How to Gear Fast and Reach Item Level 723 in TWW Season 3
Season 3 of The War Within introduced plenty of new ways to gear up. Whether you are a returning player, just finished levelling a new alt or just looking to get caught up for the latest season, we have you covered, as we break down the best ways to gear up and take on the challenges of the Season 3.
How to Catch up with Gearing in Season 3 of The War Within
Gearing a main or new alt for season 3 is important so you can dive into new content and start earning all those new rewards that will be coming in Midnight and to enjoy the last few months of Season 3.
One of the easiest ways to start gearing is to have friends help you with either Mythic 0s or low keys once they are available. Most keys are doable with one under geared player between a +2 and +6. However, if you do not have the luxury of having friends help you through dungeons, we have a few recommendations to get you started.
If you’re looking to make some new friends, Join Starfall.
Renown Rewards
While the Renown Rewards do not offer any gear, they do offer some Weathered Ethereal Crests, Carved Ethereal Crests and Valorstones that will be important in upgrading gear in later steps. If you have played a previous season and already collected these rewards, you will not have access to them.
Below is a list of the Renown Vendors and their locations:
Council of Dornogal: /way Dornogal 39.17 24.04
The Assembly of the Deeps: /way the ringing Deeps 43.14 32.86
Hallowfall Arathi: /way Hallowfall 42.37 55.01
The Severed Threads: /way Azj-Kahet 55.26 41.21
Seasonal Start Quests
At the start of each season, there are a few quests available in Dornogal which explain the upgrade system. Completing these will reward you with some Valorstones and crests, providing you with easy upgrade paths early on.
Weekly Activities
Before heading off to do any content on K’aresh, we recommend doing at least 2 of the weekly activities available on the main Khaz Algar area. The first two you do will reward a Veteran piece of gear that can be upgraded to 691. You can also continue to do these to obtain more Valorstones, Coffer Keys and Crests. These activities are one of the easiest ways to get a character started on your gearing journey.
DISC belt
The DISC belt was everyone’s best in slot belt in season 2 and remains a strong option in season 3. It starts at item level 691 and can be further upgraded to 701 through quests. To acquire the D.I.S.C belt, pick up the “Durable Information Storage Container” quest from the Titan Console in Dornogal. Once you have the quest, just run any delve on any difficulty to complete it.
Each week, youcan pick up a quest from Dagran to earn a Titan Memory Card. This can empower your belt gradually, increasing its item level 5 times, up to a maximum of 701. This quest also rewards an Overcharged Chest, which contains an assortment of weekly currencies, Champion gear, and a Restored Coffer Key. Players who miss a weekly quest or want to play an alt will be offered all previous upgrade quests, back to back, until they're caught up.
K’aresh Content
K’aresh is the brand new zone released in Patch 11.2, and brings some great gearing opportunities.
By completing the campaign, you will be rewarded with an almost full set of 642 Explorer track gear and some valorstones. If this is your first character you will need to complete the campaign, if it’s an alt and you don’t need the gear, there is a skip. We recommend skipping the K’aresh Campaign unless your character needs valorstones or the gear.
During the campaign, or if you skipped it, you will obtain the Reshii Wraps. The cloak starts at item level 694 and will eventually be upgraded to 730. This is great for new characters as an instant item level boost similar to the DISC belt. If you’ve played through the campaign and you are skipping the questline, you will likely have enough Ethereal Strands to upgrade the cloak to 730 right off the bat. If not, you can earn Ethereal Strands from the following activities:
The first 3 Ethereal Strands are obtained during the Patch 11.2 campaign, from the quest The Tabiqa. Afterwards, they can be obtained from the following activities, provided you're not capped:
Completing Warrant quests in K'aresh;
From the chests at the end of Delves;
Looted from raid bosses in the Manaforge Omega raid;
Looted from bosses in The War Within Season 3 dungeons;
Obtained from winning PvP matches in The War Within Season 3.
This currency is used to upgrade Reshii Wraps via a talent tree that can be accessed by speaking to Hashim in Overlook Zo'Shuul. Reshii Wraps talent points are granted every 3 Ethereal Strands, improving the item level of the Reshii Wraps up to a final item level of 730. Reshii Wraps talents are timegated, with one talent point being obtained every week. This is a rolling cap, which means you'll be able to grind for Ethereal Strands until you reach the current talent point limit.
If you were to have full level 645 gear from doing the K’aresh quests, then just the addition of the 730 Reshii Wraps will get you to a 650. In order to do heroic dungeons, you only need a 651.
The K’aresh Trust renown track has some rewards which can help you upgrade your gear, including Valorstones and crest rewards. At Renown 7 you will be able to purchase a 668 veteran track chest piece.
The new world boss Reshanor, The Untethered, will drop warbound Champion track gear so if you are trying to gear new alts he is always worth finding a group for.
