Before the Paladin: what to hoard, what to stop buying

✍️ Alice・愛麗沙

1. The fusion table changed, so catalysts lose their S0 job

(Added 10/2: the elite, rare and ★7 epic outputs are Season 1 runes, not S0 ones — Korea’s NEXON NOW promotion table says “시즌 1 엘리트 (★6)”, Season 1 elite. The difference matters: an S1 ★6 elite has lower stats than an S0 ★6 legendary, so do not gamble the legendary you are wearing. The full three-season comparison is in Seasons S0→S1→S2.)

Mechanism, not just numbers: before, fusion was “gamble 10%, lose everything plus a catalyst”; after, “10% target, 90% something you can feed back in”. Output is never zero — that is what guaranteed output means.

Arithmetic (corrected 10/2): a promotion puts in three runes of the same slot, and on failure only the rune in the first slot stays. Before the change you needed 10 tries on average: nine failures each cost a net 2 epics and one success costs 3, so 21 ★5 epics plus 10 catalysts for one ★6 legendary. After the change, the same 10 tries (30 epics) are expected to give you 1 S0 ★6 legendary, 4 S1 ★6 elites and 5 S1 ★5 rares. Every try produces something, and catalyst use goes from 10 to 0. Every catalyst bought for S0 fusion is worthless on the day this table lands in Taiwan unless Taiwan keeps it in another recipe — so stop buying, but do not sell what you hold yet.

The confusion to fix: “Season 1 makes S0 runes worthless”. The opposite — S0 ★6 legendary was a dead end and becomes a 40% shot at ★7 epic. Your S0 legendaries gain value.

2. A new scroll’s base beats an old scroll’s second amp

170 − 120 = 50: an un-amplified new scroll beats a fully amplified old one by 50. This piece originally concluded “do not push old scrolls to +120”. That line is corrected as of 10/2, for two reasons. First, Taiwan has no enchant amplification system today: the “amplification removal potion” that appeared in the 9/16 maintenance notice was an item mis-sent in the friend-invite gift box, not a system opening. In Korea, amplification opened in Season 1 (2025-09-25), on the same day as the new scrolls. Second, the Korean wiki (인챈트 스크롤 §2.1) states that amplification stays on the gear: overwriting the old enchant with a new scroll, or putting the gear through performance injection, keeps it; it is only lost on disassembly or when the gear is used as injection material (the 50 / 200 amplification shards are not refunded). So once Season 1 opens amplification, putting it on a piece you will keep wearing wastes nothing — when you switch that piece to a +170 scroll, it simply becomes +187 / +204.

The Fox scroll itself (Taiwan 9/14, 400 red fossils) is right to buy: +100 is useful from now until November, and those 400 count toward Molly’s cumulative spend (see the red-fossil ledger). (Corrected 10/2: this paragraph used to say “the only mistake is amplifying it after you buy it”, but Taiwan has no amplification to do, so that line does not stand.)

3. Fashion set bonuses: Taiwan’s notices already paid this one

Korea §26: legendary 3-set +90 → +155; 4–5-set +175 → +310 (×1.72 and ×1.77), then +220 / +450 on 2026-06-25. This section used to conclude “a full set nearly doubles in value after the Paladin patch — finish it now if you are one piece short”, which assumed Taiwan was still on +90 / +175.

That assumption no longer holds. Nexon Taiwan’s three current notices (the Cosmic Starchild explainer, the 8/26 end-of-sale notice, the 9/9 Elderwood Sovereign introduction) all say 3-set +220 and 4-set attack/defence +450 each — Korea’s values after both buffs. Our own 8/14 capture of the explainer recorded +90 / +175; the current notice no longer shows it and no update log announced a change, so we cannot tell whether Taiwan changed it or the capture was wrong. The set-effect ladder keeps both rows with their basis.

So this item flips: the Paladin patch will not double Taiwan’s set effect — going by Taiwan’s notices, the doubling has already happened. Whether to finish a set has nothing to do with the patch date: the fourth piece unlocks attack/defence +450 now (about +7.5% on a character at 6,000 attack with +80% attack% already stacked — the arithmetic is in the flat-attack piece), the same amount today as in November. No reason to rush ahead of the patch, and no reason to wait. The only version-bound part is Korea’s generation-6 Final Damage +3% on new sets, which runs on a separate timeline (Taiwan projection: second half of 2027) and has nothing to do with the Paladin. If you own none, this still does not apply.

To check your client: wear four pieces, take one off, and see whether attack drops by the 450 tier or the 175 tier. If it is 175, the original “doubles after the patch, finish now” logic comes back.

4. Life force 10,000 / 13,000 has no shortcut

Facility Lv5 costs life force 10,000 then 13,000. Life force only accrues from life skills — the one item here that cannot be caught up in November. It is the same line as the guild ship (in Chinese)‘s 5,200 facility-hours.

Smaller Korean changes that alter your first week

• 82→85: Koreans ran silver-coin / demon-tribute dungeons, main quest to 82, ~5 h total (official dev note). Do not stockpile EXP potions.
• Lv60 bonus cards (guaranteed crit) become +10% crit for 5 s. Count how much of your crit comes from cards in CP priority.
• Currency: abyss fossil converts 1:1; 3 red → 5 mutated is favourable — a second reason to hold red fossils.

What to do now

1. Stop buying catalysts (keep what you have until Taiwan’s note confirms other uses).
2. Keep taking and wearing Fox and White Rose. Enchant amplification only opens on Taiwan in Season 1; once it does, put it on gear you will keep wearing (amplification follows the gear, not the scroll).
3. One piece short of a legendary set: decide on today’s +450, no need to beat the Paladin patch; own none, do nothing.
4. Life skills daily — life force 10,000 before November.
5. No EXP potions; do not sell or dismantle S0 ★6 legendaries.

What invalidates this

• Taiwan’s Paladin note changes the table: the key cell is “S0 ★5 epic — catalyst required?”. If yes, item 1 dies; 2–4 stand.
• Taiwan’s amplification rules differ from Korea’s (for example, overwriting with a new scroll clears the amplification): then amplify only after you have switched to the +170 scroll.
• Taiwan’s panel shows only +175 for the 4-piece: notice and game disagree, and item 3 reverts to “doubles after Paladin — finish the set first”.
• Timing: Nov–Dec is a preview; if it slips to next year, the White Rose / Fox generation simply gets a few more months of use — the conclusion holds (Taiwan only gets amplification then).

Our conclusion

The expensive part of the Paladin chapter is how much of what you spend before it a new table wipes out. Two stops — buying catalysts for S0 fusion, selling or breaking down S0 legendaries — one carry-on — enchants (Taiwan has no amplification yet; once Season 1 opens it, amplification stays on the gear and survives a new scroll) — and one start: life force.