World of Warcraft Gear Upgrading Guide (2024)

Last updated on Nov 21, 2023 at 12:57by 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.

The gear upgrading system introduced in Patch 10.1 saw the following improvementsin Patch 10.2.

• The Heroic gear track has 6 upgrade ranks.
• The Mythic gear track has 4 upgrade tracks.
• Crest fragments are a currency and no longer occupy valuable inventory space. Fragmentswill turn into gray items at the beginning of Season 3.s
• Upgrades in Season 3 require 15 crests each.
• In Season 3, players can earn 90 crests per week of each type. This means you canpurchase 6 upgrades per tier per week (down from 10 in Season 2).
• Players who have run out of upgrades to purchase with a given crest can exchange theircrests upwards.
• In Season 3, players who would earn crests from an activity but cannot because of the capwill instead be awarded the next highest crest they could earn (if any). For example, if aplayer is 10 crests away from their Wyrm's crest cap and completes a +12 Mythic Keystonedungeon within the timer, they will earn the 10 Wyrm's crests to reach the cap, then get2 Drake's crests instead of earning nothing as they would have gotten in Season 2.
• PvP gear is no longer upgraded with Honor and uses Flightstones and crests for upgrades. PvP gearupgrades only affect the item level in PvE.

When you obtain gear in Dragonflight Season 3, it will have one of the followingtracks — Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Heroic, and Mythic. Each trackhas different upgrade levels, upgrade requirements, and item-level ranges.

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.
• Dreaming 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 3 content.Completing World Quests, clearing Mythic+ Dungeons, completing zone events, weeklyactivities, and campaign quests will all give you Flightstones.

Dreaming 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 3 content, including Amirdrassil bosses,Mythic+ Dungeons, and outdoor content.

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

• Whelpling's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade higher-item levelAdventurer (ranks 5-8) and lower-level Veteran gear. You can earn it fromDragonflight Mythic Dungeons below Level 6, Amirdrassil raid bosses onRaid Finder Difficulty, World Quests, Treasures, and activities inEmerald Dream.
• Drake's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade higher-levelVeteran (ranks 6-8) and lower-level Champion gear. You can earn it fromDragonflight Mythic+ Dungeons between Level 6-10, Amirdrassil raid bosseson Normal Difficulty, and select weekly activities in Emerald Dream.
• Wyrm's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Championand lower-level Heroic gear, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. It isearned from Mythic+ Dungeons between Level 11-15 and Heroic Difficulty Amirdrassilbosses.
• Aspect's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade Heroicgear to Item Level 480, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from selectHeroic Amirdrassil bosses or Mythic Dungeons from Level 16+.

In Season 3, you can exchange low-level crests for higher-level crests. To useSeason 2 numbers, players had no more use of Whelpling's Shadowflame Crests afterreaching Item Level 411 in every gear slot (using the same rules as the catch-up discountuses), Drake's Shadowflame Crests at Item Level 424, and Wyrm's Shadowflame Crestsat Item Level 437. 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 Dreaming Crests, but you must first complete the quest Dreaming of Creststo be able to downgrade your Dreaming Crests.

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

As mentioned above, we have six gear tracks in Season 3.All gear tracks have 8 upgrade levels except Heroic, with 6 upgrade levels andMythic gear with 4 upgrade ranks.

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

For example, defeating Fyrakk on Heroic Difficulty would give youone piece of Heroic Item Level 476 gear with 4/6 upgrade ranks.

Explorer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 415-437). 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 428-450). it rarely dropsfrom outdoor Emerald Dream activities. Gear quality changes to Epic(Purple) at Rank 3. You will need Flightstones and Whelpling's Dreaming Crestsfor Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Veteran gear in Season 3 has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 441-463). It dropsfrom Superblooms, select Emerald Dream activities, andPatch 10.2 end-of-campaign quests. You will need Flightstones and Drake's Dreaming Crests for Rank 6-8 upgrades.

Champion gear also has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 454-476). It drops inAmirdrassil, you can find it in the Great Vault, or weeklybonus event quests. You will need Flightstones, Whelpling's Dreaming Crests,and Wyrm's Dreaming Crests for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Heroic gear has 6 upgrade ranks (Item Level 467-483). You will need Flightstones, Wyrm's Dreaming Crests, and Aspect's Dreaming Crestsfor upgrades.

Mythic gear follows the Myth upgrade track with 4 ranks ranks (Item Level 480-489).

• 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 2 gear obtained before Patch 10.2 usingthe old Shadowflame 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 Dreaming 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 3 guide!