You've Been Upgrading WRONG | Lost Ark Upgradings | Lost Ark Honing Guide
It may be the case that you've been upgrading your gear wrong in Lost Ark. The process of upgrading your gear in Lost ark is called "honing", but you first have to level up your gear before you can attempt to upgrade your gear. This can be very expensive and Lost Ark doesn't make the path clear. But there's some little tricks that you can use in Lost ark to help speed up how you level up your gear in the honing screen of lost ark.