With the guide, we talk about Season 2 Gearing in Dragonflight 10.1 patch, covering how to get the highest ilvl BiS gears for both PvP and PvE fast!

WoW Dragonflight 10.1 Season 2 Fastest Gearing Up Guide for PvP & PvE

Speaking of gear, big changes happening in Dragonflight 10.1 patch that might keep you a little bit on edge. Valor is going to be going away at the currency that you normally use to upgrade gear is going to be completely depleted as opposed to PVP which will have its own remaining upgrading system, PVE gear will have a more let's say centralized system but might be slightly more complicated on the face of it. If you don't know exactly what's going on and we will have this in-depth guiding you through all the intricacies of the new gear for both PvE and PvP!

Dragonflight PvP Gearing Guide (Farm, Upgrade, Craft)

Most of your gear will still come from PvP. The same three-tier system we had in season 1 is making its return. With green quality crafted gear has the lowest item level at 424 ilvl, then honor gear at 437 ilvl, and finally Conquest gear is 450 ilvl. 

1. Farm Honor For 437 Item Level Gear

No matter if you are starting fresh or playing your fully geared Main in season 2, you should still Farm honor to stay ahead of the curve in the first few weeks of the Season.

If you haven't had a chance to gear an ALT before the season starts, no worries since crafted obsidian combatant gear will be the same item level as your current epics. With a quick trip to the auction house, you can buy everything you need to get a fresh alt ready for season 2.  Honor Gear will have an item level of 437 in PvP which means it can replace any Conquest piece from season 1.

For you BG lovers, this is a good thing in the first few days of the Season, you should expect to see tons of people queuing. But for you Non-BG lovers, we won't be getting comp stomp until mid-June. In any case, if you want to stay ahead of the curve at the season start, you should farm an entire set of Honor gear right away. 

Getting a full set takes less than a full cap of honor and you still don't need to worry about upgrades since gear will still scale.

2. Cap Conquest every week and aim to unlock 3 Vaults

Then no matter what you should cap your Conquest every week while aiming to unlock three Vault slots.

In season 1, these upgrades were even BiS for some specs since it meant getting the exact stats you wanted, but in just a moment we'll be explaining how this could change with a new system. Anyway as the season progresses, you will find yourself slowly getting Conquest pieces. At the moment is unclear whether Conquest will have a cap, but we're assuming it will for the first few weeks just like season 1. Regardless your goal each week will be maxing out your Vault, hoping to get lucky with a weapon in the first few weeks of the Season. 

3. Participate in World PvP to upgrade Scalewarden PvP Gear to 447 iLvl

While this is happening participate in World PVP to get pieces that can be upgraded to 447 item level. 

Assuming Conquest is not capped, this means you should do World PVP quests and farm bloody tokens while still doing the weekly quest for trophies of strife. That way when you're gearing up you will be able to get some epic pieces from World PVP.  

You will also have the ability to farm World PVP gear using bloody tokens and trophies of strife. The blue quality pieces will be 434 item level in PvP and can be purchased from the same vendor as before. Pieces can then be upgraded to a maximum item level of 447, putting them slightly behind conko's pieces once again.

4. Hold onto the FREE Tier Token and use Revival Catalyst to complete Tier Set (If BIS)

Finally, hold on to your free tier token and wait until June 19th for the Revival Catalyst to become available.

Just like before, you will have the option to convert Conquest gear into tier sets using the Revival Catalyst. And in a previous Forum post, Blizzard indicated that the system should be more alt friendly in season 2 by having fewer time-gated restrictions. The Catalyst will become available 6 weeks after the season starts which means the week of June 19th. 

But before this happens, you can earn one tier token as part of the Season 2 Master achievement by hitting 1.8k in PvP or 2.2 K in Mythic+. While it might be tempting to spend this token right away, it might be better to hold on to it for a few weeks and see what you can get in your weekly vault in order to complete a four-set later on. 

But the glaring question is whether tier pieces will even be good in PvP. The answer is complicated for a few reasons. For one, many of the tier set bonuses are actually nerfed by 50 with a PVP modifier. For some reason, this doesn't apply to every single tier set bonus but seems to affect most bonuses. On top of this, the stat Distribution on Tier gear is looking pretty bad for most armor types with the exception of leather. At the moment, it's difficult to gauge whether the loss of Versatility will be worth it for set bonuses that are nerfed by half in PvP. This shouldn't change how you initially gear as no matter what you will be playing Arena every week, getting as much Conquest as you can, and then hoping for a good Vault on reset day.

5. Craft Gear Pieces & Scale Item Level Up To 437-450

With PVP gear out of the way, let's talk about crafted pieces in season 2. Now any crafted piece can be made with an optional reagent to scale the item level to 450 with new trophies of Conquest, these can be purchased from the same vendor who sells Conquest gear. Note that these are identical upgrades that can be purchased with honor 2 scaling pieces to the 437 item level. The reason this is important is that there are lots of craftable pieces for every slot allowing you to itemize more precisely. 

