Gear Echo, Tuning, Attunement, Relaying: the gear chain

You found a gear guide. It told you to "Inherit" your stats before you "Refine," and you did it, in that order, on six pieces of gear. Weeks later you learned that "Inheritance" was an early working translation the game's own site stopped using, and that the step it describes is called Relaying — which sits in a different place in the chain than the guide implied.

Nothing about your gear is broken. But you spent materials in the wrong order, and in a system where each layer feeds the next, wrong order is the expensive kind of wrong.

What are the five gear systems, in order?

This matters because the English guide ecosystem around this game is full of near-misses. When a descriptive term gets repeated often enough it starts being cited as fact, and then players go looking for a system that does not exist under that name.

Which names are official and which are not?

Order	English name	Chinese	Status	What to remember
1	Gear Echo	叠音	Official	First layer; everything downstream assumes it
2	Tuning	调律	Official	The earlier of the two tuning-sounding steps
3	Attunement	定音	Official	The later one; the layer PvP checks
4	Relaying	承音	Official	Carries work forward; formerly mistranslated as "Inheritance"
5	Modulating	承音后强化	Official	Post-Relay strengthening; the most expensive place to make a mistake
—	Distribution	传律	Descriptive	Not an official name; do not search for it in-game

Why does order matter more than optimization?

Because the chain is sequential. The practical rule: resolve a piece's earlier layers before you evaluate its later ones. An item that has only been through Echo is not a fair comparison against a fully modulated item, and comparing the two teaches you nothing except that you have not finished either piece.

This is also why "which gear should I upgrade" has no answer in the abstract. The question only makes sense once you know where each candidate sits in the chain.

How does the chain behave in PvP?

Mode	Attunement active?	Gear and sets active?	Note
33 (群策)	No	No	Pure equalized mode
11 / 22 / 55	Yes	Yes	Normal progression applies
Matchmaking floor	No	No — including sets, Tuning and Attunement	Only 止戈 talents survive; 33 is unaffected

Read the third row twice. The floor is a safety net for mismatched queues, and it strips everything — not just raw weapon stats. Players regularly report that their Attunement "stopped working" when the real answer is that they queued into a floored match. The full mode-by-mode breakdown lives on the PvP rules page.

What are the most expensive mistakes here?

• Week-one gear spending. Materials spent on the wrong layer are not refunded by understanding the system later.
• Comparing unfinished pieces. Pick one project item per slot and take it to the end of the chain before judging it against anything else.
• Blaming the build before checking the bracket. If your numbers vanished in a PvP match, check the matchmaking floor first.
• Following a guide that says "Inheritance." It is a reliable timestamp: that content is older than the confirmed terminology.

Pro tips

• Learn the five names before you spend anything. Vocabulary first, materials second.
• Finish one piece per slot. A drawer of half-finished pieces is the standard way to end up with nothing at the top.
• Treat "Distribution" as a note, not a system. If you cannot find it in-game, that is why.
• Re-read the PvP table each patch. Bracket rules change, and they change quietly.
• Keep a dated note of your own breakpoints. The game publishes no per-layer values, so your own record is the only one that fits your character.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Tuning (调律) and Attunement (定音)?

They are consecutive layers whose English translations both sound like "tuning," which is exactly why players mix them up. Lock them by position: 调律 is step two, 定音 is step three, and Attunement is the one PvP checks.

Why did my Attunement stop applying in a PvP match?

Two causes. In 33 it never applies — that bracket is fully equalized. In 11/22/55 it normally applies, but the matchmaking floor can override it and strip gear, sets, Tuning and Attunement together. Same symptom, different reasons.

Is "Distribution" a real system name?

No. 传律 is a descriptive working term for the part of the flow that moves the result outward. It has no official English name, and this site marks it descriptive rather than confirmed. If the game names it later, this page changes.