Every mote in EverQuest Legends, the maximum tier it can feed, and the reason a mote suddenly does nothing on an item you are still upgrading.
The same mote pays two completely different amounts depending on where you put it. Fed to a spell it gives its total value, which doubles every rank — 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and up. Fed to an item it gives only its rank number — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. A Mote of Major Potential is worth 16 to a spell and 5 to a piece of gear. That single asymmetry decides how you should spend every mote you own.
On top of that, a mote must out-rank the item. A rank-4 item only accepts rank-5 motes and above. Below that the mote is not reduced, it is simply refused — which is why people think their upgrades stalled.
| Mote | Rank | Highest item tier it will go into | Exp to an item | Exp to a spell |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mote of Infinitesimal Potential | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Mote of Minor Potential | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Mote of Lesser Potential | 3 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Mote of Potential | 4 | 3 | 4 | 8 |
| Mote of Major Potential | 5 | 4 | 5 | 16 |
| Mote of Greater Potential | 6 | 5 | 6 | 32 |
| Mote of Superior Potential | 7 | 6 | 7 | 64 |
| Mote of Grand Potential | 8 | 7 | 8 | 128 |
| Mote of Ascendant Potential | 9 | 8 | 9 | 256 |
| Mote of Infinite Potential | 10 | 9 | 10 | 512 |
Motes fall off a cliff on gear after rank 4 — you are forced onto rank-5 motes worth 5 exp each, against a tier that costs 32. But an item merged into an item pays like a mote does into a spell: the full doubling value.
So do not feed your good motes to the item you wear. Get a second copy, pour the cheap motes into that, and merge the loaded copy in. The duplicate carries across everything you put in it, at the doubling rate rather than the linear one.
The practical split: high motes into spells, low motes into duplicate gear. And spend Void-touched Potential on items, never on spells — a spell can be finished with whatever motes you happen to have, an item cannot.
A Mote of Infinitesimal Potential feeds tier 0 only. The moment your item reaches tier 1 it is dead weight. That is working as intended — you are meant to move up the ladder as the item climbs.
Once an item is past what your best mote can feed, the only way to push it further is duplicate gear: merging another copy of the item itself. High-tier items are finished with copies, never with motes — which is exactly what the loading trick above is for.
Mostly from named, and infrequently from trash. Three things raise what you get:
Motes can themselves be upgraded.
The practical consequence for a farming route: the named you already kill for gear are your mote supply. You do not need a separate mote farm — you need a named loop you can run fast and repeatedly.
In the official EQ Legends Insights episode on item merging, the executive producer does not demonstrate the system on a raid item. He farms dervish cutthroats in the North Desert of Ro — a newbie zone — for a plain Cutthroat Insignia Ring (AC 1, DEX 2), merges copies up to +10, and ends with AC 11 and DEX 12.
The limit on a tier 10 item is not rarity — it is how many copies you can farm. An item that drops constantly in an easy zone can finish stronger than a rare you will see three times in your whole climb.
Two details from the same demo: at Difficulty 4 the ring dropped at +4 or better straight away, and merging a +1 copy added 2 points to the bar — because that +1 was itself built from two +0 rings. Merged gear carries its history forward.
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: