Midnight Gearing Guide

Midnight Gearing Guide Quick Summary:

• Mistcrests replace Dawncrests for Season 2. The five types remain Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, and Myth.

• Standard Season 2 gear reaches 334 at Myth 6/6, while special Mythic Venomous Abyss loot from the last two bosses and Very Rare items can reach 344, equivalent to Myth 9.

• The Venomous Abyss becomes the main Season 2 raid, with eight bosses and the new Tier Set.

• Season 2 begins August 18, while Patch 12.1 and several gearing activities become available during the week of August 11.

• Raid Great Vault rewards are significantly stronger in Season 2, with LFR through Heroic Vault rewards jumping one upgrade track above their normal boss drops.

Need better gear but don't have enough gold to upgrade? Buy WoW Gold at Skycoach - the fastest and safest way to get gold brought to you by WoW veterans. Select the amount you need, your region, and realm, and it will be delivered to you in the blink of an eye!

 

 

 

Midnight Gearing Explained

Added back in the Dragonflight expansion, the gear upgrade system has seen some “upgrades” (sorry!) throughout the War Within and is now being improved in Midnight.

At max level, you get gear that can be upgraded to increase its ilvl and boost those item stats by way of using specific currency. However, previously, you had too many of those to keep track of, and Midnight is making the change to reduce that amount.

You used to have two types of currencies to do this with - Crests and Valorstones, but in Midnight, Valorstones have been removed and replaced by gold. So, now if you want to upgrade the Champion piece of gear to the sixth tier, it will cost you 150 gold.

The endgame gear is divided into the so-called tracks, each of which has its own Dawncrest currency to upgrade with. Here’s the correlation:

Gear Track	Mistcrest Type	Upgrade ilvl Range	Earned From
Explorer	None	N/A (no Mistcrest)	N/A
Adventurer	Adventurer Dawncrest	266-282	Repeatable outdoor events, outdoor treasures, Tier 4 Delves, Normal Prey
Veteran	Veteran Dawncrest	279-295	Heroic seasonal dungeons, LFR raids, World Lairs, Delves 5-6, Trovehunter's Bounty 4-5, Hard Prey
Champion	Champion Dawncrest	292-308	Weekly outdoor events, Mythic+ 2-3, Normal raids/Lairs, Delves 7-10, Trovehunter's Bounty 6-7, Nightmare Prey
Hero	Hero Dawncrest	305-321	Heroic raids/Lairs, Mythic+ 4-8, Trovehunter's Bounty 8+, Nightmare Prey
Myth	Myth Dawncrest	318-334	Mythic raids/Lairs, Mythic+ 9+, Tier 6 Ritual Sites, Tier 11 Bountiful Delve Gilded Stashes

 

This parity makes it easier to keep track of which currency is used to upgrade which gear it is used on.

Another thing to keep in mind is that each gear track has 6 levels or tiers of upgrades. As for the cost, each new rank is going to cost you 20 Mistcrests more than the previous one. But that cost can be reduced. More on that next.

Mistcrest Discounts in Midnight

Yes, you can actually lower the cost of upgrades, but that will only work for your alt characters. Your main will have to “pave the way” for them by way of earning achievements tied to gear upgrades. Let me explain.

Upgrade Achievements & Discounts

There’s a series of achievements that you will earn when your average ilvl becomes higher than the maximum ilvl range of the specific gear track. Let me give you an example.

Let’s say you have reached item level 282 in every armor slot, which is the maximum for Adventurer-track gear. This earns you the Adventurer of the Mist achievement and unlocks a 50% Mistcrest discount when upgrading Adventurer-track gear on other characters in your Warband.

The same thing happens for all the rest of the gear tracks as each has its own achievement for surpassing it:

Achievement	Requirement
Adventurer of the Mist	282 in every armor slot
Veteran of the Mist	295 in every armor slot
Champion of the Mist	308 in every armor slot
Hero of the Mist	321 in every armor slot
Myth of the Mist	331 average item level

With Valorstones removed and the upgrade system now centered around Mistcrests and gold, these achievement-based discounts are one of the biggest quality-of-life changes for players who enjoy multiple specs or characters.

Another Type of Discount

There’s another type of discount that you can get for your main that actually makes the upgrade free.

