What Freud Can Teach Us About Item Upgrade
WoW Upgrades - The Item Upgrader
Upgrades give you boosts in certain stats. Each upgrade boosts the level of an Best item upgrade by +3. A random additional substat is also added to every upgrade.
Upgraded gear is generally more valuable, unless the item has low requirements 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 need to roll to get a perfect version.
Recycle Points
The item upgrader allows players to upgrade their gear by offering the currency to an NPC. Upgrades can be applied to any kind of weapon or armor. However, the item upgrading that is used to upgrade will remain in use for a long time and cannot be used again. Upgrades can also be used to create enchantments.
The upgrader is located in all major cities and can be visited at any time to upgrade your gear. To ensure that your equipment is up-to-date, it is recommended that you visit the upgrader every couple of weeks.
The cost of upgrading will depend on the current level of the equipment being upgraded, but will always be less expensive than purchasing new gear from other sources. For example upgrading a chest piece from Benthic to ilvl 385 will cost 20 recycle points, while buying a similar item level upgrade from another player will cost 105.
Valorstones
Upgrades are items that can be used to purchase weapons, armor, tools and accessory upgrades. They can be purchased by players from NPCs that sell upgrades to items in exchange for a variety of currencies, and can also be found in random treasure lists. Once an upgrade has been purchased it can be applied to any weapon, tool, or armor using an button, which displays an Item level Upgrade's preview at its next upgrade items level in the event that the player has enough materials.
Upgrade costs differ based on the slot of the item and the current level of the item. For example weapons are more expensive than gloves, bracers or bracers. Each upgrade cost 15 Flightstones plus a set number of crests. Some upgrades offer discounts on Flightstones. Once an item has been upgraded to a certain amount and is degraded, it can be sold and returned to the upgrader for a lesser amount of the two currency types.
Item upgraders can be found in many places, including the main island, as well as a few outposts. The NPCs provide both an upgrade coupon and the chance to obtain an entirely new recipe. The discount for upgrades increases with the number of items that are being upgraded. It can also be boosted by having players complete some specific achievements or quests.
Contrary to Cromwell in Baldur's Gate II is no upgrader for items available at the beginning of Icewind Dale. The NPCs who can facilitate upgrades are only available via a variety of ways. This is both a positive and an issue.
In Season 3, several new features were added to the upgrade system. After a player has earned an upgrade to a specific level of an item for a specific armor slot, upgrading further items to the same level will cost less even in the event that they belong to an entirely different set of gear.
The discount is applicable to all accounts. The amount of Harbinger Crests needed for upgrades is reduced too, but it is only available once certain milestones are achieved.
Crests
When upgrading gear in WoW, players have a couple of choices. Flightstones are an option that is accessible to everyone who wants to upgrade. Crests are more specialized, and are used during specific item level upgrades. Crests are a crucial element of the Dragonflight Gear Progression System that was introduced in version 10.1. They come in four ranks.
The first thing to be aware of is that crests can only be used to purchase gear of a specific rank, and that each rank has different requirements for upgrading. The simplest and most straightforward upgrade process costs just 15 crests while the most complicated requires as many as 20 crests depending on the type of equipment that is being upgraded.
Players can earn crests by completing content at the appropriate level. This could be by doing outdoor activities or taking on dungeons and raids of all difficulty levels to obtain equipment of lower tier or Mythicbosses of raids or dungeons with a heroic difficulty for gear in the endgame. Crests can be exchanged at an upgrader NPC, such as Cuzolth in Dornogal, or Vaskarn in Valdrakken to get the appropriate upgrade routes and steps.
The new currency system isn't complicated to use, but it brings some changes to the upgrade process. When a piece reaches the highest level of upgrade for any rank (Explorer or Adventurer) it no longer requires Flightstones. This allows players to upgrade their equipment to the highest level possible on all of their characters instead of relying on seasonal loot.
It's also important to use crests wisely, as they have only one purpose. For instance, it's a good idea to use all of your Whelpling-rank crests on the top gear you have available, and then keep Drake and Wyrm crests to use for the next set of upgrades you plan to create. This is particularly true for items like rings and trinkets that take up multiple slots on the character, that will be able to benefit from the account-wide discount if all of the slots are filled with top-quality gear.