Shadow & Mythic Items

Beyond the IC 0–20 shop lines lie two special gear tiers: Shadow items that drop from kills, and Mythic items forged from shadows at a Temple. This is endgame itemization.

Shadow items

Shadow items drop from monster kills (one of the four drop channels). The dropped type mirrors one of your equipped slots: kill while wielding a weapon and you might get a shadow weapon; a spell → a shadow spell; armour → shadow armour; a shield → a shadow shield or shadow heal. An empty slot yields a tier-I shadow.

Shadow tiers

Shadows are graded in roman-numeral tiers:

• Tier I = IC 0, and each tier adds +5 IC (II = IC 5, III = IC 10, …).
• The max tier you can drop from normal gear is floor((gear IC + 4) / 5) — so better gear can drop better shadows (and shadows can also drop lower-tier shadows).

Why shadows are good

• Always 2 sockets, regardless of IC — double the gems.
• Reduced equip requirements (a config multiplier) — easier to wear for their IC than the equivalent shop item.
• They're the feedstock for mythics.

Mythic items

At a Temple POI (e.g., the Temple of the Hollow King in Gallowfen Deep) you upgrade a shadow into a Mythic. A mythic keeps being gear and carries a passive bonus that scales with its tier.

Forging cost & requirements

• Cost: ~20,000,000 gold per tier for tiers I–IV, ~40,000,000 per tier above IV.
• Level requirement: the shadow's requirement + 100.

The launch mythic passives

Because the bonus is × tier, a high-tier mythic is a major, build-defining upgrade — e.g., Heart of the Mire at tier VI is +24% of your VIT as extra HP on top of the item's normal stats.

Notable picks

• The Warden's Paradox — the hybrid enabler: tank with a shield and deal weapon damage with it, while every "weapon" hit trains your Armour mastery.
• Bulwark of the Hollow King — pure-tank armour; flat AC is gold on the exponential curve.
• Heart of the Mire — turns a VIT investment into even more effective HP.
• Wyrm's Grace — great for DEX-reliant melee/skirmishers (Thistrel).
• Tollkeeper's Cut — a gold-farming engine for the wealthy endgame.

The endgame gear path

fight in good gear → shadow items drop (2 sockets, low req)
   → equip / socket the best shadows
      → hoard gold → forge the right shadow into a Mythic at the Temple
         → re-forge to higher tiers as your level & bank allow

Pair mythics with maxed masteries, ranks, and the right gems and you've got a true endgame build.

Next: Gems & Enchanting → Drops & Bonus Time → Build Guide