WoW Upgrades - The Item Upgrader
Upgrades will give you a boost to certain stats. Each upgrade increases item level by 3. Each upgrade item also boosts an unspecified substat.
The upgraded gear is usually more useful, unless the Item Level Upgrade is not required by nature (like FB sorc shields) or has a large variance in stats (like eth Titan weapons). The latter are less valuable from upgrading due to the necessity to roll to get a perfect version.
Recycle Points
The item upgrader kit upgrader enables players to upgrade gear to a higher level by supplying the appropriate currency to the NPC. Upgrades can be made on any kind of armor or weapons. The item used to upgrade the item is discarded and cannot be used again. Upgrades can also be applied to the enchantments.
The upgrader can be found in all major cities, and can be accessed anytime to upgrade your gear. It is recommended to visit the upgrader once every few weeks, to keep your equipment up-to-date.
Upgrades will cost more, based on the level of the item however, they are always cheaper than buying new equipment. For instance, upgrading a Benthic chest to 385 ilvl will cost 20 recycle points, while buying a similar item from another player will cost 105.
Valorstones
Upgrades are items that can be used to upgrade tools, armor, weapon and accessory upgrades. They can be bought by players through NPCs that sell upgrades to 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 using a The button will display the item's next level of upgrade item, when there are enough materials.
Upgrade costs vary depending on the slot for the item and the current level of the item. For example weapons cost more than bracers, or gloves. Each upgrade items cost 15 Flightstones and a few crests, with some upgrades having a discount to reduce the cost of Flightstones or crests used. Once an item is upgraded to a certain level it is able to be degraded and returned to the upgrader for a lesser amount of both currency types.
Item upgraders can be found in many places on the main island as well as some outposts. The NPCs provide both an upgrade coupon as well as the possibility of obtaining a new recipe. The discount for upgrades increases depending on the amount of items that are being upgraded. It can also be boosted by having players complete some specific achievements or complete quests.
In contrast to Cromwell in Baldur's Gate II, there is no upgrader for items available at the beginning of Icewind Dale. The NPCs who are able to facilitate upgrades are only available through a variety means. This is both a benefit as well as a drawback.
In Season 3, many new features were added to the upgrade system. Once a player obtains an upgrade to a certain level of an item for a specific armor slot, upgrading other items to the same level will be less expensive, even if they belong to an entirely different set of gear.
The discount is available to all accounts. The amount of Harbinger Crests required to upgrade is reduced too, but it is only available once certain milestones have been reached.
Crests
Players have a number of choices when it comes to upgrading their gear in WoW. Flightstones are an option that is accessible to everyone for upgrading. Crests are more specialized and are utilized during specific item level upgrades. Crests are an essential part of the Dragonflight gear progression system that was introduced in 10.1, and come in four ranks.
The first thing to remember is that the crests can only be purchased for equipment that is with a certain rank. Each rank has distinct upgrade paths. The simplest and most straightforward upgrade route costs 15 crests while the most complicated may require as many as 20 crests based on the kind of gear that is being upgraded.
Players can earn crests through working through content that is of the appropriate level, whether that means walking around and doing outdoor activities for gear of lower tiers, raids or dungeons of all difficulties for higher-tier items or Mythic+ dungeons or heroic raid bosses for 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. For instance, when a piece of equipment reaches the highest upgrade level of any rank (Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, or Mythic) it will no longer require Flightstones to be upgraded. This allows players to upgrade their equipment to the highest level possible on all their characters instead of relying on seasonal loot.
Another significant change is that crests only have one use therefore it's essential to use them wisely. It is best to use your Whelpling-rank Crests on the highest-quality gear that you can find, and keep Drake and Wyrm Crests for the next round of upgrades. This is particularly applicable to items like trinkets and rings that fill several slots. The discount for the entire account will only apply when all the slots on the character are filled with top-quality equipment.