Purification Management

Purification of Bitterblack Gear, Weapons, and other items can be time consuming, expensive in Rift Crystals, and often give undesired results from difficult to obtain or rare items.

The outcome of purification is generally not completely randomised, and so the system cannot be simply expoited by Save/Reloading, or godsbaning. However there are techniques that enable the maximisation of desired items for a given amount of rift crystals and cursed items.

Nevertheless, in general, the obtaination of a full set of high level Bitterblack Armor will require very many purifications, and a great deal of waste.

Overview
In general the weapon or armor obtained from purification will fit one of the vocation colors matching either the Arisen or Main Pawn's class. For example with a Magick Archer (yellow/blue) Arisen and Fighter pawn (red), purification may give an item suitable for any vocation color, including those not directly suitable - eg a Warrior's Longsword (red), or a Sorcerer's Acrchistaff.

The first principle of cursed item purification yield management is to (if necessary temporarily) have both Arisen and Main Pawn in suitable vocations for the type of item desired.

For the purification of cursed armor and weapons, as well as gear giving vocation-specific equipment, the result of purification is dependant on vocation at the moment of purification. The same cursed item can yield a different but 'equivalent' object if purified when the Arisen has changed vocations - both the vocation of Arisen and that of the player's main pawn influence the outcome.

Vocation specific items can be classed into three types, often referred to as "red', "yellow", and "blue" types from the icon color of the three basic vocations.  'Red' refers to sword based vocations; 'Yellow' to vocations with bows and daggers; and 'Blue' vocations are magic users. Hybrid vocation symbols have two colors signifying their blend of two vocations; e.g., the Magick Archer symbol is both yellow and blue for bows and magic use.

Save file analysis
Bitterblack items are not picked randomly but come from predetermined lists hardcoded into the game.

On entering Bitterblack Isle for the first time, each player has a "seed" initialyzed randomly for each cursed item (Bitterblack Novelty 1, 2, 3; Bitterblack Gear 1, 2, 3; Bitterblack Weapon 1, 2, 3 and Bitterblack Armor 1, 2, 3), which correspond to a value from the list.

Example (raw savefile extract) :  Values range from 1 to 999999, and are increased separately after each purification (Purifiying 1 Bitterblack Novelty 1 would make the corresponding value of 844858 increase to 844859 for example).

The seeds are initialized once per savefile, and can then only be modified by purification.

Lists Mechanic
Except Novelty 1, 2, 3, which use an unique list, each seed will give a different result depending on the Vocation color used at the time of the purification.

This mean that each list have 3 sublists, like explained below for the Bitterblack Weapon 3 list : ''Please note that the seeds and results used for this example were taken randomly. The purification outcome will be different ingame.''

Purification Tips
The number of purifications needed to obtain all Bitterblack Gear (around 90 different skill rings and bands), Weapons (21 weapons only obtainable through purification) and Armors (131 armors obtainable only through purification if Bonus Enhancements are taken into consideration) can be tremendously high.

However, the purification process can be optimized to reduce significantly the number of cused items needed.

Step 1 : Listing all items possibilities
The first step is to know exactly what items are available for the desired type of items.

Example for armors :
2 types of armors (Common and Rare), with one set for each base vocation gives 6 armors sets : Each set is made of 4 pieces (Head, Torso, Arms, Legs), which gives 24 parts.
 * Sin Armor Set
 * Shadow Armor Set
 * Grave Armor Set
 * Hellfire Armor Set
 * Oblivion Armor Set
 * Carrion Armor Set

Each part can (or not) possess one Bonus Enhancements (4 for the head, Torso and Arms, 5 for legs), which gives 126 possible parts.

Grave and Carrion Sets can not have the "Boosts the power of normal and magick shields" and "Extends duration of your enemy holds" enhencements, which remove 4 possibilities : we now have 122 possible parts.

Adding the two cloaks (Blasphemer's Cloak and Hellfire Cloak), we reach a total of 124 possible outcomes for each Bitterblack Armor Lv.3.

This can be summurized in the picture below :



Step 2 : Starting the purification
Now that all items are listed, time to start the purification. This process will be done in 3 parts to identify all possible outcomes from the possessed cursed items.

Important : perform a checkpoint save by resting on the bench near Olra before starting to be able to revert to a "safe state" in case of need.

Part one : Red results
Set your Arisen and your Pawn as Fighters then purify all possessed Bitterblack Armor Lv.3.

Take notes of the obtained items.

Part two : Yellow results
Godsbane, then set your Arisen and Pawn as Striders.

Purify all possessed Bitterblack Armor Lv.3 and note the obtained items.

Part three : Blue results
Repeat the same process as in part 2, but set your Arisen and Pawn as Mages.

Again, note the purification results.

Step 3 : Select the items
Now that all possible outcome are known for the possessed cused items, time to select the desired ones.

A table can be used to help, like below, for 4 purifications : Only one item by line and by column can be choosen.

In the example above, we would choose the Red helm, Red Cloak, blue Boots and Yellow Armor.

Godsbane again, then : The obtained items will be the desired ones.
 * 1) Set your Arisen and Pawn as Fighters
 * 2) Purify 2 Bitterblack Armor Lv.3
 * 3) Set your Arisen and Pawn as Mages
 * 4) Purify 1 Bitterblack Armor Lv.3
 * 5) Set your Arisen and Pawn as Striders
 * 6) Purify 1 Bitterblack Armor Lv.3

If an error or mistake is made during the process, reload from checkpoint to return to the "safe state", and try again.

Collectors will repeat the process for Gears and Weapons to obtain all available items !