How to Upgrade Gear in The War Within

In the WoW patch 11.1 Blizzard presented a Gear Upgrade System for Season 2 of the War Within Expansion. This system is based on collecting new resources — Valorstones and Crests from all over the world and using them to boost your gear. In our comprehensive guide, we’ll tell you everything about this system, explain how to upgrade gear in Season 2, upgrade requirements, and the types of gear to upgrade.

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How to Unlock Gear Upgrades

In The War Within WoW, there are no requirements to unlock the gear upgrades. Once you get seasonal gear, you can upgrade it with the required seasonal currencies. The only thing you need is getting enough resources and items for an upgrade.

How to Upgrade Gear in Season 2

So, how do you level up your gear in The War Within? You just need to complete end-game activities like Mythic+, Raids, World Bosses, and Delves, collect newly presented Valorstones and Crests, and use them to upgrade your gear. Valorstones work pretty much the same as Flighstones, introduced in Dragonflight. And now, let’s take a closer look at the whole system and its features.

First of all, you should find any Upgrade NPC. Upgradable pieces of gear will have an Upgrade Level tooltip. It shows the level and progression of your items, e.g. Veteran 2/8, which means that you can upgrade this exact item up to level 8. No upgrading after this point is possible aside from getting better gear.

Each upgrade step grants +3-4 item levels. All of this can be previewed at any Upgrade NPC. Pick items you wish to upgrade. The NPC will tell you what resources are required for an upgrade. If you have enough just enough, click the Upgrade button.

Want to start upgrading ASAP? Firstly you need to find appropriate items. We are ready to help you with obtaining the gear to upgrade, and our Heroic Dungeons Bundle is the best option to do so.

WoW Season 1 Upgrade Changes

As mentioned above, with the launch of Season 1, Blizzard added a new currency with an old mechanic — Valorstones. But there are no other crucial changes in The War Within Season 1 compared with the previous expansion. Instead, we have some highlights you should keep in mind:

• The Heroic Gear track has 6 upgrade ranks;
• The Mythic Gear track has 4 upgrade tracks;
• The dragon-themed Awakened Crests and Dreaming Crests are now replaced with Harbinger Crests;
• Crest fragments are considered currency and do not take up valuable inventory space;
• Players have the opportunity to earn 90 Crests per week of each type. In other words, you can purchase 6 upgrades per tier per week;
• Players who no longer have any upgrades to buy with a specific Crest can exchange their Crests for higher-tier ones;
• For PvP gear upgrades we now use Valorstones and Crests instead of Honor. Upgrading PvP gear only impacts the item level in PvE.

Upgrade Requirements

When upgrading an item, you must spend Valorstones and a specific Crest to increase its level. Each step will cost you a rising amount of Crests and several Valorstones. For instance, upgrading Adventurer 1/8 to the next level costs 75 Valorstones, to level 3 — 150 Valorstones, while upgrading to level 8 will cost you 705 Valorstones and 60 Weathered Crests.

The only requirement for an item to be upgraded is to have available upgrade levels. Each item can be upgraded only within its current tier, meaning that you can’t turn Hero 6/6 into Myth 1/4 by investing more upgrading currency.

Upgrade Locations

The game’s baseline Upgrade NPCs are the same as you’ve seen in the previous expansion. They can be found in the capital city or in a major camp.

Season 2 upgrade NPCs:

• Ledonir — Item Upgrades in Dornogal.

Season 1 upgrade NPC’s:

• Cuzolth — Item Upgrades in Dornogal;
• Vaskarn — Harbinger Crest Exchange in Dornogal.

There should not be any trouble finding them, as both of the dragonkin are situated in the same area.

Item Upgrade Tracks

With this new system, every item you receive will belong to a specific track. This gear upgrade track limits the range for a certain item to be upgraded within, meaning you can no longer spam low M+ keystone dungeons for items and upgrade them to max. The tracks are shown below.

Season 2 Upgrade Track

Season 1 Upgrade Track

As can be seen, the higher the ilvl ant type of the gear, the better resources are required.

• Thus, Weathered Harbinger Crests are considered starter crests, as they drop from Mythic+ early dungeons — your basic endgame activity;
• Then, Carved Harbinger Crests are looted from Mid-level M+ and Normal Raids;
• The further — the harder: for Runed Harbinger Crests you need to complete Heroic Raids and higher-level Mythic+;
• Finally, the best Mythic gear can only be upgraded with Gilded Harbinger Crests collected from Mythic Raid Level and the toughest keys.

Obtaining the best items to upgrade at the start of the Season is usually difficult, but you can always ask our team to get you a Liberation of Undermine raid Full Gear Set — BiS gear for many classes.

Discounted Upgrades

If you are going to upgrade a new gear piece, but you already have other better-upgraded pieces for the same gear slots that somehow don’t suit you, you will get a discount on the resources. For instance, if you already have an Explorer 580 item level helm, a further 560 → 580 item level helms upgrade will be cheaper.

Valorstones Discounts

Whenever you get a gear of a certain item level, from drop or upgrade, future upgrades will have a 60% Valorstones discount. This is the account-wide feature. Rings, Trinkets, and one-handed weapons need two pieces to get the discount.

Crest Discounts

For a given slot, once you obtain gear of a certain item level from drop or upgrade, future upgrades won’t cost any Crests to be upgraded. This discount is not account-wide. Rings, trinkets, and one-handed weapons require two of a certain item level to unlock the discount.

• Weathered of the Undermine: Reach item level 636 in every armor slot;
• Weathered of the Undermine: Reach item level 649 in every armor slot;
• Runed of the Undermine: Reach item level 662 in every armor slot;
• Gilded of the Undermine: Reach item level 675 in every armor slot.

