Developer Insight: Universal Upgrade System Improvements for Dragonflight Season 3

news.blizzard.com:

Dragonflight is an expansion that has introduced many changes to World of Warcraft, and one of the largest of those changes is the introduction of the new universal upgrade system in Embers of Neltharion. We’re seeing it have a healthy effect on the game, but there’s still room for improvement. In Guardians of the Dream, we’re keeping the system in place but will be making a suite of changes—many based-on player feedback—to make this system both more sustainable and more player friendly.

Fractures in Time retroactively added the Myth upgrade track to gear earned above the Hero track, allowing players to upgrade their gear from Myth 1 (item level 441) up to Myth 3 (item level 447). This did a lot of good things for high-end players, but we’re making a change to address a concern that many had regarding the disparity between the upgrade tracks.

Currently, the Hero track is five upgrade levels long. The Myth track is three upgrade levels long. We’re lengthening each of these tracks by one upgrade level. In Dragonflight Season 3, the Hero track will be six upgrade levels long, letting players upgrade their gear up to Hero 6/6. In Dragonflight Season 2 item level (ilvl) terms, this would be an increase to ilvl 444. The Myth track will now go to 4, which would be like letting people upgrade their Myth gear up to 450 in Season 2.

The reason for this change is to directly address a concern players have shared around the difference between rewards from each raid tier: that there’s no significant benefit to gear earned from Heroic raid difficulty  (and equivalent Mythic Keystone levels) over Normal raid difficulty (and equivalent Mythic Keystone levels). After all, when comparing a fully upgraded piece of Champion gear and a fully