r/wow

Midnight is here!

I loaded up a lv. 80 Demo Warlock alt just to see how it played and it surprisingly clicked, so I decided to level it to 90 and gear it up, which was easier than expected. Some of the gearing tricks are well known, but in 12.0.5 there are a few more tricks.

Prerequisites on your main:

• Hero of the Dawn (most important!)

• Delve journey completed with a high level Valeera

• Voidcore rerolls and Nilhammer unlocked

• Enough Faction Renown to get the Champion items

Steps (which are all done 100% solo):

• Once you first get to 90, equip any Adventurer/Veteran/Champion Warbound items you may have.

• Do the 4 Weekly events to get the Champion items from the 4 factions (Head, Neck, Waist, Trinket). This also gets you max Coffer Keys and a decent amount of Veteran Crests.

• Do the 3 Nightmare Prey for 2 Champion items, Champion Crests, Hero Crests, Delve boss consumable

• Do 4 T11 Bountiful Delves (easy even at lower ilvl with a high level Valeera), using the Delve boss consumable to get the map for the Trove and use it. You will get a guaranteed Hero item from the Trove, and Champion/Hero items from the Bountiful Chests. You also get a ton of Hero Crests and Ascendant Shards.

• If you get a Champion/Hero in all tier slots, Catalyze them to get the 4pc set and unlock Catalyst charge drops.

• The next day, do the remaining 4 T11 Bountiful Delves (with the +2 purchased Keys from the vendor). After you complete 2 (6 for the week), you will be capped on Untainted-Mana Crystals but have enough to buy a Hero item for the vendor for any slot you want, if RNG cooporates, so keep an eye out. You can spam T11 Collegate Calamity if you want to target something.

• The Dungeon Vendor to give random Champion gear for the low price of 750 Marl, which may be worth YOLOing to get any missing Champion slots.

• You should have a ton of Hero crests by now. If you did not get any Hero Weapons, craft a 5* weapon using the Hero Crests and use an Ascendant Voidcore on it (now, you will NEVER want to use Myth Crests for crafting during the low-gear phase). You may want to consider also Hero Crafting a Ring as it's both cheap and harder to get a Hero version.

• You should save Hero Crests for Hero trinkets (you may get a few from Delves) to upgrade them using Ascendant Voidcores for ilvl. Even Delve trinkets are more compelling when fully upgraded, with the exception of Sealed Chaos Urn because lol.

Overall this will get you to about 250-255 ilvl without ever grouping. After that:

• Full-send your Veteran/Champion Crests as there are no other good sources for them. Because Champion/Hero of the Dawn halves crests costs, you likely have enough to get close to obsoleting both. This will get you around 255-260.

• Do Normal Voidspire/Dreamrift, which should be easy to get accepted into a PuG at that ilvl. Incidentially the gear isn't as useful anymore, but the Champion Crest income and Ascendant Shards are useful. It's also an excuse to practice your new alt.

• Full-send your remaining Champion Crests and likely Hero Crests as there are no other good sources for them. Note that you should ALWAYS upgrade Champion gear to 6/6 before using Hero Crests. This will likely get you around 265-270.

• At this point it's time for M+, which may be a bit difficult to get into at that ilvl without any rating if you are not a tank/healer. As a Demo Warlock I did a +7-9s in each dungeon to build rating and also get a decent amount of Hero Crests to further upgrade the Hero gear / craft in slots I could not get Hero Gear. Also another excuse to practice your new alt.

• One you are at a good ilvl/rating and can get into +10s consistently, do them to target farm a specific dungeon for Myth bonus rerolls. With the 10 Voidcores as of this post, you can fully exhaust the loot table of a dungeon (other than Seat) and get a few more from another dungeon. Plan gearing accordingly and minimize overlaps between the dungeons. Ideally one of the dungeons has a weapon which you can use another Ascendant Voidcore, and the upgraded Hero weapon from earlier minimizes the needed Myth Crests.

• After you have exhausted all Bonus rolls (and upgraded them with the earned crests from the +10s) you will likely be at 280.

Void Strikes and Ritual Sites seem not worth it for gearing unless you need Champion/Hero Crests in a pinch, as the 500 Field Accolades for a random Hero is too much.