The item level is a rather important property of every item. It has two main functions — reflect the item's usefulness and at the same time determine the minimum level a character must have in order to use it (see Minimum level requirements and Item Level). Unfortunately, the true item level is hidden in the game. Only UI mods can read it via the function GetItemInfo.
The item level is a rather important property of every item. It has two main functions — reflect the item's usefulness and at the same time determine the minimum level a character must have in order to use it (see Minimum level requirements and Item Level). Unfortunately, the true item level is hidden in the game. Only UI mods can read it via the function GetItemInfo. As Hyzenthlei (Tauren Shaman 60 on Zul'Jin) first found out, and was later confirmed by a presentation at Blizzcon, Blizzard uses a formula to calculate item level from the item's stats. The following is an attempt to reverse-engineer this formula. This text is based on a forum post by Hyzenthlei (the original author) in the Blizzard forums, but that post has since disappeared.