The weakest of the ten motes: what it feeds, the exact moment it becomes useless on an item, and what to use next.
| Type | Merge material |
| Max item tier it can feed | 0 |
| Merge exp given | 1 |
| Size / Class / Race | Tiny / ALL / ALL |
| Drops from | Various monsters, various zones |
It is the first of the ten motes — the weakest rank of the ladder.
A mote does two separate things, and only one of them is obvious. It gives a fixed amount of merge experience, and it has a maximum item tier it is allowed to feed. The Mote of Infinitesimal Potential feeds tier 0 only.
So the moment your item reaches tier 1, every Infinitesimal mote in your bags becomes dead weight on that item. It is not reduced in value, it is simply refused. Nothing is broken and nothing was wasted — you have outgrown the rank.
Move up the ladder. Roughly one mote tier becomes available per five character levels: level 15 gets you tier 3, level 35 tier 7, level 50 tier 10. Killing yellow and red cons raises the drop chance, and harder zones raise the minimum tier that can drop at all.
Past the point where your best mote can still feed an item, motes stop being the answer entirely: high-tier gear is finished with duplicate copies of the item itself, not with motes.
The full ladder, with the max tier and exp of each of the ten ranks, is on the Motes of Potential page.
Motes can themselves be upgraded, and a fresh item always starts at tier 0 — so Infinitesimal motes stay useful for every new piece you pick up. Keep a stack.
Full 1–50 trio guide → Chapter 11 — Legends systems: merging, motes and spell ranksCalculators — See what a tier actually gives, before you spend the mote: