Gear and Items#
First, this page’s scope: what is commonly lumped together as “gear items” in God of War Ragnarök actually consists of three independent systems:
- The Amulet of Yggdrasil and its Enchantments — the free-mixing layer of your character sheet;
- Relics and Hilts — the active-skill layer occupying separate slots;
- The upgrade material system running through both — which decides when you can wear what, and up to what level.
Per-piece reviews of weapon grips, the armor trio, and shield rondels are not on this page — see the Weapons page and the Resources page for those. This page states system rules first, then gives comparison tables; the “Revision Notes” section at the end corrects the old page’s errors item by item.
One numbers caveat to state up front: no unified stat table for enchantment affixes or relic effects has ever been officially published; the game lists values per item only. Everything strength-related on this page is therefore qualitative; only in-game verifiable system rules (slot counts, the kinds of upgrade materials required) are stated as certainties — no invented “affix +X%” estimates.
Amulet of Yggdrasil#
System Rules#
- The amulet is obtained automatically during the main-story “The Quest for Tyr” quest line — no exploration unlock conditions needed; it works the moment you get it.
- The amulet itself provides no stats at all — no defense, no damage; its entire value lies in socketing enchantments: it starts with only two enchantment slots, and each Jewel of Yggdrasil you collect permanently opens one more slot. There are ten jewels in the whole game; with all collected, the amulet can hold up to twelve enchantments at once.
- Socketed enchantments can be removed and re-socketed at dwarven shops at any time; removed enchantments return to your inventory and are reusable, consuming no materials or currency. Swapping builds carries zero sunk cost — every enchantment you farm is worth keeping.
- Slot count depends only on jewel collection progress, not on character level or story chapter. Jewels are the only one-time collectibles; the same jewel cannot be obtained twice.
Jewel Source Criteria#
| Source Type | Criteria |
|---|---|
| Main story | Several jewels come at fixed story beats; still retrievable after the credits — never permanently missable |
| Favors | Some side quests (Favors) include jewels in their completion rewards; check the reward list before accepting |
| Area exploration | Jewels hide in legendary chests and hidden paths across the Nine Realms — see the Collectibles page |
Usage Criteria#
- Early game, prioritize slots: slot count is a hard cap — two enchantments give far less freedom than six, so grab any jewel lead the moment you see it.
- Socket every new enchantment first and check its effect — removal is free anyway; don’t bench “temporarily useless” enchantments; at worst one covers a stat line.
- The amulet has no set system: all twelve slots mix freely to your build; there is no hidden rule like “complete a certain enchantment set for a bonus”.
Enchantments#
System Rules#
- Enchantments socket only into the Amulet of Yggdrasil — never directly into armor or weapons; armor, grips, and shield rondel perks belong to the gear bodies themselves, and the amulet is the only freely swappable perk layer.
- Enchantments come in four quality tiers — common, rare, epic, legendary — matching the armor quality system. Low-tier enchantments usually give one or two stat lines; high-tier ones add a passive effect on top of stats — a triggered rule, not a flat number boost.
- Enchantment values feed the total character sheet and stack directly with same-type armor stats; to patch one stat quickly, swapping enchantments always beats swapping armor.
- Sources: dwarven shop stock refreshes with story progress; realm exploration chests drop them directly; the loot tables of favors and challenge content can also include rare enchantments.
The Six-Stat Comparison#
The character sheet consists of six stats; enchantments and gear perks share the same system:
| Stat | Effect Criteria | Best Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | Raises melee damage | Core perk for combo damage builds |
| Rune | Raises runic attack damage and related effects | Builds spamming runic attacks |
| Cooldown | Shortens runic attack and relic skill cooldowns | Skill-rotation builds |
| Defense | Reduces damage taken | Heavy shield counter builds and steady early play |
| Vitality | Raises max health and damage tolerance | High-difficulty survival, boss fights |
| Luck | Raises Hacksilver, material drops, and proc chance | Resource accumulation and proc-based play |
Passive Effect Categories (Qualitative)#
| Effect Category | Behavior Description | Usage Criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Triggers a brief time slow on perfect dodges or perfect parries (Realm Shift-type effects) | Biggest gain in boss fights demanding precise dodge timing |
| Survival | Boosts healthstone healing, or adds damage reduction when near death | High-pressure encounters, early-game error margin |
| Status | Raises buildup or resistance to frost, burn, poison, etc., including protection from Bifrost damage | Against enemy factions pressuring with elemental status |
| Economy | Raises Hacksilver and material gains | Hoard resources before New Game+ |
| Rage | Speeds Spartan Rage build-up or strengthens its effects | Builds centered on rage for survival and burst |
Build Criteria#
- Melee pressuring: Strength and Vitality as the base, with at least one Timing passive — turning the perfect dodge from a pure defensive move into the opener of a damage window.