The way it works is this: when you upgrade your gear to a certain level, upgrading another piece of gear (in a different slot) to the same level will cost you fewer Mistcrests.

Simple example:

• You upgrade a chest piece to Champion 4/6.
• Later, you get a new helmet at the same track.
• Bringing the helmet up to that same level costs less because your character has already unlocked that upgrade tier.

This makes it easier to raise your overall ilvl by raising the upgrade level on each slot to the same value. It’s nice!

 

 

Where to Get Gear in WoW Midnight

You must be wondering where you are supposed to get the different gear tracks from? Especially, new players will have no idea where different gear tiers come from. Use the table below as a quick map for where things come from.

Gear Track	Item Level Range	Best places to get it	Good supporting sources
Explorer	266-282	Outdoor content and early progression rewards	Early Delves (Tier 1–3), basic Prey/Hunt rewards
Adventurer	279-295	Repeatable outdoor activities and entry Delves	Normal Prey/Hunts, Delves (Tier 1–4)
Veteran	279-295	Raid Finder and structured group content	Heroic seasonal dungeons, Delves (Tier 5–6), Weekly Vault
Champion	292-308	Normal raid and early endgame loop	Mythic seasonal dungeons, Mythic+ low keys, Delves (Tier 7–10), Weekly Vault
Hero	305-321	Heroic raid and higher Mythic+ brackets	High-tier Delves, Weekly Vault from mid/high keys
Myth	318-334	Mythic raid and high Mythic+ keys	Top-end Weekly Vault rewards

If you noticed the ilvl overlap between different gear tracks its done so that it's easier to grind higher difficulty content.

If you want to target specific raid pieces instead of relying on random drops, this part of the Season 1 info is useful because it calls out which bosses are tied to Tier slots and very rare jewelry.

Tier Slot	Boss	Raid
Hands	Entombed Sentinels	The Venomous Abyss
Shoulders	The Lost Explorers	The Venomous Abyss
Chest	Vashnik the Malignant	The Venomous Abyss
Legs	Sszorak	The Venomous Abyss
Head	The Twin Fangs	The Venomous Abyss
Curio / Tier piece of your choice	Ula'tek	The Venomous Abyss

So, now you know where everything comes from. The only problem is content availability. Raids are time-gated behind Season 1, which comes some time after the Midnight release.

Great Vault Changes

Raid Vault rewards are now:

Raid Difficulty Completed	Season 2 Great Vault Reward
LFR	292 - Champion 1/6
Normal	305 - Hero 1/6
Heroic	318 - Myth 1/6
Mythic	334 - Myth 6/6
Mythic Very Rare / final two bosses	344 - Myth 9 equivalent

FR, Normal, and Heroic raid Vault rewards now jump one complete upgrade track above the base raid drop. Mythic Vault rewards jump directly to Myth 6/6. 

 

 

Season 2 Content Schedule

As you may know, the pre-season is the time when players will be leveling. The real gear-chasing begins after the expansion release. Higher difficulty content will be available throughout the coming weeks, so if you want to plan out your gear progression by day or week, you’re going to want to memorize the following dates.

March 17 – Season Launch

Season 2 start a week and a half into the expansion release on a regular Tuesday reset. Here’s what will become available then

Week	Gearing Unlocks
August 11	Patch 12.1; Altar of Fangs; Heroic + Mythic 0 season dungeons; M0 on weekly reset and drops 292 gear; Season 2 Great Vault credit begins; all Delve tiers but no Bountiful Delves
August 18	Season 2 launch; Venomous Abyss Normal/Heroic/Mythic + LFR Wing 1; Mythic+; M0 switches to daily reset; Bountiful Delves; Nightmare Prey; Season 2 Great Vault rewards become available; Tidebound Grotto Normal/Heroic/Mythic
August 25	Venomous Abyss Story Mode + LFR Wing 2
September 1	LFR Wing 3
September 8	LFR Wing 4

Max gear you can reach this week: up to Hero track gear, which upgrades to 276 at 6/6.

Read our other WoW guides:

• Midnight Leveling Guide
• Best DPS Rankings
• Best Addons
• Gold Farming Guide

F.A.Q.