Item levels and upgrade tracks
Which track an item drops on decides both where it starts and where it can finish. The tracks overlap, and knowing where they overlap is what stops you spending crests twice for the same item level.
A Hero item at 6/6 is item level 321 — exactly the same as Myth 2/6. But the Hero item is finished there, while the Myth one keeps climbing to 334, and to 344 with Ascendant Venomstones. Identical today, 13 item levels apart by the end of the season. That is why a Myth-track base is worth taking over a Hero piece you have already capped.
Every track, every rank
Item level at each rank. The gold figure is the last rank crests can reach on that track.
| Track | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adventurer | 266 | 269 | 272 | 276 | 279 | 282 | – | – | – |
| Veteran | 279 | 282 | 285 | 289 | 292 | 295 | – | – | – |
| Champion | 292 | 295 | 298 | 302 | 305 | 308 | – | – | – |
| Hero | 305 | 308 | 311 | 315 | 318 | 321 | – | – | – |
| Myth | 318 | 321 | 324 | 328 | 331 | 334 | 337 | 341 | 344 |
| Spark Crafted | 299 | 303 | 306 | 309 | 312 | – | – | – | – |
Myth continues past 6/6 to 344 via Ascendant Venomstones rather than crests — which is why the items you want at the very top of your list are worth securing early, well before you can finish them.
Where the tracks overlap
Every item level that exists on more than one track. Read this as: the same number, reached two different ways, with very different amounts of headroom left.
| Item level | Reached at |
|---|---|
| 279 | Adventurer 5/6 = Veteran 1/6 |
| 282 | Adventurer 6/6 = Veteran 2/6 |
| 292 | Veteran 5/6 = Champion 1/6 |
| 295 | Veteran 6/6 = Champion 2/6 |
| 305 | Champion 5/6 = Hero 1/6 |
| 308 | Champion 6/6 = Hero 2/6 |
| 318 | Hero 5/6 = Myth 1/6 |
| 321 | Hero 6/6 = Myth 2/6 |
What to do with that
- A Myth-track drop beats a capped Hero piece even when the tooltip says the same number today. You are buying headroom, not item level.
- Don't finish a Hero item in a slot you expect a Myth base for. Those crests buy an item level you will replace, and crests do not come back.
- Do finish Hero items everywhere else. Idle crests are worth nothing, and the weekly cap means you cannot bank your way out of a slow start.
What upgrading costs
Every rank costs 20 crests, whatever the track. So the cost of finishing an item depends only on how many ranks are left:
| Track | Ranks | 1/6 → top, in crests | Paid with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adventurer | 6 | 100 | see below |
| Veteran | 6 | 100 | see below |
| Champion | 6 | 100 | see below |
| Hero | 6 | 100 | hero |
| Myth | 6 | 100 | myth |
| Spark Crafted | 5 | 80 | see below |
With 100 crests a week of each type, a full six-rank upgrade is half a week's income for one item. Sixteen slots is the whole season. That arithmetic is the reason a plan beats improvising — and it is what the planner does for you every week.
See it against your own character
GearPath prices every upgrade in your plan against the crests you will actually have earned by that week, and turns the balance red when the route is impossible.