- Runic rotation: split Rune and Cooldown evenly; runic attacks and relic skills fill each other’s cooldown gaps. Stack the sheet until “skills basically never sit on cooldown” — no need to chase single-perk extremes.
- Steady survival: Defense and Vitality first, with all Survival passives — suited to high-difficulty boss fights and Berserker gravestone challenges; these fights leave thin error margins, and perk value far outweighs raw damage ceilings.
Relics and Hilts#
System Rules#
- Relics occupy a separate equipment slot, trigger on a controller combo, take no weapon combo inputs, and consume no resources; after use they run their own cooldown and can be used again once it ends.
- Relics are “pick one” equipment: only one can be worn at a time, and swapping relics means swapping a whole active-skill playstyle — completely unlike the twelve stackable enchantments.
- The Talisman quick-slot of the previous game, God of War (2018), was removed in this game; its “save-or-burst at the key moment” role passed to Relics, while its perk-type effects moved to Enchantments — the easiest point of confusion when comparing the two games’ systems.
- Relics have no upgrade system; their power is fixed the moment you get them. Their value lies in “when to press”, not “what level they reach”.
Confirmed Relics and Hilts#
| Relic | Acquisition Criteria | Effect (Qualitative) |
|---|---|---|
| Mystical Heirloom | Found during realm exploration | Fires a jolt of lightning that disrupts nearby enemies; its real purpose is waking four sleeping trolls, opening four hidden troll fights |
| Hilt of Hofuð | Obtained in mid/late main story | Triggers a Realm Shift, briefly slowing time — an error-margin card for dodging kill moves or seizing a phase damage window |
| Hilt of Skofnung | Awarded for clearing every Berserker gravestone and defeating the chain’s endpoint — King Hrolf Kraki (Midgard) | Summons phantom blades for wide slashes; among the strongest active skills in the game |
Usage Criteria#
- A relic on cooldown pays nothing; the correct play is to hold it for windows: bank it for boss phase transitions or the instant you’re surrounded in group fights — not the second it comes off cooldown.
- The Mystical Heirloom is a key item at heart: confirm the four wake points on the Collectibles page first, bring your gear to the matching strength, then trigger — don’t walk into hidden troll fights with underleveled gear.
- The Hilt of Skofnung is the capstone reward of the full Berserker gravestone chain; for gravestone locations and strategies see the Valkyries page and the Bosses page — this chain is this game’s true counterpart to the previous game’s Valkyrie Queen.
Materials and Resources Quick Reference#
Weapon Upgrades: Exclusive Collectibles#
Each of the three weapons binds one exclusive collectible — key-type collectibles rather than purchasable materials, which must be actively collected:
| Weapon | Upgrade Collectible | Criteria Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Leviathan Axe | Frozen Flames | Fixed quantities placed in the story and realm exploration; collect them all to max out |
| Blades of Chaos | Chaos Flames | Also fixed-placement collectibles; no farming required |
| Draupnir Spear | Gale Flames | The corresponding collectibles open up once the spear is obtained |
For the full max-level routes and grip recommendations, see the Weapons page; for the complete runic attack lists and acquisition points of all three weapons, see the Runes page.
