Midnight Season 2

Gear up the way the race does.

The early-season meta in one line: farm Tier 8 delves for Hero-track gear, and put your Myth crests into a weapon before anything else. Below are the tracks and sources those calls rest on, then the strategy itself - what mythic raiders pushing the race actually run in week one, and what the realistic version looks like for everyone else.

Patch 12.1.0Trove map guide →M+ rewards →Per-spec BiS lists →

The five upgrade tracks

Six steps per track, roughly three item levels each; adjacent tracks overlap.

Track	Item level	Upgrades with
Adventurer	266 - 282	Adventurer Mistcrest
Veteran	279 - 295	Veteran Mistcrest
Champion	292 - 308	Champion Mistcrest
Hero	305 - 321	Hero Mistcrest
Myth	318 - 334	Myth Mistcrest

Beyond Myth 6/6, Ascendant Venomstones extend a piece to 337 and 341. How Venomstones are earned is not yet published, so this page does not claim to know.
The last two Mythic bosses of The Venomous Abyss drop 344 gear, the season cap.
Item-level charts published before the July 8 tuning are stale - several sites still carry the old numbers.

Where each track drops

Mythic 0 (daily lockout)Single-source number

Champion 1/6 - 292

Mythic+ end of dungeon

Champion 2/6 (295) at +2 up to Hero 3/6 (311) at +10 - full table on the rewards page

Mythic+ Great Vault

Hero 1/6 (305) at +2 up to Myth 1/6 (318) at +10

Raid: Normal / Heroic / Mythic

Champion / Hero / Myth track drops

Raid Great Vault

Pays one difficulty higher than your kills - Heroic kills put Myth-track gear in the vault

Delve Bountiful Coffers

Adventurer (T1-4) to Champion 2/6 (295) at Tier 8, the delve gear cap

Trovehunter's Bounty trove

Hero 1/6 (305) at Tier 8+ - the delve path to Hero gear, once a week

Delve Great Vault rowThe 2/4/8 delve slot thresholds are single-source

Hero 1/6 (305) from Tier 8+ delves

Crafted (Spark of Tides + crests)

Up to 331 (Myth 5/6 equivalent) with Myth Mistcrests

Prey Hunts

Adventurer (Normal) / Veteran (Hard) / Champion 292 (Nightmare, five per week)

The week-one strategy

Meta read, not game rules

Why world-first raiders farm delves

During the pre-season week, the Tier 8+ trove map was literally the only Hero-track item in the game, and at season start Tier 8 delves still hand out a guaranteed weekly Hero piece plus Hero-track vault fills with no group required.
Run Tier 8, not the maximum tier. Delve gear caps at Tier 8 - Tiers 9-11 award identical gear and only add crests and achievements. A wipe-fest at Tier 9 pays the same item level as a smooth Tier 8.
The one reason to touch Tier 11: a Bountiful clear with lives remaining opens a Gilded Stash of Myth Mistcrests, lootable up to four times a week (reported crest counts vary, so none is stated here).
Weekly delve economy: six Restored Coffer Keys a week, four Bountiful delves active a day, one trove map a week. Spend all three.

Hero gear is the working band

Champion and Veteran pieces are transitional - do not spend crests on them. Hero (305-321) is what you play in until Myth-track items start flowing from the first vault reset.
Myth track (318-344) exists from day one for Mythic raiders; for everyone else it arrives through the vault and crafting, which is why the practical week-one target is a full Hero set with Myth pieces where you can get them.

Weapon first

Spend Myth Mistcrests, Sparks and Voidcores on your weapon before anything else - highest stat weight, longest shelf life. Week one supplies roughly one full crest climb; put it in the slot that never gets replaced mid-season.
Myth-track weapon sources this week: Mythic raid drops (Mythic opened day one), the raid vault row after two-plus Heroic kills, the M+ vault from any timed +10, Voidcore bonus rolls on Heroic/Mythic bosses or +10s, and a crafted 331 weapon from a Spark of Tides plus 80 Myth Mistcrests.
A realistic non-race target for week one is the crafted 331 weapon or a Myth 1/6 vault weapon at the first reset.

Vault checklist for the week

Six or more Heroic/Mythic raid bosses: three raid vault slots at Myth track next reset.
Eight timed +10s: three Myth 1/6 vault slots.
Eight Tier 8+ Bountiful delves, and spend the trove map on a Tier 8+ run: Hero vault slots plus one guaranteed Hero piece now.
From the second vault onward, three filled slots also let you take a Nebulous Voidcore instead of gear.
Tier sets: two Venom-Cursed Fragments buy a Champion-track token, and the four-set unlocks Catalyst Charge drops from raid, M+, and delves.

Crafting, early season

Early-season reporting

The Season 2 spark is the Spark of Tides, roughly one per week from a Silvermoon weekly quest.
Recipes cost 2-4 Sparks; Hero-range crafts add 80 Hero Mistcrests, Myth-range crafts add 80 Myth Mistcrests, capping at 331.
At most two embellished pieces. Season 2 adds Hunter's Ritual Stone, Polished Ammolite and Adorned Fang, with Arcanoweave Lining carried over.
Save Sparks for embellishments and the weapon. Which slots to craft is a spec question - check your class guide rather than a general chart.

This block is early-season reporting - verify costs in game before spending.

Where this can go stale

Tracks and sources are verified for Midnight Season 2 (patch 12.1.0); the strategy sections are the current meta read and labelled as such. One correction worth knowing: the delve farm is about running Tier 8 rather than the maximum tier - delve gear caps at Tier 8, and Tier 3 this season is story-tier loot.