Carried Items: Equipping and Enhancing Gear

Held items are equippable gear that grant an Aniimo passive bonuses. Those bonuses cover increased HP, stat boosts, buffs and damage amplification. You equip one and it works in the background; there is nothing to trigger.

Some items are built around a particular way of fighting. Ambusher's Cloak, for example, increases the damage dealt by attacks made from behind an enemy or from stealth. On an Aniimo that already plays that way, it is a straight damage gain. On one that trades blows head on, it does very little.

You also do not have to upgrade an item before it pays off. Some held items grant stat bonuses as early as their tier one effect, so equipping a new one is worth doing the moment you have it.

Potential sets a baseline for each stat, and the standard ceiling is 20 points per stat. Once an Aniimo reaches that in a stat, potential has nothing more to give it there.

Held items grant stat bonuses on top of that potential-derived baseline. That is the important part. Their bonuses do not fill the same bucket as potential; they add to the result, which pushes an Aniimo's effective stats past what the 20-point ceiling alone allows.

In practice this means two Aniimo with identical potential can end up with different effective stats. The difference is what they are holding. If you have already maxed a stat through potential and want it higher, a held item is the route.

Crystal cores are the upgrade material for held items. You spend them to enhance an item, so it is worth saving them for the items you actually keep equipped rather than spreading them thin.

Runes are the second layer. A held item can be slotted with runes, which amplifies its effects and makes it stronger. The rune system was simplified after the beta: random rune slots were removed, so held items no longer roll them. You are not hunting for a copy of an item with a better slot roll.

For a steady supply of runes, the Holo-Battle Sim grants them as weekly rewards across its several difficulty levels. That mode has its own guide; for this article, the point is that it is your regular rune source for upgrading held items.

Not every piece of equipment works the same way. Protective units and amplifiers come in multiple rarity tiers, which gives you room to upgrade by swapping to a rarer version as well as by enhancing.

The Experimental Amplifier is a useful example of an amplifier: it grants a substantial damage boost against enemies on Normal difficulty.

Backpacks also come in multiple rarity tiers, including Epic, but they are cosmetic accessories. An Epic backpack changes how your character looks, not how your Aniimo performs, so do not mistake its rarity for a stat upgrade.

05Where to start

Put a held item on every Aniimo you use, because some give stats from tier one. Spend crystal cores on the items you keep equipped. Slot runes into them and collect more each week from the Holo-Battle Sim. Once an Aniimo has hit the 20-point potential ceiling in a stat, a held item is the way to push that stat higher.