Can someone explain how ILvL works? I thought I understood it but from what I’ve been reading I doubt it.
I been leveling some new alts (do it every expansion once I wipe some old ones) and reading some guides on Icy Veins and noticed it says to focus on item level. Wouldn’t this make me weaker? I always find gear with higher item level but also complete downgrade to what I’d currently be using.
Also in Ebon Hold I found a NPC with gear for my DK that seemed to keep increasing it’s item level as I was leveling but now it stopped at ILvL 36.
Why Should I focus on just ILvL while leveling?
Should I really equip higher ILvL gear despite being a complete downgrade to my stats?
What’s the deal with ILvL for the gear in Ebon Hold?
There used to be an addon that would show item levels for gear before that feature came out in WoW. It is now back in Classic. It is almost 100% accurate.
You should not. Just level. No one cares about your gear as you level, only your skill.
You do what is best for your stats always.
It was extremely number scrunched if thats what you are referring to.
Thanks at least I know ILvL is not the problem when I enter shadowlands again, the enemies in that expansion feel way more difficult than the enemies everywhere else I’ve been leveling.
Weapon ilvl and head/chest/legs i’d say matter a lot for ilvl due to fairly big primary stat increases
I’d equip the highest ilvl weapon while levelling even if it had worse secondaries on it
Everything else i’d look at stats first
For my toons that were full end game Mythic geared from last xpac, I was able to steamroll though the mobs back to back with no struggle, zero deaths. But when It came to running my not so geared alt through the exact same area doing the exact same thing…I could barely do it.
What gear you have does play a big part as well. You can get geared up super fast though so dont worry about it. Ask for a pocket heals from one of your friends if you find yourself struggling more than you think you should be.
So items don’t really drop like they used to. In order to smooth out the leveling process they made everything basically scale. In ye’olden times of wow, a quest would reward a specific piece of gear:
They were the same pants for everyone that completed the quest. So if you completed this quest “early” when it was orange or red, they would likely be a huge upgrade; but if you didn’t get around to this quest until it was gray it would likely not be an upgrade. The item was static.
In current wow, that same item is basically coded like this:
Trust Pants - Plate - STR +[X], [50% stat budget] Crit, [50% stat budget] Haste.
The item level will scale up the pants so if it’s item level 30 it might give +25 STR, +8/+8. At item level 36 it’s +28 +9/+9 etc… This means basically your quest rewards and drops will more or less be linear progression.
The TLDR is that while your leveling, the higher item level pieces will, almost by design, be upgrades to lower item levels.
Oh just took a look at your toon. Yea you are about as geared as my lock was when I ran my lock through. It was my worst geared of my toons and was extremely difficult until I got the hang of things. I would recommend the Venthyr covenant for your lock. Also drop aff for now and focus more on burst as you level your gear up.
I am guessing you have not done the starting stuff so that is why I began from square one.
You should also not do warmode current state that you are in. You will get spawn camped by people about 100 item levels more than you and some with over 3x your HP and you would get back to back one shotted if you try going out there in Warmode. You should see if group finder can find you a friend to level your gear up with.
Right now focus on ilvl. There’s crafted gear in the AH that will get you to 200. Then run Korthia until you’re sick of it, then do it for another month. You can get up to 233 ilvl in Korthia with grinding. When you get around 230 you can start playing with secondary stats.
Edit: don’t go venthyr. Go Necrolord or Nightfae. Soulshape is better than Fleshcraft imo.
While this is true to an extent, keep in mind that ilevel determines whether or not you can queue for dungeons in certain expansions.
Ilevel in certain expansions determines whether or not you meet the threshold to go into those dungeons. So it’s not a mirage. And for some, that armor and stamina— especially with Warlords rares and elites— can help them to kill stuff.
right…but in the context of my point, ilvl is nearly pointless. Ive gotten a ton of higher ilvl drops that trashed my main stat, lol. Id have to be a fool to equip them. Better to focus on good gear and worry about getting into group content when I get there.
That’s irrelevant as a lowbie, though. If people are leveling through Chromie Time and dungeons, they’ll need the ilevel. Whether it’s in your bags or on your character, it’s needed.
This shouldn’t be possible in the current system. Unless the piece you’re looking doesn’t have your primary stat on it at all. Like a piece of Intellect Plate or something. Also don’t read too much into secondary stat weights as listed in the guides. Those guides are written to optimize raid dps in ideal settings - while leveling you won’t even have access to all the abilities so I would completely ignore any secondary weights based on having full access to everything.
There’s some nice advice here but I feel this point wasn’t correctly addressed in the way OP was wanting (yeah gear doesn’t fully matter - but item level is still the more important stat):
Item level is an important stat when leveling.
This is because of two reasons.
Your primary stat heavily outweighs secondary stats, and higher item level gear generally gives you more primary stats.
Secondary stat weights are so indifferent that more of one is better than less of another.
Item level can be viewed as stat allocation points. And Primary stats are what you need.
At max level 100 crit chance could be worth 200 mastery or 20 haste for a certain spec. That’s why it is important to weight them up and make a decision.
But at level, say, 34, 10 crit is pretty much going to be worth 10 mastery or 10 haste. Maybe give or take one or two.
Simply put, you get more bang for your buck at lower levels. Yes, focus on item level.