Item Level Upgrades
Upgrade Tracks May Be Disabled
When a new WoW Patch goes live, there's usually one week where some of the new content is out, but the new Season hasn't officially started yet. This in-between week allows players to explore the new zone in a patch, take the time to quest through the campaign, and acquire catch-up gear on their characters.
Because of this, Season 1 will officially over tomorrow on August 11th (for NA) but Season 2 has not officially begun yet. Some of the higher tracked gear will not be available yet, alongside it's respective content. Since Season 1 is officially over, the upgrade vendors will likely swap over to Season 2, and any Season 1 gear would completely lose their upgrade tracks.
For example, if you get a new drop from Heroic Fallen-King Saladaar, it will drop at Item Level 263 still, but it will not be upgradeable on the Hero Track. This also applies to any gear that you currently have, so if you have any leftover crests, or want to upgrade something, you should make sure to do it before the Patch!
Players are speculating that this will continue to be the same as in the past, but it has not been confirmed. A previous Blue Post from War Within Season 1 mentioned how they will continue to discuss further improvements. If you want to be safe, you should upgrade any gear tonight!
Hello! We’d like to acknowledge the unusual situation here, where Season 1 gear upgrades are no longer available.
You’ll find that world content in in the new zone gives Season 2 gear, which can be upgraded. There’s some awkwardness to the one week transition period, but as of the patch going live, we need the world to be in a “Season 2” state in terms of currencies so that the Undermine zone content can function as expected. At the same time, we’re keeping Season 1 instanced content active just to make sure players have a few more days to finish some of the achievements that are still available.
We don’t currently have a way, technically, to keep Season 1 gear upgradeable after moving into a Season 2 currency ecosystem, which we have now done.
We understand that this can be confusing and frustrating, and we’ll continue to discuss further improvements to season transitions in the future.
Ascendant Voidshards
Since Ascendant Voidshards require a max tracked Hero or Myth piece, you may not be able to apply any remaining Ascendant Voidcore. It's unclear whether or not these will even continue to drop, but considering they say Season 1 on them, it's very likely they won't, and they may not even be usable as the Voidforge system is being moved next to the Catalyst in Silvermoon in Season 2.
Season 1 Best-in-Slot Items
There are some items that will continue to be very very good in Season 2, and last for a very long time. For example, Vaelgor's Final Stare is an trinket that will last for a very long time on Augmentation Evoker in Season 2, despite a brand new set of trinkets and item level. If there is no upgrade track going forwards, any new versions of this trinket will drop at Item Level 276 and would no longer be upgradeable. Because they're not max item level, you also wouldn't be able to use an Ascendant Voidcore on them, making any new version of this trinket 22 item levels behind someone who got it before the Season transition.
It's possible that these Season 1 trinket will get nerfed before then, but we'll have to wait and see.
