Leveling and Progression
Unlike most MMORPGs, Soulbound has no single character level and no shared pool of experience. A character's power is the sum of five things that advance separately: the gear they have equipped, their skills, the upgrades applied to their weapons and abilities, the account-wide unlocks earned from quests and achievements, and the stations built up in their home.
This page explains how each of those works and how to advance them. For a first-session walkthrough, see New Player Guide; for the interface and controls, see Getting Started.
How progression works
| Axis | What advances it | What it gates |
|---|---|---|
| Gear | Dungeon drops, crafting, quest and achievement rewards | Damage, survivability and your build |
| Skills | Using the skill: fighting, gathering, crafting, plus quest and contract rewards | Which gear you can equip, which recipes you can use, which resource nodes you can work |
| Upgrades | Power cores, fragments, residues and essences | Permanent boosts to weapons and abilities, and your Relic paths in dungeons |
| Account-wide unlocks | The main questline, achievements, allegiances | Abilities, teleports, storage, mounts, shortcuts and vendor stock |
| Player housing | Building and upgrading stations | Which recipes you can craft at home, and how many at once |
Progress is also visible in the number of quests completed, achievements earned and your Leaderboard position.
Gear
Equipped weapons and armour are the largest single contributor to your power. Two characters wearing the same items are not necessarily equal, because most gear is generated with rolled statistics when it drops.
Rarity
Every item has a rarity, which sets how many bonus statistics a piece of gear can carry:
| Rarity | Notes |
|---|---|
| Common | No rolled bonuses |
| Uncommon | 1–2 bonus statistics |
| Rare | 1–3 bonus statistics |
| Epic | 1–4 bonus statistics |
| Legendary | 2–5 bonus statistics |
| Unique | 2–6 bonus statistics; the rarest gear in the game |
How a drop rolls
When a piece of gear drops, the item itself is fixed but its statistics are not. Every roll carries the same three core statistics for that item's slot and tier — Power, Will and Vitality — and then a number of bonus statistics drawn from a shared pool. Rarity decides how many bonuses are rolled, so the same item can drop as a very different piece of equipment.
For example, three separate drops of one Unique chest piece all shared Power +17, Will +16 and Vitality +58, then differed:
- Heavy Hit Chance +11% and Knockback +33
- Attack Speed +8.8% and Knockback +32
- Health +80 and Power Shielding +28%
This is why players re-run dungeons for gear they already own, and why two of the same item are worth comparing side by side.
Bonus statistics
The bonus pool is shared across gear types. The statistics seen most often are:
- Offence — Precision, Ferocity, Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Damage, Heavy Hit Chance, Attack Speed, Physical Power, Damage-over-time Potency
- Abilities — Focus, Cooldown Reduction, Duration, Area of Effect Radius, Healing Power
- Defence and utility — Health, Health Regeneration, Power Shielding, Knockback
Rarer effects also appear, including Trigger Ability Chance, Link Count, Projectile Count, Burn Chance, Freeze Chance and the elemental powers and resistances.
Each statistic is either additive (a flat amount added to your total) or multiplicative (a percentage), which is why some numbers on a tooltip are shown with a per cent sign and others are not.
Where gear comes from
- Dungeons — chests and enemy drops are the main source of rolled gear. Higher tiers drop higher tiers of gear.
- Crafting — made at a Gearforge Station or Weapon Station in your home, or at a public station. See Player housing.
- Quests — the main questline hands out gear, abilities and upgrade materials as you go.
- Achievements — pay out upgrade materials rather than gear itself.
- Trading — other players, via the auction house.
Equipping gear
Gear is gated by skill requirements, and those are not only combat skills. A single weapon can require several skills at once, gathering skills included. The Rare tier-2 greatsword Virelda Slab-Blade, for instance, requires Strength 13, Dexterity 10, Gearforging 13, Fishing 13 and Foraging 10.
The practical consequence: levelling gathering and crafting skills is not optional if you want to wear the best gear you can find. A drop you cannot equip is a reason to go fishing.
Skills
There are 14 skills, each with its own experience pool and a maximum level of 99. Nothing you do raises a global level; every action feeds one specific skill.
| Skill | Category | Levelling it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | Combat | Damage with equipped melee weapons; heavy armour requirements |
| Dexterity | Combat | Damage with dexterity abilities; light and agile gear |
| Knowledge | Combat | Power of knowledge abilities, including elemental and support magic |
| Technology | Combat | Power of technology abilities and inventions |
| Marksmanship | Combat | Damage with ranged abilities and firearms |
| Mining | Gathering | Which ore and resource nodes you can work |
| Foraging | Gathering | Which plant nodes and herbs you can harvest |
| Fishing | Gathering | Which fish you can catch |
| Farming | Gathering | Which seeds you can plant and harvest |
| Hacking | Gathering | Which hacking nodes you can extract from |
| Cooking | Crafting | Which food recipes you can use |
| Chemistry | Crafting | Which potion and chemical recipes you can use |
| Crafting | Crafting | Which material recipes you can use |
| Gearforging | Crafting | Which equipment recipes you can use |
A Total level is also shown, which is the sum of your skill levels.
