EQ Legends Guide ›
Spell upgrade, +1 to +10 — what each mote tier actually gives
Updated 25 August 2026 · per-tier rates re-measured in game after the 25 Aug patch
Before you feed a rare mote into a spell, see what it buys. Upgrading gear instead? The item version is here. Set your level, pick a spell, drag the tier. Every number below is computed
the way the game computes it — the base value, your level, and the cap — so the +0 column
should match your own spell window line for line. If it does not, tell me: that is a bug worth
knowing about.
Spell upgrade tiers, +1 to +10 — the mote cost and what it buys
Rank by rank. Each rank costs twice the previous one in motes — 2 at +1, 32 at +5, 256 at +8, 1 024 to reach +10 — and gives a direct-damage spell +6 % of its base damage, a buff +10 % duration, and every spell a shorter cast and a lower mana cost. Drag the slider above to read any spell at any tier.
Where the numbers come from
The game's own files. Spell data is read from the client's
spells_us.txt and dbstr_us.txt — the same files the game reads to draw
your spell window. Not a wiki, not a scrape. What the client shows is a base value grown by your
level and then capped:
value = base + level × factor, capped at the maximum.
That is why the same spell reads differently on two characters, and why community databases quoting
a single number are right for exactly one level.
The per-tier rates were measured on a live client on
25 August 2026, not copied from a table: cast −2 % per rank on direct-damage spells and
−4 % on everything else, mana −2 % on anything that deals damage or heals and −4 % on buffs and pets, recovery and
reuse −2 %, duration +10 % on buffs and debuffs and +5 % on damage- and heal-over-time,
and a mote cost that doubles every rank to 1 024 at rank 10. Linear, not compounding.
A tier never raises damage. Blizzard Blast merged for real from
tier 0 to tier 1 still reads 346. Envenomed Bolt, whose ticks are nowhere near their cap, reads
345 – 351 at tier 0 and at tier 4 alike. What grows is the duration: 36 s becomes
42 s, six ticks become seven, so the spell lands +16 % total damage while every hit is unchanged.
Ticks are floored — 6 × 1.20 = 7.2 gives seven, not 7.2.
Every rank also cuts the resist check by 15. Odium shows
Resist: Magic −60 at tier 4, Blizzard Blast Resist: Cold −15 at tier 1. The
spell window never mentions it before you place the mote, and on a resisted line it may be worth more
than the mana it saves.
Two things the spell window never shows. A pet gains a level per tier
— Frenzied Spirit summons a level 36 wolf at +0, a level 41 one at tier 5. And on crowd control,
a rank raises the highest NPC level the spell will land on.
Reading your own window. The value in parentheses is the fully modified one:
it already carries your stance, specialisation and focus items, so a stat can read modified at tier 0.
Compare against your own tier 0, not against the base.
Spell data from the EverQuest Legends client, files dated 17 August 2026.
Tier scaling from EQL Tools,
corrected against live client readings. Part of the EQ Legends guide.
Full 1–50 trio guide → Chapter 11 — Legends systems: merging, motes and spell ranks