Critical Pre-Season 1 Tips: Essential Tasks and What to Avoid

Preparation Tips for Season 1 of Midnight

Season 1 of Midnight is fast approaching, and now is the perfect time to ensure you are well-prepared for the exciting new content. From raids and seasonal dungeons to higher tiers of delves, there's plenty to look forward to. Here’s a comprehensive guide to setting yourself up for a successful season start.

Gear Up Your Character

Before diving into new adventures, it's crucial to gear up your character effectively. Aim for an item level of 240 to be ready for new challenges. Here are some tips to achieve this:

1. World Quests: These are a reliable way to boost your gear since they offer adventurer gear up to item level 230. Unlike most content, world quests guarantee specific gear pieces, allowing for efficient planning.
2. Additional Gear Sources: In case world quests don’t cover all gear slots, explore easy mode prey hunts, heroic dungeon queues, pinnacle caches from weekly events, and higher-tier delves.
3. Adventurer Quests: Completing various activities will reward adventurer quests that can be used to upgrade gear to item level 237.
4. Veteran Gear: For a higher item level, focus on hard mode prey hunts and mythic zero dungeons, which offer item level 240 gear.
5. Crafting with Crests: Use adventurer crests to craft up to item level 233 gear and veteran crests for item level 246 gear. Be strategic with embellishment placements on low-value gear slots for maximum benefit.

Efficiently Farm Crests

Veteran crests can be farmed more effectively than anticipated:

• Mythic Dungeons and Prey Hunts: Receive 10 veteran crests per mythic dungeon or hard mode prey hunt completion.

• Random Hard Mode Hunts: After completing available hunts on the map, ask Aster for a random hunt to earn 15 veteran crests as a reward.

Prey hunts can now be completed in about 5 minutes, making it a quick and effective way to accumulate crests.

Champion Gear from Reputation

Another avenue for gear enhancement is through faction reputation:

• Champion Gear: Obtain champion helms, necklaces, belts, and trinkets by reaching a renowned status of 7 to 9, depending on the faction.

• Reputation Farming Benefits: Besides gear, reputation gains offer profession knowledge books and cosmetic rewards, making it advantageous to progress through renown tracks.

Secure Sparks of Radiance

Sparks of Radiance are pivotal for crafting high-level gear. You can acquire three sparks before season commencement, with a fourth available soon after.

• Weekly Quest: Complete the Unity Against the Void weekly quest in Silver Moon to obtain these sparks.

• Additional Spark: Earn one spark from the Midnight World Tour quest provided by Lorramar.

Unlocking Seasonal Content

To access new challenges swiftly, prepare for nightmare mode prey hunts:

• Prey Seasonal Journey: Advance through the prey seasonal journey track, reaching renown rank four, which unlocks access to nightmare targets post-season start.

• Weekly Prey Hunts: Ensure completion of four prey hunts weekly to maintain progress.

Here's a summary table with the gear sources and methods:

By preparing efficiently and utilizing the available resources and quests, you can start Season 1 with a formidable character ready to conquer the challenges ahead.

Maximizing Gear and Preparing for Delves

To efficiently gear up before the start of Season 1, it's crucial to unlock tier eight delves as they provide champion gear. This tier is where delve rewards cap out, and successfully completing these delves allows you to earn hero track gear during the weekly reset. To unlock tier eight, work through each tier sequentially, ensuring you complete delves without exhausting all your lives, as the tier progress carries over across all delves. This preparation will save you time, as otherwise, you would need to progress from scratch next week.

Enhancing Your Delve Experience

One important aspect of delving is maximizing your outcomes by leveling up Valyra, your companion. Every delve grants her experience, and with each level, she gains new abilities, significantly aiding you in higher tier delves. After reaching level 10, further advancement unlocks the Uncrowned Bloody Ledger talent, which boosts:

1. 5% damage if Valyra is set as DPS
2. 5% healing if she's in a healer role
3. 3% max health and healing received if she's a tank

   Valyra's experience is capped at level 45 during the preseason. Ensure you utilize the daily experience bonus from your first delve run and focus on tier six or seven delves, exploring the Grudge Pit delve in Harendar for optimal experience gains.

New Raids and Dungeon Preparation

With the onset of Season 1, two new raids, the Void Spire and Dream Rift, will be available. While the allure of entering these raids blind exists, preparing by reviewing the raid journal can provide crucial insights into boss mechanics and desirable loot. Another raid opens on March 31st, providing ample time for preparation.

Additionally, engage in the Maxle campaign's first chapter by picking up the "Feeding the Flame" quest from Lor'themar in Silvermoon. This questline leads directly into the Void Spire raid, potentially rewarding players with unique quest rewards upon completing the objectives.

Seasonal Dungeon Changes

Season 1 also introduces a new dungeon pool, including both newly introduced and returning dungeons. Revisiting or familiarizing yourself with these dungeons, especially those with significant changes, can be beneficial. The new dungeon pool consists of:

• New Dungeons: Majester's Terrace, Mysara Caves, Nexus Point, Zenus, Windrunner Spire
• Returning Dungeons: Algathar Academy, Seat of the Triumvirate, Skyreach, Pit of Saron

Setting Up Professions

Regardless of your gold-making goals, setting up professions in advance is advantageous. Using Sparks of Radiance, you can craft up to item level 285 gear. Choose between public crafting orders or personal trades to craft your desired items, with a focus on weapons, special rings, braces, cloaks, and belts.

Managing Alts

As the season will be packed with activities, leveling alts now can yield long-term benefits. Alts can help farm different currencies, provide versatility with various maxed-out professions, and offer diverse gameplay experiences. Preparing them in advance ensures you won't miss out amidst the frenzy of new content.

Additionally, optimizing your leveling strategy will significantly enhance your readiness for the new season. Leveling alts has become more efficient, with times dropping to about three hours without the need for special tricks or experience bonuses. This efficiency increases as you level more alts up to 90, providing an effective way to diversify your gameplay options and prepare for any class balance changes that may come with the new season.

Preparing for Class Changes

As the season progresses, class balance and tuning updates are inevitable. Having multiple characters leveled and ready can be advantageous if your main class undergoes significant changes. Here are a few steps to ensure you're prepared:

1. Level diverse classes to cover potential nerfs or buffs.
2. Monitor patch notes for upcoming balance changes.
3. Practice with each character to understand their mechanics.

   In summary, taking these preparation steps will pave the way for a smoother start to Season 1 of Midnight. Equip yourself with leveled alts, finely tuned professions, and a keen eye on class updates to make the most of the seasonal content.