HUGE (BAD) CHANGES in Gear Scaling, Timewalking and Mage Tower

Mage Tower is coming back again in Dragonflight on patch 10.0.5. I have investigated how the fights are but I found something that is pretty bad news regarding your gear. 

Dragonflight changed the ilvl system of previous expansions

What no one has talked about during alpha and beta testing is the item level changes that have been made into Dragonflight. All ilvl gear from previous expansions have been increased by a lot. 

For example, legion ilvl gear was around ilvl 50. Now it has been increased to ilv 139. It has increased by 89 ilvls. 

Here are the new ilvl changes for the different expansions:

Expansion

Dungeon Gear ilvl

Raid Gear ilvl

Classic

89

97-105

The Burning Crusade

89/91

27-33

Wrath of the Lich King

89/91

35/97/105/109

Cataclysm

89/106

37/120

Mist of Pandaria

89/106

39/41/112/116/122

Warlords of Draenor

120-124

130/134

Legion

139

147/151/155/159/163

Battle for Azeroth

157/159/194 (194 is from a normal dungeon!?)

163/165/167/169/171/173/175/177/179/181

Shadowlands

171/194/181

194/207/213/220/233/246/252/265/278/285/291/304

Dragonflight

246/359/372

373/375/382/389/395/398/402/408/411/415/421/424/430

Your old gear in bag/bank have NOT changed

The gear that you have looted before dragonflight are not what they were before. There are some gear that did not scale to their correct ilvl expansion. It looks like it is mainly gear that has some power into it, for example trinkets and legendary gear, or the mechagon rings. 

Here are some examples. 

The legendary trinkets that you could get in Mist of Pandaria have NOT been scaled up to its changed. 

Here is an image of the Xing-Ho, Breath of Yu'lon legendary back. It has 44 ilvl, which is the same ilvl as it was before Dragonflight came out. But looking at the ilvl gear from Mist of Pandaria expansion, it ranges between 89-122 ilvl. 

Here is another one. This is regarding trinkets. If you got trinkets before Dragonflight, then the ilvl of a for example legion trinket is ilvl 50. This has not been changed when Dragonflight came out. The ilvl is still 50. 

This is trinket on the image is the Ravaged Seed Pod, which drops from the Emerald Nightmare raid. In dragonflight it is 147 ilvl but unchanged if you got it before the expansion came out (50 ilvl). 

Mage Tower ilvl changed

Before Dragonflight, the Mage Tower scaled you down to Legion and Legion ilvl gear. Now in Dragonflight patch 10.0.5, you are instead scaled down to Warlords of Draenor. 

Legion ilvl gear ranges between 139-163. WoD ilvl gear ranges between 120-34.When you enter the Mage Tower, you are scaled to 120 ilvl. Gear does NOT scale up, only down. So if you have gear below this ilvl, it will be unchanged. If you have gear above 120, it will be scaled down to 120 ilvl. 

NOT good for Mage Tower

For players that have grinded gear for Mage Tower, a lot of your gear will probably have a much lower ilvl gear since it is not scaled. I entered Mage Tower on the PTR with trinkets, mechagon rings, and legendaries that is above WoD ilvl but since the gear ilvl is not scaled with the Dragonflight change, it is very low ilvl compared to Mage tower (120 ilvl). 

What about Timewalking Dungeons

You get scaled to 105 in timewalking dungeons in this week's WoD Timewalking. Your gear does not scale up, only down (same as Mage Tower). So if you have grinded gear below 105 ilvl before Dragonflight, you might have some gear that are not scaled correctly when Dragonflight came out.

10 Jan 2023