Tinkering and Imbues!

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Tinkering : A Guide to Imbues
By illusion24

What are they?

Imbues are special spell-like properties that can be added to equipment. For "resistance rending" imbues, weapon tinkering is used for the skill check. For armor imbues, armor tinkering is used. For all other imbues, magic item tinkering is used.

Imbues are very powerful--you are often better off with a sub-standard piece of equipment that has been imbued than you are with a top of the line, unimbued piece of equipment. Because of this, it's a good idea to get to know and love this system if you ever plan on tackling the toughest content in this game!

What do they do?

There are 3 general types of imbues: armor imbues, weapon imbues, and jewelry imbues.

Armor imbues grant the player wielding that piece of armor +1 in either magic defense, missile defense, or melee defense. These bonuses stack with each other, meaning a player may have up to +9 (+10 with a shield) to a defense skill of his or her choice.
Weapon imbues give the imbued weapon a special property. There are 4 general types of weapon imbues: critical strike, crippling blow, armor rending, and resistance rending. The effectiveness of each is based on your base attack skill. The formulae for these will be discussed later. Critical strike increases your chance of achieving a critical strike against your opponent, up to a maximum of 50% (that's a lot of crits!). Crippling blow increases the multiplier of critical strikes up to a maximum of x6. Armor rend ignores a percentage of your opponents armor level, up to a maximum of 60% (for obvious reasons, armor rending cannot be applied to casting devices). And finally, resistance rends increase the effectiveness of a certain damage type (depending on the type of material used) by up to an additional 150% (this does not stack with vuln spells--essentially, resistance rending *is* your vuln).
Finally, jewelry imbues enchant a piece of jewelry with a minor cantrip. Currently, the list of available jewelry imbues is small, but I for one am hoping the list will continue to grow! Smile

What if I fail?

I have bad news for you here, my friend: both the salvage and the item being imbued will be destroyed upon a failure. Hey, all that power has to come at a price, doesn't it?

The maximum success rate for imbues is 33%. This was implemented to keep imbued equipment fairly rare, and thus valuable. While this makes good sense, it sure isn't comforting when you blow up that 22-40 +15/+15 major blood thirst sword. Sad

The formula for tinkering is fairly complicated. Most of us simply head over to http://www.code-poets.org/tinkering.html and use their success calculator. If you're the nerdy type that simply *must* have the math, bad news for you: I don't know it, but you are welcome to head here: http://www.code-poets.org/cgi-bin/submittinkeringdata.cgi and work backwards if you're bored. Smile

As of the March 2004 event, there is now an optional in-game tinkering success rate message. If this is enabled (look in your Character Options panel,) you will get a confirmation dialogue stating your success rate when you go to tinker the item.

Also, a word of caution: a 33% success rate does *NOT* mean that if you do three imbue attempts, one is guaranteed. Instead, it means that over an infinite number of attempts, 33% will be successful. Over the short run, you might get 6, 10, or even 100 failures (or successes!) in a row. Such is probability (look for an article on random number generators some time soon.)

Appendix:

Here's a complete list of the current imbue properties and their associated salvages:

Weapon Imbues:

Armor Rending
Sunstone

Critical Strike
Black Opal

Crippling Blow
Fire Opal

Bludgeon Rending
White Sapphire

Pierce Rending
Black Garnet

Slashing Rending
Imperial Topaz

Cold Rending
Aquamarine

Lightning Rending
Jet

Acid Rending
Emerald

Fire Rending
Red Garnet

Armor Imbues:
Missile Defense
Yellow Topaz

Melee Defense
Periodot

Magic Defense
Zircon

Jewelry Imbues:
Minor Stamina Gain
Citrine

Minor Health Gain
Red Jade

Minor Mana Gain
Lavender Jade

Wizard's Intellect
Azurite

Warrior's Vitality
Hematite

Warrior's Vigor
Malachite

Minor Self
Lapis Lazuli

Minor Focus
Agate

Minor Endurance
Bloodstone

Minor Quickness
Rose Quartz

Minor Coordination
Smokey Quartz

Here are the formulae for the effectiveness of weapon imbues (note: all formulae use base, not buffed, skill):