Armor and Attachment Upgrade Materials#
| Material | Usage Criteria | Main Sources |
|---|---|---|
| Forged Iron | Low/mid armor and attachment upgrades | Exploration pickups, combat drops |
| Dwarven Steel | Mid-tier armor and attachment upgrades | Exploration pickups, combat drops |
| Asgardian Ingot | Late-story armor and attachment upgrades | Late-game areas |
| Purified Crystalline | Required to raise gear to level 9 | Endgame content |
| Sparkling Crystal | Required to raise gear to level 9 | Endgame content |
| Gleaming Crystal | Required to raise gear to level 9 | Endgame content |
| Bonded Leather, Rawhide | Leather armor crafting and upgrades | Exploration pickups, combat drops |
| Honed Metal, Shattered Rune, Whispering Slab, Stonewood, Petrified Bone | Tier-matched gear crafting and upgrades | Exploration pickups, combat drops |
| Dust of Realms | High-tier gear crafting | Yggdrasil Rifts |
| Beast Scraps / Beast Bones | Shield-type component gear | Killing beast-type enemies |
| Jewel of Yggdrasil | Amulet slots, one-time use | See the source criteria above |
| Skap Slag | NG+ gear upgrades, levels 9.1–9.3 | NG+ progression |
| Mountain Root | Gear up to level 10 | NG+ progression |
Two supplementary criteria:
- The weapon and armor material systems are fully separate: weapons take only their exclusive collectibles and not a single unit of Forged Iron, Dwarven Steel, or other generic metals; conversely, generic metals cannot push weapon levels either. Confirm which track you’re farming for before grinding materials.
- Gear caps at level 9; only New Game+ opens levels 9.1–9.3 and 10 — no need to stockpile NG+ materials in your first run. For postgame high-tier challenge planning, see the Endgame page.
Currency and XP#
- Hacksilver: the universal currency, spent on shop purchases and gear upgrades; it comes from kills, chests, and story beats — no deliberate planning needed, just spend as required.
- XP: goes only into the skill tree and never mixes with the currency system. For skill-point thinking, see the Skills page.
Common Question Criteria#
- Do removed enchantments disappear? No. Removed enchantments return to your inventory and can be re-socketed into any slot repeatedly.
- Does the amulet have set bonuses? No. Set bonuses exist only in the armor trio; the amulet’s twelve slots combine entirely freely.
- Do enchantments and relics carry into NG+? Yes. NG+ keeps the gear system while raising the cap to 9.1–9.3 and level 10; enchantments farmed in the first run carry over directly.
- Do relics conflict with runic attacks? No: runic attacks bind to weapon slots while relics use a separate slot, and their cooldowns tick independently — in practice stagger them rather than firing everything on screen at once.
Revision Notes#
The old page contained multiple factual errors and fabricated content; this version corrects them item by item:
- Removed invented material names: the old “Hardened Residue”, “Hardened Dross”, “Big Gold”, and the whole “Soft Iron / Hardened Husks / Flashing Crystal / Perfect Husks / Elemental Core” system do not exist in this game. The real system: weapon upgrades use the three exclusive collectibles — Frozen Flames, Chaos Flames, Gale Flames; armor and attachments use Forged Iron, Dwarven Steel, Asgardian Ingots, and the crystal-tier materials.
- Corrected the Dust of Realms source criteria: the old page said “Nornir chests and dismantling legendary gear”; the real source is Yggdrasil Rifts.
- Removed “Mist Set”, “Mist gear”, and “Niflheim maze trials”: those are previous-game God of War (2018) systems; Niflheim here holds only the Odin’s Ravens and Raven Tree reward chain — no mist meter, mist chests, or Mist armor.
- Removed “Valkyrie Set (from defeating the Valkyrie Queen)”: no armor set named Valkyrie exists in this game. Valkyrie Queen Gna sits in Vanaheim, challengeable only after the main story; this game’s equivalent top-end challenge is the Berserker gravestone chain (thirteen gravestones plus King Hrolf Kraki), with entirely different rewards and systems.
- Removed “Hilt of Hades”: upon verification, no such item exists in this game’s relic list; the old effect description had no source.
- Removed the entire “Amulet of the Nine Realms” section: this game has no Talisman inventory like the previous entry, and no charm named Power of the Nine Realms; “perfect dodge triggers a time slow” lives here in the effect layers of specific enchantments and a relic (the Hilt of Hofuð), not in a standalone charm.
- Removed all invented numbers: old lines like “runic power +20%”, “cooldown reduction 15%”, “critical damage +25%”, “Strength +15”, “all stats +5”, plus perk star ratings, were fabricated; no such unified values have ever been published. Everything on this page is now qualitative criteria — in-game panels are the source of truth for specific values.
- Removed the grip recommendation table: old names like “Grip of Vengeance”, “Atreus bracer grip”, and “Grip of Judgment” could not be verified in any sources; grip content defers to the Weapons page.
- Removed unverifiable absolute claims and generic sections: including “fastest Hacksilver farming spots”, “gear maintenance and selling advice”, and other unsourced or cross-game-reusable content, plus the old version’s leftover empty headings and duplicate sentences.