World of Warcraft Gear Upgrading Guide

Every piece of gear in the comes with a tooltip informing you about the item's track and upgrade possibilities.

To upgrade gear, you must gather Valorstones and crests. You can preview the upgrade costs and how an item increases in power any item upgrade vendor in the game.

When you obtain gear in The War Within Season 1, it will have one of the following tracks — Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Heroic, and Myth. Each track has different upgrade levels, upgrade requirements, and item-level ranges/brackets.

Cuzolth, the Item Upgrade Vendor, can be found at 51.9, 42.13 in Dornogal.

• Valorstones — A currency that drops from all types of Season 1 content.
• Harbinger Crests — Gear upgrading reagents from crafting reagents from Mythic Dungeons, Raids, and Khaz Algar activities.

Valorstones are used to upgrade gear in the War Within.

You can hold a maximum of 2,000 Valorstones.

You will receive Valorstones from all types of activities in Season 1. Completing World Quests, clearing Mythic+ Dungeons, completing zone events, weekly activities and campaign quests will all provide you with Valorstones.

Harbinger 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 1 content, including raids bosses, Mythic+ Dungeons, and world events.

You can obtain 90 crests per type every week, meaning six upgrades per tier per week at most.

• Weathered Harbinger Crest — Used to upgrade higher-item level Adventurer (ranks 5-8) and lower-level Veteran gear. You can earn whelpling crests from outdoor activities, Raid Finder Nerub-ar Palace, and Heroic Dungeons during the War Within Season 1.
• Carved Harbinger Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Veteran (ranks 6-8) and lower-level Champion gear. Earned from some outdoor activities, Normal Nerub-ar Palace, Mythic dungeons, and Mythic Keystone dungeons up to +3 during the War Within Season 1.
• Runed Harbinger Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Champion and lower-level Heroic gear, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from Heroic Nerub-ar Palace and Mythic Keystone dungeons from +4 to +8 during the War Within Season 1.
• Gilded Harbinger Crest — Used to upgrade Hero/Mythic gear or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from Mythic Nerub-ar Palace and Mythic Keystone dungeons from +8 and up during the War Within Season 1.

In Season 1, you can exchange high-level crests for low-level crests by talking to Vaskarn at 52, 42 in Dornogal.

• You can buy a Pouch of Weathered Harbinger Crests for 15 Carved Harbinger Crests.
• You can purchase a Satchel of Carved Harbinger Crests for 15 Runed Harbinger Crests.
• You can buy Pack of Runed Harbinger Crests for 15 Gilded Harbinger Crests.

As mentioned above, we have six gear tracks in Season 1. All gear tracks have 8 upgrade levels except Heroic, with 6 upgrade levels and Myth gear with 5 upgrade ranks.

The current gear track and upgrade ranks will depend on the difficulty of the content you complete.

Killing raid bosses can grant you partially upgraded gear.

Explorer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 558-580). 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 Valorstones to upgrade Explorer gear to max rank.

Adventurer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 571-593). It drops from Awakened outdoor activities. Gear quality changes to Epic (Purple) at Rank 3. You will need Valorstones and Weathered Harbinger Crests for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Veteran gear in Season 3 has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 584-606). It drops Awakened outdoor activities and end-of-campaign quests. You will need Valorstones and Carved Harbinger Crests for Rank 6-8 upgrades.

Champion gear also has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 597-619). It drops in Fated Raids bosses, you can find it in the Great Vault, or weekly bonus event quests. You will need Valorstones, Weathered Harbinger Crests, and Runed Harbinger Crests for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Heroic gear has 6 upgrade ranks (Item Level 610-626). You will need Valorstones, Runed Harbinger Crests, and Gilded Harbinger Crests for upgrades.

Myth gear follows the Myth upgrade track with 6 ranks (Item Level 623-639) and drops mostly from raid bosses on the highest difficulty.

• Myth Rank 1/6 — Item Level 623;
• Myth Rank 2/6 — Item Level 626;
• Myth Rank 3/6 — Item Level 629;
• Myth Rank 4/6 — Item Level 632;
• Myth Rank 5/6 — Item Level 635.
• Myth Rank 6/6 — Item Level 639;

Once you obtain an item with a higher item level in a specific armor slot, the amount of Valorstones needed to upgrade additional items in that slot is drastically reduced. The discount is account-wide.

The same applies to Harbinger Crests, but that discount is character-specific and you do not need to spend any crests on upgrading an item.

To learn more about upgrading Mythic Dungeon gear, check out our detailed Season 1 guide!