How to Gear Up Fast in Midnight

How to Gear Up Fast in Midnight TL;DR

• At level 90, start with the Patch 12.1 campaign, world quests, Normal or Heroic dungeons, Normal and Hard Prey, and Tier 1–4 Bountiful Delves.
• Next, move into Tier 5–7 Bountiful Delves, Nightmare Prey, Mythic 0, low Mythic+, and LFR to build Veteran and Champion gear.
• Once you’re around item level 292, push Normal raid, Tier 8 Delves, and Mythic+ 2–5 to move through Champion gear and unlock Hero-track Great Vault rewards.
• High progression comes from Mythic+ 6+ and Heroic raid for Hero gear, then Mythic+ 10 Great Vault rewards and Mythic raid for Myth gear.
• Always fill your Great Vault with the highest item level options you can manage for weekly gear spikes.
• Don’t chase item level blindly; stat profiles, tier bonuses, and trinket effects can beat raw ilvl.

BoEs, consumables, and day-to-day expenses are set to drain your gold super fast. You can skip the gold grind and cover expenses entirely - just buy WoW gold on Playhub.

WoW Midnight Gearing Changes

While the M+ gear and raid-tier pieces are still way more powerful than anything else you can get your hands on, actually getting gear sufficient to complete said activities is way easier than in TWW.

• The Explorer gear tier has been removed, and we now start from the Adventurer tier. This change makes reaching the ilvl needed to partake in heroic dungeons, normal raids, and m+ quite easy.

• Prey now rewards item level 266 on Normal, 279 on Hard, and 292 on Nightmare. Its World-row Great Vault rewards reach item level 305 Hero 1/6 from Nightmare. World slots unlock after 2, 4, and 8 qualifying activities, which can combine Prey, Delves, and other eligible world content. For detailed Prey activity info, check out our Midnight Prey system guide.

• Season 2 replaces Dawncrests with Mistcrests. Valorstones remain removed, and each gear upgrade step costs a flat 20 Mistcrests rather than an increasing amount. Fully upgrading an item from 1/6 to 6/6 costs 100 matching Mistcrests.

• Season 2 raises equivalent rewards by 46 item levels. Standard upgrade tracks now run from item level 266 Adventurer gear to item level 334 Myth 6/6 gear, while eligible Very Rare Mythic items and loot from the final two Venomous Abyss bosses can reach item level 344.

These changes create a system where casual players can quickly get to respectable ilvl gear sufficient to clear open-world content and lower difficulty instances easily, while players looking for a challenge can spend little to no time grinding low difficulty dungeons for gear and get straight to hard content.

Fastest Gearing Strategy in WoW Midnight

Once you hit level 90, your gearing progression will begin. From there, you have multiple ways you can progress your character’s gear, depending on which playstyle you prefer. While doing dungeons and delves is the classic way to gear up early on, there are alternatives now. Here’s how your optimised gearing path should look like:

1. After reaching level 90, complete the Patch 12.1 campaign, item level 266 world quests, Normal or Heroic dungeons, Normal and Hard Prey, and low-level Bountiful Delves. Heroic dungeons drop item level 276 gear, while Hard Prey and Tier 5 Delves begin at item level 279. Reach item level 273 to unlock The Venomous Abyss Raid Finder. You should also do weekly Lair bosses because their drops can produce large upgrades, and crafted gear remains a reliable way to repair a weak slot.
2. Next, clear Tier 7–8 Bountiful Delves, Nightmare Prey, Mythic 0, low Mythic+, LFR, and Normal raid. Mythic 0 and Nightmare Prey provide item level 292 Champion 1/6 gear, Tier 8 Bountiful Delves provide item level 295 Champion 2/6, and Normal raid ranges from 292 to 302. These activities also build item level 305 Hero 1/6 Great Vault choices.
3. From there, move into Mythic+ 6 and higher and Heroic raid for item level 305–315 Hero gear. A +10 Great Vault slot and a Heroic raid Great Vault slot both provide item level 318 Myth 1/6 gear. Mythic raid provides item level 318–344 gear, with ordinary Myth upgrades reaching item level 334 and the final two bosses reaching 344. The trick for steady progression at this level is to know your BiS items, understand which M+ dungeons are worth your time, and identify which raid bosses you should target every weekly reset.

