We’ve seen a lot of feedback about the pros and cons of the various sources of gear in the Shadowlands endgame. After a rewarding first few weeks, we know that many dungeon-focused players reached a point where the only relevant rewards from the system come from the Great Vault. While the Vault should represent a major goal and the source of the best rewards the endgame has to offer, we want to find a way for the loot from the chest at the end of a challenging Mythic Keystone run to feel relevant, without bringing back random upgrade systems such as Warforging, which partially solved this problem in the past. We also want to provide a more consistent reward for the effort for players who do not receive an item at all.
The framework for a system that attempts to address these goals should be present in this first PTR update, subject to ongoing tuning and refinement. Gear from Mythic Keystone Dungeons is now upgradeable, initially with a cap of item level 200, which players can raise to item level 207 by completing all eight Shadowlands dungeons at Mythic 5 or higher. This will award a new “Keystone Explorer” achievement, while the existing “Keystone Conqueror” achievement (for all +10s or higher) will increase the cap to item level 213, and then to item level 220 by completing the “Keystone Master” achievement for all +15s in time. The currency used to upgrade Mythic Keystone gear is Valor, which is earned from completing Mythic Keystone dungeons, or by doing covenant Callings, with a weekly cap. Upgrade costs will vary by item slot and will be consistent across all item levels.
It's been amazing to see the evolution of the whole Mythic+ system. It came in as an experiment in Legion as a new type of dungeon gameplay and it's quickly grown into a 3rd pillar of the WoW endgame, alongside Rated PvP and Raids. We are fully supporting it and continue doing that forever.
Someone who just does PvP should be very competitive and should feel like they should have like 90 - 95% of the available power theoretically but WoW is a large game with a bunch of different types of activities that test different skills and there's something to be said for giving some extra edge to someone who is truly well rounded and is achieving at the highest levels in multiple spheres of gameplay. To be clear, that goes both ways and I don't see anything necessarily flawed with a raider incentivized in some small way to also dip their toes in PvP and if you're someone who can play at a Gladiator level in PvP and you're doing Mythic raiding, having small advantages, to be clear, small incremental advantages, not the sort of thing that feels mandatory to reflect on that shared mandatory, I don't think if that's the worst thing in the world.