World of Warcraft Gear Upgrading Guide
Welcome to our comprehensive guide to the gear upgrading system introduced in World of Warcraft. 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. Gear Tracks in Season 2
- 3. Where Can You Upgrade Gear?
- 4. What Items Are Required to Upgrade Gear in Season 2?
- 5. What Are Valorstones?
- 6. What is the Valorstone Cap in Season 2?
- 7. How Do You Earn Valorstones in Season 2?
- 8. Undermine Crests and Sources
- 9. How to Exchange Undermine Crests in Season 2
A Brief Overview of the Gear Upgrading System in World of Warcraft
Every piece of gear in the comes with a tooltip informing you about the item's track and rank (upgrade possibilities).
To upgrade gear, you must gather Valorstones and
crests. You can preview the upgrade costs and how an item increases in power
by talking to any item upgrade vendor in the game.
Gear Tracks in Season 2
When you obtain gear in Season 2 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.
When gear tracks overlap, for example, Item level 610 is both Explorer 5 and Adventurer 1, the item will always have the higher track, which is Adventurer 1 in our scenario.
Here are the gear upgrade tracks for The War Within Season 2:
Item Level | Crests Needed for Upgrades | Gear Upgrade Track |
---|---|---|
597 | None | Explorer 1 |
600 | None | Explorer 2 |
603 | None | Explorer 3 |
606 | None | Explorer 4 |
610 | None | Explorer 5, Adventurer 1 |
613 | None | Explorer 6, Adventurer 2 |
616 | None | Explorer 7, Adventurer 3 |
619 | None | Explorer 8, Adventurer 4 |
623 | Weathered | Adventurer 5, Veteran 1 |
626 | Weathered | Adventurer 6, Veteran 2 |
629 | Weathered | Adventurer 7, Veteran 3 |
632 | Weathered | Adventurer 8, Veteran 4 |
636 | Carved | Veteran 5, Champion 1 |
639 | Carved | Veteran 6, Champion 2 |
642 | Carved | Veteran 7, Champion 3 |
645 | Carved | Veteran 8, Champion 4 |
649 | Runed | Champion 5, Hero 1 |
652 | Runed | Champion 6, Hero 2 |
655 | Runed | Champion 7, Hero 3 |
658 | Runed | Champion 8, Hero 4 |
662 | Gilded | Hero 5, Myth 1 |
665 | Gilded | Hero 6, Myth 2 |
668 | Gilded | Myth 3 |
672 | Gilded | Myth 4 |
675 | Gilded | Myth 5 |
678 | Gilded | Myth 6 |
Where Can You Upgrade Gear?
Cuzolth, the Item Upgrade Vendor, can be found at 51.9, 42.13 in Dornogal.
What Items Are Required to Upgrade Gear in Season 2?
Valorstones — A currency that drops from all types of Season 2 content.
- Undermine Crests — Gear upgrading reagents from crafting reagents from Mythic Dungeons, Raids, and Khaz Algar activities.
What Are Valorstones?
Valorstones are used to upgrade gear in the War Within.
What is the Valorstone Cap in Season 2?
You can hold a maximum of 2,000 Valorstones.
How Do You Earn Valorstones in Season 2?
You will receive Valorstones from all types of activities in Season 2.
Completing World Quests, clearing Mythic+ Dungeons, completing zone events, weekly
activities and campaign quests will all provide you with Valorstones.
Undermine Crests and Sources
Undermine 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 2 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 Undermine 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 Liberation of Undermine, and Heroic Dungeons during the Season 2.
Carved Undermine Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Veteran (ranks 6-8) and lower-level Champion gear. Earned from some outdoor activities, Normal Liberation of Undermine, Mythic dungeons, and Mythic Keystone dungeons up to +3 during Season 2.
Runed Undermine Crest — Used to upgrade higher-level Champion and lower-level Heroic gear, or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from Heroic Liberation of Undermine and Mythic Keystone dungeons from +4 to +8 during Season 2.
Gilded Undermine Crest — Used to upgrade Hero/Mythic gear or to craft an optional reagent for crafted gear. Earned from Mythic Liberation of Undermine, Mythic Keystone dungeons from +8 and up and Tier 11 Delves completed with lives remaining, during Season 2.
How to Exchange Undermine Crests in Season 2
You can exchange high-level crests for low-level crests by talking to Vaskarn at 52, 42, in Dornogal.
To be able to exchange your crests, your character will need to have reached a specific equipped average item level that unlocks an achievement. This achievement will grant your character the ability to exchange to crests that match the achievement's maximum item level requirement. While the achievement my popular Warband-wide, the progress is counter per character.