Experience requirements per level are the same for every skill; see XP Table. (The table on that page currently covers levels 1 to 40 only.)
Training each skill
General advice
Follow the main questline. It unlocks abilities, items and locations, and hands out around 42,000 skill experience across 13 skills along the way. Many mechanics are gated behind quest completion, so early levelling is much smoother with the questline done.
Stock up before a run.
- Buy accessories from Farok in Virelda
- Craft potions at the Witch Doctor or a Chemistry Lab
- Cook beef burgers and other foods at Granny Smith's or in an Apartment Kitchen
- Loot respawning chests for materials
Take contracts for whatever you are already doing. Contracts pay experience on top of the activity itself, so they are close to free progress.
Combat skills
To level a combat skill faster:
- Equip abilities tied to that skill — you level the skill the damage is attributed to
- Set Weapon mode to Manual on the hotbar
- Fight enemies in lower-tier dungeons, where kills are fast
Farm crafting materials, quest drops and contracts at the same time.
| Contract |
|---|
| Kill Green Bots |
| Kill Desert Sphynxes |
| Kill Rockydillos |
| Kill Scorched Sphynxes |
| Kill Pyrodillos |
| Kill Cactolings |
| Kill Scorched Lizards |
Gathering skills
Community events often run competitive levelling for gathering skills, and stack with contracts for bonus experience. Levelling is faster in a group.
Foraging
Routes:
- Virelda Outskirts
- Seabreeze Pass → Needlepoint Pass → Everdune Ruin
- Hollow Rock → Clifftop Pass → Farpoint
Contracts: gather plants.
Mining
Routes:
- Virelda Outskirts
- Seabreeze Pass → Needlepoint Pass → Everdune Ruin
- Hollow Rock → Clifftop Pass → Farpoint
Contracts: mine Coal, Iron Ore, Copper Ore.
A contract cycle used for fast mining experience:
- Accept a mining contract from the board in Virelda
- Complete it on one of the routes above
- Hand it in for gold
- Spend gold refreshing the contract board
- Repeat
Hacking
Routes:
Contracts: hack nodes.
Fishing
Routes:
Contracts: catch fish, catch a Bream.
Farming
Farming is levelled by planting seeds and harvesting the produce, either at the Homestead or in Apartment farming plots. Produce feeds Cooking, so the two skills train together well.
Crafting skills
Crafting skills level as you make things, so the efficient approach is to craft what you need anyway.
Cooking
Useful food to make while levelling:
- Salad — restores stamina
- Beef Burger — adds health for dungeon runs
- Cheesecake — reduces cooldowns in dungeons
Contracts: cook French Fries.
Crafting
Levels naturally while making materials for Gearforging. Common products:
- Iron Bar
- Copper Bar
- Cloth (from Fibre)
- Yokulite (from Yoku Shard)
Chemistry
Levelled at a Chemistry Lab, making potions and consumables.
Gearforging
Either craft the cheapest item you can repeat, or craft what your build actually needs:
- Cheap and repeatable: Desert Hoodpiece, Desert Chestpiece, Sandstorm Leggings
- Progression items: weapons and armour, gloves, shovels, spiles, pickaxes
Contracts: craft a Refined Katana.
Contracts
Contracts are jobs taken from a board, tied to the location whose board you took them from. You can hold five at a time, and each has its own rarity, from Common up to Mythic, indicating how demanding and how well paid it is. A board can be refreshed for gold if none of the offered contracts suit you.
Because contracts pay skill experience on top of whatever the activity already gives, running contracts that match your current activity is one of the cheapest ways to level.
Upgrades
Upgrades are permanent improvements applied to weapons and abilities. They also influence which Relic paths are offered inside dungeons.
Upgrading consumes a family of materials:
| Material | Used for |
|---|---|
| Weapon Power Cores (Common to Epic) | Upgrading weapons |
| Ability Power Cores (Common to Epic) | Upgrading abilities |
| Weapon Core Fragment, Ability Core Fragment | Component materials for cores |
| Core Residue, Coarse, Fine and Refined Core Residue | Tiered residues consumed in upgrading |
| Uncommon, Rare and Epic Living Essence | Higher-tier upgrading |
Power cores are one of the most common main-questline rewards, so the questline is also the fastest early source of upgrades. Achievements pay out residues, fragments, essences and cores.
Relics
Relics are chosen during a dungeon run and last for that run only. They are not permanent progression, but which relic paths appear is influenced by your upgrades, so a well-upgraded character has better runs.