Largely, the system is a lot like it was in many previous expansions. There are also several progression tips I want to stress:

• Always fill out your Great Vault with as high of an ilvl rewards as possible. This is a great progression tool for potentially large weekly gear spikes since you’re getting gear of higher ilvl than the content you’re actually clearing. Great Vault essentially guarantees you progress, unless you get extremely unlucky.

• Spend time researching your BiS gear sources before running any content, don't repeat my mistakes, and waste time running dungeons with bad drop rates for you specifically.

• If you’re a group player, don’t underestimate the rewards Prey and Delves can provide you with early on. You can get ilvl 259 gear from Nightmare Preys and high-tier Delves without investing much time or trying too hard.

• Do not sweat over your ilvl too much. What really matters is your performance - how well-tuned your stats are, how good your trinket effects are, and so on. For example, you can quickly raise your ilvl with PvP gear, but its versatility-heavy profile is pretty bad in PvE.

Midnight Gear Types and Sources

If you’re a player returning to the game after a long break, gear types could be pretty confusing for you. What they really are is just the source separator of sorts, pointing out where the gear has been acquired and how high its upgraded ilvl could be. Let’s get all types explained:

• Unranked - 207–217 ilvl: not upgradeable. Comes from quests, plus Normal dungeons.

• Adventurer - 220–230 ilvl: 6 upgrade tiers. Drops from world activities, Heroic dungeons, and Tier 1–4 Delves.

• Veteran - 233–243 ilvl: 6 upgrade tiers. Drops from Pinnacle Cache, Tier 5–6 Delves, non-seasonal Mythic dungeons, and LFR.

• Champion - 246–256 ilvl: 6 upgrade tiers. Drops from world bosses, Tier 7–11 Delves, Mythic+ 1–5, and Normal raid tier.

• Hero - 259–269 ilvl: up to 6 upgrades. Comes from Tier 8–11 Delves, Mythic+ 6+, and Heroic raid tier.

• Myth - 272–289 ilvl: 6 upgrade tiers. Drops from Mythic+ dungeons of level 10 and higher and Mythic raid tiers.

If you’re confused about the Crests' acquisition source, it’s simple - you get them by doing the same content tier that provides that item’s tier loot. For example, you’ll get Champion gear upgrade materials by running mythic+ dungeons from +1 to +5.

 With gearing path and gear types out of the way, here’s a handy table you can refer to when deciding what to do next:

As you can see, there are lots of gearing options to choose from for both solo and group players.

WoW Midnight Dungeon Gearing

Ever since the Legion came out, dungeons, namely the M+ ones, are the prime source of high-level gear. You can get the same ilvl gear running +10 dungeons or higher, and you can do them infinitely, while raid gear can only be collected once a week. Here’s a dungeon gearing table:

If you choose the right approach to the dungeon gearing and pick out the dungeons you have the odds to get BiS items from, you can gear out in no time. 

WoW Midnight Raid Gearing

While Raids are not as good in upgrade consistency as Dungeons are, you’ll still want to do them weekly since many BiS items are gated in this content exclusively, especially the Tier set gear if it’s viable on your spec. Here’s how the ilvl layout looks like in Midnight’s raids:

Contrary to the dungeons, Raids are your weekly one-time drops, but I think there’s something cool about having raid-exclusive items to chase and hope for going from one reset to another. Your upgrade track for each tier will look like this:

Remember to kill 6 bosses every week for your Great Vault, and don't ignore lower difficulties; sometimes, you can still get impactful upgrades from some of the bosses here.

Check out our other WoW Midnight articles:

WoW Midnight Gold Farming guide

WoW Midnight Best Professions

WoW Midnight Best Addons