earth: Guard, WIS, Block, STR, Dodge, DEX, Crit Chance, END, CP, INT, AP/SP, Base HP
Air: Dodge, INT, Guard, END, Block, WIS, CP, DEX, AP/SP, Base HP, Crit Chance, STR

Planar Fragment Infusion

This is the Infusion window.  Here you can upgrade the primary stat of your Planar Fragments, and cause it to gain additional secondary stats.  It can take multiple infusion attempts to level up a fragment, but there is a hard limit on how many times you must do this.  There is also a chance of a “Critical Infusion”, which will level up your fragment immediately, regardless of the infusion progress.

To infuse a fragment, click the “Up Arrow” next to the fragment once it has been equipped.  This will add open up the infusion window.

Each infusion costs some resources.  Plat is a constant requirement for all levels, but in addition to plat, infusion require planarite from levels 0-6, and special “Cosmic Core” items from levels 6 through 15.  Cosmic cores can be obtained by recycling fragments, which will be discussed later.

Starting an infusion is as simple as pressing the infuse button.  This will immediately take the currency and required materials from your inventory, and give you one of two results.

1) The first possible result is a “Critical Infusion”.  This means that any remaining progress to the next infusion level is automatically completed.

2) Alternatively, you will gain progress towards the next infusion level.  Note in this example, the fragment has moved to level 9 and acquired a new secondary stat.

As we can see, infusion is rather simple.  The costs can be high, especially for cosmic cores, which brings us to the next idea for fragments: Recycling.

Recycling
If you obtain a fragment that you don’t want, or has undesirable stats, you have the option of Recycling that fragment.  This is done by clicking on the Recycle button in any of the planar fragment lists you find in your inventory.  Recycling a planar fragment awards you with “Cosmic Core” items related to that fragment’s element.

Recycling can also be done using the new Recycling Skill in you skills window.

This skill can be put on your hotbar, and used as macro.  It is required to recycle fragments in your bag inventory.

Using the skill is easy, like all the current break down crafting skills in the game.  Use the Recycle skill, then click on a fragment in your bags or in the Fragment Inventory panel of your character page.

Fragment Sets
You can have up to 5 fragment sets, and swap between them outside of combat.  The first set is given to you for free, but the 2nd set costs 150p, 3rd 300p, 4th 450p, and 5th 600p.

You can assign images to a set by right clicking it.

You can drag the icon to your hotbar for easy set swapping.

Recommendation for what to equip and what to recycle
Fragments come in all rarity levels, but always at infusion level 0.  The rarity of a fragment determines how many secondary stats it starts with.  This means that higher rarity fragments have less RNG than lower rarity ones.

You should avoid playing the RNG game with fragments.  A quick overview of what levels to infuse to for each rarity is below.  After the listed levels, RNG starts kicking in very hard and you might end up with unwanted secondary stats.

White (Common) – No secondary stats – Safe to upgrade to infusion level 2
Green (Uncommon) – 1 secondary stat – Safe to upgrade to infusion level 5
Blue (Rare) – 2 secondary stats – Safe to upgrade to infusion level 8
Purple (Epic) – 3 secondary stats – Safe to upgrade to infusion level 11
Gold (Relic) – 4 secondary stats – Safe to upgrade to infusion level 15

On top of this, you want to avoid high-tier rated fragments.  Tier 1, 2, and 3 fragments will give you the best potential primary stat for that fragment’s element, but a 4, 5, and 6 Tier will be sub-par.  It is generally best to recycle Tier 4, 5, and 6 fragments.  Do the same for a Tier 3 unless you really need to stack the stat provided by that fragment.

Only use these lower tier fragments when starting out, and try to replace them quickly.  Questing will give you these lower tier fragments, while more challenging content like experts and eventually raids will provide higher tiers.

In summary:

• Use Tier 4, 5, and 6 fragments only if you have no other options for the stat you want.
• Replace and Recycle Tier 4, 5, and 6 Fragments as soon as you possibly can.
• You can use the Recycle skill from your Skill window to recycle equipped fragments.
• A Fragment will gain additional secondary stats at levels 3, 6, 9, and 12 if it has not received a secondary stat already due to its quality.
• Do not upgrade a fragment beyond the recommended levels above!  Doing so invites gambling on additional secondary stats and honestly is not worth the cost in the long run.  Though you may occasionally get lucky though.
• It can take multiple infusion attempts to level up a fragment, but there is a hard limit on how many times you must do this.
  • Infusion levels 0, 1, and 2 always require 1 attempt to succeed.
• At the first 4 Milestone infusion levels (3, 6, 9, and 12), one random secondary stat will be boosted IF the fragment does not gain a new seconary stat.
• Leveling a fragment from 14 to 15 is expensive, but gives a huge Primary and Secondary stat boost.
• Content is balanced around having Infusion level 6 fragments.