Bow (All imbues max out at 360 skill):
Crippling Blow (how much damage is multiplied on a critical strike)
(base - 0)/60

Critical Strike (percentage your crit rate is increased)
(base - 60)/600

Armor Rending (percentage of AL ignored):
(base - 120)/400

Resistance Rending (damage multiplier)
(base + 40)/160

Melee (All imbues max out at 400 skill):
Crippling Blow (how much damage is multiplied on a critical strike)
(base - 40)/60
Critical Strike (percentage your crit rate is increased)
(base - 100)/600

Armor Rending (percentage of AL ignored)
(base - 160)/400

Resistance Rending (damage multiplier)
base/160

Mage (All imbues max out at 360 skill):
Crippling Blow (how much extra damage is dealt on a critical strike)
(((Skill+120)/240)*min spell damage)/2

Critical Strike (percentage your crit rate is increased)
(Skill-60)/1200

Resistance Rending (damage multiplier)
base/160

Site Admin Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Posts: 112

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Tinkering : A Guide to Tinkering
By Paraduck, Updated by Ling Mei

During the month of Leafdawning, Portal Year 13 (or July 2002 for those in the real world,) the Arcanum with the aid of Asheron mastered the first steps of an ancient Empyrean art. This art, called tinkering by Derethians, allows craftsmen to permanently enhance items that they own up to ten times! But tinkering can at times be mighty confusing, so this guide will serve as a simple easy-to-read reference to this wonderful art. Parts I and II will give information about the skills, their effects, and what materials apply which effect. The following sections will follow Paraduck through the process of tinkering, and explain the math behind some of the tinkering skills (e.g. what does adding 0.4 protection vs. fire exactly do?)

Beginning in October of 2004, all characters were given the free Salvaging skill. At high levels, this skill has the potential to give greater than 100% returns. It caps at 208 base, but it can be buffed. At this base level, characters get at least 1, and sometimes 2 additional units for each item that is workamship 10. This information will be updated once the buff becomes available.

The Salvaging skill give those who are Sho or Aluvian the opportunity to untrain a tinkering school if they have it, while still being able to get full salvage units from usting. Salvaging is not based on any attribute. Every character will start with a skill of 5.

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Part I: Tinkering Schools
(What do I need to train?)

There are four tinkering schools. Each school has specific effects that can be applied to items. These schools cannot be specialized. The four schools and their effects are listed below.

Armor Tinkering:

Skill Cost: 4 credits

Skill Formula: (Focus + Endurance)/2

Effects:

Increase armor level by 20.
Increase slashing protection by 0.2.
Increase piercing protection by 0.2.
Increase bludgeoning protection by 0.2.
Increase acid protection by 0.4.
Increase cold protection by 0.4.
Increase fire protection by 0.4.
Increase electrical protection by 0.4.
Imube an item of loot generated armor with +1 to missle, melee, or magic defense.
Item Tinkering:

Skill Cost: 2 credits (Free if Gharundim)

Skill Formula: (Focus + Coordination)/2

Effects:

Increase value by 25%.
Decrease value by 25%.
Reduce burden by 25%.
Increase maximum mana by 100.
Change activation requirements (From race to race, from rank to lore, from missle to melee, and vice-versa.)

