Identify and Unlocking Items

I understand for regular and elite skills, when a skill is unlocked it is unlocked for the account. I also understand that when a rune has levels - minor, major, superior, you need to unlock the lower levels before unlocking the higher levels.

I have a few questions about identifying and unlocking items. However, I don't know how this applies to items.

For items with a % chance, do you need to identify/unlock each % value in order to slowly climb to 20% chance?

For Fortitude items, do you need to identify/unlock +20hp, +21hp ... to slowly climb to +30hp?

Is the identify/unlock character based or account based for items?


A few days ago, I played two accounts at the same time. Using my account (on my laptop) I ran my wife's lower level toons on a few lower level missions and quests. I decided that since I did all the work, that I wanted the gold from selling the loot. However, I let her character identify all the blue and purple items we/I collected. Her character unlocked quite a bit indicating that item identification/unlocking might be character based. I thought it was account based.

Thanks in advance for your help.

its account based.

for mods, the highest one you've identified will be the one that's unlocked. so if you have nothing unlocked and you id a sword with a +30 pommel, you'll have a +30 pommel unlocked on the account. any further weapons with a +health sword pommel less than 30 will do nothing since you already have the maxed one unlocked.

has your wife actually been iding things or picking things up before merchanting?

if for an example you unlock +27 adn thats the highest that will be the 1 you can use in PvP but if u ID a gold and it's a +30 then its unlocked for good

Thanks for the replies.

Account based!

Runes need to be unlocked by level, minor, to major then superior.
If a newbie character has a gold piece of armor loot with what might be a superior rune on it, but the account has not unlocked anything then identifying the item will only unlock the minor rune.

Mods do not work in the same way(?) Whatever the mod is on the loot is what becomes unlocked. An acccount can unlock a dagger grip of fortitude +30 hp before it unlocks a +29 hp grip(?). True?

Follow-up questions:

What determines whether the chance to use is 7% or 20%?

For PvE, identifying gold armor seems to be more important than identifying gold weapons? Mods are not impacted by what has previously been unlocked?

The items I want a new PvE account to identify are blue, purple then gold armor items to unlock the runes? For a PvE account, is there anything to be gained by having the new account identify blue, purple and gold weapons?

Thanks again for the replies.

In PvE, if a toon picks up and identifies a superior rune, they have unlocked that superior rune, not the minor or major. Just that item.
Weapon mods are unlocked in a simular fashion. Lets say she id's a mod Health +30, she has unlocked all mods with the same name for that weapon type but not the lesser named classes of health bumps like a health +20 mod.

In short, mods and runes are unlocked by name, not rank.

Blue items have stats in the lowest half of the possible range. E.g. if an item can have stats from 10% to 20%, then a blue item can have stats from 10% to 15%. A purple item will have the 3rd quarter, i.e. 15%-18%, and a gold item the highest quarter, 18%-20%. Only gold items can have max stats. (some purples can have certain max stats, such as +5 armor, because the range is so narrow 75% will round off to the max value).

Blue armor = minor runes, purple = major runes, gold = superior runes.

Don't know about the 'more important' part. Just ID what you get . And no, mods are not impacted by what has already been unlocked, it's random. You can ID for a long time before you have everything unlocked, if you're not very lucky.

Identifying weapon mods doesn't impact PvE characters at all, you can buy and use mods from other players that you have not unlocked yourself yet, and you can buy any rune from the rune trader (provided the rune trader has one in stock), no need to unlock for PvE chars.

No. Identifying a superior rune will unlock that superior rune
Identifying a minor unlocks that minor, and identifying the major unlocks that major. These don't impact the locked/unlocked status for other runes for an attribute

If you have not unlocked a particular mod (dagger grip of fortitude for example) when you do ID one, then it will be unlocked at the level you IDed it
ID a +28, then +28 will be unlocked. If you then ID a +30, then +30 will be unlocked


Identifying mods, armor or weapons, makes those mods available to PVP characters at the unlocked level. It doesn't affect what mods a PVE charcter can us, but if you like what you've ifentified, you may want to save a mod, or modded weapon for your own use. A PVE character can still apply, for example, a Superior Vigor rune obtained from another player, without unlocking it on their own account

Gold armors give Superior runes, and many players would argue that in the majority of cases the cons of a superior rune outweigh the benefits. -75HP adds up, and unless you're running a particular gimic build which needs the extra +3 attribute or the -75HP, it's better off using minors