Once you have the achievements, you can exchange crests as follows:
- You can buy a
Pouch of Weathered Undermine Crests for 15
Carved Undermine Crests.
- You can purchase a
Satchel of Carved Undermine Crests for 15
Runed Undermine Crests.
- You can buy
Pack of Runed Undermine Crests for 15
Gilded Undermine Crests.
An Overview of Gear Tracks in Season 2
Items in World of Warcraft follow 6 gear upgrade tracks. All of them have 8 ranks except for Hero-track gear with 6 upgrade ranks and the Myth-track with 5 upgrade tracks.
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 in Season 2
Explorer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 577-619). It drops frequently
from mobs and is a common quest reward in Undermine. Gear quality
changes to Rare (blue) at Rank 3. You will only need Valorstones
to upgrade Explorer gear to max rank.

Adventurer Gear in Season 2
Adventurer gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 610-632). It drops
from Awakened outdoor activities. Gear quality changes to Epic
(Purple) at Rank 3. You will need Valorstones and
Weathered Undermine Crests
for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Veteran Gear in Season 2
Veteran gear has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 623-645). Veteran-track gear can mostly be found
in Pinnacle Caches from weekly quests and world events. You will need
Valorstones and
Carved Undermine Crests for Rank 6-8 upgrades.

Champion Gear in Season 2
Champion gear also has 8 upgrade ranks (Item Level 636-658). It drops in Mythic baseline dungeons,
Liberation of Undermine, and Delves. You will need Valorstones,
Weathered Undermine Crests,
and
Runed Undermine Crests for Rank 5-8 upgrades.

Heroic Gear in Season 2
Heroic gear has 6 upgrade ranks (Item Level 649-665). It can be found in the Great Vault
after completing Tier 8 Delves, in Mythic +6 Keystones, and more. You will need
Valorstones,
Runed Undermine Crests, and
Gilded Undermine Crests
for upgrades.
Myth Gear in Season 2
Myth gear follows the Myth upgrade track with 6 ranks (Item Level 662-678) and drops mostly from raid bosses on the highest difficulty and you can find it in the Great Vault upon completing a Mythic 10+ keystone. Here are the upgrade ranks for the highest gear echelon in the game.
- Myth Rank 1/6 — Item Level 662;
- Myth Rank 2/6 — Item Level 665;
- Myth Rank 3/6 — Item Level 668;
- Myth Rank 4/6 — Item Level 671;
- Myth Rank 5/6 — Item Level 674.
- Myth Rank 6/6 — Item Level 678;
Valorstone Discounts in Season 2
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.
Crests Discount in Season 2
Character-specific 33% crest discounts can be unlocked when your character outgrows certain item level thresholds.
Weathered of the Undermine: Outgrow the use of Weathered Undermine Crests by reaching Item Level 636 in every slot.
Carved of the Undermine: Outgrow the use of Carved Undermine Crests by reaching Item Level 649 in every slot.
Runed of the Undermine: Outgrow the use of Runed Undermine Crests by reaching Item Level 662 in every slot.
Gilded of the Undermine: Outgrow the use of Gilded Undermine Crests by reaching Item Level 675 in every slot.
Changelog
- 06 Mar. 2025: Updated crest exchange, improved gear upgrade tracks table for clarify.
- 21 Feb. 2025: Updated for the War Within Season 2 with new crests.
- 11 Oct. 2024: Gilded crests now drop from +8.
- 29 Sep. 2024: Fixed crest trading.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for the War Within.
- 01 Jun. 2024: Checked grammar and fixed some typos.
- 18 Apr. 2024: Updated for Season 4.
- 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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