World of Warcraft Gear Upgrading Guide (2024)

Last updated on Apr 18, 2024 at 13:12by Stan4 comments

Welcome to our comprehensive guide to the gear upgrading system introducedin Dragonflight. Here, we list the different types of gear you can get,explain how to upgrade it,and show you the upgrade requirements.

Every piece of gear in the come with a tooltip informing youyou about the item's track and upgrade possibilities.

To upgrade gear, you must gather Flightstones andcrests. You can preview the upgrade costs and how an item improves in powerat any Item Upgrades NPC in the game. There is one in Valdrakken,The Forbidden Reach, Zaralek Cavern, and Emerald Dream.

When you obtain gear in Dragonflight Season 4, it will have one of the followingtracks — Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Heroic, and Myth. Each trackhas different upgrade levels, upgrade requirements, and item-level ranges/brackets.

You can pay the following NPCs a visit when upgrading gear in the game:

• Cuzolth is found in Zaralek Cavern at 56 56.
• Corxian can be found in Valdrakken's Gladiator's Refuge at 44 37.
• Researcher Baneflare can be found in The Forbidden Reach at35 59.
• Cuzolth is found in Amirdrassil (Emerald Dream) at 49.83 62.82.

• Flightstones — A currency that drops from all types ofSeason 3 content.
• Awakened Crests, crafting reagents from Mythic Dungeons, Raids, and selectEmerald Dream and Dragon Isles weekly activities.

Flightstones are a used to upgrade gear in Dragonflight.

You can hold a maximum of 2,000 Flightstones.

You will receive Flightstones from all types of Season 4 Awakened content.Completing World Quests, clearing Mythic+ Dungeons, completing zone events, weeklyactivities, and campaign quests will all give you Flightstones.

Awakened Crests are crafting reagents used to upgrade gear and to craftoptional reagents for crafted gear. You will need different crests to upgradedifferent types of gear.

Crests are obtained from Season 4 Awakeened content, including Fated Raidsbosses, Mythic+ Dungeons, and outdoor content.

You can obtain 90 crests per type every week, meaning six upgrades per tier per weekat most.

• Whelpling's Awakened Crest — Used to upgrade higher-item levelAdventurer (ranks 5-8) and lower-level Veteran gear. You can earn whelpling crestsfrom outdoor activities.
• Drake's Awakened Crest — Used to upgrade higher-levelVeteran (ranks 6-8) and lower-level Champion gear. You can earn 10 fromDragonflight Mythic 0 Dungeons, as there is no timer to beat. Fated Raids bosseson Normal Difficulty, and select weekly activities in Emerald Dream alsoreward these crests.
• Wyrm's Awakened Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Championand lower-level Heroic gear, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. It isearned from Mythic 2-5 Dungeons and Heroic Difficulty Fated Raidsbosses.
• Aspect's Awakened Crest — Used to upgrade Heroicgear to Item Level 519, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from selectHeroic Fated Raids bosses or Mythic +6 and up.

In Season 4, you can exchange low-level crests for higher-level crests. To useSeason 3 numbers, players had no more use of Whelpling's Dreaming Crests afterreaching Item Level 450 in every gear slot (using the same rules as the catch-up discountuses), Drake's Dreaming Crests at Item Level 463, and Wyrm's Dreaming Crestsat Item Level 476. Trade-ups will be available at those thresholds.

Trade-ups will cost a 6-to-1 ratio. Once trade-up is available, players can spend 90 creststo get 15 crests of the higher level. This will count toward both the cap on the lower level crestbeing spent (since you have to earn them) and the higher level Crest being purchased, so playershave no incentive to do lower-level content for crests, though if they are not capped, thenthey will still be able to get some benefit.

Vaskarn in Amirdrassil, located at 49.79 62.88, lets youexchange Awakened Crests, but you must first complete the quest Awaekend of Creststo be able to downgrade your Awaekend Crests.

• You can buy a Pouch of Whelpling's Awakened Crests for 15 Drake's Awakened Crests.
• You can purchase a Satchel of Drake's Awakened Crests for 15 Wyrm's Awakened Crests.
• You can buy Clutch of Wyrm's Awakened Crests for 15 Aspect's Awakened Crests.

As mentioned above, we have six gear tracks in Season 4.All gear tracks have 8 upgrade levels except Heroic, with 6 upgrade levels andMyth gear with 4 upgrade ranks.

The current gear track and upgrade ranks will depend on the difficultyof content you complete.

Killing raid bosses can grant you partially upgraded gear.

Explorer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 454-476). It drops frequentlyfrom Emerald Dream mobs and is a common quest reward. Gear qualitychanges to Rare (blue) at Rank 3. You will only need Flightstonesto upgrade Explorer gear to max rank.

Adventurer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 467-489). It dropsfrom Awakened outdoor activities. Gear quality changes to Epic(Purple) at Rank 3. You will need Flightstones and Whelpling's Awakened Crestsfor Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Veteran gear in Season 3 has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 480-502). It dropsAwakened outdoor actibities, and end-of-campaign quests. You will need Flightstones and Drake's Awakened Crests for Rank 6-8 upgrades.

Champion gear also has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 493-515). It drops inFated Raids bosses, you can find it in the Great Vault, or weeklybonus event quests. You will need Flightstones, Whelpling's Awakened Crests,and Wyrm's Awakened Crests for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Heroic gear has 6 upgrade ranks (Item Level 506-522). You will need Flightstones, Wyrm's Awakened Crests, and Aspect's Awakened Crestsfor upgrades.

Mythic gear follows the Myth upgrade track with 4 ranks ranks (Item Level 519-528)and drops mostly from Awakened Raids bosses on the highest difficulty.

• Myth Rank 1/4 — Item Level 480;
• Myth Rank 2/4 — Item Level 483;
• Myth Rank 3/4 — Item Level 486.
• Myth Rank 4/4 — Item Level 489.

You can still upgrade all Season 3 gear obtained before Season 4 usingthe old Dreaming Crests and Flightstones.

However, old crests have been turned into gray items and can no longer be earned.

Once you obtain an item with a higher item level in a specific armor slot,the amount of Flightstones needed to upgrade additional items in that slotis drastically reduced. The discount is account-wide.

The same applies to Awakened Crests, but that discount is character-specificand you do not need to spend any crests on upgrading an item.

To learn more about upgrading gear from Mythic Dungeons, check out ourdetailed Season 4 guide!