WoW Upgrades - The Item Upgrader
Upgrades will give you a boost to specific stats. Each upgrade boosts the item level by +3. A random substat is also boosted alongside every upgrade.
Upgraded gear generally sees more value in trade, unless it has inherently low requirements (like the FB shield of the sorc) or very high stat variance (like Eth titan weapons). The latter are less valuable from upgrading due to the necessity to roll for a perfect model.
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. The item used to upgrade the item will be consumed and cannot be used again. Upgrades can 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 keep your gear up-to-date it is recommended that you visit the upgrader every few weeks.
Upgrades will cost more, based on the item level, however they'll always be cheaper than buying new gear. Upgrades like upgrading a Benthic chest up to ilvl385 will cost you 20 recycle points. A similar item will cost you 105.
Valorstones
Upgrades are useful items that are used to upgrade weapons and tools, armor and other accessories. They can be bought by players through item upgrader NPCs in exchange for a variety of currencies, and can be found in random treasure lists. Once an upgrade has been purchased it can be applied to any weapon or tool using a button, which will display a preview of the item when it is upgraded if the player has sufficient materials.
Upgrade costs vary depending on the slot of the item and the current item level. For instance, weapons will cost more than gloves, bracers or bracers. Each upgrade cost 15 Flightstones plus a certain number of crests. Certain upgrades provide discounts on Flightstones. After an item has been upgraded to a certain level, it can be downgraded and sold to the upgrader for a lower price.
Item upgraders can be found at many locations including the main island and some outposts. The NPCs offer both an upgrade discount and the chance to obtain a new upgrade recipe. The discount for upgrades increases according to the number of items that are being upgraded. It can also be boosted by requiring players to complete specific achievements or complete quests.
Contrary to Cromwell in Baldur's Gate II, there is no item upgrader available at the beginning of Icewind Dale. Instead, the NPCs that are available to facilitate upgrades must be acquired through several methods that are both an improvement but also a drawback.
In Season 3, many new features were added to the upgrade system. After a player has earned an upgrade to a certain level for an item in an armor slot, upgrading additional items to the same level will be less expensive, even when they belong to an entirely different set of gear.
The discount is applicable to all accounts. In the same way, the amount of Harbinger Crests required for upgrades is also reduced and is not available until players have reached certain milestones in their achievements.
Crests
Players have a variety of choices when it comes to upgrading their equipment in WoW. They can make use of Flightstones which are a general upgrade currency that is available to everyone, or crests, which are more specialized and consumed during upgrades at specific item levels. Crests are a key element of the Dragonflight gear progression system introduced in 10.1, and come in four ranks.
The first thing to be aware of is that crests can only be spent on equipment of a particular rank, and each rank has different requirements for its upgrade path. The simplest and easiest upgrade is 15 crests. The most complicated upgrade requires up to 20 crests, based on the type or gear that is being upgraded.
Players can earn crests through completing content of the appropriate level, whether that involves walking around and engaging in outdoor activities for gear of lower tiers, raids or dungeons of all difficulty for items of higher tier, or Mythic+ heroic raid bosses or dungeons for gear that is used in the endgame. These crests are then exchanged with an upgrader, such as Cuzolth or Vaskarn, in Valdrakken to upgrade the item in the proper steps and routes.
The new currency system isn't too difficult to use, however it does bring some modifications to the upgrade process. For example, once an item is at the highest upgrade level of any rank (Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, or Mythic), it won't require Flightstones to be upgraded. This allows players to upgrade their equipment to the highest possible level for all their characters, instead of relying on seasonal loot.
It's also important to use crests with care, since they are only used for one purpose. For instance it's a good idea to make use of all your Whelpling-rank crests on the best gear you have available and keep Drake and Wyrm crests for the next round of upgrades you plan on making. This is particularly applicable to rings and trinkets that take up multiple slots on the character which will only be able to avail the account-wide discount if all slots are filled with top-quality equipment.