World of Warcraft Item Upgrades
Upgrades to an item are a way to boost the stats of an item. Depending on the type of upgrade you choose, it may increase the rarity of an item, or its Mark Level, and also boost other stats.
Upgrades to gear in The War Within requires a set number of Flightstones and Crests Each item has an upgrade track. Each upgrade increases the price of the next item by a specific amount.
Item Level
When an item is upgraded, its stats improve in value. This value is the total of all of its leveled up advantages (attack, magic attack and defense). Upgrades can be expensive, dependent on who you employ and what you do. This is due to how many perks have to be replaced in order for the item to get upgraded.
It can also be used to enforce gating requirements when queueing for dungeons, raids and scenarios. It is also used as a gating requirement when waiting for dungeons, raids and scenarios, and to limit the amount of PvP gear players can wear (since PvP is capped at a lower level). Players can view their average level of item on their character sheet.
When deciding whether to buy or sell gear players can look at the item level. It's a sign of the item's damage and its quality. The level of an item can be used to compare items when examining the inventory of a vendor.
On your PC, you can check the level of the item using ALT, or by using the left stick on XB1 or PS4. This will display the item's full description, including the ilvl. It is also accessible by hovering an item with the mouse cursor and entering /itemlevel into chat.
There are many theories about how the item level is calculated. One theory is that the item level is a number derived from a formula that determines the amount an item's stats are worth. It takes into consideration the fact that various perks have different value and that gems in sockets add to the item's overall value. This could result in a calculated item's ilvl that is often very close to Blizzards actual item level.
This is not the only factor that affects the ilvl of an item. The location of where the item was dropped can alter its stats. For instance, it could increase the item's haste, or crit rating. This means that items dropped at higher levels will have more ilvl than those from lower-level instances.
Item Stats
Stats on an item are a significant part of what determines the value 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." The stat modifications of weapons boost base stats. These stat mods are then boosted by a player's level.
Upgrades to the item add by increasing certain stats on the item. The rarity of an item determines its cost of upgrading. A white or grey item, for example, will only be upgraded one time and items with rare tiers can be upgraded multiple times at higher costs.
Affixes are a different method to alter the stats of an item. They are stat boosts that can be added by the player to an item. The affixes can be used to provide items with extra damage or other special capabilities (such as the ability to revive dead or reduce cooling downs) or to differentiate them by naming them.
All affixes are currently re-rolled by selecting them in the upgrade window and pressing the green button. This will cost a certain amount in gold and other items. They can also be used as upgrade gauges, just like the other methods of rerolling.
Players can choose to upgrade an item by a specific stat or reroll the affixes. The possible stat ranges of an item are based on the level of the item, however every item is guaranteed to have at least 1 stat within the specified range, unless it's an exclusive item or a God roll from a raid boss.
item upgrading is another aspect that could be changed by adding an option to upgrade the equipment without rolling the affixes or deciding which stats to increase. But as with base equipment, this would need to be performed on a per-item level, and the interface for comparing items would not display all the possible stats either lost or gained at the same time.
Item Luck
The Luck stat for a player adds up to increase the chances of item discoveries and the properties that are spawned from loot drops and the intensity of the properties. However, it does not directly impact damage or the ability to upgrade items. It gives the player the chance to upgrade equipment earlier in the game. This is more advantageous in the early game, because players tend to put the scaling of weapons and defenses over raw damage gains.
Luck can also increase the chances of upgrading items at the Blacksmith. This isn't to be confused with the Blacksmith's overall chance of upgrading that increase with each new level of item. They can also be increased with the use of anti-materials, such as a Scroll of Strength and a Jewel of Blessing.
Armor, shields and weapons have the default Luck value of 40. These items can then be enhanced by golden ingots, spined leather, or oak boards (depending on the type of material used) to give +40 Luck or to increase the Luck of an item, up to 140.
Furthermore some items, like the Hollow weapon, which is infused with Hollow can be outfitted to increase the damage dealt by any damage-dealing skill by 5%. These items can be purchased from the shop or crafted using the right ingredients.
Item Failure
Upgrades to items can be expensive and not every upgrade will be successful. Cash shop items can be used to increase the chance of success of an upgrade or to prevent players from losing their items if it does not work.
The rate of success of an upgrade is shown in the Honing UI. The percentage is the probability of successfully upgrading an item. This can be increased with Additional Materials or Special Materials. The chance of success can only be increased as much, and the likelihood that an upgrade will fail can't be greater than 100%..
The success of an upgrade is also affected by the Luck of that item. Each item has an overall success rate of 25 percent, and every item with Luck increases the chance of success by five percent.
Note that upgrades to items are rendered above the items in the inventory which means that enchantment glints and other effects can be obscured by the overlays. 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.