Look to La Luna long enough and you'll glimpse the rare sight of Santa and his raindeer flying by.

What are augments?

Augments are item drops that you can equip your character with to enhance your character's abilities, damage or grant team buffs for AI Battle. These effects only apply in single player modes like Towers of Time or AI Battle.You can equip multiple augments at once and their effects will stack exponentially. Although there is a limit to how many you can equip and in what combinations, smart use of Augments is essential for fine-tuning your character’s ass kicking abilities.

How do they work?

Every character has three gear slots to customize their appearance, but the gear also has the benefit of having slots for Augments. There are five types of Augments and five types of Augment slots, but it’s as simple as you needing to match the square hole with the square peg. Currently there are two augment slots on each piece of gear, which will be unlocked after getting a certain amount of experience points. Experience points are easily gained by just playing with the gear equipped. There is a third slot but NRS has yet to release access to it.

Johnny winds back to throw a punch in his equipment screen.

You can reroll sockets at the cost of some koins, so that you have a different combination of Augment types. This destroys any augments in the process, so it's recommended to do this before hand. You can also pay koin to remove Augments from gear so they won’t be removed. Look at your pool of augments that you are working with to help save yourself some headache. If your gear has Nether Flame slots but you don’t currently have any Nether Flame augments, it will make sense to reroll.

Pick out the gear that you enjoy visually because it will take a bit of time to level it up.

The five augment types are Soul, Nether Flame, Order Krystal, Chaos Energy, and Dragon Blood. These categories are just a way to limit your augment combinations, so just reroll gear until you get the slots you need, or close to it. Augments also are limited to the piece of gear, for example, Johnny’s sunglasses can only be equipped with Augments for Johnny’s sunglasses gear slot.

How to Get Augments?

You can get Augments through normal play of the game as everything you do will earn your coins, souls and hearts. These currencies can be used to open up chests in the Krypt, which is a great source for augments. The Krypt Shrine in particular is a great place to get Augments, shoot for around 10-15 thousand koins for the best results. Towers of Time will sprinkle augments in the tower rewards, and certain boss towers can be repeatedly played which is a good source of augments for particular characters. If you just want to easily farm as many augments as you can, you can actually make an intentionally bad team for AI Battle and try to lose games, as a reward for losing is a guaranteed augment. Certain character towers may have a higher chance of dropping high quality augments as well.

You can see and edit your Augments by going to the character kustomization menu.

Here are the top ten best Augments in MK11:

10. “Special Moves 3% Damage Increase”

Special moves inflict 3% additional damage. 1+ Global Damage +5% Random Resist

Every character has access to at least one augment that will increase all of their special moves damage by 3%, and sometimes you can stack this buff up with multiple copies of the same augment.

3% doesn’t seem like much, but all of your most important moves are special moves that you will be using constantly. Increasing the damage output just makes your character better in general, so keep an eye out for these types of augments.

9. Shang Tsung's Soul Phylactery

When you win a round, 3% of your remaining health is stored. Dropping below 50% health will heal you for the stored amount. +1% Global Damage +5% Poison Resist

This Augment can greatly improve Shang Tsung's health pool in matches with extra rounds like Endurance rounds or some of the challenge towers.

In some of the more challenging towers in the game, this can lead you to getting ridiculous health regeneration.

In general, this is a nice augment that can be coupled with damage boosts for all around potency.

Soul Augment

Bracers Gear Slot

8. Sonya’s Battle Tested Tech

K.A.T’s duration is increased by 2 seconds. +1.5 Global Damage +30% Magic Resist

Summon K.A.T. Turret is a strong move where Sonya summons a drone to attack the opponent on command. The move is excellent for general purposes but it has a time limit, but this augment increases the duration.

Two extra seconds allows Sonya more time to fire grenades and convert into combo situations.

Combine with other special move damage increases to maximize your turret’s capabilities.

Chaos Energy

K.A.T. Turret Gear Slot

7. Shao Khan's Burden of Rule

Ridicule lasts 4 additional seconds.

