Get Ready Before Launch Day
Grab the Darkmoon Faire Buff Early
You can get a head start before Patch 11.2 goes live (Tuesday for NA realms, Wednesday for EU). Head to Darkmoon Faire Island and ride the carousel for a 10% reputation gain buff. This becomes huge when you're grinding rep during the first few days.
Just know the buff only lasts 60 minutes and disappears if you die. To avoid constant trips back to the island, buy some Darkmoon Faire hats with your tickets. These hats let you reapply the buff anywhere, saving you tons of travel time while maxing out your reputation gains.
Starting the New Campaign
Getting to K'aresh
When you log in after patch launch, you should see "The Shadowy Invitation" quest pop up automatically. If it doesn't show up, go to Foundation Hall in Dornogal and talk to Locus Walker. This quest opens the portal to K'aresh, the new zone.
You're helping Locus Walker stop the void lord Dimensius from returning. If this guy makes it back, both the Ethereal home world and Azeroth are toast. Your base of operations will be Tazavesh, so you'll be spending a lot of time there.
Dealing with Buggy Quests
Relogging fixes most of these issues. You might need to do this 10+ times while working through the campaign. Sometimes the next quest in the chain won't appear until you relog either.
Set Your Hearthstone Smart
When you get to the innkeeper quest, set your Hearthstone to Tazavesh. This becomes your main hub for the entire patch and expansion. Don't worry about getting back to Dornogal quickly. There's a portal in Tazavesh that takes you straight to the Dornogal Delve area. More portals will show up next week, including 1s to daily bountiful Delves.
Getting Your Artifact Cloak
The Reshii Wraps Are Everything
Your main goal is completing Chapter 3 called "Desert Power." This gives you the Reshii Wraps artifact cloak, hands down the most powerful item in the patch. This thing provides massive power increases and unlocks tons of content.
Enables Phase Diving, unlocks special Delve rooms, and provides massive stat bonuses. Required for raid entry and most endgame content.
You need this cloak for:
- Raid entry next week
- Special Delve rooms
- Phase Diving
- Several raid mechanics
- Pretty much everything important in the patch
2 Must-Do Quests After Getting Your Cloak
Look for 2 purple triangle quests on your map:
- "Wrapped Up" lets you upgrade your cloak by unlocking the first talent node. This gives you the special proc effect, which is a huge chunk of the cloak's power. Your item level jumps to 701 too.
- "Another World" introduces Phase Diving and unlocks new content types in K'aresh. You'll be doing a lot of Phase Diving this patch.
Finish both of these quests to unlock the alt skip feature. Your alts can then talk to Locus Walker in Dornogal and skip straight to getting their cloak.
Upgrade Your Cloak Further
You can get 1 more upgrade this week by collecting 3 ethereal strands. Run 3 Delves and you'll get 1 strand per completion. This upgrade bumps your cloak to item level 707 and unlocks hidden Delve rooms.
Ethereal strands work account-wide, so you only need to collect them once for all your characters.
Better Fibers for More Stats
The quest gives you a choice of fiber that determines your cloak's secondary stats. You can swap these anytime at the upgrade NPC, but the starting fibers aren't the best option.
Pure fibers give about 600 more secondary stats. The recipe comes from hitting Renown 5 with K'aresh Trust. If you're a tailor, farm the rep and craft them yourself. Otherwise, put in a crafting order or find someone in trade chat. Pure fibers don't have quality ranks, so use the cheapest materials. You might need to tip 500-1,000 gold to get orders filled quickly.
Phase Diving and Fast Travel
Conduits Beat Flight Paths
Phase Diving puts you in an alternate dimension full of energy, special monsters, rares, treasures, and unique quests. More importantly, phase conduits work like super-powered flight paths.
Once you finish the Phase Diving questline, all conduit locations unlock immediately. You can zip across the map instantly instead of using slow regular flight paths. Pro tip: you can actually right-click the Phase Diving buff to exit anywhere without walking back to a conduit. This might be a bug, but it works for now.
Completing the questline also unlocks the weekly quest "More Than Just a Phase" for ongoing progression.
Mastering the Delve System
Climbing the Tiers
You start with tier 4 Delves available. To unlock higher tiers, complete your current highest tier with lives remaining. So beat a tier 4 to unlock tier 5, beat tier 5 to unlock tier 6, and so on.
Delve Tier Performance Guide
Tier 7 is where bountiful Delves start dropping champion gear. Tier 8 gives you the best Weekly Vault rewards (item level 694). Tiers 9 through 11 provide extra crest rewards.
Getting to tier 8 during week 1 saves time when season 3 starts and gives you access to the best gearing opportunities.
Collecting Coffer Keys for Next Week
Bountiful Delves aren't available yet, but you can stockpile restored coffer keys for week 2. The weekly cache system got split into 2 types:
Check older reputation vendors too. They've been updated with season 3 rewards, so you might find a bunch of keys and upgrade materials you never picked up.
World Boss and Gold Making
Reshanor World Boss
There's a new world boss called Reshanor that drops item level 688 champion gear. The gear is warband tradeable, which is great for gearing alts. If he's available during your first week, make sure to kill him on all your characters for potential champion gear.
