World of Warcraft Item Upgrades
Upgrades to items can be used to boost the stats of an item. Depending on the upgrade type it can boost an item's Mark Level or Rarity and boost additional stats.
Each item has a track to upgrade it. Each upgrade increases the cost of the following one by a set amount.
Item Level
The value of an item's basic stats increases as it is upgraded. The value is the sum of all of the perks that are leveled up (attack magic attack and defense). Upgrades can be expensive, dependent on who you employ and what you decide to do. This is due to the number of perks that have to be altered to upgrade an item.
It can also be used as a gating requirement when queueing for raids, dungeons and scenarios. It can also be used to limit how much PvP gear players are able to wear as PvP is restricted at a lower level. Players can see their average level of item on their character sheet.
Utilizing the level of an item can help players evaluate the strength of equipment when they decide to buy or sell. It's a good indicator of an item's quality and the amount of damage it's able to deal. The level of an item can be used to evaluate items when evaluating the inventory of a vendor.
On your PC, you can view the item level using ALT, or by using the left stick on XB1 or PS4. This will display the item's full description, including the ilvl. It can also be found by hovering an item with the mouse cursor and typing /itemlevel into chat.
There are many theories about how the item level is calculated. One theory is that the level is a number derived from a formula which calculates the value of an item's stats are worth. It is based on the fact that different advantages are valued differently and that gems found in sockets boost the value of the item. This process can result in a calculated value for the item's level, which is usually close to the actual Blizzard level of the item.
This is not the only factor that affects the value of an item. The location of where the item was dropped may change its stats. For instance it can increase the item's haste or crit score. Items that drop in higher-level instances will have higher ilvl.
Item Stats
Stats on an item are a significant part of what makes or breaks an item for players. The game makes use of them in a variety of ways to encourage players to not restrict themselves to a particular weapon and to motivate players to explore other weapons. The stat mods of a weapon boost the base stats. These stat mods are then boosted by the player's level.
The upgrades to items add by increasing certain stats on the item. The cost of upgrades is determined by the rarity of the item. For instance, a gray or white item can only be upgraded once, while an item with rare levels will be upgraded multiple times, at higher costs.
Affixes are a different method to change an item's stats. These are special stat boosts that can be added to an item by the player, and come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Affixes can provide the item additional damage, or add a unique capability to the item (such as reviving dead or decreasing the cooldowns), or make the item unique by giving an additional name to the item.
At present, all affixes can be rerolled by selecting them from the upgrade window and pressing the green button with the arrows that circle. It will cost a set amount in gold and other items. These can be used as upgrade gauges, similar to other rerolling methods.
Players can upgrade an item with a specific stat or reroll the affixes. The stat ranges are determined by the item's level. However every item will contain at least one stat in the same range, unless it's a unique item or the item is a God Roll from a raid boss.
Another thing that could change is the possibility of upgrading equipment without having to reroll attaches, or select which stats to increase. However, as with the 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 that were gained or lost at the same time.
Item Luck
The Luck stat of a player can increase the likelihood of locating items and the properties that are generated by loot, and the strength of these properties. However, it doesn't directly impact damage or the ability to upgrade items. It gives players the chance to upgrade equipment earlier in the game. This is more useful in the early game, because players tend to put defenses and weapon scaling over raw damage gains.
Luck can also boost the chances of upgrading items at the Blacksmith. This is not to be confused with the Blacksmith’s overall chance of upgrading that increase with each new level of item. It is also possible to be enhanced by using anti-materials like the Scroll of Strength and a Jewel of Blessing.
Armor, shields and weapons have an initial Luck value of 40. These items can be augmented with golden ingots or spined leather (depending on the material they are made of) to add another 40 luck, or to increase the luck of the item to 140.
Additionally there are certain items, like the Hollow weapon, which is infused with Hollow, can be equipped to increase the damage of any damage-dealing skill by 5%. These items can be purchased from the shop, or they can be made using the correct ingredients.
Item Failure
Upgrades to items are expensive and not all upgrades will be successful. Cash shop items can be used to boost the chances of success for an upgrade, or to protect players from losing their items if it does not work.
Suggested Site of an upgrade is displayed in the Honing UI. The percentage indicates the probability of successfully upgrading the item. This can be increased by using Additional Materials or Special materials. There are limitations to the extent to which success rates can be increased and the probability of a failed upgrade cannot exceed 100%..
The luck of an item may influence the effectiveness of an upgrade. Every item has a success rate of 25 percent, and each item that has Luck increases this chance by five percent.
Note that item upgrades are rendered above the inventory items which means that enchantment glints and other effects may be obscured by them. 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.