World of Warcraft Item Upgrades
Upgrades to items are a method to increase the stats of an item. Based on the type of upgrade you choose, it can increase the rarity of an item, or its Mark Level, and also boost other stats.
Upgrading gear in The War Within requires a specified number of Flightstones and Crests and each item comes with an upgrade track. Each upgrade item increases the cost of the following one by a specific amount.
Item Level
When an item gets upgraded, its base stats increase in value. This value is the total of all the upgraded benefits (attack magic attack, attack defense). Upgrades can be expensive, depending on the person you hire and what you do. This is due to how many perks have to be replaced to allow the item to get upgraded.
It is also used as a gating requirement when queueing for raids, dungeons and scenarios. It also serves to limit the amount of PvP gear players are able to wear since PvP is not available at lower levels. The average level of an item can be found in the character sheet.
Utilizing the level of an item can help players compare the strength of equipment when choosing to buy or sell. It's a useful indicator of the quality of an item and the amount of damage it will be able to deal. Comparing items from the inventory of a seller is possible using the item's level.
On PC, you can see the level of the item by pressing ALT or by using the left stick on XB1 or PS4. This will display the complete description of the item, including its level. You can also locate it by hovering over an item and typing in /itemlevel chat.
There are a few theories on how the calculation of the item's level is made. One theory is that the item level is a number that comes from a formula which calculates how much an item's stats are worth. It takes into consideration that different perks are valued differently, and that gems in sockets increase the item's value. This can result in a calculated value for the item's ilvl which is typically close to the actual Blizzard item level.
However, this is not the only factor which can affect an item's ilvl because the size of the area the item was dropped in could change the value of its stats, such as by adding an amount to its haste rating or crit rating. This means that items that drop at higher levels will have higher the ilvl than items from lower level instances.
Item Stats
Item stats can determine the fate of an item for players. The game uses a lot of them in various ways to encourage players to use multiple weapons, and prevent one weapon from being "the Best item upgrade." The stat mods on a weapon boost the base stats. These stat mods are then enhanced by the player's level.
The upgrades to an item can boost its stats. The cost of upgrades is determined by the rarity of the item. For instance, a gray or white item can only be upgraded once, while an item with the rare tiers can be upgraded many times at higher prices.
Affixes are a different method to alter the stats of an item. They are stat boosts which can be added by the player to an item. The affixes can do things like give the item additional damage, or add a unique capability to the item (such as reviving dead or decreasing the duration of cooldowns) or make the item unique by adding an exclusive name to the item.
All affixes can be being re-rolled right now by selecting them in the upgrade window and pressing the green button. This procedure will cost the player a certain amount of gold as well as items, which can be used to add to the upgrade gauge in the same manner as the other rerolling options.
In addition to rerolling affixes, players can select which of the available stats to be kept on an item after it is upgraded. The possible stat ranges for an item are based on the level of the item, but all items are guaranteed to have at least 1 stat within the range, unless it's an item that is unique or a God roll from a raid boss.
This is another aspect that can be modified by adding an option to upgrade the equipment without rerolling the affixes or choosing which stats to increase. But, like base equipment, this would need to be done on a per-item level, and the interface for Best item upgrade comparison will not show all the stats that could be either lost or gained at the same time.
Item Luck
The Luck stat of a player can increase the likelihood of locating items as well as the properties spawned by loot and the strength of these properties. However, it doesn't directly affect damage or the ability to upgrade items. It gives players a chance to upgrade their equipment earlier in the game and is therefore more beneficial in the early game than later ones as most players prioritize greater weapon scaling and defense over raw damage gains.
In addition to influencing item discovery, Luck also increases the chance of success when upgrading items with the Blacksmith. This is not to be confused with the Blacksmith's overall upgrade probability which increases with each level of the item and can be further increased through the use of an anti-material such as a Scroll of Strength or a Jewel of Blessing.
Armor, shields and weapons can be created or spawned by using the Luck property, which has a default value of 40. These items can be enhanced with golden ingots or spined leather (depending on the material they are made of) for a further +40 luck or to increase the Luck of an item up to 140.
Certain items, such as the weapon that is infused with hollow can also be crafted to increase the damage of any skill that causes damage by 5percent. These items can be purchased at the store or made using the correct ingredients.
Item Failure
Upgrades to items can be expensive and not all upgrades will succeed. Cash shop items can be used to increase the success rate of an upgrade or to prevent players from losing their item in the event that it does not work.
The rate of success of an upgrade can be seen in the Honing UI. The percentage represents the probability of successfully upgrading the item, and it can be increased by adding Additional Materials or Special Materials. There are limits to how much success rates can be increased, and the overall chance of an upgrade failing can't be greater than 100%..
The success of an upgrades is also influenced by the Luck of that item. All items have a base success rate of 25% and each item with Luck increases that chance by 5%.
The upgrade overlays of the item are displayed above items in the inventory. This can cause obscurity to enchantment effects or other effects. If you wish to disable the upgrade overlays, the config option decoration.renderUpgradeOverlays can be set to False in the Item Upgrader CORE client config.