Crafted gear in Season 2 can be a great way to gear up for everyone, and all you need are Sparks of Shadowflame. Check the patch 10.1 solo gearing guide, we break down how to fast get ilvl 447 gear in WoW Dragonflight Season 2 with Sparks of Shadowflame. 

Dragonflight 10.1 Fast & Easy ilvl 447 Gearing Guide - New Upgrade System for Season 2 Dragonflight

With patch 10.1 finally in our hands and Season 2 coming tomorrow, we are going to have so many different options for gearing up. But one of the easiest and most solo player friendly options is going to be crafted gear. There's a new kind of spark to collect the Shadowflame Spark that lets you create new crafted gear at way higher item levels when compared to season 1. Some aspects of how these sparks work are similar to season 1 crafted gear, but there are also some very important differences. So we're going to go through everything you need to know about these new sparks and how you can use them to get some very easy item level 424 gear that can be upgraded all the way to item level 447 in WoW Dragonflight Season 2. 

Dragonflight Sparks of Shadowflame & How to Get, How to Use

Shadowflame Sparks are the new season 2 crafted gear time gate, using a Shadowflame spark to recraft or create new crafted gear allowing you to massively increase your item level and give you access to a very reliable easy source of gear even if you don't take part in any kind of group content. 

How to get sparks of Shadowflame?

Getting your sparks is simple, there are two types of weekly quests you can complete to earn a splinter or one half of a spark. 

- The first quest is in loam called “A Worthy Ally”. You need to farm some reputation with the new nif and faction, hand the quest in and the bag will contain one splinter.

- The other option you have is weekly PVP quests in the Valdrakken PVP building. The first one you complete will give you a bag that also contains a splinter. So the choice is yours for which weekly quest to complete. 

How many sparks can we get?

1 splinter per week with two splinters required per spark, means we can get one Spark of Shadowflame every two weeks and there is also a quest in loam that grants you an extra splinter for your first time. So you can get your first spark right now with each subsequent spark taking 2 weeks worth of quests. So as long as you get those weekly quests done, you will never fall behind in splinters or spark acquisition.

How to Get Gear with Sparks in Dragonflight Season 2?

So, once we have our first spark, how do we put it to good use? It's just like season 1, we need to get a piece of gear crafted. If you don't have professions yourself, you need to pop by the crafting orders clerk. You can craft almost any piece of gear that you want, but it’s recommended to look into high value targets first like your weapons. So pick the recipe that you want crafted, collect all the materials and either place a public work order or find a crafter to make your stuff.

You need to make sure you craft rank 5. Because this is crafted gear, the same rank item level scaling applies to Season 2 Shadowflame crafted gear, rank 1 starter item level 411 and you can go all the way up to rank 5 which will be item level 424. So make sure you're getting your stuff crafted by a well-equipped and skilled player to maximize your chances of seeing those rank 5 items. You can usually just sit in train chat for a few minutes to find someone with the profession you want with the specializations you can make use of and saving that player's name if you do find someone. When you find a crafter you like, keep in touch. If things continue the way they are, next patch will have yet another round of Sparks and higher item level crafted gear for us to chase after. So high level Crafters will always stay relevant. But if you get this stuff crafted at rank 5, you can get item level 424 gear with very little effort.

The pacing of obtaining your Shadowflame Sparks is the same as season 1, but there are two huge differences which makes Season 2 so much better. To start with, we will get 1 spark every two weeks of progress or splinter collecting from now until the end of the season, so you will always get 1 spark every two weeks if you're doing the weekly quests. No random drops, it's all steady and reliable progress. The other major difference for season 2 Sparks is the actual crafting recipes. In Season 1, Sparks weren't really that big of a problem or time gate especially for solo players or anyone who didn't spam high level Mythic+. Primal chaos was your bottleneck most of the time, you could have all 5 Sparks from the quests but without a good source of Primal chaos. You couldn't actually use them to craft gear. Primal chaos is gone and nothing is replacing it for season 2. All you need is the spark and some crafting materials. So crafting gear in season 2 is just much easier overall, but especially for solo players without that Primal chaos currency in play. Interestingly, you can still use old Sparks to craft gear without the Primal chaos cost which can give you some very quick and easy gearing options for new alts especially. So if you haven't used all of your old Sparks yet, you can look into replacing some low item level pieces with the old crafted gear.

