Hello,
I am a brand new player to World of Warcraft. I started my first character as a human ret paladin just a few days ago, and am only level 30.
I have a quick question about how item level works, when I watch Asmongold’s stream he mocks people for being 900~ item level but praises people for being 350~ item level. But also 100~ item level is a joke. I have no idea how this system works.
Any help is appreciated, thanks.
First things first, ignore Asmongold. His stuff deals in end game related things that you have 90 levels to get through before you even touch.
Now, as for item level. Each item has a number of points that can be invested into the stats on the piece when it is generated in game. The simplified version of this is that the high the item level, the higher the stats on the item will be.
You want the highest stats on the gear you can get as you level (for your Ret Paladin, specifically you want as much Strength on your gear as possible). Higher item level gear will have higher stats on them. Simple as that.
PS: to try and explain the weird things about item level you saw in the streams, when Battle for Azeroth released, the game had what is called a ‘stat squish’ where all the item level (and there associated stat levels) where shrunk down. At the end of Legion, Mythic Raiders (people doing and clearing the hardest group content in the game) had item levels of around 900. Around 350 item level was the average item levels of gear dropped by Normal Uldir, the first raid of Battle For Azeroth on the lowest pre-made group level.
Wow this was even more helpful than I could have expected. Thank you!!! I gave your post a heart, is there anything else I have to do to give you credit for the answer?
Nothing is needed. It is what we regulars in this forum are here for. We try and answer New (and Returning) Players questions to the best of our ability or point them to where they can get the information they are looking for. I’m just glad I helped you understand and wish you fun times in the World of Warcraft.
as you are LVLing a Charector as much as you will want to equip a higher iLVL peice of gear its not as impoortant as when you are at max LVL since at max LVL only thing you have to work on is working on your iLVL.
Item level (usually abbreviated to ilvl or ilevel) is largely meaningless except to show you how advanced the content it came from was.
While you level, as Ghullum said, you’ll simply want to equip gear with more Strength than your current gear. You can compare two pieces of gear by hovering your cursor over a piece of gear you want to compare and pressing shift. This will show you how the piece you’re looking at compares to the piece you have equipped. A green number is higher, so look for pieces that have a green Strength number for you.
At maximum level, you’ll often worry far less about ilevel. At that point, you’ll be looking more at the secondary stats available (Critical Strike, Haste, Versatility, and Mastery), as well as the effects or skills attached to certain pieces.
And yeah, ignore Asmongold. His “show” persona is a caricature of the most toxic elitists in this game, and anything he says should be taken with about a pound of salt.
Good answers… I’d only add that in general the info you find from streamers, or on sites like icy-veins and wowhead, is going to be geared toward endgame content (lvls 110-120) - unless it specifically says otherwise.
It can be a bit confusing as newer player - as there are lots of resources, talents, spells, etc… your not going to be exposed to until much later in the game.
Its a shame there are not better beginner resources for the game, but if you stick with it eventually it all makes sense.
However, if you want an easy way to deal with item level try the add-on “pawn” it will show you in the tooltip a little green arrow if an item is better than the one you have on. At 120 if you are doing mythic raiding it might not be accurate 100% of the time, but its pretty good for just eyeballing leveling gear.
The item level itself is based on an average calcuated by the ilvl of each individual piece you are wearing.
I have a related question…
after a long absence I started playing again and everything is different. the auction house and the gear stat window. if my bank toon is buying gear for an alt…how do i know what the alt can use? there’s just ilvl not minimum character levels…is there a formula??
It looks like the new auction house interface requires a few more clicks to see a required level.
When I clicked on an item in the list to where it showed a list of all available postings for it, mousing over the actual individual listings included the level requirements. Best I can guess is that since level scaling has been added, there’s not a set level stuff drops at, so the general listing for an item doesn’t include it.