Ridicule is one of Shao Khan’s debuffs, taunting the opponent and reducing their damage output for 9 seconds or so. The 4 additional seconds are extremely important.

Most importantly, this gives Shao access to his Krushing Blow from that one string that does the kind of damage that only the true Kahn of Outworld can deal out.

Dragon Blood Augment

Lance Gear Slot

6. Noob’s Umbral Rush

The first 15 attacks of each new round inflict 3% additional damage. +1.00% Global Damage +5.00% Electric Resist

Noob Saibot is one of the higher damaging characters in the game and this buff will make him even more explosive.

His first 15 attacks will receive a 3% damage increase that is unaffected by normal damage scaling.

When stacked with other damage buffs and additional copies of the same augment, this will lead to dramatically increased damage output.

If used well, this will make all of your matches take less time as you’ll obliterate the opponent quickly, which increases your score!

Order Krystal Augment

Mask Gear Slot

5. Skarlet's Animated Blood

Killer Clot lasts 4 seconds longer. +4.5 Global Damage +10% Blood Resist

Killer Clot is a blood ball Skarlet sets down that will latch on to the opponent when they draw near. It prevents the opponent from being able to special cancel moves from strings.

In other words, it severely reduces the enemies ability to combo for about 6 seconds, to the point that they will do as much as 80% less damage. The additional 4 seconds this buff grants makes this move extremely potent.

The opponent will still attempt to do special moves, opening up situations for you to punish.

Dragon Blood Augment

Dagger Gear Piece

4. Liu Kang's' Deflected Arrows

Energy Parry lasts for 6 more frames.

This move absorbs the enemy's projectiles, allowing a skillful player to avoid damage completely.

With the Dragon’s Gift kustom ability equipped, this move becomes more powerful with an amplified version that sends a fireball back at the opponent! It can then be followed up with Liu’s patented Flying Kick.

The augment increases the potency of the move by making it easier to land, which makes Liu Kang’s fireball game all the more powerful.

Bait the opponent’s into throwing projectiles at distance and punish them!

Nether Flame Augment

Bracers Gear Slot

3. Sub Zero's Explosive Shards

Ice Ball Inflicts 20 damage on hit. +3% Global Damage +20% Chaos Resist

This Augment increases Sub's damage by 3% and makes his Ice Ball do 20 damage, when it normally does none. This is a great increase to Sub Zero's damage output and makes it harder to trade projectiles with ice balls. This ability can stack for even more damage output.

A subtle but very noticeable change in that your character is now more badass because he throws painful chunks of ice at people.

Another Sub Zero Augment to look out for is Lone Survivor, which increases currency rewards by 30% if you don't lose a round. Very useful for getting more rewards.

Chaos Energy Augment

Ninja Mask Gear Slot

2. Scorpion’s Ignition Drive

Amplified specials burn your opponent on activation, inflicting 75.00 fire damage over 4 second. +10.00% Fire Resist +2.00% damage

This Augment causes your amplified spears and amplified teleports to do hefty amounts of damage over time, burning the opponent’s hopes and dreams to a crisp!

There’s a similar augment called World Ignitor that will stack to make the effect even more potent.

The effect works even if the opponent blocks your teleport.

Overall this is an extremely effective augment in all modes.

Nether Flame Augment

Ninja Mask Gear Slot

1. Kollector's Deep Discounts

Special moves heal you for 20 on activation. +3.00% Global Damage boost. +10.00% Dark Resist

This augment allows Kollector to get a dramatic amount of healing from doing special moves throughout the match.

Kollector recently got major buffs in a balance patch, so this augment is looking all the more appealing.

This augment pairs well with the Spare Change variation. Stay back and harass the opponent with Bag Bombs and Vial of Sorrow. As you keep the opponent out, you'll be healing yourself. So keep spamming some projectiles and kollect that reward!

Nether Flame Augment

Satchel Gear Slot

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