Magic Item Tinkering:

Skill Cost: 4 credits

Skill Formula: Focus

Effects:

Imbue a weapon or wand with Critical Strike (increases the chance of inflicting a critical hit when attacking with this item.)
Imbue a weapon or wand with Crippling Blow (increases the amount of damage a weapon does when it causes a critical hit)..
Imbue a weapon (not available for wands) with Armor Rending (allows a weapon to ignore a portion of the target's total armor, including the value added by a shield.)
Add 1% to a casting item's Mana Conversion modifier.
Imbue an item of jewelry with a minor cantrip. (Minor Strength, Minor Focus, etc.)
Imbue an item of jewelry with enhancements to stats (Warrior's Vigor, Warrior's Vitality, etc.)
Imbue an item of jewelry with rejuvenating effects (Minor Stamina Gain, Minor Health Gain, etc.)
Weapon Tinkering:

Skill Cost: 4 credits

Skill Formula: (Focus + Strength)/2

Effects:

Improve variance by 20%.
Increase damage on melee weapons) by 1.
Increase damage modifier by 4%. (Missile weapons only.)
Decrease speed by 50.
Increase attack bonus by 1%.
Increase defense bonus by 1%.
Imube a weapon with Resistance Rending property.
Miscellaneous:

Leather: Gives any loot generated item the property of being "retained," meaning it can not be sold or salvaged. (It is still possible to destroy the item by using a mana stone on it.)
Ivory: Allows no drop quest items to be muled. May only be used/wielded by the person who originally obtained the item.

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Part II: Materials
(What do I need to salvage?)

One must collect one hundred (100) units of the same material in order for a tinkerer to apply it to an item. The current materials and their effects are listed below:

Armor Tinkering Materials:

Steel (Increases the armor's armor level by 20.)
Bronze (Increase the armor's protection against slashing by 0.2.)
Alabaster (Increases the armor's protection against piercing by 0.2.)
Marble (Increases the armor's protection against bludgeoning by 0.2.)
Armoredillo Hide (Increases the armor's protection against acid by 0.4.)
Wool (Increases the armor's protection against cold by 0.4.)
Ceramic (Increases the armor's protection against fire by 0.4.)
Reedshark Hide (Increases the armor's protection against lightning by 0.4.)
Peridot (Imbue the target with a +1 bonus to Melee Defense. - Note this is an imbue, meaning there is a maximum of 33% chance to succeed.)
Zircon (Imbue the target with a +1 bonus to Magic Defense. - Note this is an inbue.)
Yellow Topaz (Imbue the target with a +1 bonus to Missile Defense. - Note this is an imbue.)

Item Tinkering Materials:

Gold (Increases treasure-generated item's value by 25%.)
Pine (Reduces a treasure-generated armor's value by 25%.)
Linen (Reduces a treasure-generated item's burden by 25%.)
Moonstone (Increases a treasure-generated item's maximum mana by 100.)
Requirement Removal/Changing Materials:

Copper (Apply this material to a magical, treasure-generated item with missile defense activation requirement to change that requirement into an appropriate melee defense requirement.)
Silver (Apply this material to a magical, treasure-generated item with a melee defense activation requirement to change that requirement into an appropriate missile defense requirement.)
Ebony (Apply this material to a magical, treasure-generated item with a heritage activation requirement to change that activation requirement to Gharu'ndim.)
Teak (Apply this material to a magical, treasure-generated item with a heritage activation requirement to change that activation requirement to Aluvian.)
Porcelain (Apply this material to a magical, treasure-generated item with a heritage activation requirement to change that activation requirement to Sho.)
Silk (Apply this material to a magical, treasure-generated item with an allegiance rank activation requirement to remove the rank requirement. In exchange, the item will gain an arcane lore difficulty equal to the its spellcraft.)
Magic Item Tinkering Materials:

Black Opal (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Critical Strike.)
Fire Opal (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Crippling Blow.)
Sunstone (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Armor Rending.)
Opal (Apply this material to a treasure-generated magic caster to increase its mana conversion modifier by 1%.)
Agate (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Focus. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Azurite (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Wizard's Intellect. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Bloodstone (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Endurance. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Carnelian (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Strength. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Citrine (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Stamina Gain. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Hematite (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Warrior's Vitality. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Lapis Lazuli (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Self. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Lavender Jade (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Mana Gain. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Malachite (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Warrior's Vigor. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Red Jade (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Health Gain. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Rose Quartz (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Quickness. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Smokey Quartz (Apply this material to a piece of magical treasure-generated jewelry to imbue the target with Minor Coordination. This will also raise the arcane lore difficulty and the spellcraft of the piece by 25.)
Weapon Tinkering Materials:

