So what do you need to do? Well quite a lot actually, the IPS rep will tell you all that is needed, but it can be a long and cumbersome chat - and it's easy to miss exactly what he is telling you about what you need to find, so here is a break down of exactly what is needed to upgrade your armor at tier one.

Firstly, its not possible every part of the full jobe suit - only six parts can be upgraded - the sleeves, pants, body armor, boots and gloves. There is no tier one upgrades to the helmet, back or shoulder items. Ok, so what do we need?

The total shopping list if you want to upgrade all the parts is as follows:

• 18 - Visions of the appropriate type (3 for each upgrade piece)
  
• 6 - Consanguineal Embryo of Annwn
  
• 6 - Novictums of the appropriate type
  
• 6 - Containers of Pure Liquid Notum

Visions and Embryos

Grouping these two together as they drop in the same place so you'll want to get both at the same time. To start with Visions, these come in different flavours and the type of vision required depends on your profession, the IPS vendor will tell you which part is which, but you will need to find one of these:

• Visions of The Reposeful
  
• Visions of the Tempestuous
  
• Visions of the Unshakable

There is only one type of embryo needed regardless of profession and both these items can be found deep underground, and might be hard to locate according to the IPS rep - and that's not far wrong!

To find these items you will need to brave the pit dungeons found below the spirit sections of the indoor temple areas of both the redeemed and unredeemed in either Elysium or Scheol. Depending on your level these dungeons are not easy affairs and a team is recommended below level 150 for Elysium and a team is near essential for the Scheol dungeon if you want to be safe - it can be very worthwhile though as some very nice items also drop in these areas that make the effort more then worthwhile.

Finding the dungeons

As mentioned above you can head to either Elysium or Scheol, it really depends on your level which is more feasible. The mobs in the Elysium dungeon are around 130-150, whilst in Scheol you will find them starting at 170ish - as with everything Shadowlands they are a degree tougher then their Rubi-Ka equivalents.

Ok, let's take the Elysium dungeons first.

Firstly you need to find your way to the spirit areas inside the temples, In Elysium this is Nero for the unredeemed and Utopolis for the redeemed - you do not have to visit the dungeon belonging to the opposite side as the spirits are not aligned to either faction, in fact in most cases it is just easier to head to the temple of your own faction as you are probably familiar with the layouts anyway.

Once inside the temple you need to find the spirit area. For unredeemed folk in Nero this is just a case of walking through the first two rooms and then through the door at the far end which will take you into the spirit area.

For the redeemed temple head into the second room then up the spiral staircase that is in the middle of that room, once at the top take the west exit into the spirit area.

Once you enter the spirit area the directions are the same regardless of which temple you entered through. It is very good advice to buff up at this stage as you probably won't get another chance to buff before entering the lower pit.

Take a look at the map below for the route to take once inside the spirit area - do not stop to fight the spirits, even if they are grey to you they will agro, and although possibly harmless alone, they will swamp you with numbers and sap your nano very, very quickly.

Follow the path along until you see a large hole in the ground, this is the entrance to the spirit dungeon, drop down the hole to enter the dungeon. This is an entrance only portal down so that's why its important to buff up before entering as you could land straight into some fairly nasty mobs!

Once inside you will be met with a variety of mobs that are very challenging for their level (but far from impossible, keep your wits about you and you will be fine), the first few corridors will be full off Archaic War Drones, Archaic Commanders and Archaic Guardians, these mobs hit reasonably hard, and have a good few HP, but don't really have any special abilities to worry too much about.

Any of these mobs can drop the various visions that you might need. The drop rate overall is actually pretty decent so you can gather the visions you need fairly quickly. (It took me an hour or so to fill a backpack with the type I needed when I went)

Moving further in you will start to meet slightly harder mobs, the Cwn Ammn and excretable Lifeform in particular can be nasty as they have a habit of casting trader like deprives on you at very regular intervals. Once you reach the large central area as shown below you can start to look for the boss mobs and their cronies - these mobs drop the embryos - but will be a challenge if you are not prepared.

You don't have to face the bosses though if you think you can manage the Scheol version of the pits.

Same process as Elysium - head to whichever temple is easiest for you - either the redeemed outpost in the south west of the zone, or the Temple of Roch, the directions for finding the spirit area are identical to those in Elysium. The layout of the pit though is different (map coming soon with a little luck), but the main difference is that in the Scheol version is that the regular 'archaic' mobs also drop the embryos!

If you can handle the mobs this is a much, much better location to get your embryos as the mobs that drop them in Elysium are on something close to a twenty minute spawn timer.

Novictum

As with the visions, the type of Novictum you need is dictated by your profession. Again speak to the IPS vendor again to confirm which type of novictum you need. To find the Novictum you will need to hunt spirit type mobs outdoors. The spirits in the temple dungeons do not drop these items (at least I have never seen them drop or heard anyone else report them dropping indoors) so you need to scour the lands of Elysium and / or Scheol to find some fresh air loving spirits instead.

Never fear the spirits actually have quite a few spots in the Shadowlands where they like to take in the scenery so finding them isn't hard - getting them to drop the Novictum however is another matter. There is no other way to say it - the drop rates are slow - sometimes very slow, and sometimes if luck isn't with you then might you end up with a backpack full of every possible type of Novictum apart from the one you need!! So patience is a virtue with this stage.

Ok, so where to find them? Take a look at the areas highlighted on the map below:

The good news is that spirits are plentiful, the bad news is that the drop rate is very, very low on these spirits. For better pickings you need to go to Scheol and hunt the spirits that spawn in and around the entrance to Ergo's hall of trials.

Canister of Pure Liquid Notum

These parts can be found in both Elysium and Scheol, but the two main loactions which seem to have good drops are the Esoteric Hiathlins that can be found in Lower Scheol in the same area as the shadows that you might have fought in the progression quest (see guide here for directions). Look for a small arch leading into a small enclosure by the blue growing mushroom trees. The other good drop area is in Upper Scheol from Chimeran Canines that can be found just east of the portal to Lower Scheol. The drop rate is pretty high, but as always you can be unlucky and not get some in quite a few kills so be patient, that said they are pretty easy to get compared to the other parts.

Ok, all the parts in hand you'll actually want to put this thing together right? Head back to your IPS rep in Jobe to get the process started.

Creating the Armor

Talk to your IPS rep and next tell him that you have parts for your glyph. When the trade window appears give them three visions and one embryo. They will return you one Glyph. Be careful here as the Glyph is unique so don't try and get anymore done until you have completed the total process for each part.

Next up is where you might start to need the help of a friendly tradeskills person. Combine your Pure Liquid Notum Container with your glyph. This requires 550 Quantum Forcefield Tech to accomplish so if you do not have that skill you'll need a friend. The item is not nodrop so its not a problem passing it on to have it combined.

That process will 'activate' your Glyph.

Now combine your relevant type of Novictum with the activated Glyph. As with the previous stage this requires some skill, the parts I tried required Psychology, but there may be other skills involved as I have tried all the parts yet. It required 600 skill to achieve so again, you might need some help. Remember the canisters are NoDrop so make sure the person doing it for you doesn't have one already.

Now all the remains is to apply the combined activated Glyph with the piece of the Jobe suit you want to upgrade. There you have it your tier one armor! This armor is also a 'levelling' item up until level 160 so you can click it to upgrade it as far as your attributes will allow. The abilities and bonuses of the suits vary from profession to profession and the stats are very nice compared to other armor of a similar quality level.

Stay tuned for tier two!! (well when we figure out how to get it!!)