World of Warcraft The War Within Season 2 is now live, and one of the many questions you might ask yourself is: how can I get high item level gear in this new season? With Patch 11.1, Blizzard changed gear acquisition a bit, and this guide will tell you which steps you want to go through to get yourself some max item level upgrades.
How to catch up with Gearing in The War Within Season 2
First of all, you will want to know how to catch up with your Gear. Getting your alts and mains ready for seasons 2 is very important, and if you are under 620 - 630 ilvl, most of the group content might be just a little too hard, or you might struggle to be invited in the group finder. How can you get your item level up there if you want to get stuck into the season?
If you have friends that can help you in Mythic 0s or low Mythic+ keys, most +2 to +6 keys are doable with one weaker group member, so this might be a solution. But if you want to play solo, I’d suggest doing a few things first.
For PvP, the easiest way to catch up is just to go into Battlegrounds, farm honour, do weeklies and buy the honour gear. It’s the same for players who played season 1, so this should be pretty quick.
Collect Renown Rewards
Get all the renown’s rewards from the quartermasters. This is an important step because it can give you more than 100 Graved Crests if you went far enough in the renown track.
The Table below shows the location of every Renown Quartermaster.
| Renown Faction | Location Coordinates |
| Council of Dornogal & The Assembly of the Deeps | /way Dornogal 39.18 24.04 |
| Hallowfall Arathi | /way Hallowfall 42.37 55.01 |
| Hallowfall Arathi | /way Hallowfall 41.32 52.98 |
| The Severed Threads | /way Azj-Kahet 55.26 41.21 |
Complete Two Weekly Activities
Before going to Undermine, you can do all the weekly activities in Khaz Algar and fly through the glowing orbs in the sky to get a lot of Carved Undermine Crests, Weathered Undermine Crests, Valorstones, and some Bountiful Delve keys. You can skip this part if you want and go straight to Undermine, but if you are really behind this should help your crest and Valorstones economy.
Do at least 2 weekly activities. You can do all of them, including world events, but doing at least 2 will reward you with 2 Veteran gear pieces, these have the option to be upgraded up to 645 item level.
Season Start Quest Hand-in
One nice thing to kick start the season with some Valorstones and Crest, you can complete the quest next to the Gear Upgrade NPCs, in Dornogal for nice Valorstone and Crest rewards.
It’s smoother to do this after renown and weeklies as they will reward you with everything you need to complete all the quests here.
Siren Isle & Cyrce’s Circlet
Then, go to the Sirens Isle and get Cyrce’s Circlet, upgrade it to max ilvl (658) by completing the quests and Island events. Once you’ve done this and looked for the best gems, buy some Siren Isle catch up gear at the Sirens Isles quartermaster to replace your worst pieces.
Undermine Content & Cartels of Undermine Reputation
Once you are in Undermine, you have two options: skipping the story or not. I would advise you to skip the story if you already are close to 615 Item levell and are focused on gearing and less so the story of the Patch. If not, doing it will award you with some 597 explorer track loot and Valorstones, which is better than the Sirens Isles catch up gear.
Either way, you will get into Undermine. Once in there, do the World Quests, side quests, and Rares. You need to get to Renown 7 with the Cartels of Undermine.
Once you are at Renown 7, buy the boots offered by the Quartermaster. These are some of the first pieces of Veteran gear you can acquire. Now the goal would be to upgrade them to item level 645, so continue to farm Valorstones and Crests.
After finishing all this, you should have 3 items at (or upgradable to) item level 645, 1 at 658, and at least 597 in every other slot. Now, you can upgrade all your 597 gear with Valorstones, which aren't capped, to get an even better item level. This should bring you much closer to item level 620 overall.
How to Gear Fast Through PvE in The War Within Season 2
Now that you are all caught up, or if you were already 620+, what are your options?
First of all, Mythic 0. If you aren’t yet 630+, Mythic 0 is on a weekly lockout and rewards 636 gear. It’s a good way to get a lot of Carved Crests, get to know the dungeons, and get the last gear pieces that will help you reach 630 Item Level.
For a breakdown of the rewards and their item levels from Raiding, Mythic+ and Delves, including their Great Vault reward item levels, check out our TWW Season 2 Rewards Guide.
Delves
If you want to play solo, Delves are also a good choice. You want to reach level 8, as it drops level 639 gear, like normal raids, and rewards runed crests. Get to level 8 by playing delves that aren’t bountiful first, and then do the bountiful level 8 Delves as this rewards item level 642; remember that this requires Restored Coffer Keys, which you get from World Quests and weekly activities.
With delves and M0, you should really get the ball rolling. Once you are in the 625-635 zone, you want to get back into Mythic+ and farm +6 level keys.
Mythic+ Dungeons
The 2 best key levels to farm are level 6 and level 8.
Level 6 Keys: they give a lot of runed crests and will have a chance to award you with a 649 gear piece at the end of the dungeon, which is amazing.
Level 8 Keys: once +6 is really easy and once you've reached the runed crest cap, you want to go to +8. The base ilvl from here is 652, and you can’t really get better items in Mythic dungeons. +10 will award you with 655 gear and the extra difficulty isn’t worth the reward currently. Level +8 also gives Gilded crests, the highest quality type of Crests.
You can also farm keys that are easier than +6 if it’s a bit too hard. It’s not as good, but if you need to get a bit more steam before going to the higher keys, it’s still a great option.
Once you feel strong enough, try to do at least one +10 key per week, even if you don’t time it, this will give you a vault slot that rewards you with a random 662 item level gear piece after the weekly reset . After the first week, if you want to just optimize gearing, do +10 just for the vault and +8 for the crests.
Regarding Raiding, do as many bosses as you can each week, as some raid trinkets are really strong and clearing the raid will get you more renown for the raid specific renown. There isn’t much to it sadly, just get in there and clean in the highest difficulty you can.
How to use Crafting and the Catalyst in The War Within Season 2
The last options you have are crafting and using the Matrix Catalyst.
For the Catalyst, don’t use your charge until the end of the week / weekly reset. You don’t want what will drop in the vault, so don’t push your luck and accidentally convert an item into the same tier your vault might reward you.
In the first few weeks, keep your sparks. During week 2, find the best embellishments for your class and use runed or glided crests to craft your two best embellished gear.
After those weeks, use crafting as a way to combat bad luck: if you are really unlucky on a specific piece, just craft it instead. A quality 5 craft will be 675 item level, which is amazing for boosting that overall item level.
You can quickly find out about crafting with the Enchanted Crests in our Enchanted Gilded, Runed and Weathered Undermine Crests Guide, it will show you where you need to go to buy the required level of Crest for the gear you’re crafting.
How to gear for PvP in The War Within Season 2
Now, a quick world on PvP. PvP gearing isn’t as complicated as PvE, but you can do a few things to optimize your gearing process:
- Farm honour. After farming enough honor, buy a full honour gear set for 11,000 honour. This set will be 665 item level, so better than anything you could have from Season 1.
- Do the different PvP weeklies for conquest, bloody tokens and honour. Use bloody tokens for off pieces like bracers or belts.
- Once you have conquest, focus on buying future tier pieces. Don’t buy weapons, as the 2500 honour achievements will give you a free weapon.
- Use the catalyst to get your missing tier pieces.
And that’s pretty much it! If you’re looking for guides on the Season 2 Mythic+ Dungeons, Raids, Delves and Class guides, make sure to check out all of Method’s Season 2 Guides, we’ve got you covered.