Granite (Improves a treasure-generated weapon's variance by 20%.)
Iron (Improves a treasure-generated melee weapon's damage by 1.)
Mahogany (Improves a treasure-generated missile weapon's damage modifier by 4%.)
Oak (Decreases a treasure-generated weapon's speed by 50.)
Velvet (Increases a treasure-generated weapon's attack bonus by 1%.)
Brass (Improves a treasure-generated weapon weapon's melee defense bonus by 1%.)
Resistance Rending Materials:

White Sapphire (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Bludgeon Rending.)
Black Garnet (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Pierce Rending.)
Imperial Topaz (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Slash Rending.)
Emerald (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Acid Rending.)
Red Garnet (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Fire Rending.)
Aquamarine (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Frost Rending.)
Jet (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon to imbue the target with Lightning Rending.)

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Part III: How do you Tinker Items?
(Paraduck Tinkers A Sword!)

One day when fighting Banderlings on Aerlinthe Island, Paraduck finds a 24-40 workmanship 6.0 frost sword. Paraduck can't wait to tinker this item's damage so that it can quickly destroy those Hollow Minions! Much to his disappointment, Paraduck remembers that he doesn't have an Ust, the tool that reduces items into their base properties. Usts can be purchased in the following towns: Al-Arqas, Holtburg, Lytelthorpe, Nanto, Rithwic, Samsur, Shoushi, Yanshi, Yaraq, Cragstone, Hebian-To, Candeth Keep, and Zaikhail.

After getting himself an Ust, how does Paraduck go about enhancing his sword? First, he needs to decide what effect he wants to add. Luckily for us he has already done this; he wants to increase damage. Paraduck looks under the list of Weapon Tinkering materials and finds that he needs iron to improve his sword's damage. So as one would anticipate, Paraduck goes off to hunt for iron. In order to tinker any item, you need 100 units of the same material. This means that he needs 100 units of iron in order to tinker his sword once. Paraduck can obtain these units by either trading or hunting for them. Paraduck decides to save his Singularity Keys and goes out to hunt for iron. Any treasure generated item with the word "iron" in its name can be salvaged for iron units. However, it is not that simple. Each item has a workmanship, or a pre-assigned numerical whole number. The maximum number of units that can be obtained from an item is represented by its workmanship number. The amount that Paraduck will actually obtain is determined by his highest tinkering skill level (this includes untrained tinkering skills.) This probably sounds confusing, so here is an example.

Paraduck finds an Iron Katar of workmanship 5 off an Altered Drudge. His Item Tinkering buffs to 440 - enough to salvage the maximum amount of units (in this case, 5) from an item most of the time. He double clicks his Ust, drags the Katar into the window which opens, and clicks "Salvage." He has now obtained 5 units of salvaged iron, workmanship 5.00 (remember it may be lower depending on how high your tinkering or salvaging skills are.) He needs 95 more units of iron in order to be able to increase his weapon's damage.

Paraduck hunts some more and obtains a total of 50 units of 5.00 workmanship iron. This is not enough to tinker with, but luckily enough he has already acquired 50 units of 10.0 workmanship iron from a Singularity Trove earlier that day. Paraduck takes the iron from his chest and combines both stacks, resulting in 100 units of workmanship 6.67 iron. Why did the workmanship go down? When combining items of different qualities, one gets the average workmanship of all the units combined. It is wasteful to combine rare high workmanship iron with low workmanship iron because the quality of the salvage will be diluted.

