- Buy level 7 armor from merchant, cheapest one there is or a cheapest weapon.
- Go to level refiner and use the cheap armor to refine its level by 1 (costs only 15 crones) to see the pattern that level refine gives at the moment. Example: S, F, F, F, S, F, S, S etc.
- Soon, after 10-15 refines of cheap armor you will notice the pattern and from now on it's your logic. Use cheap armor on lvl 1 refine for fail predictions, and choose weapon or armor you really wish to lower on lvl 3 success predictions. It's quite easy as you will probably notice.
This way you will spend only the amount of money you really have to instead of 3x more. I usually fail once or twice during the process. But as the screens show it's possible and my new char have something to bash with 'till level 40. :D
Hope this helps at least a bit. I know it helped me.
Warning! Failing sometimes result in destroying an item you refine. I lost my lvl 40 axe refined to lvl 19 due to 3 fails. So be careful.
P.S. I'm currently doing a research on that damned stat refiner. He's giving me a headache, but as far as i know, safest way to lower the stats is going -1. In case the stat requirements are 90+ it's really waste of time and money... for now at least
Refined Blood Dirk level 40 to level 16
Refined Royal Glaive level 30 to level 15
As for combining armors/weapons I can't say anything 'cause I haven't tried it yet. Feel free to experiment with cheap gear :) There has to be some catch, if not the same one for level refining.
As for patterns... I really can't say: go 3 S, 1 F, 1 S, 2 F etc... It's never the same and there is no point of writing it down. But, my logic tells me that after 2 S and 1 F there is S coming. Just don't think the old fashion way like: it failed 3 times, so it's gotta be success now. I say again, if you're not sure put that low level armor again and check if your logic was correct. You'll get the hang of it. It takes some time to practice. :)
And yes. There is a warning above for destroying your item due to failure
