Gearing in WoW Midnight is not about grinding one type of content forever. The expansion spreads progression across world content, Delves, dungeons, raids, crafted gear, and the Great Vault. The strongest players are usually the ones who understand where each type of gear comes from and when each upgrade is actually worth chasing.

At the start of WoW Midnight, any item that replaces your old leveling gear is good enough. As your item level increases, however, you start to see that most gear isn’t created equal. An armor piece that you picked up in a dungeon can be replaced by gear you get from other locations or sources and negatively impact your character (such as blocking a spot for a tier-set piece or having inferior secondary stats for your spec). Therefore, WoW gearing is not only about increasing power but also about timing as well.

The healthiest approach to Midnight gearing is to take it in phases. You can start accumulating gear through world content, Delves, and Normal and Heroic dungeons. Later, you can continue with Mythic+, high-end raids, and crafted gear. The biggest weekly decision for geared players will be what to get from the Great Vault, as one great item can save them a lot of time farming, or even fill out the last piece of a major gear set.

If you want a deeper breakdown of the expansion’s full gearing route, crafted gear priorities, dungeon rewards, and raid upgrade strategy, the guide in the SkyCoach WoW blog gives a useful overview for players who want to plan their progression instead of wasting weekly lockouts.

Phase 1: Fresh Level 90 Gearing

As you hit level 90 and reach the level cap, your first focus will be to go for higher item-level gear. You won’t be trying to hit peak stats or get the best BiS for a while yet. Instead, you’ll be looking to progress through the endgame content enough to comfortably begin working on early raid content and the higher-level Delves.

Early gearing does not need to be optimal, and many of the pieces you get from Campaign rewards, world and Delves can be used to start to ‘fill in the blanks’ of your weak slots. As you complete your first run of normal and then heroic Dungeons, you will start to get some great items to replace the poor leveling gear that your character started off with. The key here is to start gaining some power in a relatively short period of time, to start to feel more comfortable in endgame content, and for your healers and tank to have an easier job in groups.

This is also the time when you can start to utilize your crafting resources for gearing up, but you have to be smart about it. You don’t want to craft an item that you’ll be replacing in a short amount of time with a drop from a dungeon or raid. Early on, it’s better to identify the weak points of your character through the normal leveling content of the campaign and then use your crafting resources to fill in the holes in your gear.

You can use crafting to fill out a gear slot with a weak or missing item until you get a decent drop from a run of the dungeon or the raid.

Phase 2: Dungeon and Mythic+ Progression

Dungeons are one of the fastest ways to gear your character up for endgame content in the early stages of an expansion. WoW Midnight features 8 dungeons in which players can explore, learn routes to farm them quickly and get better gear. In contrast to raids, in which a lockout for all bosses per week is in place, you can go through the dungeons as much as you like, so you can replace gear that is too weak for you and thus make better progress as you level up.

Dungeon content helps prepare a player for harder content such as Mythic+ keys and Raids. As players run through the content of the lower-level dungeons, they can work on their spec’s mechanics as well as make progress toward better gear for the end of the week for high-level content.

Phase 3: Raid Gearing and Tier Sets

Raid gearing for WoW Midnight progression is a lot more strategic than simply trying to raise Item Level in Dungeons to collect upgrades. While in Dungeons you can farm for upgrades in a really repeatable fashion, in Raids you’ll find a lot of the seasonal content’s best rewards — the best for your character, not necessarily the best in general. The best seasonal weapons, trinkets, the best tier pieces and finally the unique drops for every boss. Therefore, your goal is not just to get higher in IL in Raids, but also to protect your important Tier slots and then to think about how every new drop will finally look in your complete gear setup.

Phase 4: Crafted Gear and Upgrade Planning