Why did he get 6.67 Iron and not 7.50? The tinkering system determines workmanship based on the number of items salvaged. Since Paraduck used 10 5.0 workmanship items and 5 10.0 workmanship items, he put a total of 15 items together in the Ust. Now, the system divides 100 (the number of the units in the bag) by 15 (the number of items that were used to obtain the full bag) to get 6.67..

It should be noted that the maximum amount of units in a stack is 100. If you combine excess units, they will be lost (i.e., combining a stack of 55 and a stack of 50 iron will not result in 105 units -- it will only result in 100.).

Now that Paraduck has his 100 units of 6.67 workmanshipiIron, he finds someone with a high Weapon Tinkering skill to apply it to his sword. His friend, Weapon Tinkerer, has 626 buffed Weapon Tinkering - - not too shabby. This is where the workmanship of both the salvaged material and the item to be tinkered come into play. A few general rules apply here:

If the item hasn't been tinkered and also has a low workmanship (less than 4,) almost any quality salvage can be used on it, assuming the tinkerer has a high skill.
If the item has been tinkered 4 or more times, one should use at least the same workmanship material as the item (i.e., a workmanship 6 Frost Broad Sword tinkered 5 times should only be tinkered with at least 6.0 workmanship materials.)
As you tinker the item, it becomes harder to tinker (the second tinker is harder than the first and so on).
A good starting point is to use Caerthalion's Tinkering Calculator in order to obtain an estimated amount of success. This calculator is pretty accurate because of the amount of data that people submit using Tinker Calc, or Tink it!, two popular Decal plugins.

Melee weapons should consult the Weapon Damage Calculator to see the ratio of granite to iron that is determined by the innate variance of the weapon and desired damage over time. This is especially useful for Resistance and Armor Rending weapons.

As of the March 2004 event, there is now an optional in-game tinkering success rate message. If this is enabled (look in your character options panel,) you will get a confirmation dialogue stating your success rate when you go to tinker the item.

Getting back to our story: Paraduck has 6.67 workmanship iron, a workmanship 6 sword and a friend with 626 Weapon Tinkering skill. Paraduck hands over the 100 Salvaged Iron and his Sword. Weapon Tinkerer double clicks the Iron and then clicks the sword. His friend has the option for displaying crafting success rates checked, so he replies that he has a 100% chance of succeeding. The Tinkerer now confirms that he wants to continue and will risk destroying the item. A local message confirming the success of the tinker is then broadcasted for all to see. It will look something like this:

Weapon Tinkerer successfully applies the Salvaged Iron (workmanship 6.67) to the Frost Tachi, inscribed by Paraduck.

This is the basic process that all tinkering skills use. You must have 100 units of the salvaged material before you can apply it to an item. No matter if you succeed or fail, the salvages units are lost. There is also a "hard cap" of 10 total tinkers per item. (Ivory and Leather do not count as tinkers.)

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Part IV: Tinkering Effects Explained
(More Math!)

Now that we have a basic understanding of tinkering, let's look at the effects of each of the materials in detail.

Armor Tinkering:

Steel: This is pretty self explanatory. It increases the base AL by 20.

Bronze (increase the armor's protection against slashing by 0.2.)
Alabaster (increases the armor's protection against piercing by 0.2.)
Marble (increases the armor's protection against bludgeoning by 0.2.)
Armoredillo Hide (increases the armor's protection against acid by 0.4.)
Wool (increases the armor's protection against cold by 0.4.)
Ceramic (increases the armor's protection against fire by 0.4.)
Reedshark Hide (increases the armor's protection against lightning by 0.4)

Each of these increases a specific protection against an attack by 0.2 or 0.4. All armor has a base protection value which is a decimal ranging from 0.0 (none) to 2.0 (unparalleled.) Banes affect these modifiers. The AL against an attack is the AL times the protection modifier.