Spark on Alts & Catch-up Options

How do these Sparks work for your alts and what capture mechanics do we have in place just in case you missed your weekly splinter quest? 

• After unlocking the weekly quest on one character, any alt you have should be able to go straight down to loam and pick up both the Splinter Quest as well as the weekly niffen quest to earn your splinter. So all you have to do is farm the rep, turn in the quest and your alts can get their splinters easy peasy. You do also have the PVP weekly quests if that's something you'd rather do. So if you think that's easier or faster for your alts to do, keep that in mind. 

• For the catch-up mechanics, if you miss a spark, you will have a chance to earn that spark in a variety of other content including Mythic+, PVP wins, the new world boss, Fyrakk Assault, the Researchers Under Fire event, Niffen Cave Dives and Aberrus raid bosses. So pretty much everything at max level in the new patch. Sparks can only drop in this extra content while you are behind the current pace of spark creation. So as soon as you caught up to everyone else, you will no longer be able to get sparks outside of those weekly quests. 

So no matter who you are or how you play, Shadowflame Sparks give you access to item level 424 gear without having to do anything besides get those weekly quests completed and collect your splinters every week. If you can do that, you can craft a new piece of gear, every two weeks that can be up to item level 424 baseline. Eventually, you'll be able to make a full set of gear without touching any kind of other content. 

How to Upgrade from 424 to 447 ilvl Gear - Dragonflight Season 2 Upgrade System

The real value in this gear comes from its ability to be upgraded. To upgrade your Season 2 crafted gear, you will need enchanted crests, these are created by an enchanter and you'll need to make a work order for them if you are not an enchanted yourself. There is the enchanted worm crest and then the enchanted aspect crest. The key component in both of these upgrade items are the Shadowflame crests that you should have been introduced to by now. Worm crests come from killing bosses on heroic mode in the new raid or from doing Mythic+ dungeons between a +11 and 15. So if you're able to push that high-end Mythic+ keys or kill bosses in Aberrus on heroic, you can take those worm crafts, craft them into enchanted worm crests and upgrade your gear up to 437. Aspect crests come from the raid on Mythic difficulty or Mythic+ keys above level 16. So if you can push a bit higher and get these higher tier crests, you'll gain access to those Enchanted aspect crafts and be able to upgrade your crafted gear to ilvl 447 in WoW Dragonflgith Season 2. And you can do this for every piece of crafted gear you get. So it doesn't matter if you get super unlucky with drops in dungeons or raids, you can specifically choose which items to craft and upgrade. So if you desperately need a high item level weapon, crafting one is probably your best bet. 

There are so many changes for the Mythic+ system in Season 2 that should make it easier to progress when compared to any other season we've had in the game. To start with, there is no seasonal affix. So that should make learning and understanding the dungeon runs much easier already. But in addition to that, the pacing of affixes has also been changed quite dramatically, you won't see the first affix on your keys until +7 now, so from +2 up to +6, you only have tyrannical or fortified. The second affix won't be seen until +14, so you can do those +11 keys and get worm crests and you will only have one affix you need to pay attention to. That should make learning Dungeons and progressing up your Keystone levels a lot easier than before. 

This is almost a perfect gearing system, because it's easy to get into at the lower levels, but you can upgrade the gear so far that it never becomes obsolete. And we'll be taking this crafted gear into the next season just like how Season 1 gear can be upgraded for Season 2. So even when we head into patch 10.2 and season 3, all of the time and effort and gold you put into this gear right now is not going to be wasted long term.