How to Obtain Valorstones

You can get Valorstones from a huge amount of activities. Events in open zones, completing Mythic+ Dungeons, Raid Bosses, and any current Seasonal Activities will reward you with Valorstones. The amount of Flightstones depends on activity difficulty, the harder the content the more Valorstones you get.

📌 Note: There is no Valorstones weekly cap, but you can hold only 2000 Valorstones at the same time.

Using Valorstones for Profession Item Upgrades

Enchanters can use Valorstones to create powerful optional crafting reagents that allow for better crafting and higher ilvl of the crafted gear. Players must obtain Empowered currency first, sold by specific vendors or any other enchanting trainer.

How to Obtain Undermine Crests

In Season 2 you need to get Undermine Crests to upgrade seasonal gear. Here’s how to get and how to spend Undermine Crests in WoW The War Within:

• Weathered Undermine Crest — Upgrade Adventurer and Veteran gear in The War Within Season 2 up to item levels 623-632.
  How to get: Repeatable Events,  Raid Finder Liberation of Undermine, Heroic Season Dungeons, Delves (Tiers 1 to 5);
• Carved Undermine Crest — Upgrade Veteran and Champion gear in The War Within Season 2 up to item levels 636-645.
  How to get: Weekly Events, Normal Liberation of Undermine, Mythic Season Dungeons, Delves (Tiers 6 and 7), Delver’s Bounty (Tiers 4 and 5);
• Runed Undermine Crest — Upgrade Champion and Hero gear in The War Within Season 2 up to item levels 649-658.
  How to get:  Heroic Liberation of Undermine, Mythic Keystone Dungeons from +2 to +6, Delves (Tiers 8 to 11), Delver’s Bounty (Tiers 6 and 7);
• Gilded Undermine Crest — Upgrade Hero and Myth gear in The War Within Season 2 up to item levels 662 and above.
  How to get: Mythic Liberation of Undermine, Mythic Keystone Dungeons from +7 and up, Delve’s Gilded Stash (Tier 11), Delver’s Bounty (Tier 8 and up).

So, while you used to run +6 keystones for quick Aspect Crests, now you’ll need to tackle +9s or even higher-level Mythic+ dungeons for those top-tier Gilded crests. If you’re not sure you can handle difficult content and crest acquisition, you can always use our Harbinger Crest obtaining service.

Since Patch 11.0.7 Currency Rewards scale accordingly to the Keystone level. In Patch 11.1 players can receive 18 Gilded Undermine Crest Gilded Undermine Crest per week in total, which makes 20% of the weekly cap of 90. Here’s a detailed table which shows Crest’s Drops depending on the level of your Keystone:

🔍 According to one of the latest Blueposts, “completing a keystone outside of the timer now always deducts 4 Crests”.

Using Crests for Profession Item Upgrades

Enchanters can create Enchanted Harbinger Crests. Crafters can upgrade crafting recipes with these Enchanted Crests.

Downgrading Harbinger Crests

If you are looking for the lower-tier Crests, head to Vaskarn in Dornogal. There you can trade higher-tier Crests for lower ones. But before you will be able to do so, you need to complete a certain quest line — The Harbinger of Crests. Below, you will find the needed information about downgrade pricing:

Upgrading Harbinger Crests

Upgrading system implies that you can buy higher-tier Crests for your lower ones. To do this, you need to complete a certain milestone in gathering basic Crests. Here’s a table stating the amount of the needed Crests to buy an upgraded version.

F.A.Q.

To make it even more convenient for you, we gathered the list of Frequently Asked Questions about WoW Gear Upgrade and gave the answers to each of them.

How To Level Up Gear in WoW The War Within?

Just as in any previous expansion, in The War Within you need to focus on completing high-level activities such as Dungeons and Raids. All of the activities mentioned above often provide better gear as you progress, and you can choose which activity offers better options by looking at the descriptions of the rewards.

Additionally, Weekly Quests are essential as they often offer valuable gear pieces. Participating in World Events grants good gear or unique rewards, which can also contribute to leveling up the gear. Engage in Faction Reputation farming since certain factions offer excellent gear for purchase once you reach a high enough reputation. Crafted Gear from professions is another effective way to obtain high-level items, especially when using Optional Crafting reagents.

How Does Gear Work in The War Within?

In The War Within, gear has an item level — ilvl — that indicates its power. The higher the item level, the better your stats and abilities will be. To obtain gear with higher ilvl you need to participate in higher-level content, such as advanced Mythic+ Dungeons and Raids. The more challenging the activity, the better the gear you will receive.

How to Upgrade Weapons in WoW The War Within?

Upgrading weapons involves several steps. First, obtain weapons from Dungeons, Raids, and World bosses. Once you have a weapon, you can use specific currencies earned from weekly activities, e.g. Valorstones, and faction reputations to upgrade it further. Continually engaging in these activities and a farming reputation will provide the materials and currencies needed for weapon upgrades.

How to Improve Item Level in WoW The War Within?

Your item level can be improved by participating in endgame activities such as Mythic Dungeons and Raids, which drop some of the best gear in the game, or even your class BiS gear. Completing weekly quests can also grant a chance to obtain a better item, as they often provide high-level gear as a reward. Additionally, Delves, Elites, and World Bosses can drop high-level gear.

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As you can see, the item upgrade system in The War Within is flexible and offers great variability. We hope our guide will help all types of players to enjoy the game even more. Also, we hope that other comprehensive guides on our platform will be useful to you.