World of Warcraft Gear Upgrading Guide
Welcome to our comprehensive guide to the gear upgrading system introduced in Dragonflight. Here, we list the different types of gear you can get, explain how to upgrade it,and show you the upgrade requirements.
- 1. A Brief Overview of the Gear Upgrading System in World of Warcraft
- 2. A Brief Overview of Changes to the Gear Upgrading System in Dragonflight Patch 10.2
- 3. Gear Tracks in Dragonflight Season 3
- 4. Where Can You Upgrade Gear?
- 5. What Items Are Required to Upgrade Gear in Dragonflight Season 3?
- 6. What Are Flightstones?
- 7. What is the Flightstone Cap in Dragonflight Season 3?
- 8. How Do You Earn Flightstones in Dragonflight Season 3?
- 9. Dreaming Crests and Sources
- 10. How to Exchange Dreaming Crests in Dragonflight Season 3
- 11. An Overview of Gear Tracks in Dragonflight Season 3
- 12. Explorer Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
- 13. Adventurer Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
- 14. Veteran Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
- 15. Champion Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
- 16. Heroic Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
- 17. Mythic Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
- 18. Flightstones and Dreaming Crest Discounts in Dragonflight Season 3
- 19. Upgrading Mythic Dungeon Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
A Brief Overview of the Gear Upgrading System in World of Warcraft
Every piece of gear in the come with a tooltip informing you you about the item's track and upgrade possibilities.
To upgrade gear, you must gather Flightstones and
crests. You can preview the upgrade costs and how an item improves in power
at any Item Upgrades NPC in the game. There is one in Valdrakken,
The Forbidden Reach, Zaralek Cavern, and Emerald Dream.
A Brief Overview of Changes to the Gear Upgrading System in Dragonflight Patch 10.2
The gear upgrading system introduced in Patch 10.1 saw the following improvements in Patch 10.2.
- The Heroic gear track has 6 upgrade ranks.
- The Mythic gear track has 4 upgrade tracks.
- Crest fragments are a currency and no longer occupy valuable inventory space. Fragments will turn into gray items at the beginning of Season 3.s
- Upgrades in Season 3 require 15 crests each.
- In Season 3, players can earn 90 crests per week of each type. This means you can purchase 6 upgrades per tier per week (down from 10 in Season 2).
- Players who have run out of upgrades to purchase with a given crest can exchange their crests upwards.
- In Season 3, players who would earn crests from an activity but cannot because of the cap will instead be awarded the next highest crest they could earn (if any). For example, if a player is 10 crests away from their Wyrm's crest cap and completes a +12 Mythic Keystone dungeon within the timer, they will earn the 10 Wyrm's crests to reach the cap, then get 2 Drake's crests instead of earning nothing as they would have gotten in Season 2.
- PvP gear is no longer upgraded with Honor and uses Flightstones and crests for upgrades. PvP gear upgrades only affect the item level in PvE.
Gear Tracks in Dragonflight Season 3
When you obtain gear in Dragonflight Season 3, it will have one of the following tracks — Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Heroic, and Mythic. Each track has different upgrade levels, upgrade requirements, and item-level ranges.
Gear Track | Item Level of Drops | Upgradeable to |
---|---|---|
Explorer | 415-424 | 437 |
Adventurer | 428-437 | 450 |
Veteran | 441-450 | 463 |
Champion | 454-463 | 476 |
Heroic | 467-476 | 483 |
Mythic | 480-483 | 489 |
Where Can You Upgrade Gear?
You can pay the following NPCs a visit when upgrading gear in the game:
- Cuzolth is found in Zaralek Cavern at 56 56.
- Corxian can be found in Valdrakken's Gladiator's Refuge at 44 37.
- Researcher Baneflare can be found in The Forbidden Reach at 35 59.
- Cuzolth is found in Amirdrassil (Emerald Dream) at 49.83 62.82.
What Items Are Required to Upgrade Gear in Dragonflight Season 3?
Flightstones — A currency that drops from all types of Season 3 content.
- Dreaming Crests, crafting reagents from Mythic Dungeons, Raids, and select Emerald Dream and Dragon Isles weekly activities.
What Are Flightstones?
Flightstones are a used to upgrade gear in Dragonflight.
What is the Flightstone Cap in Dragonflight Season 3?
You can hold a maximum of 2,000 Flightstones.
How Do You Earn Flightstones in Dragonflight Season 3?
You will receive Flightstones from all types of Season 3 content.
Completing World Quests, clearing Mythic+ Dungeons, completing zone events, weekly
activities, and campaign quests will all give you Flightstones.
Dreaming Crests and Sources
Dreaming Crests are crafting reagents used to upgrade gear and to craft optional reagents for crafted gear. You will need different crests to upgrade different types of gear.
Crests are obtained from Season 3 content, including Amirdrassil bosses, Mythic+ Dungeons, and outdoor content.
You can obtain 90 crests per type every week, meaning six upgrades per tier per week at most.
