Catalyst & Essences
Distill tools into essences, then gamble their charge to promote another tool's quality.
Overview
The Catalyst turns tools you no longer use into raw material for upgrading the ones you keep. It has two halves: distilling, which destroys tools to fill an essence with charge points, and reforging, which spends a whole essence for a chance to raise another tool's quality.
An essence has no rarity of its own. It is only a pool of charge points, and what that pool is worth depends entirely on the tool you point it at: the same essence can be a sure thing on a Wooden Pickaxe and a long shot on an infernal one.
Distilling essences
Distilling sacrifices tools. They are destroyed permanently and their combined value becomes charge points inside a single essence.
A tool contributes exactly its net worth in charge points — the full recursive resource cost of crafting it, tempering included. Charge accumulates without any cap, so you can keep feeding the same essence over several sessions.
You can select tools one by one, or use the bulk filters to take everything eligible at once. Some tools are always excluded and cannot be unlocked by a filter.
- Tempered tools — worth far more charge, excluded until you allow them.
- Rare quality and above — excluded until you allow them, so you don't burn your good gear by accident.
- Always excluded: equipped, frozen, favorited, and NPC-locked tools.
Reforging a tool
Reforging spends one full essence on one tool. If it succeeds, the tool's quality is promoted to the rarity you aimed for.
Your chance is the essence's charge divided by what that rarity costs on that specific tool, capped at 100 %. At 100 % the promotion is guaranteed. A chance that rounds below one percent is shown as < 1 % rather than hidden — it is still attemptable.
You pick the target rarity yourself. A cheap rarity is often a guaranteed upgrade, while a higher one trades that certainty for a bigger jump. Only rarities strictly above the tool's current quality are offered.
On failure the tool is untouched, but the essence is consumed entirely. Charge is never partially refunded.
How much charge you need
The charge required scales with the target tool's net worth, multiplied by the rarity you aim for:
- Uncommon — 0.5× the tool's net worth
- Rare — 1.25× the tool's net worth
- Epic — 2.5× the tool's net worth
- Legendary — 5× the tool's net worth
This is why an essence that guarantees a legendary on a starter tool may only be worth a few percent on an endgame one: the requirement grew with the target, not with the essence.
Reading the bottle
The bottle art only reflects how much raw charge an essence holds, on its own scale. It is decoration and says nothing about what the essence can achieve on your tool — always read the per-rarity percentages shown next to the tool you selected.