World of Warcraft Item Upgrades
The upgrade of an item can be used to increase the stats of an item. Depending on the upgrade type it can raise an item's Mark level or Rarity, and also boost other stats.
Each item has a track to upgrade it. Each upgrade increases the cost of the next one by a specific amount.
Item Level
When an item gets upgraded, its basic stats improve in value. The value is the sum of all of an item's upgraded perks (attack magic attack and defense). Upgrades can be costly, depending on the person you hire and what you do. This is due to how many perks have to be replaced in order for the item to be upgraded.
It can also be used as a gating requirement while queueing for raids, dungeons and scenarios. It is also used to determine a gating condition when waiting to queue for dungeons and scenarios, and raids, as well as to limit the amount of PvP gear that a player can wear (since PvP is restricted to the lower levels). The average level of an item can be found on the character sheet.
The level of an item can help players evaluate the potency of gear when choosing to buy or sell. It's a sign of the item's damage and its quality. The level of an item can be used to compare items when evaluating the inventory of a vendor.
On PC, you are able to check the level of the item by pressing ALT or using the left stick on XB1 or PS4. This will show the full item description, including its ilvl. You can also find it by hovering over an item and typing in /itemlevel chat.
There are several theories about how the item level calculation is made. One theory is that the level is a number derived from a formula that calculates the value of an item's stats are worth. It takes into consideration that different benefits are valued differently and that gems in the sockets increase the value of the item. This can result in a calculated value for the item's level, which is usually quite close to Blizzard's actual item level.
It's not the only factor that affects the value of an item. The level of the area where the item was dropped can alter its stats. For example, it could add a level to the item's haste or crit rating. Items that drop in higher-level situations will have a higher value.
Item Stats
Item stats can determine the fate of an item for players. The game makes use of a lot of them in a variety of ways to encourage players to use multiple weapons, and prevent one weapon from being "the most effective." The base stats of a weapon are increased by the weapon's stat modification which are then increased by the player's skill.
Upgrades to the item add by increasing certain stats on the item. The rarity of an item determines the cost of upgrading. For example, a grey or white item will only be upgraded once, while an item with the rare levels will be upgraded multiple times at higher prices.
Affixes can also be used to alter the stats of an item. They are stat boosts that can be added by the player to an item. Affixes are used to provide items with extra damage or special abilities (such as revitalizing dead or reducing cooling downs) or to differentiate them by adding a name.
All affixes are re-rolled at the moment by selecting them in the upgrade window, and pressing the green button. This will cost a specific amount of gold and other items. These can be used as upgrade gauges just like the other rerolling methods.
Players can upgrade an item with specific stats, or reroll affixes. The possible stat ranges of an item are determined by the item level, but every item is guaranteed to have at least one stat within the range, unless it is an item that is unique or the result of a God roll from a boss in a raid.
Another thing that could change is the possibility to upgrade equipment without having to roll the affixes, or choose which stats to increase. But, like base equipment, this would have 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 of a player stacks up to increase the chances of item discoveries, the properties spawned on loot drops and the intensity of those properties. However, it doesn't directly affect damage or the ability to upgrade items. It merely gives players a chance to upgrade their equipment in earlier waves, and is therefore more valuable in early game runs than later ones because most players value more powerful weapon scaling and defenses over raw damage gains.
Luck can also increase the chance of upgrading items at the Blacksmith. This is not to be confused with the Blacksmith’s overall upgrade chances that increase with each level of the item. These can also be enhanced by using anti-materials, such as a Scroll of Strength and a Jewel of Blessing.
Armor, shields and weapons come with a default Luck value of 40. These items can be enhanced with golden ingots, or spined leather (depending on the material they are made of) to increase the value of 40 luck or to boost an item's existing Luck up to 140.
Certain items, such as the Hollow-infused weapon, can also be equipped to increase the damage of any ability that deals damage by 5percent. These items are available at the store, or they can be constructed using the right ingredients.
Item Failure
Not all upgrades are successful. However, there are some cash shop items which allow players to increase their chances of success or even prevent them from losing an item if the upgrade is unsuccessful.
When you upgrade an item the success rate is shown in the Honing UI. The percentage is the probability of successful upgrading an item. This can be increased by using Additional Materials or Special materials. There are limitations to how much the success rates can be improved and the probability of a failed upgrade cannot exceed 100%.
The performance of an upgrade is also affected by the luck of the item. Each item has an average success rate of 25 percent and every item with Luck increases this chance by 5percent.
The item upgrade overlays are displayed above items in the inventory. This may cause obscurity to enchantment effects or 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.