Whelpling's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade higher-item level Adventurer (ranks 5-8) and lower-level Veteran gear. You can earn it from Dragonflight Mythic Dungeons below Level 6, Amirdrassil raid bosses on Raid Finder Difficulty, World Quests, Treasures, and activities in Emerald Dream.
Drake's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Veteran (ranks 6-8) and lower-level Champion gear. You can earn it from Dragonflight Mythic+ Dungeons between Level 6-10, Amirdrassil raid bosses on Normal Difficulty, and select weekly activities in Emerald Dream.
Wyrm's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Champion and lower-level Heroic gear, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. It is earned from Mythic+ Dungeons between Level 11-15 and Heroic Difficulty Amirdrassil bosses.
Aspect's Dreaming Crest — Used to upgrade Heroic gear to Item Level 480, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from select Heroic Amirdrassil bosses or Mythic Dungeons from Level 16+.
How to Exchange Dreaming Crests in Dragonflight Season 3
In Season 3, you can exchange low-level crests for higher-level crests. To use
Season 2 numbers, players had no more use of Whelpling's Shadowflame Crests after
reaching Item Level 411 in every gear slot (using the same rules as the catch-up discount
uses),
Drake's Shadowflame Crests at Item Level 424, and
Wyrm's Shadowflame Crests
at Item Level 437. Trade-ups will be available at those thresholds.
Trade-ups will cost a 6-to-1 ratio. Once trade-up is available, players can spend 90 crests to get 15 crests of the higher level. This will count toward both the cap on the lower level crest being spent (since you have to earn them) and the higher level Crest being purchased, so players have no incentive to do lower-level content for crests, though if they are not capped, then they will still be able to get some benefit.
Vaskarn in Amirdrassil located at 49.79 62.88, lets you exchange Dreaming Crests, but you must first complete the quest Dreaming of Crests to be able to downgrade your Dreaming Crests.
- You can buy a
Pouch of Whelpling's Dreaming Crests for 15
Drake's Dreaming Crests.
- You can purchase a
Satchel of Drake's Dreaming Crests for 15
Wyrm's Dreaming Crests.
- You can buy
Clutch of Wyrm's Dreaming Crests for 15
Aspect's Dreaming Crests.
An Overview of Gear Tracks in Dragonflight Season 3
As mentioned above, we have six gear tracks in Season 3. All gear tracks have 8 upgrade levels except Heroic, with 6 upgrade levels and Mythic gear with 4 upgrade ranks.
The current gear track and upgrade ranks will depend on the difficulty of content you complete.
For example, defeating Fyrakk on Heroic Difficulty would give you one piece of Heroic Item Level 476 gear with 4/6 upgrade ranks.
Explorer Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
Explorer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 415-437). It drops frequently
from Emerald Dream mobs and is a common quest reward. Gear quality
changes to Rare (blue) at Rank 3. You will only need Flightstones
to upgrade Explorer gear to max rank.

Adventurer Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
Adventurer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 428-450). it rarely drops
from outdoor Emerald Dream activities. Gear quality changes to Epic
(Purple) at Rank 3. You will need Flightstones and
Whelpling's Dreaming Crests
for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Veteran Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
Veteran gear in Season 3 has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 441-463). It drops
from Superblooms, select Emerald Dream activities, and
Patch 10.2 end-of-campaign quests. You will need Flightstones and
Drake's Dreaming Crests for Rank 6-8 upgrades.

Champion Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
Champion gear also has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 454-476). It drops in
Amirdrassil, you can find it in the Great Vault, or weekly
bonus event quests. You will need Flightstones,
Whelpling's Dreaming Crests,
and
Wyrm's Dreaming Crests for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Heroic Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
Heroic gear has 6 upgrade ranks (Item Level 467-483). You will need
Flightstones,
Wyrm's Dreaming Crests, and
Aspect's Dreaming Crests
for upgrades.
Mythic Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
Mythic gear follows the Myth upgrade track with 4 ranks ranks (Item Level 480-489).
- Myth Rank 1/4 — Item Level 480;
- Myth Rank 2/4 — Item Level 483;
- Myth Rank 3/4 — Item Level 486.
- Myth Rank 4/4 — Item Level 489.
You can still upgrade all Season 2 gear obtained before Patch 10.2 using
the old Shadowflame Crests and Flightstones.
However, old crests have been turned into gray items and can no longer be earned.
Flightstones and Dreaming Crest Discounts in Dragonflight Season 3
Once you obtain an item with a higher item level in a specific armor slot,
the amount of Flightstones needed to upgrade additional items in that slot
is drastically reduced. The discount is account-wide.
The same applies to Dreaming Crests, but that discount is character-specific and you do not need to spend any crests on upgrading an item.
Upgrading Mythic Dungeon Gear in Dragonflight Season 3
To learn more about upgrading gear from Mythic Dungeons, check out our detailed Season 3 guide!
Changelog
- 21 Nov. 2023: Updated Heroic gear Item Level.
- 28 Oct. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.
- 08 Jul. 2023: Updated with Myth upgrade track.
- 01 May 2023: Guide added.
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