MercEnhance

Wraith's Guide to Mercenary Enhancement
Anybody who steps into the world of Blood Quest plunges into a world where mercenaries are key.

Rising to the top of PvP may be your goal. If PvP isn't to your taste, ranking at the pinnacle of the World Boss event may be your goal instead. If that doesn't take your fancy, you may enjoy General Quests, Elite Quests or the stockade. Regardless, there aren't many things you can do where mercenaries aren't vital.

One aspect vital to the strength of your party is mercenary enhancement. Mercenary enhancement is a requirement, not only to buff up your allies, but also for the all important evolution. Therefore, this is a guide regarding this enhancement, including all statistics you may need. Let's begin:

Enhancement and it's benefits:
For every level gained through enhancement, the main stats of the target mercenary increase by +10%. This can be enhanced to a maximum value of +5, at which point the mercenary will show +MAX. This is done by using other mercenaries as enhancement materials. A further +5 enhancements can be gained through transcendent evolution for mercenaries of the A, S or SS grades. The required enhancement material must be a mercenary of the same type and grade as the enhancement target.

A minimum of +MAX must be acquired for any mercenary to undergo evolution.

Enhancement Materials:
Other mercenaries are used as enhancement materials when trying to enhance your target mercenary. These enhancement materials are consumed regardless of whether the enhancement succeeds or fails. Furthermore, the gold cost for enhancement increases based on enhancement level and grade of the enhancement target. This gold cost should not be underestimated and often amounts to significant portions of money.

The grade of the enhancement material affects the probably of a successful enhancement. The larger the difference of grades between the target and the material, the lower the chance of success. If a particular enhancement fails,  bonus to success rate is added for subsequent enhancements (until success). The details are as follows:

Grade of Target-Grade of Material           Success Rate            Failure Bonus

-                       0*                                          100%                       N/A

-                       1                                            50%                       +18%

-                       2                                            25%                        +9%

-                       3                                            10%                        +3%

-                       4                                             1%                         +1%

If the grade of the material is higher than that of the target, the result is also 100%

If the grade between the target and the material exceeds 4, that material cannot be used for enhancement. The only situation where this occurs is when attempting to use D grade mercenaries to enhance SS grade mercenaries. As a side note, because the requirement for transcendent enhancements are same type and grade of mercenary, the success rate is always 100%.

Enhancement Statistics:
Here's where we get to some really nice information not available anywhere else publicly. Due to the nature of enhancement and the fact that enhancement materials are consumed regardless of success, it is important to know the overall % of success when using certain grades of mercenaries as materials. This is especially important when enhancing the higher grade mercenaries as enhancement materials can disappear in an instant. The maths are as follows:

Most people know and understand the concept of basic enhancement probabilities. For example, if the success rate is 50%, the average number of mercenaries required is 2, since one in every 2 mercenaries will be a success. However, with the addition of failure bonuses, in reality, you can expect a success more frequently than every 2 mercenaries. Listed below is the expected number of mercenaries it takes for a successful enhancement, based on different grades of targets (to 2 decimal places):

Grade of Target-Grade of Material           Average Mercenaries Required**

-                       0*                                                          1

-                       1                                                         1.68

-                       2                                                         2.73

-                       3                                                         5.23

-                       4                                                        12.08

Average number is based on statistics. This number is under the assumption that the same grade of material is used throughout the process.

On face value, the lower grade mercenaries may not appear to be the best, due to the low success values (as low as 1%). However, due to the additional failure bonus to subsequent enhancements, these mercenaries are quite useful when it comes to enhancements.

Conclusion:
 When it comes to enhancing high grade mercenaries, using other high grade mercenaries may not always be the best decision. It is advisable to use some of the lower grade mercenaries for the initial enhancements and if you so choose, higher grade mercenaries to max out enhancement. This reduces the gold required to enhance the mercenary to max.

I hope you found this guide helpful. Please feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Yours Truly, Wraith