For instance, cloth wearers don't have the option to buy boots with haste and versatility. But in 10.1, you will be able to craft cloth boots with both of those stats while being able to scale item levels up to 450. For each crafted slot, you will then be able to upgrade any existing crafted piece like the powerful haste proc legs or the Signet of Titanic Insight.

6. Do Your Weekly Quests To Get Sparks of Shadowflame

Most of your gear will come directly from PvP, but now you have some additional options to min max. If you wanted crafted gear, make sure you do weekly quests to earn Sparks of Shadowflame. 

Crafting or upgrading any piece will require a new spark of Shadow flame which replaces the old spark of Ingenuity, these will be earned from weekly PVE quests and even as a reward from the weekly PVP Quest that you should be doing anyway. 

7. Craft Gear Using PvP Item Level Upgrades, Make Sure To Get 2 Embellished Pieces

Then using your own profession or the work order system craft any relevant pieces including two embellished pieces and use the new optional reagent scaling up item level in PvP. Prioritize creating embellished pieces first.

Before you upgrade your Elemental Lariat, you should know that its effect did get a slight Nerf going into season 2. Lariat and the haste proc leggings are just two examples of embellished pieces you can equip, but will now be joined with some new optional enchantments. One of these is called the statuette of foreseen power which has completely replaced the precognition PVP Talent. Precog is now gone and is instead an embellishment on crafted pieces. For any Caster, this will likely be one of your embellished slots. Melee players will have a new embellishment of their own called Figurine of the Gathering Storm which adds a stacking damage buff for every second spent slowed.

While final values might be different this buff on the PCR was just under 2K additional damage per stack and stacked up to 20 times for each second spent slowed. If you don't like Mages or Hunters then you will certainly be happy about this new effect.

Finally, there is another neutral embellishment for all damage dealers with the shadow flame tempered armor which adds a stacking damage debuff to the Target. These three new embellishments join the existing list of optional enchants, which have all been adjusted slightly including a Nerf to the popular blue silken lining which now gives less Mastery overall.

The one embellishment going away is the CC reduction effect that was previously provided on crafted gear. It has been converted into a primary stat buff whenever a CC is applied potentially, making it great for setup-based specs.  The PVP trinket set bonus now only increases the main stat and stamina instead of reducing CC duration which helps offset game-wide Nerfs to crowd control. 

There are also some entirely New pieces that could be worth crafting but before we get into it we should disclaim that these could be nerfed in PvP:

• Undulating Sporecloak - It provides healing per second above 70 HP and a two-minute cooldown Auto proc Shield while under 30

• Spore Keeper's Baton & Shadowed Razing Annihilator - There is also a wand and even a two-handed mace available for crafting with some crazy effects like a versatility buff for the wand and an on-use damage effect on the maze. Assuming they are not nerfed in PvP, they could be part of this list. For a full list of newly crafted pieces check out Wowhead or simply go to the work order NPC to see what's available. 

As for the classic question of do you need to PVE to be competitive. The answer is no once again. While the new raid does feature some pretty powerful weapons and trinkets with ridiculous procs, there is even a 457 item level Mythic cloak from the last boss, but there's a high chance these effects will once again likely be nerfed in PvP. Of course, there are some of pieces with interesting stat distributions but with Conquest gear having 450 item level, these aren't at all game-breaking. There is also a new Zone to explore in 10.1 which includes new daily quests rares and a weekly World boss, but none of this seems to be relevant beyond the ability to progress in your campaign.

Dragonflight 10.1 PvE Gearing Guide (Farm, Upgrade, Craft)

There's been some changes made to how you're going to Gear Up in patch 10.1 and there's a brand new upgrade system. So we are going to do our best to explain that in the simplest way as possible to help you understand how to get yourself the best gear based on the content that you do in the patch. 

1. Running M+ Dungeons & Raids To Farm 424-450 iLvl Gears

The item levels so the absolute Max item level for a piece of gear that you can get in this patch will come from the Mythic and raid as you would imagine and the rare bosses still have these super rare items on their loop table which always drop at a slightly higher item level than the normal gear that they drop. So there is a piece of gear that's item 450 iLvL which is a cap that drops from the last boss on the Mythic+ difficulty scale Commander Sakareth from the new raid. And there are some other cool items to look forward to hopefully getting for yourself on the rare sort of loot table for some bosses. 

• Mythic+ Dungeons: 441-450 iLvl 

• Heroic Raid: 428-444 

• Normal Raid: 424-431 (upgradable by four ranks)

If you've got a piece of gear dropping from the normal raid at item level 424 at Rank 4 at the Champions here, you could upgrade that all the way to item level 437 using four Worms Shadow flame crests that you get from doing the raid on heroic, so you can keep that piece of gear from normal and still make it useful and relevant as you progress into heroic. So gear that you get from normal can be useful for quite a while through the upgrade system which is quite nice. 

