New World Umbral Shards Guide

Umbral Shards are the method to progress your gear and expertise past level 600 in New World. We will walk you through how to earn Umbral Shards and How to use them to upgrade yourself and more in our New World Umbral Shard Guide.

What are Umbral Shards in New World

Umbral Shards are a resource that enables you to take an item with a minimum Gear Score of 590 up to a maximum Gear Score of 625, and Umbral Shards also allow you to bump your expertise for a specific gear slot from 600 to 625.  (In order to get from Gear Score 500 to 600 see our Expertise Guide). It’s important to point out that you MUST be Expertise level 600 for that particular gear slot to utilize umbral shards, even on a 590 gear score item.

Upgrading from 590 to Legendary

Increasing the gear score of a named item, such as Infamy, Doom’s Chance Earring, Will of the Ancients, etc (must be GS 590 and above to utilize umbral shards) will unlock the final perk and make the item Legendary. 

However, increasing the gear score of any other item (crafted items, randomly rolled dropped items, etc) from 590 to 600 via umbral shards does NOT make that item legendary and will not give you an additional perk on the item. It will, however, increase the power scaling of the item up to 625 item level. 

How to Obtain Umbral Shards in New World

Umbral shards can be obtained in 6 different ways:

• Completing Mutated Expeditions will reward you with Umbral Shards. The higher the difficulty level and the higher the Score Rank achieved the more shards you will earn. Completing mutated Expeditions at a high level is the most efficient way to earn Umbral Shards. 
• Crafting an item with a gear score of 600 will reward you with Umbral Shards if you also have the expertise of 600 or higher for that specific item slot. 
• Opening a Gypsum cast will provide you with Umbral Shards if your expertise for that item slot is 600 or above. 
• Completing an Outpost Rush match (must obtain a minimum score of 501 to get the rewards).
• Killing Rafflebones in Shattered Mountains or Reekwater will award 500 Umbral Shards.
• Competing an Arena will award 50 Umbral Shards.
• Completing the Tempest Heart Repeatable Quest (Rise of Captain Isabella or the Tempest’s Soul) will reward you with 50 Umbral Shards.
• You can purchase Umbral Shards from the PvP reward track with Salt.
• You can obtain Umbral Shards from a perfect salvage.

How to Use Umbral Shards in New World

In order to use an Umbral Shard, you must first have a piece of equipment that is a gear score of 590 or above, and your Expertise for that item slot must also at 600 or above. If both of these requirements are met and you have the required number of Umbral Shards to complete the upgrade (more on that below) then you can right-click on the item you wish to upgrade and select the “Upgrade” option. 

Once the upgrade is complete then the gear score on your item will be upgraded, and the Expertise for that particular item slot will be upgraded as well. 

For example, if you upgrade a legendary hatchet from gear score 600 to gear score 602 using Umbral Shards then that hatchet will become more powerful and will be a 602 gear score item. Along with the new item upgrade, you also have 602 in that Expertise slot. 

So, if you unequip your 602 hatchets and equip a gear score of 600 hatchets your Expertise still remains at 602. Please note that just because your Expertise is at 602 does not mean that a gear score of 600 items would be automatically upgraded to 602. ONLY the hatchet you upgraded to 602 would be at that power level. 

It’s also important to note that upgrading ANY item with an Umbral Shard will bind that item to the player. So, you can not upgrade a Bind on Equip 600 legendary from a dungeon up to 603 and sell that item. Once you upgrade via Umbral it’s bound to you.

Number of Umbral Shards Needed Per Gear Score Upgrade

Each Gear Score / Expertise level upgrade from 590 up to 600 requires an increasing amount of Umbral Shards.

NOTE: On the PTR the number of umbral shards needed to upgrade gear is changing. Below you can see the comparison. The change on the PTR will be live when the Brimstone Sands update goes live. This is expected to happen towards the end of October.

These changes are very significant. In total you will need slightly less shards to get from 590 to 625. However, to reach the 620 mark on live you need 2,071 shards. On the PTR you need 6,690. This is a huge leap. From 620 to 625 on live you need 7,950 shards and the PTR you only need 2,750. So, on live it would be a good idea to bump your gear to 620 and then wait for Brimstone to finish it off to 625.

Umbral Shards needed to upgrade Gear score from 590 to 625 in New World

Number of Umbral Shards Rewarded for Dungeon Mutations

The Dungeon mutations are broken up into different levels with level 1 being the easiest and level 10 being the hardest. Within each level of the mutation, you can either be rewarded Bronze, Silver, or Gold rewards based upon your performance in the dungeon. The below chart outlines how many shards you will receive based on the difficulty level of the mutation and your group’s performance within. 

Number of Umbral Shards Rewarded for Gypsum Casts

Once you have reached 600 expertise, Gypsum Casts will no longer reward you with expertise bumps. However, they will reward you with Umbral Shards.  The casts will reward you with Umbral Shards based on the expertise level of the item that you are opening. The following chart outlines how many Umbral Shards you are rewarded per cast based on your expertise score for that particular item:

Number of Umbral Shards Rewarded from 600 Gear Score Crafting

Upon crafting a 600 gear score item you will receive an expertise bump for that particular item slot up to 600 Expertise. Upon reaching 600 expertise for a particular item slot you will then begin receiving Umbral Shards each time you craft a gear score 600 items. The amount of Shards rewarded is based upon that slot’s expertise level. The following chart outlines how many Umbral Shards you would be rewarded for crafting a gear score of 600 items when that item slot is at a specific Expertise level.

Number of Umbral Shards Rewarded for Completing an Outpost Rush Match

Upon completing a match of Outpost Rush you will be rewarded with 100 Umbral shards for a win and 50 Umbral Shards if you lose the match. It’s important to point out that you must obtain the minimum required points (501) in order to receive the rewards from Outpost Rush.

New World Umbral Shards Guide Conclusion

This concludes our New World Umbral Shard Guides. If you have more questions on Expertise and how it works, check out our New World Expertise Guide.