Dragonflight 10.1: Flightstones and Crests Gear Guide

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Upgrade Gear with Flightstones & Crests – Dragonflight 10.1

Just as Season 2 brought fresh loot and a raid, the update also introduced a new system for upgrading your gear. In particular, this Dragonflight gear progression guide will focus on the two new currencies instrumental for such improvements. They are called Flightstones and Shadowflame Crests.

These resources only work with the Season 2 gear, primarily obtained from Aberrus, the  Shadowed Crucible raid. While Flightstones are the generic all-purpose currency for upgrades, Crests are more specialized. They are consumed during the upgrades on specific levels, and there are 4 types of them. In short, here’s the Dragonflight item upgrade system explained in detail.

Upgrade System Explained

The Season 2 loot is divided into 6 distinct ranks: Explorer, Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, and Mythic. You can’t progress from one rank to another, but you could upgrade the level of an item within that rank. There are usually 8 levels to a rank, each with increasingly higher stats and ilvl.

To upgrade gear, you need to locate an upgrader NPC, like Cuzolth. From there, it’s pretty straightforward: you need to select the level you want, confirm the price, and click a button. You’ll be able to see how the stats change with the new level. That’s basically how to upgrade gear using Flightstones and Crests.

Getting higher-rank loot is possible by beating higher-level challenges. The chance to get more powerful loot is tied directly to the difficulty of the raid, for instance. However, they are also craftable. Moreover, it’s from raids and other seasonal activities that you get both upgrade resources.

Flightstones

Flightstones are an allpurpose currency you’ll need for upgrading gear in Dragonflight 10.1, regardless of the level and rank. It’s the higher-class gear that requires Crests, besides an ever-increasing number of Flightstones. Some of the best armor requires over 1000 units to be improved.

You can’t carry more than 2000 Flightstones at a time, so you won’t be able to complete more than two or three premium upgrades. Fortunately, this stuff is farmed very easily just by playing the game. It drops from every seasonal activity, and occasionally you can even find them.

The quantity of Flightstones dropped from each activity (be that a quest, a raid, or an event) depends on the difficulty of said challenge. The easiest sources award about a dozen at a time, but harder activities, like Mythic+, are typically a lot more generous. You can reach the limit by just a few of these.

Shadowflame Crests

Are another big part of the Dragonflight item level gear upgrade system. They are a more specialized currency, used in small quantities to level up the finer equipment. You typically need one or two of them to improve a piece of gear. That being said, there are four increasingly more valuable types of this resource, used with gradually more and more worthwhile loot.

This currency has 4 main ranks, including Whelpling, Drake, Wyrm, and Aspect. The latter two only became available on May 8, when Season 2 dropped. The rest have been obtainable since the start of the 10.1 Patch. You can hold up to 50 Shadowflame Crests of each variety.

They are necessary for upgrading items in World of Warcraft Dragonflight 10.1 past a certain point, starting with the high-tier Adventurer gear. They don’t each correspond to just one rank. The range is instead spread among two different tiers. However, the Aspect tier is only used for medium and high Hero up to ilvl 441.

There are three ways to obtain them: regular raids, Mythic+, and other activities. 

For raids, these are dropped during LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic raids, respectively. For Mythic+, they are locked to levels 15, 610, 1115, and 16+. As for other activities, it’s only possible to get Whelpling and Drake varieties this way: from world quests and world events respectively.

Enchanted Crests

Enchanted Crests are another big part of the item upgrade system in Dragonflight. To craft them, you need several regular types of one variety, among other items. You can craft Whelpling, Wyrm, or Aspect Enchanted variations from their usual counterparts. They, in turn, can further improve your gear.

They aren’t for typical upgrading. They are instead reagents to be used during the crafting or recrafting of seasonal gear. Enchanted pieces can further increase the level of the resulting equipment, including the level of the fully upgraded Mythic gear. This allows the players to reach the maximum ilvl of 447.

Farming Flighstones

Both Flightstones and Crests in Dragonflight 10.1 come from various PvE content in Dragonflight Season 2. That includes raids, dungeons, quests, world events, simple treasures, and more. You’ll constantly receive a stream of the former while playing, but if you want to purposely farm the stuff, you need to pursue harder challenges.

The Mythic+ dungeons are some of the most lucrative sources of this currency, being a common reward for regular enemy encounters, boss fights, and dungeons overall. The Loamm Niffen renown quests also award these on levels 4, 6, and 17. Grinding their reputation early on will give you plenty of trophies, including many Flightstones.

Farming Crests

As mentioned, these are obtained from various PvE activities, notably the Mythic+ dungeons, and raids of all difficulties. They drop in much smaller quantities naturally, but they are also craftable. The main ingredients are Shadowflame Crest Fragments, purchased in Loamm Niffen.

A significant part of this WoW item progression guide. Shadowflame Crest Fragments, of Whelpling and Drake ranks, are bought from Spinsoa over at Loamm. Chests of 5, 10, and 15 Fragments of each variety can be purchased once a week, but only once. And to craft a Crest, you must combine 15 Fragments of one type.

The chests use another newly-introduced currency, called the Unearthed Fragrant Coin. You can get it by completing activities around the Zaralek Cavern, a nearby zone. You can’t craft the higher varieties this way, the Wyrm and Aspect sorts can only be received the usual way. 

Discounts

Upgrading gear with Flightstones and Crests is better with a discount. If you have a seasonal piece of loot, you might improve other equipment from the same slot for much cheaper. On Flightstones, the bonus is 60% throughout the levels, whereas it’s a 100% discount on Crests until some point.

The Crest requirements increase as the level draws nearer to that of your currently equipped gear in the same slot. As for Flightstones, it’s the same discount all around. The Flightstone discount is account-wide, meaning you can farm upgrades quickly with a single piece of high-tier armor. That’s basically the guide to upgrading items in WoW now.

Notably, items like trinkets or rings, which occupy multiple slots on the character, only get a discount when both slots are occupied by seasonal items. Even so, it’s very wise to fit your main character and then use the account-wide discount on Flightstones to suit the others. That’s all for this guide to upgrading gear in Dragonflight 10.1. Have fun!

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