2. Farm Great Vaults To Get Tier Set Pieces

With the Great Vault, there have been some slight adjustments to the number of bosses needed to unlock the raid slot sections as the raid in 10.1 has more bosses than in the last tier, so the slots will now unlock about three five and seven boss kills rather than two four and six as it was last season. Another nice change to raid is from the Vault is that what used to be the case is you would only get loot in your Vault from rare buses that you had killed on that difficulty, but now the way it works if you go into normal red for example and you kill the last boss and only the last boss, you will still be eligible to get loot from all the other previous bosses in your Great Vault that week. 

You could argue that this does make it a bit more difficult to target specific pieces of gear potentially but we think on the whole this is a good change. 

The second season at Dragonflight does also come with some new tier sets and tier set bonuses for everybody for all the classes, so items that come from the Vault can still be tier pieces like gear from rated PVP, Mythic Plus and of course the Raid, you can still get two pieces in your Vault.

3. Upgrade Gear To 441 ILvl  with Flightstones & Shadowflame Crests

Any gear that you get from the open world from the Raid or from Mythic Plus for example can be upgraded using this new system. It won't work on PVP gear and it won't work on top-end items like things from the Mythic+ raids or crafted gear for example. For Mythic+, Valor is being completely removed and replaced by this new system, there are some similarities to how values work but it's just a bit more complex system.

You're going to get access to two new currencies: Flightstones and Crests:

Flightstones are the new currency for upgrading up to a GS of 441. These Flightstones can be obtained from almost every activity the end content has to offer. It doesn't matter whether you take part in the cooking event, complete a dungeon or bring a raid boss to his knees. Rares, treasure chests or world quests also bring flying stones. But be careful: you can't have more than 2000 in your pocket, so make sure to spend the Flightstones before you collect new ones. However, there is no limit to how many Flying Stones you can collect in a week.

Where To Get Flightstones in Dragonflight 10.1 Season 2

• Quests from patch 10.1

• World quests

• Open World Events (for example Banquet, Dragonbane Fortress, etc.)

• Rare

• Treasure chests

• Mythic+ Dungeons

• Kill raid bosses/world bosses

• Ranked PvP battles

• Shadowflame Crests

In addition to the Flightstones, there are four Shadowflame crests. These are available as a complete coat of arms, but also as coat of arms fragments, which can then be put together to form a coat of arms. Each Shadowflame Crest allows upgrading up to a certain item level cap. Luckily, the Shadowflame Crests stack up to 300 and are stored in the Reagent Bag, so they don't take up space in your normal inventory. However, you can collect a maximum of 10 Shadowflame Crests per level. Since there are four levels of them, you can loot a total of 40 pieces per week. However, Blizzard has already announced that this cap will expand over the course of the season.

upgrade levels and costs

All equipment belongs to a category that determines how high an item can be upgraded. The categories are:

• Researcher (maximum upgradeable to 398)

• Adventurer (maximum upgradeable to 411)

• Veteran (maximum upgradeable to 424)

• Champion (maximum upgradable to 437)

• Hero (maximum upgradeable to 441)

The categories always overlap a bit with the GS. But it is important to keep an eye on the Max-GS. So you cannot upgrade an item of the “Researcher” category to 441. The Explorer category only requires Flying Stones to upgrade. Likewise the first 4 levels of the adventurer category. Up to a GS of 398 you don't need to invest shadowflame crests.

• From level 402-411 a shadowflame crest of the whelp is required.

• From level 415-424 a shadowflame crest of the dragon is required.

• From level 428-437 a Shadowflame Crest of the Wyrm is required.

• A Shadowflame Crest of the Aspect is required for level 441.

Of course, the items don't always drop at level 1. As you know it from Mythic Plus, for example, higher-value items can already be in the chest and of course in the large treasury. Items with a mythical item level cannot be further upgraded. This affects the items that already drop at 441 or higher.

The cost of the Flightstones increases the higher you upgrade

But there is a new catch-up system that is quite interesting. For example, if you have already worn shoes at 431 on a character, then this item slot will be noted account-wide. If shoes now drop to 418, then upgrading only costs 50% of the Flightstones and shadowflame crest is not required at all. So it can be upgraded right from the start, the shadowflame crests are by no means wasted and you don't have to use them sparingly.

Attention: Rings, amulets, and one-handed weapons are known to occupy two slots and the second highest item level applies. Main-hand weapons and off-hands also count individually. Fury Warriors are the exception here.

Craft Gear To 447 iLvl

Even if the crafted items have no categories, they are upgraded via Shadowflame Crests. Enchanting can also be used to craft Enchanted Shadowflame Crests, the Training Matrix, and Spark of the Shadowflame to modify the GS. For crafted items, the maximum GS is 447.

The crafted items from Season 1 can of course continue to be used and upgraded. To do this, you need Spark of the Shadowflame. In addition to the well-known Mats, the production of Enchanted Shadowflame Crests also requires Dracothyst. This can be crafted by Alchemists or made from 10 Dracothyst Shards. The upgrade items from Season 1 lose their validity and are no longer required.

For crafted PvP items you need the Crest of Honor or the Epic Trophies of Conquest. The rest of the PvP gear is further upgraded via Honor and Conquest Points. However, Blizzard has already announced that there could be a change in the coming seasons if the new system proves its worth.