Farm New Materials Early
K'aresh has new mining and herbalism nodes. If you want to make gold, hit these hard during the first few days. Values will be highest when you're among the first farmers, then drop as more people flood the market.
Mythic 0 Dungeons
Your Main Gearing Path
With mythic plus and raids locked until next week, Mythic 0 dungeons are your best bet for gear upgrades. They drop item level 681 champion gear that upgrades to 704 with Carved crests. You also get lots of Valorstones and crests.
Each dungeon has a weekly lockout, so run them all once for maximum loot. There are 6 available (Tazavesh comes in week 2). For Weekly Vault completion, you need 8 total runs, so 2 won't give loot.
The new Eco Dome Alani dungeon is available on all difficulties. Just know the story timing is weird since it takes place after the campaign ends, but you can't finish the campaign yet.
Advanced Delve Prep
Nemesis System Setup
Farm Undercoins to buy the nemesis summoning item from the main vendor. This spawns a mini-boss in Delves that you need to get to 50% health. Doing this gives you a bountiful chest with hero gear. Get this item during week 1 so you're ready when bountiful Delves go live.
New Delve Content
There's a new Delve available this week. Try to push from tier 8 to 11 if you can manage it. This sets you up perfectly for week 2 content.
Reputation and Renown
K'aresh Trust Rewards
The new faction has some important unlocks:
- Various crest types
- Good gear pieces
- Permanent augment rune at the end
- Professional recipes at Renown 5 (including pure fiber recipes for tailors)
Farm rep through world quests (with your Darkmoon Faire buff active), killing rares, and side quests.
Warrant Weekly Quests
After finishing Chapter 3 and getting your cloak, warrant quests unlock in Tazavesh. You get 3 mini-quests plus a boss kill. Rewards include more reputation, Valorstones, and other materials.
Crafting and Sparks
Getting Your First Sparks
You can get 2 Fractured Sparks of Starlight this week:
- 1 from any important weekly quest in Dornogal (look for the spark reward icon)
- 1 more from endgame content like Delves or dungeons
Check your currency tab for Starlight Spark Dust to track your progress against the seasonal cap.
Combine 2 fractured sparks into 1 Spark of Starlight to craft item level 691 gear that upgrades to 720 with runed and gilded crests.
Smart Crafting Strategy
Also avoid crafting:
- Boots (raid boots interact with your cloak for power boosts)
- Belts (the previous patch belt stays relevant)
- Cloaks (artifact cloak occupies this slot permanently)
Focus on jewelry and bracers for the best crafting value.
Weekly Vault Planning
Filling Your Weekly Vault
You can't do raid content yet, but dungeons and Delves work fine.
Weekly Vault Requirements
| Content Type | Requirement | Reward Item Level | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mythic 0 Dungeons | 6 clears for max reward | Item Level 691 | High Priority |
| Tier 8 Delves | 8 completions | Item Level 694 | Highest Priority |
| Combined Strategy | 1 reward in each row | Best overall loot | Recommended |
At minimum, get 1 reward in each row. The Weekly Vault can contain tier pieces in any slot, so it's usually worth doing as much as you can.
Don't Forget the Disc Belt
Previous Patch Belt Still Matters
If you missed it in Patch 11.7, grab the disc belt and upgrade it fully. The quest chain changed but it's still available near the Delve headquarters in Dornogal. You need to run Delves to get the belt and each upgrade.
This belt goes to item level 701, higher than most week 1 gear. The special effects make it valuable long-term, similar to how some items from previous expansions stayed best-in-slot for entire seasons.
Resource Management
Spending Crests and Valorstones Wisely
Feel free to use Weathered and Carved crests on whatever you want. The gear they upgrade gets replaced quickly by champion pieces, so these crests won't be useful for long.
Try to start next week with close to 2,000 Valorstones. Save any items that create Valorstones when used as emergency backup currency.
Updated Legacy Vendors
The Nightfall gear vendors in Hallowfall now accept tokens for season 3 Adventurer gear (upgrades to item level 678). Perfect for filling immediate gaps or using excess tokens.
Alternative Gearing Routes
World Quests and Heroics
World quests drop Adventurer gear that upgrades to item level 678 with Weathered crests and Valorstones. Good for replacing really low item level pieces.
Heroic dungeons give item level 665 Adventurer gear and you can queue for them. They're also a solid source of Weathered crests and Valorstones if you want easier content.
Guaranteed World Boss Loot
Your first weekly world boss kill guarantees 1 piece of item level 688 champion gear. You can't control which piece drops, but since it's warband tradeable, you can move it to whoever can use it.
Week 2 Prep Checklist
Must-Do Before Reset
Get and upgrade your Reshii Wraps cloak, Complete "Wrapped Up" and "Another World" quests, Collect as many restored coffer keys as possible, Unlock tier 8 Delves minimum, Get the disc belt from previous patch
Pure fiber upgrade for your cloak, Collect and combine fractured sparks, Fill Weekly Vault rows (at least 1 reward each for dungeons and Delves), Kill the world boss if available, Farm materials for early gold
Buy nemesis summoning item, Build K'aresh Trust reputation, Learn the Phase Diving system, Stock up on Darkmoon Faire hats
Following this progression puts you in the best possible position when season 3 launches while making the most of week 1's limited content.