Aion 2 Refining Stone Guide: How to Get Expert's and Artisan's Stones

Refining Stones are crafting materials, in four grades, and each grade goes into gear of its own grade: Refining Stones into Common gear, Expert's into Rare, Artisan's into Epic, and Artisan's Ultimate into the Unique Dragon Lord gear. Almost every source pays mostly the Common grade, so this guide shows, grade by grade, where the stones you're short of come from and how many each source pays.

Take the achievement stones first. Achievements pay 62 Expert's, 57 Artisan's and 28 Ultimate stones once per character: as many Expert's as about 230 Conquest claims. Only one stone in ten from Expeditions and the Shugo Festival is an Expert's, and no monster ever drops an Ultimate.

Which refining stone you need

A piece of Common, Expert's or Artisan's gear takes 5 stones for a weapon or guard, 4 for a necklace, 3 for a breastplate or an earring, and 2 for anything else. Recipes take tradeable and Bound stones alike. No recipe turns lower stones into higher ones, and dismantling old gear gives none.

Skip Expert's gear while you level. It is item level 28, and you outgrow it fast: the regional quests give item level 33 to 45 gear on the way to 45 (see the gear score guide).

Enhance Stones are a different item, for enhancing gear; the gear score guide covers them.

Where each grade comes from

Stones from one of each, on average. Every source pays far more Refining Stones than these, so they are left out.

A Conquest 3★ claim (Fire Temple, Ferocious Horn Den; 40 Odyle Energy) pays about 3 stones, nine in ten of them Refining Stones: 1.8 from the final boss and 0.6 from each mid-boss. 2★ claims pay 2.6 and 1★ claims 2.3, in the same mix. Transcendence pays none. Ludra, which other guides still list, is pulled from Global: NC will announce its new date by 16 October.

Before level 45 only achievements, monsters, Expeditions and the Shugo Festival are open. The Season Shop and the Market open at 45, and buying on the Market takes membership.

How to get Expert's Refining Stones

1. Take the 62 from achievements. Most are for gathering: each gathering collector pays 4 at 200 gathered and 4 more at 300 (5 for gems).
2. Kill field bosses, not ordinary monsters. Each kill of Verteron / Altgard's field bosses (High Commander Lagta, Silent Dartan, Soul Ruler Kashapa and Eternal / Immortal Gartua) gives everyone who took part an 11.7% chance at one. Ordinary monsters drop them from level 21, but only once in 80 to 2,500 kills; elites once in 10 to 170.
3. Kill the bosses of Chaotic Lower Reshanta. Watcher Kaira, Argo the Spirit King and Executors Kaira, Argo and Tamasa (all level 65) drop about 2.5 Expert's a kill, and Guardian Lord Nahma about 3. That's the boss's own loot, not a share for everyone who took part.
4. Spend your 3 Shugo Festival keys a day from level 26. A festival game pays nothing without one: each key opens one Monster Cube (keys stock up to 12, 21 for members). Below 26 a cube pays Common stones only. From 26 about one key in eight pays an Expert's, and one in six from 41.
5. At 45, buy them. The Season Shop sells 30 for 400 Oath Coins each until 16 December. Members can buy them on the Market.

Conquest pays one about every four claims at best (0.21 to 0.27 a claim).

How to get Artisan's Refining Stones

1. Take the 57 from achievements. Each gathering collector pays 3 at 500 gathered and 3 more at 700 (4 for gems), and each craft pays 2 when you reach Novice proficiency level 50.
2. Kill field bosses. Each kill gives everyone who took part a 5.8% chance. Ordinary monsters drop them from level 31, once in 150 to 9,500 kills.
3. Kill the Chaotic Lower Reshanta bosses. Each drops about 2.5 a kill (Watcher Kaira 1.6, Guardian Lord Nahma 3).
4. At 45, buy them. The Season Shop sells 20 for 4,000 Oath Coins each; members can buy more on the Market.

A Conquest 3★ claim pays one about every 37 claims.

How to get Artisan's Ultimate Refining Stones

No monster drops them.

1. Take the 28 from achievements: 2 for gathering 1,000 of each type (500 Odyle), 2 for 13 boss artworks, 2 for Professional proficiency level 50 in each craft, and 6 from the Crafting group rewards.
2. Buy 10 from the Season Shop, 4,800 Oath Coins each, until 16 December.
3. Buy the rest on the Market, if you're a member. Farming is slow: a Conquest 3★ claim pays one about every 45 claims, a Shugo Festival key one every 67.

What the Dragon Lord gear takes, to craft and then for each upgrade:

A full True / Star set takes 30. Its accessories (item level 62) are below the Aulamus ones (70), as the gear score guide explains.

The achievements that pay refining stones

Each pays once per character, in Bound stones, from the Gathering, Collection and Crafting groups. They also pay 74 Refining Stones.

What to do with spare stones

From level 25, Supply Requests take them for Abyss Points and Enhance Stones:

Any shop buys them for 16, 160, 1,600 and 1,920 Kina, Common to Ultimate, and members can sell the tradeable ones on the Market.

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Sources: Global client data (launcher version 27, read 9 October 2026) for the stones and their grades (Item), the recipes that use them (CraftRecipe, read from its raw strings, and CraftComponentReplacement), the stones each source pays (the reward rows for Expeditions, the Shugo Festival, field bosses and monsters in RewardPackage, RewardPackageItem and RewardItem; averages are the roll counts times each grade's share), the achievements (AchievementReward, AchievementGroupReward), the Season Shop listings (GameShopGoods), Supply Requests (PeriodItemCollectionList), unlock levels (ContentsUnlock) and shop prices (Item). Checked in game on our own characters: the Season Shop's stones work in recipes, and the Lower Reshanta bosses are up. Other guides: wikily.gg's Refining Stone pages for the approach, one grade at a time, and the r/Aion2 thread "What am I doing wrong while trying to get Expert's" for the question this guide answers. Our calls: take the achievement stones first, and skip Expert's gear while levelling, judged on the quest gear's item levels in our gear score guide.