Hogwarts Legacy: Equipment Upgrade Guide for Dummies

by Mike Alexander / Game Guides, Hogwarts Legacy, Slider / 14 Nov 2023

How’s it going fellow witches and wizards? Hopefully you’re all making excellent progress in Hogwarts Legacy, and you’re enjoying taking classes and roaming the countryside on your brooms. I know I am, I just can’t get enough of the open-world exploration in this game.

If you’re a handful of hours in by this point, you’ve probably noticed that the loot system in the game centers around pieces of clothing that have different rarity levels and stats. No need for weapons, because all you need is your trusty wand! However, the equipment you wear does have a pretty significant impact on your character’s progression.

I spent most of the early hours taking the equipment with the highest numbers and dumping the rest since you’re limited on spell slots until you can complete all of the Trials of Merlin. But, now that I’ve reached Fall in the game, I’ve gotten access to a brand-new system that I’d like to share with you: equipment upgrading!!

That’s right, you can hold on to your favorite pieces of gear and actually improve their stats, but you have to reach a certain part of the game and the process requires special materials. How can you beef up that cloak? Join me now as I walk you through the whole process & get you on track to becoming the most powerful witch or wizard in the land!!!

No Time Like Fall

In order to even start thinking about upgrading gear, you’ll need to reach the Fall season in the game. This is a significant number of hours into the game depending on how fast you’re completing quests and how many side quests you take on. It’s taken me roughly 20, but I’ve also spent a lot of time exploring and not really completing any quests. I could have gotten to my favorite part of the game much sooner!

Beasts class. That’s right, you’ll learn all about the fantastic beasts of the Wizarding World, but only when you reach Fall. With beasts class done and all of the story quests for this part of the game sorted, Professor Weasley will reach out and let you know to visit the Room of Requirement. Head over there, and Deek will give you a quest that will guide you through the process of capturing and taming the beasts you just learned about! I won’t spoil the process here (I’ll save that for another guide!), but I will say that it’s incredibly fun.

Impending Loom

Once you have the capturing process down and you’re becoming a regular Pokemon trainer, Deek will gift you a critical piece of furniture for your Room of Requirement: a loom. This is what you need to upgrade gear and all you need to do is interact with it to open the upgrade menu.. It’s important to note that low-rarity gear can’t be upgraded (so you can still toss or sell that), but everything else is fair game.

As long as you have the right materials, you can juice any piece of equipment to protect you better or provide better buffs. Make sure you don’t ignore this mechanic, because if you thought the early parts of the game got a little difficult, then the late game will really test your magic skills.

Material Squirrels

Now, you can’t just walk up to the loom, give it a piece of gear, and have a better version pop out. That would be TOO magical. No, you’re going to need materials from beasts like the ones you just captured for Deek’s mission. That means that if you want to upgrade gear often, you’re going to need to be capturing beasts as you come across them, including rare ones.

Early upgrades will be fine with the puffskeins and jobberknolls you find everywhere, but you’re going to have to really dig for rare beats. Stay tuned for another guide on that. In the meantime, you’ll need to take care of your beasts if you want to get those materials. They won’t just give them up for free! You’ll need to spend time with them, pet them, and feed them, and THEN you can collect materials from them every 25-30 minutes or so.

It’s not terribly involved and you can buy an automatic feeder for your beasts from Tomes and Scrolls in Hogsmeade to cut down on material time. But other than that, that’s everything you need to know about upgrading your equipment in Hogwarts Legacy! I hope this guide was helpful and provided you with all of the information you need to succeed… Good luck, and remember to treat your beats well!!

Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.
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