I’m new to the current expansion and have just started raiding with a guild. I’ve been upgrading my gear from Veteran to Champion, and now to Hero level. However, I ran into a frustrating issue: there’s a cap on how many Runed Undermine Crests I can use, and it’s preventing me from upgrading some of my Hero gear pieces. This makes it tricky because some of my gear slots are stuck below 658 ilvl, and I hesitate to swap out decent Champion gear for Hero gear that I can’t fully upgrade. Since I joined a few weeks late, I’m struggling to keep pace with my guildmates. I’d love to understand if there’s a good reason behind this cap, or if it’s just an unnecessary barrier. Also, on the bright side, I’m really enjoying the raiding — I’ve made it to 659 ilvl and we’ve downed Mug’Zee 7/8 heroic so far! For context, I’ve used all 540 of my allocated runed crests but many pieces aren’t at 658 yet. I also wasted some crests crafting enchanted runed crests before realizing I needed enchanted gilded crests instead. Any advice or explanations appreciated!
5 Answers
Honestly, don’t stress too much about the cap early in the season. The cap exists to prevent people from instantly max upgrading every piece of gear, so you don’t get crazy ahead of others. Since you’re still growing your ilvl and getting comfortable, it’s actually a good pacing tool. Plus, you can always catch up as the season goes on and the cap rises. Just keep raiding and collecting those upgrades, and your gear will naturally improve. Also, try to hold off on wasting crests crafting enchanted ones unless you really need them – it’s an easy mistake but it eats up resources you could use for actual upgrades.
To add to what others said, be mindful of rings, trinkets, and offhands, as they have a slight twist. You need both slots upgraded to a certain ilvl before upgrades become free for those specific items. So prioritize upgrading both in these categories to maximize your efficiency with crests and valorstones. This can feel tricky at first but makes a big difference in saving resources later.
One thing to watch out for is how you spend your runed crests. If you’re upgrading partially leveled items and then swap them out for new gear, you might be wasting crest capacity. It’s better to be strategic — if you’re about to get new gear in a certain slot, hold off upgrading a low-level item so you don’t waste crests. Once you unlock the highest ilvl in that slot, you can upgrade any item in it without more crests, just valorstones. Also, every season players hit this cap because it’s designed to balance progression. The good news is that as you rank up and get more crests weekly, you’ll be able to max out your gear.
The key thing to know is that once you’ve upgraded a gear slot to a certain item level, you unlock that ilvl for that slot. For example, if you already have 658 ilvl boots, then you can pick up any lower ilvl boots and upgrade them to 658 using only valorstones — no runed crests required. So really, crests upgrade the slot itself, not each individual item. This means if you got a 662 ilvl trinket from the Vault, you can upgrade your other trinket to 658 using just valorstones as long as one trinket slot reached that ilvl already. This helps you manage your crests better while still using gear that has better stats even if the base ilvl is lower.
Ah okay thanks, that clears things up a lot! So I should really just focus on getting at least one piece per slot to a high ilvl and then upgrading others with valorstones only. Does the Vault loot count the same way for this?
Basically, you have more runed crests than you can use right now. The system pushes you to keep upgrading slots efficiently instead of spreading upgrades out thinly across multiple low-level items. The weekly cap (typically about 90 crests per week) keeps you coming back, which is part of how seasonal progression works. Joining a few weeks late isn’t a huge disadvantage since you won’t need to have perfect gear right away – just keep focusing on raiding and gathering upgrades and you’ll catch up naturally. It’s a bit of a grind, but it’s manageable once you get the hang of the upgrade mechanics.
Yeah, lesson learned on the enchanted crests for sure. Appreciate the perspective on pacing, it makes more sense now.