item upgrades - The Item Upgrader
Upgrades provide a guaranteed boost to specific stats. Each upgrade increases item level by 3. A random extra substat is also increased with each upgrade.
Upgraded gear is generally more valuable, unless the item is not required by nature (like FB sorc shields) or has a high variance in stats (like eth Titan weapons). The latter are less valuable from upgrading due to the requirement to roll for a perfect version.
Recycle Points
The item upgrader lets players upgrade their gear by giving the currency to an NPC. Upgrades can be applied to any type of weapon or armor. The item used to upgrade the item is discarded and cannot be used again. Upgrades can also be applied to the enchantments.
You can upgrade your gear at any time by visiting the upgrader in any major city. It is recommended to visit the upgrader at least once every few weeks, to keep your equipment up to date.
The cost of upgrading will depend on the current level of the item being upgraded but they will always be cheaper than buying new equipment from other sources. Upgrades such as upgrading a Benthic chest to the level of 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 for weapon, armor, tool and accessory upgrades. They can be purchased by players through NPCs who sell upgrades for items in exchange for various currencies, and can be found in random treasure lists. Once an upgrade is purchased, it can be used on any weapon, tool, or armor with a button, which will show an image of the item at its next upgrade level in the event that the player has enough materials.
The cost of upgrading is based on the slot of the item and the current item level as well as the level of the weapon, which is more than bracers or gloves, for instance. Each upgrade cost 15 Flightstones plus a set number of crests. Certain upgrades provide discounts on Flightstones. Once an item has been upgraded to a certain degree it can be re-downgraded and sold to the upgrader at a lower cost.
Upgraders for items are available at many locations on the main island as well as some outposts. The NPCs offer an upgrade coupon and the possibility of getting an entirely new recipe. The discount on upgrades increases when more items are upgraded. It can be increased if players finish certain achievements or quests.
Icewind Dale does not have an item upgrader at start, unlike Cromwell from Baldur's gate II. The NPCs who can facilitate upgrades are only accessible through a variety means. This is both a benefit and a disadvantage.
In Season 3 the upgrade system was tweaked a bit, with several new features added. Once an upgrade has been completed to a certain level of item for an armor slot upgrading other items to the same level will cost less. This is regardless of whether the items are from another set of equipment.
The discount applies to all accounts. The amount of Harbinger Crests needed to upgrade is reduced too, but it is only available once certain milestones have been reached.
Crests
Players have several choices when it comes to upgrading their equipment in WoW. They can make use of Flightstones, which are a common upgrade currency that is available to all players, or crests, which are more specific and consumed during upgrades on specific levels of items. Crests are an integral part of the Dragonflight Gear Progression System introduced in version 10.1. They come in four ranks.
The first thing to be aware of is that crests are only able to be used to purchase gear of a specific rank, and that each rank has different requirements for upgrading. The most basic and straightforward upgrade process costs just 15 crests while the most complicated may require as many as 20 crests depending on the type of gear that is being upgraded.
Players can obtain crests by working through content that is of the appropriate level, whether that means walking around and doing outdoor activities for lower-tier gear, raids or dungeons of all difficulty for items of higher tier or Mythic+ heroic raid bosses or dungeons for endgame gear. The crests can later be exchanged at an upgrader NPC, like Cuzolth in Dornogal or Vaskarn in Valdrakken to get the appropriate upgrade pathways and steps.
Utilizing these new currencies isn't that difficult however, the system does introduce some changes to the overall upgrade process. For instance, when an item is at the highest upgrade level of any rank (Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, or Mythic), it won't require Flightstones to be upgraded. This change is intended to allow players to upgrade their equipment up to the highest ilvl possible on all their characters, rather than relying solely on seasonal loot.
It's also important to use crests in a wise manner, as they have only one purpose. It is recommended to use your Whelpling-rank Crests on the highest-quality gear you can find, and save Drake and Wyrm Crests for the next set of upgrades. This is especially relevant for rings and trinkets that take up multiple slots on the character, which can only be eligible to benefit from the account-wide discount when all slots are filled with top-quality equipment.