Player housing
Your home is a progression system in its own right. Stations are built and then upgraded, and each upgrade level unlocks a new tier of recipes and more crafting slots at once.
| Station | Upgrade levels | What it makes |
|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | 4 | Food, for Cooking |
| Chemistry Lab | 4 | Potions and consumables, for Chemistry |
| Smelter | 4 | Bars and refined materials |
| Gearforge Station | 5 | Armour, for Gearforging |
| Weapon Station | 5 | Weapons |
| Manufacturing Station | 5 | Manufactured components |
| Power Core Forge | 3 | Power cores for upgrades |
| Generator | 3 | Supplies power to other stations |
| Cosmetic Station | — | Cosmetic items |
Two things follow from this. First, station level, not just skill level, decides what you can make: a Kitchen at level 1 offers the tier-1 food recipes, and level 2 adds the tier-2 set plus a third slot. Second, the Generator matters — stations draw power, so an under-powered home limits what can run.
The Homestead is the other home-side system, used for Farming at scale.
Account-wide progression
Some progress belongs to the account rather than to a skill or an item.
The main questline
The main questline is the spine of the game's unlocks. As well as roughly 42,000 skill experience spread over 13 skills, it hands out abilities (the Gleam Twins from Aster in Virelda, Healing Pulse from the Witch Doctor questline), upgrade materials, and access to locations and mechanics that are otherwise closed. Quests also gate each other, so skipping ahead is usually not possible.
Achievements and the Achievement Hunter ladder
There are over 800 achievements, grouped into categories by skill, region and activity — dungeons, gearforging, fishing, combat abilities, farming, mining, foraging, cooking, chemistry, hacking and per-region quest sets. Individually they pay upgrade materials and gold.
Collectively they feed Achievement Hunter, an account-wide ladder scored in achievement points. Each tier permanently unlocks convenience and power:
| Tier | Points | Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Initiate | 1,000 | Hunter Talisman I (1 daily teleport to Arcadia); Guild Talisman I (1 daily teleport to the Pioneer Guild); new stock from Bud |
| Adept | 2,500 | Talismans II (3 daily teleports each); Belt Pouch I (4-slot Tool Belt storage); energy drinks at Wefco mart; Arcadia vending |
| Specialist | 8,000 | Talismans III (5 daily teleports each); Belt Pouch II (8-slot); Azure Speedboard mount; Arcadia Workshop crafting |
| Expert | 15,000 | Talismans IV (10 daily teleports each); Belt Pouch III (12-slot); Arcadia Blockade shortcut |
| Master | 28,000 | Talismans V (unlimited teleports); Belt Pouch IV (16-slot); Amethyst Speedboard mount; fish stock at the Neo-Tilus vendor |
| Paragon | 40,000 | Grand Hunter's Helm and Cloak; an exclusive cosmetic pet; Minamoto Mountain to Foundation shortcut; bonus dungeon drop tables; bonus gathering |
Because the ladder pays teleports, storage and drop-table bonuses, chasing achievements is genuine progression rather than a side activity.
Allegiance
Allegiances track standing with the game's regions, cities, factions and individual characters — among them Virelda, Arcadia, Neo-Tilus, Everdune, Lunar City, the Homestead, Farpoint Rift, the Foundation, the Kaimura, the Thari, the Iron Line, the High Rollers, the Rising Sun Dojo and the Arcadian Guard. Some gear carries allegiance requirements as well as skill requirements.
Getting around
Travel unlocks are progression too: the further along you are, the less time you spend walking.
| Method | How it works |
|---|---|
| Home Portal | Placed during a dungeon run to leave safely with your loot |
| HomeDisc / UnstuckDisc | Teleports you home instantly, with a 15-minute cooldown |
| Recall Disc | Teleports you to distant locations. An Unbound Recall Disc combined with data drives makes a working disc |
| Hunter Talisman I–V | 1, 3, 5, 10 or unlimited daily teleports to Arcadia, from Achievement Hunter |
| Guild Talisman I–V | The same ladder for the Pioneer Guild |
| Reusable Carrot | Unlimited teleports to the Homestead |
| Noxley's Recall Rune | Unlimited teleports to Hollow Rock |
| Shortcuts | Permanent map passages unlocked at Achievement Hunter Expert and Paragon |
| Mounts | Faster overland movement; two are Achievement Hunter rewards |
Leaving a dungeon
Nearly every dungeon has an extraction point, and the Home Portal is how you use it. Loot is only yours once you have left, so the decision of when to extract is a real one: deeper runs pay better, and a failed run can cost you the run's loot. At least one dungeon, High Rollers, is explicitly run at risk to your gear and your bag.
Sometimes the smart play is to get out with your loot.