WoW The War Within testing is in full swing, with new changes coming to various systems, classes, and zones every week. According to the latest Wowhead datamine, The War Within could introduce a major gearing change.
The Story So Far | Prepare for The War Within
On May 14th, Wowhead found evidence that you'll be able to upgrade your weapons in the next expansion with the Catalyst. If you're unfamiliar with the system, it allows you to upgrade any regular piece of gear into a tier piece. The system was first introduced as a protection against bad luck in Shadowlands to help players who were having trouble completing their tier sets. It looks like it'll be called the Matrix Catalyst in The War Within and will be located in Dornogal, the capital of Earth.
When you upgrade your weapon in The War Within, you will likely get a different weapon and no tierset bonuses. It means you can turn a weapon with the wrong stats into a more useful item.
On top of all this, it looks like Blizzard Entertainment is increasing the number of Catalyst charges you can hold to eight, meaning all of your alts should have access to more tier pieces. This seems pretty useful, but it depends on how often you get the charges. If Blizzard goes back to giving you charges every two weeks, I'd say it's not worth converting your weapons. But if you keep getting one charge every week, it could be pretty useful. The devs are keeping the Crests gear upgrade system in place, and you'll still need this currency to level up item levels and stats.
