WoW Upgrades - The Item Upgrader

Upgrades provide a guaranteed boost to certain stats. Each upgrade boosts the item level by +3. Each upgrade also boosts an unspecified substat.

Upgraded gear generally sees greater value for trade regardless of whether it has low requirements (like the FB shield of the sorc) or has a high stat variance (like the eth titan weapons). Upgrades are less valuable for the latter due to the requirement to roll a perfect version.

Recycle Points

The item upgrader enables players to upgrade gear to a higher level by supplying the appropriate currency to the NPC. Upgrades can be applied to any kind of armor or weapon. The item used to upgrade the item upgrade is discarded and cannot be used again. Upgrades can also be used to create the enchantments.

The upgrader is located in all major cities, and can be visited anytime to upgrade your gear. It is recommended that you visit the upgrader at least once every few weeks to ensure that your equipment is up to date.

Upgrades will cost more, based on the level of the item, but they will always be less expensive than purchasing new gear. Upgrades like upgrading a Benthic chest to ilvl385 will cost you 20 recycle points. If you purchase a similar item, it will cost you 105.

Valorstones

Upgrades are items that can be used to upgrade weapon, armor, tool, and accessory upgrades. They can be purchased by players from NPCs of item upgraders in a variety of currencies. They can also find them in random treasure lists. Once purchased, an upgrade can be applied to any tool, weapon, or armor. The button will display the preview of an item's next upgrade level, when there are enough materials.

The upgrade cost depends on the item slot and the current level of the Item level Upgrade, with weapons costing more than gloves or bracers, for instance. Each upgrade cost 15 Flightstones plus a specific number of crests. Some upgrades give a discount on the Flightstones. Once an item has been upgraded to a certain degree it is able to be downgraded and sold to the upgrader for a lower price.

Many locations have upgraders for their items, including the main Island and some outposts. The NPCs offer both an upgrade discount as well as a chance to get a brand new upgrade recipe. The upgrade discount increases when more items are upgraded. It can also be increased by having players complete certain achievements or complete quests.

Contrary to Cromwell in Baldur's Gate II there is no upgrader for items available at the beginning of Icewind Dale. Instead, the NPCs that are available to help with upgrades are acquired via various methods which is both an improvement but also a drawback.

In Season 3, several new features were added to the upgrade system. Once a player obtains an upgrade to a certain item level for a particular armor slot, upgrading other items to that same item level will cost less, even when they belong to another set of gear.

The amount of Valorstones required for upgrades is decreased, and the discount is available across all accounts. In the same way, the amount of Harbinger Crests required for upgrades is also cut and is not available until players have reached certain milestones in their achievement.

Crests

Players have a variety of choices when it comes to upgrading their equipment in WoW. Flightstones are an option that is accessible to all players for upgrading. Crests are more specific, and are used during specific item level upgrades. Crests are a crucial part of the Dragonflight Gear Progression System, which was introduced in version 10.1. They come in four ranks.

The first thing to note is that crests are only able to be spent on gear of a specific rank, and that each rank has its own requirements for upgrading. The simplest and most straightforward upgrade process costs just 15 crests while the most complicated requires as many as 20 crests depending on the kind of gear that is being upgraded.

Players can earn crests through working through content at the appropriate level. This could mean doing outdoor activities, or by taking on dungeons and raids of all difficulty levels to obtain equipment of lower tier or Mythicbosses for raids, or dungeons with heroic difficulty to obtain endgame gear. These crests can then be exchanged at an upgrader NPC, like Cuzolth in Dornogal or Vaskarn in Valdrakken, for the appropriate upgrade paths and steps.

The new currency system isn't difficult to use, but it does bring some changes to the process of upgrading. When a piece of equipment attains the highest level of upgrade for any rank (Explorer or Adventurer) it will no longer require Flightstones. This change is intended to allow players to upgrade their gear up to the highest possible ilvl for all their characters instead of relying on seasonal loot.

Another significant modification is that crests have one usage and it's crucial to use them properly. For instance it's Best item upgrader to use all of your Whelpling-rank crests with the Best item upgrader gear you have available and keep Drake and Wyrm crests to use for the next set of upgrades you plan to make. This is especially true for items like rings and trinkets that take up multiple slots on the character that will be able to benefit from the discount for all accounts when all of the slots are filled with high-quality equipment.