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How Gear Works in World of Warcraft
Gear refers to any piece of equipment your character can wear, including armor, weapons, trinkets, rings, and so on. Every piece of gear has an item level (ilvl). Your character’s overall ilvl is calculated as the average ilvl of all equipped gear and basically serves as a rough measure of your strength.
Modern WoW uses a tiered gearing system, where items are divided into six main tiers. Each tier is tied to specific types of content:
- Explorer gear mainly comes from campaign quests.
- Adventurer and Veteran gear is earned through World Quests, Heroic and Mythic dungeons, and lower-tier Bountiful Delves.
- Champion, Hero, and Myth gear drops from Mythic+ dungeons, higher-tier Bountiful Delves, raids, and the Great Vault.
On top of that, each gear piece has an upgrade track with eight (Explorer to Champion) and six (Hero and Myth) upgrade ranks. You can rank up an item within its tier by spending special upgrade currencies, such as Valorstones and Crests.
Getting Started
The very first thing you need to do is complete the main campaign and reach the maximum level. Leveling and questing naturally go hand in hand, and if you’re new to WoW, quests are by far the most straightforward way to get started and earn your first sets of gear.
Once you reach level 10, you’ll unlock dungeons. These five-player activities will send you and your group into instanced areas to fight enemies and bosses for rewards; they pair extremely well with questing for faster XP and additional gear.
While you’re out doing your quests and occasional dungeon runs, it’s also a good idea to start working on reputations (or Renown) with the game’s main factions, especially the most recently added ones. Farming Renown isn’t particularly difficult, but it rewards you with useful gear, upgrade currencies, and other valuable items that will play an important role in your character’s overall progression.
Catch-Up Gear
Before major patches or new expansion releases, Blizzard often introduces special catch-up systems designed to help players prepare for upcoming content.
If you’re returning to the game or gearing a character shortly before a big content drop, one of those catch-up zones or events might be available, giving you a chance to earn solid gear through just a bunch of simple quests and activities.
For example, in Patch 11.0.7, the game introduced the Siren Isles, a catch-up zone that rewarded ilvl 584 gear, upgradable up to ilvl 606. The patch also added Cyrce’s Circlet ring that could be upgraded to ilvl 658, which was nearly on par with fully upgraded Mythic raidloot at the time.
Artifacts and Special Items
Some expansions feature artifact-style items that scale far beyond normal drops and are upgraded through specific progression systems. At the time of writing, we have the Reshii Wraps cloak that is earned by completing the first chapters of the K’aresh campaign and can be boosted all the way up to ilvl 730.
By the time you’re reading this guide, the current artifact may be different, but no matter what it is and how you actually get it, it’ll still give you a huge ilvl boost, so always unlock and upgrade it as soon as you have the chance.
World and Weekly Activities
Once you hit the level cap, you’ll get access to a variety of world-based activities (World Quests, Weekly events, and World Bosses) that offer good gear upgrades, especially for freshly maxed-out characters.
Most world activities also reward Restored Coffer Keys, which are required to claim loot from Bountiful Delves, and give you progress for The Great Vault, allowing you to get even more good gear pieces each week. Also, don’t forget about your Weekly quests. They’re usually quick to complete and reward Pinnacle caches with gear, crafting materials, and other valuable progression items.
Mythic+ Dungeons
Running Mythic+ dungeons is one of the most reliable ways to get high-item-level gear in the game. You can start with regular Mythic dungeons (often referred to as Mythic 0s) and then gradually work your way up through Keystone levels.
Pushing higher keys unlocks better rewards, but doing the absolute hardest isn’t always necessary. High Keystones are extremely demanding skill-wise and aren’t really worth the effort from the difficulty-to-reward perspective. Unless you want to do high keys for achievements and bragging rights, it’s more than enough to clear +6 dungeons. If you’re able to push a bit further, try +7s for stronger crest rewards. And if you’re up for a real challenge, consider running +10s to grab even better gear and crests from the Great Vault. And don’t forget that if Mythic+ feels too difficult or you don’t have a reliable group to play with, you can always opt for a WoW boost to team up with pros and secure the rewards much more easily.
Bountiful Delves
Delves are another excellent gearing option, especially for solo players. You can complete up to four Bountiful Delves per day, getting your gear, upgrade crests, and progress toward the Great Vault. For optimal rewards, it’s best to focus on Tier 8 Delves. If your gear and skill allow it, try to complete three Tier 11 Delves per week to maximize your Great Vault loot.
You can also get extra gear from a special Nemesis boss. It can be summoned inside a Bountiful Delve using a Shrieking Quartz item near the checkpoint stone. Defeating the Nemesis gives you a handful of powerful loot, including a Delver’s Bounty map, which guarantees an extra high-tier piece of gear at the end of a Tier 8+ Delve.
Access to Delver’s Bounty unlocks at Rank 2 of the Delver’s Journey progress bar. Keep in mind, though, that you can only receive one Delver’s Bounty per week, so if you already have one in your inventory, save your Shrieking Quartz for the following reset.
Raids
Raids offer the highest item-level gear drops in the game, along with a good amount of upgrade currency and Great Vault progress. Earning those rewards, however, is far from easy, because raids are the pinnacle of WoW’s PvE content, requiring serious preparation, strong individual performance, and well-coordinated teamwork. Not everyone is ready for such a challenge, which is why many players turn to WoW boost and carry services to prepare for raids or to find a professional team to run with.
Crafting
Crafting allows you to obtain some of the strongest gear in the game, often rivaling or even surpassing raid drops when fully upgraded. To craft gear pieces, you’ll need Sparks of Starlight and Enchanted Crests, which can be purchased from special vendors in Dornogal.
Crafting is a great gearing method for solo players, since it doesn’t rely on any group
content. On the other hand, you’ll need to either level the required professions yourself or pay other players to craft items for you through the Crafting Orders system. In both cases, you’ll still need to provide all the necessary reagents.