Forge Shards: gems and sockets from Halvard

Once you wear full Tier 1 you no longer need regalia, but Forge Shards keep piling up. Now you can spend them at Halvard the Unseeing: the Regalia Forge has a “Gems & sockets” tab.

What Halvard sells

The week starts on Monday at 03:00 Moscow time. “Once per 4 weeks” counts from the start of the week you bought in: the item shows the day it’s available again.

Gems — straight into a socket

A gem bought for shards never goes to your bag: Halvard sets it into the socket you choose right away. That’s why it can’t be sold or traded — it’s already part of the item.

1. Open the Regalia Forge → the “Gems & sockets” tab.
2. Press “Gems” next to the item, pick a socket and a gem. The game shows “before → after”.
3. Confirm “Buy and socket”.

• The socketing fee is still paid in gold, as with normal socketing: rare — 2 g, epic and hybrid — 5 g, meta gem — 20 g, legendary — 50 g.
• If the socket already holds a gem, it works like a normal swap: rare, epic and hybrid gems are destroyed, a meta gem or a legendary is removed with Gemcutter’s Tongs and goes back to your pouch, soulbound.
• An item with a gem becomes soulbound.

What gems give: red — Power, green — Health, yellow — Hardiness. Epic — +5 Power, or +10 Health, or +2 Hardiness; legendary — +10 Power, or +20 Health, or +5 Hardiness and counts as all three colours. More in Gems and sockets.

Sockets

Third socket

Mythic loot for the “large” slots (shoulders, chest, hands, legs, wrists, waist, feet, cloak, weapon, shield) drops with 2 or 3 sockets. If it dropped with two, Halvard adds a third. Gems in the existing sockets stay where they are; the new socket is empty. One third socket per item. 245 crafted items, Tier 1.2 regalia, 250 items and legendaries have fixed sockets — a third socket isn’t needed or sold for them.

Meta socket for a Tier 1 helm

A Tier 1 set helm (item level 232) has no sockets, and swapping it for another helm would cost you the 8-piece bonus. Halvard adds a meta socket to it — so a meta gem works without changing your helm. One per hero.

An item Halvard has added a socket to becomes soulbound.

Honing materials

The Tempering Shard goes into honing scrolls +1…+10, the Unstable Rune into attempts +10…+19. Halvard sells 10 of each per week; they go to your pouch (if it’s full, they arrive by mail). Honing attempts and protection can’t be bought for shards: the weekly attempt limit stays the same.

The hint in the Forge

At the top of the tab Halvard counts how many sockets on your worn items are empty and how much damage they would add with epic red gems: for example, “Empty sockets on your worn items: 6 of 8. With epic red gems that’s +30 Power: a 5-crystal card hits 30 harder”.

What shards don’t buy

Tier 1.2 regalia and items, 245 items, Mythic Sparks, blueprints and other mythic rewards aren’t sold for shards. Mythic bosses still give no shards — only spare regalia do. Halvard still forges a Tier 1 regalia for 150 shards (Tier 1 — Regalia and the Forge).

Gems only work against creatures: they do nothing in the arena, duels, battlegrounds and tournaments.