Example: Paraduck has an AL 300 base Amuli Coat with a fire protection modifier of 1.5. His AL against fire melee and missile attacks is 300*1.5, or 450.

The modifier cannot exceed 2.0 and tinkered modifiers reduce the damage taken by hollow attacks.

Armor Imbues: Peridot, Zircon, and Yellow Topaz: See imbue section below.

Item Tinkering:

Gold (increases treasure-generated item's value by 25%)
Pine (reduces a treasure-generated armor's value by 25%)
Linen (reduces a treasure-generated item's burden by 25%)
Moonstone (increases the items maximum mana by 100)

I can't make it any simpler than it already is, other than providing an example. Say Paraduck wants to increase one of his death items (Gold Orb, value 40,000) value 3 times. He obtains 300 Gold and tinkers the item (see above for a tinkering explanation), obtaining the following new item values:

Tinker #1: 50,000 value
Tinker #2: 62,500 value
Tinker #3: 78,125 value

Ebony, Porcelain, and Teak: (Change race requirements.) Should be done in early tinkers, but with high enough workmanship salvage can be done later.

Silk (Removes rank requiremen, and sets arcane lore requirement to that item's spellcraft.)

Note that this is the MOST DIFFICULT material to apply, and should ALWAYS be done on the first tinker if possible, and by someone with extremely high, if not capped, Item Tinkering. Always be sure to check the chance of success before tinkering.

Magic Item Tinkering:

Black Opal (apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Critical Strike)
Fire Opal (apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Crippling Blow)
Sunstone (apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Armor Rending)
Resistance Rends (Full list above under Weapon Tinkering)

See the imbue section below for more details.

Opal (apply this material to a treasure-generated magic caster to increase its mana conversion modifier by 1 %.)

Jewelry Imbues (See list above in part two for thefull lis.t)

Note that these are imbues, have a maximum of 33% chance to land, and raise the lore of the jewelry item by 25.

Weapon Tinkering:

Granite (improves a treasure-generated weapon's variance by 20%):

Granite improves a weapons variance by 20%. What is variance? Variance is a number calculated by how far the minimum and maximum damage are from each other. A 20-40 sword is considered to have a variance of 0.5. The lower the variance, the better as you will be doing more damage a hit on average (except on critical strikes.) Use a weapon damage calculator to optimize the number of granite and iron tinkers on a weapon for damage. In general, granite is not as effective for Critical Strike and Crippling Blow swords because crits use the max damage of the weapon. However, granite will help on those non-critical hits.

Iron (improves a treasure-generated melee weapon's damage by 1)
Mahogany (improves a treasure-generated missile weapon's damage modifier by 4%)
Oak (decreases a treasure-generated weapon's speed by 50)
Velvet (increases a treasure-generated weapon's attack bonus by 1%)
Brass (improves a treasure-generated weapon weapon's melee defense bonus by 1%)

Self explanatory. They each add the listed amount to the specified modifiers.

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Part V: Imbues Explained

Introduced with the August 2002 update, Magic Item Tinkering is the latest tinkering skill to be added to the game. Magic Item Tinkering is extremely tricky, with the MAXIMUM chance of success with imbuing being 33% (your regular tinkering success divided by 3.) The main aspect of this skill is a process called imbuing, which can only be done once per weapon and counts as one of the ten max tinkers. As with all other tinkering skills, Magic Item Tinkering follows the same process for salvaging materials and applying them to a weapon. Below are the current effects:

Black Opal (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Critical Strike)

This increases your chances of a critical hit. The percentage of increase is determined by the base skill of the character wielding the item.

Fire Opal (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Crippling Blow)

This increases the damage of your crits. The damage increase is determined by the base skill of the character wielding the item.

Sunstone (Apply this material to a treasure-generated weapon or caster to imbue the target with Armor Rending)
This ignores a portion of the targets armor (including shields.) The portion that is ignored is determined by the base skill of the character wielding the item. This is not available on magic casters since magic already ignores a target's armor.

