World of Warcraft: The War Within Gearing Guide

Early expansion gearing has largely stayed the same for the past 10+ years, but The War Within is mixing it up with new ways to get the best gear before season one starts. While there are some things that have stayed the same, where players will spend most of their time at the beginning of the expansion has changed a lot. So, whether you are looking to spend hundreds of hours in the new WOW expansion or just a few hours a week, this guide will tell you how to best gear your character(s) and spend your play time.

First, early expansion gearing is different than gearing at any other time. Traditional ways of gearing characters (mythic+ dungeons, raid, and PVP) are not available during the early expansion. This early expansion period will last three to four weeks into the beginning of The War Within, depending on how you look at it. The heroic and normal raid will unlock three weeks after the expansion releases; mythic+ dungeons and mythic raid, which is where the best gear can be obtained, won’t be available until after the fourth week. With these traditional avenues of gearing out of the picture, here is how you can gear your character(s) most efficiently.

World Quests

Upon reaching level 80, which should take between five and seven hours, players will want to complete all the world quests in all the four zones. World quests may be unlocked before hitting level 80, but it is best to save them until after level 80 is reached (especially ones that reward gear) because it will give the maximum rewards. While doing all world quests can be tedious, there are two reasons you want to do all of them; 1) they give currency, gear, and gold that you will need, 2) they give reputation gains for each zones faction and each faction will probably have very high item level item for purchase locked behind a reputation gains. Therefore, completing all world quests every day will be very important.

Dungeons

After world quests are complete, dungeons will be the next step. A couple normal dungeons, several heroic dungeons, and around eight mythic dungeons is all players will really need to do to move on from this step. It used to be that mythic dungeons were the final step, but The War Within has changed this. Mythic (mythic zero, not mythic plus) dungeons previously rewarded the highest ilvl gear at the beginning of expansions but could only be completed once per week per dungeon. Now, mythic dungeons can be completed once per day per dungeon but drops lower ilvl gear. Because of this, mythic dungeons are not as relevant unless your character needs a very specific piece of gear from one of the dungeons. After these dungeons, your character should have nearly all blue and/or purple gear equipped and at that point, your character is ready for the final step in The War Within early expansion gearing.

Delves

The final step is spamming Delves, which is new content as of The War Within. There is a total of 12 delves (actually 13 but the 13^th is a challenge mode delve that probably will be too hard to get to until after the raids release) and each of the delves has 12 difficulties. The goal for any character in the early expansion to complete as high of a delve difficultly as possible because the higher difficulties provide higher ilvl gear upon completion. Delves can be done solo or with up to a total of five people, so the ability to replay this content in new ways is noteworthy. While there is still a lot to be discovered able delves because they are the newest content, they will definitely be the place where most players spend most of their time in the early expansion to get the best possible gear.

To summarize, players will be doing world quests, then dungeons, and finally delves once they reach max level. The pace at which one does these tasks is up to them, but this sequence of gameplay is going to be the best of time once The War Within releases. With mere days before the expansion releases, it’s time to get excited for the new World of Warcraft expansion. See you around Azeroth!