WoW Upgrades - The Item Upgrader

Upgrades can give you boosts in specific statistics. Each upgrade increases the level of an item by 3. Each upgrade also boosts a random substat.

Upgraded gear is generally more useful, unless the item is not required by nature (like FB sorc shields) or has a large variance in stats (like Eth Titan weapons). The latter see less value from upgrading due to the necessity to roll to get a perfect version.

Recycle Points

The item upgrader lets players upgrade item their gear by offering the currency to an NPC. Upgrades can be applied to any kind of weapon or armor. The item upgrade used to upgrade the item will be consumed and cannot be used again. Upgrades can be applied to the enchantments.

The upgrader is located in all major cities and can be accessed at any time to upgrade your gear. To ensure that your equipment is up-to-date it is recommended you visit the upgrader every few weeks.

The cost of upgrades will be based on the current item level of the gear being upgraded but they will always be less expensive than purchasing new gear from other sources. Upgrades like upgrading a Benthic chest to 385 ilvl will cost you 20 recycle points. A similar item upgrade will cost you 105.

Valorstones

Upgrades are items that can be used to level up weapons, tools, armor, and accessories. They can be bought by players from NPCs who sell upgrades for items in exchange for a variety of currencies, and can also be found in random treasure lists. Once purchased, an upgrade can be applied to any tool, weapon or armor. The button will display a preview of an item's next level of upgrade, if there are enough materials.

The cost of upgrades varies based on the item slot and the current item level Upgrade level, with weapons costing more than gloves or bracers for instance. Each upgrade costs 15 Flightstones plus a certain number of crests. Some upgrades offer discounts on Flightstones. Once an item is upgraded to a certain degree it can be re-downgraded and sold to the upgrader at a lower cost.

Upgraders for items can be found in a variety of locations, Item Level Upgrade including the main island and some outposts. The NPCs offer both an upgrade coupon and the possibility of obtaining the latest recipe. The upgrade discount increases when more items are upgraded. It can also be increased by having players finish certain achievements or quests.

Unlike Cromwell in Baldur's Gate II, there is no upgrader for items at the start of Icewind Dale. Instead, the NPCs that can be used to upgrade are acquired via several methods, which is both an improvement but also a drawback.

In Season 3, the upgrade system has been tweaked a bit, Item Level Upgrade with numerous new features added. When a player has an upgrade to a particular level of an item for a specific armor slot, upgrading additional items to that level will cost less even in the event that they are part of another set of gear.

The amount of Valorstones required to upgrade items is reduced and the discount is account-wide. In the same way, the amount of Harbinger Crests required for upgrades is also reduced and is not available until players achieve certain milestones in their achievements.

Crests

Players have a number of options when it comes to upgrading their equipment in WoW. Flightstones are an item that is available to all players for upgrading. Crests are more special, and are used during specific item level upgrades. Crests are an essential part of the Dragonflight gear progression system, which was introduced in 10.1 and are available in four ranks.

The first thing to remember is that Crests are only available to equipment that is with a certain rank. Each rank comes with distinct upgrade paths. The simplest and simplest upgrade costs 15 crests. The most complicated upgrade requires up to 20 crests, depending on the type of gear that is being upgraded.

Players can earn crests through completing content of the appropriate level, whether that means walking around and doing outdoor activities to get lower-tier gear, raids or dungeons of any difficulty for higher-tier items or Mythic+ dungeons or heroic raid bosses for gear that is used in the endgame. Crests can be exchanged at an upgrader NPC, such as Cuzolth in Dornogal, or Vaskarn in Valdrakken to obtain the appropriate upgrade item paths and steps.

The new currency system isn't too difficult to use, but it brings some changes to the upgrade process. When a piece attains the highest level of upgrade for any rank (Explorer or Adventurer), it is no longer required to purchase Flightstones. This allows players to upgrade their equipment to the highest possible ilvl on all of their characters, instead of relying on seasonal loot.

Another significant change is that crests only have one usage, so it's important to use them wisely. For instance, it's best to utilize all of your Whelpling rank crests with the best gear you have available and then keep Drake and Wyrm crests for the next batch of upgrades you're planning to create. This is particularly applicable to rings and trinkets that fill multiple slots on the character, which will only be able to benefit from the account-wide discount when all of the slots are full of high-quality gear.