Resistance Rending(A full list can be located above in Weapon Tinkering materials section. Imbues a weapon with a vulerability effect.)

For melee weapons, this MUST be done on the corrosponding attack types/elemental weapon. Frost Rending must be put on a frost weapon for the imbue to work. You cannot imbue a normal slashing/piercing weapon with an elemental or Bludgeon Rend effect. Similarly, you cannot imbue a bludgeoning weapon with a piercing or slashing imbue. (Well, you can, but they would not work, so be careful when rending with these salvage types, ID your weapon and salvage type before applying to avoid mistakes.) The maximum effect is a level 6 vulnerability, determined by the base skill of the character wielding the item.

As said, the magic item tinkering effects are based off of the target's base skill. The caps for both melee and missile imbues are as follows:

Armor Rending: 60% AL Ignored
Crippling Blow: 6 times the damage of your normal crits.
Critical Strike: 50% chance of critting.

Below are the formulas to determine your modifiers.

Melee:

Armor Rend: (Base Skill - 160)/400 = % armor ignored
Crippling Blow: (Base Skill - 40)/60 = damage multiplier
Critical Strike: (Base Skill - 100)/600 = % chance of crit
Resistance Rend: (Base Skill - 40)/60 = Vulnerability Equivalent (Maximum of level 6 vulnerbility equivalent. Vulns are not rounded up. 5.9 is level 5 equivalent.)

The maximum effect for rends and imbues is reached at 400 base melee weapon skill.

Missile:

Armor Rend: (base Skill - 120)/400 = % of AL ignored
Crippling Blow: (base Skill )/60 = crit multiplier
Critical Strike: (base Skill - 60)/600 = %chance of crits
Resistance Rend: (Base Skill)/60 = Vulnerability Equivalent (Maximum of level 6 vulnerbility equivalent. Vulns are not rounded up. 5.9 is level 5 equivalent.)

The maximum effect for Rends and Imbues is reached at 360 base Bow/Crossbow/TW skill.

Magic Casting:

Critical Strike: (base Skill - 60)/600 Scales from 5% to 50% maximum
Crippling Blow: Scales from adding 50% of the spells damage on critical hits to adding 500% at maximum effectiveness.
Resistance Rends: (Base Skill)/60 = Vulerability Equivalent

The minimum effect begins with 125 base War Magic skill.
The maximum effect for imbues is reached at 360 base War Magic skill.

Magic Item Tinkering also takes use of opal. The addition of opal to any loot generated magic casting weapon will increase its mana conversion modifier by 1%.

Magic casting items may also be tinkered with brass to increase their melee defense modifiers.

Certain quest items can be tinkered with ivory to unattune them from your soul. This means that these no-drop/give items can be muled, hooked and given, but only the person that applied the ivory (that is, yourself) can wield it. It is impossible to fail on an ivory tinker and you do not need a tinkering skill in order to use ivory on an item. Almost every quest item is now ivoryable. To see if an item is ivoryable, ID the item. It will appear under "Special Properties."

Armor Imbues:

Armor imbues add ONE POINT to skill, which is factored in after buffs, and any modifiers on your weapon. (It is not 1%, as commonly misunderstood.) They are only figured into your skill as a bonus when you are in attack stance.

Formula for defense imbues (except Melee Defense:) (base defense skill + buffs + armor imbue) + (base skill * buffed weapon modifier.)

Melee Defense Imbue: (buffed melee defense + Armor Imbue) * buffed weapon modifier

Example:

Ling Mei has 350 base melee defense, with no buffs, one item of armor imbued with the melee defense bonus, and a weapon with +25% to melee defense. Her effective melee defense is:

(350 + 1) + (1.25), for a total of 439 effective melee defense.

(Note that this is not exact, as there are other variables such as your combat stance, stamina, and attack height that effect melee defense.)