World of Warcraft Item Upgrades
Upgrades to items are a method to boost the stats of an item. Depending on the type of upgrade, it can increase the rarity of an item or mark Level and boost additional stats.
Each item comes with a track for upgrading it. Each upgrade increases the cost of the following one by a specific amount.
Item Level
When an item gets upgraded, its base stats improve in value. The value is the sum of all the leveled up benefits (attack, magic attack and defense). Upgrades can be expensive depending on the person you hire and what you do. This is because of how many perks have to be replaced to allow the item to be upgraded.
It is also used as a gating requirement when queueing for dungeons, raids and scenarios. It is also used to determine a gating condition when waiting for dungeons, scenarios and raids, and to limit the amount of PvP gear a player can wear (since PvP is limited to the lower levels). The average item level can be found on the character sheet.
Using the item level will allow players to compare 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 is able to deal. Comparing items in the inventory of a seller can be done using the level of the item.
The level of the item can be seen by pressing the ALT key on a PC or using the left stick (L3) on XB1 and PS4. This will show the full description of the item, including its value. It can also be found by hovering over an item using the mouse cursor and typing /itemlevel in chat.
There are several theories on how the item level calculation is carried out. One theory states that the level of an item is calculated using formulas that determine the value of an item's stats really are. It takes into account the fact that different perks have different values, and also that gems in sockets increase the value of the item overall. This process can result in a calculated value for the item's level, which is usually quite close to Blizzard's real level of the item.
However, this isn't the only factor that can affect an item's ilvl as the level of the area the item was dropped in could alter the value of its stats, such as by adding an additional level to its crit rating or haste rating. This means that items that drop at higher levels will have more ilvl than those from lower-level instances.
Item Stats
Item stats are a big part of what determines the value of an item for players. The game utilizes 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 base stats on a weapon are increased by the weapon's stat mods that are in turn boosted by the player's level.
Upgrades to the item add by increasing certain stats on the item. The cost of upgrades is determined by the rarity of the item. For instance, a grey or white item can only be upgraded once, while an item with the rare tiers will be upgraded several times with higher prices.
Another method to alter the stats of an item is through affixes. These are special stat boosts that can be added to an item by the player, and come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The affixes can provide the item extra damage, or give a specific capability to the item (such as reviving dead or decreasing the duration of cooldowns) or make the item unique by putting an exclusive name to the item.
Presently, all affixes are able to be modified by selecting them in the upgrade window and pressing the green button using circling arrows. This will cost a specific amount of gold and other items. They can also be used as upgrade gauges, as with other rerolling methods.
In addition to Rerolling affixes and rerolls, players can also choose which of the available stats to keep on an item when it is upgraded. 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 an item that is unique, or the item is a God Roll from a raid boss.
Another thing that could be changed is the possibility to upgrade equipment without having to reroll affixes, or choose which stats to increase. As with the base equipment, this would have to be done per item, and the interface for item comparison wouldn't display all possible stats at once.
Item Luck
The Luck stat of a player stacks up to increase the odds of item discoveries as well as the properties that appear on loot drops and the intensity of the properties. However, it does not directly affect damage or ability to upgrade items. It provides players with an opportunity to get better equipment earlier in the game. This is more beneficial for early game runs, because players tend to put the scaling of weapons and defenses over raw damage gains.
In addition to influencing the discovery of items, Luck also increases the chance of success when upgrading items using the Blacksmith. This should not be confused with the Blacksmith's overall chance of upgrading, which increases with each level of the item and can be further enhanced through the use of an anti-material such as a Scroll of Strength or a Jewel of Blessing.
Armor, shields, and weapons have a default Luck value of 40. These items can then be enhanced with golden ingots, spined leather or oak boards (depending on the material of the item) to give +40 Luck or to boost the existing Luck of an item, up to 140.
Moreover, certain items, such as the Hollow infused weapon, can be equipped to increase the damage dealt by any damage-dealing skill by 5%. These items can be found in the shops or made with the right ingredients.
Item Failure
Upgrades to items can be expensive and not all upgrades will succeed. Cash shop items can be used to boost the chance of success of an upgrade, or to protect players from losing their items if it is not successful.
The success rate of an upgrade is shown in the Honing UI. The percentage is the chances of completing the upgrade successfully, and can be increased by adding Additional Materials or Special Materials. The probability of success can only be increased by so much, and the likelihood that an upgrade will fail cannot exceed 100%.
The performance of an can be affected by the luck of the item. Every item has a base success rate of 25%, and each item with Luck increases that chance by five percent.
item upgrading overlays of the item are displayed above items in the inventory. This can block enchantment effects as well as other effects. 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.