If you complete all of the above you should be close to 660 average item level and ready to start trying some more difficult content.
How to Gear Fast with PvE in The War Within Season 3
Once you are around item level 660, you can start thinking about doing some more difficult content.
Delves
Delves are great to start gaining gear. Your initial goal in delves will be to push towards being able to complete +8 delves. Once you feel confident enough to complete a +8 delve, you should do one of the 4 active bountiful delves, which rewards you with a Champion track 2/8 item level 684 piece. Keep doing Bountiful delves as long as you have the bountiful coffer keys available (if you have a lot of keys, you will have to do this over several days, as only 4 bountiful delves are available per day).
If you are lucky enough to obtain a Delver’s Bounty map in your delve you can activate it just before you complete the final objective of a delve, this means the treasure room will contain a hidden trove, which will contain a Hero Track piece of gear. You can guarantee a Delver’s Bounty by using a Shrieking Quartz in a Tier 8 or higher delve, be aware this will summon K’yveza, although you do not need to defeat her to obtain the map.
To gain more Coffer Keys, complete the weekly events across Khaz Algar.
As part of the Turbo Boost event, delves have increased drop rates. You can learn more about the Turbo Boost event further below in this post.
Delver's Journey Boosts: The amount of Delver's Journey progress earned per week is significantly increased across a variety of different Delve sources.
More Valorstones and Crests: Players can earn more Valorstones and will see an increase to Crest drops across all Delve Tiers.
Warbound Champion 1/8 Gear: Delves completed at Tier 9 and above will have a chance to drop Champion 1/8 Warbound gear.
Hero-Track Delve Trinkets: Once a player reaches Rank 3 in the Delver's Journey, Untainted Mana-Crystals can drop from Bountiful Coffers at Tier 9 and above, which can be used to purchase Hero-track Delve Trinkets from Zah'ran.
Dungeons
Dungeons are always a great source of gear at the start of a season, and this season is no different. Mythic 0s are a good start if you can find a group. Finding Mythic 0s are pretty easy to group for, but you may find yourself starting your own group this late in the season.
Once you start getting gear, you will be able to move on to do Mythic+. There are 3 breakpoints where keys become more valuable:
Keystone Level 6: Starting from keystone level 6, you will be rewarded with 1/6 hero track gear at 691 item level. You also get 18 Runed Crests from this difficulty. This difficulty rewards a 3/6 Hero Track Item in the vault.
Keystone level 7: At Keystone level 7, you will still receive the same Hero Track Gear as level 6. However, you will now receive 10 Gilded Crests instead of runed. For Keystones 8 & 9 you will increase the Hero Track one step to 2/6, and increase the amount of gilded crests you receive. The Great Vault Reward will be a 4/6 Hero track Item.
Keystone Level 10: At Keystone level 10, the Hero track item will increase to 3/6 and the amount of gilded crests will be increased to 16. However, the big bonus is the Great Vault item will be a Myth Track 1/6 item.
We recommend attempting to do as many keys as you can at the highest difficulty level, using the rewards to push more difficult keys. Although 10s will be extra difficult, try to do at least one for the great vault reward, and it does not need to be timed for that.
Raid
The new raid, Manaforge Omega, is available on 3 difficulties in season 3. We recommend doing as much of the raid as possible as it’s the only way to access tier gear without the Matrix Catalyst or the Great Vault. Blizzard has also made some changes with the raid rewards from the great vault, all rewards will now be the same item level as the highest boss you defeated on that difficulty. So by defeating Dimensius all loot will drop at 3/6 hero track rather than the usual lower item levels you get from earlier bosses.
We recommend running LFR if the potential drops are upgrades.
Crafted Gear and The Matrix Catalyst
Your final options for gear upgrades are to craft gear or using the matrix to convert pieces into tier.
Matrix Catalyst
You will earn one charge for the Matrix Catalyst every 2 weeks, and an additional charge when you complete one of the season 3 challenges. We recommend saving your first charge until you receive your first Great Vault piece. This will allow you to make a good decision on what to catalyze into tier and not accidentally catalyze an item you then receive in the Great Vault only days later.
There are exceptions to this. For example if you received 3 pieces of tier while running the raid, it is likely worth catalysing to obtain a 4 set, to be able to progress further in keys or raid.
Crafted Gear
During the first week you will only have access to a single spark, which limits the options that you have. That being said, you should try to craft your embellished items as early as possible. We recommend reading our Class Guides, and following their recommendations for crafted items.
Once you have sorted your embellished items you can then use future sparks for filling in slots which you have been unlucky with drops for. To help with crafting, you get an Enchanted Runed Ethereal Crest for reaching renown 20 with The K’aresh Trust, as well as the quest Manaforge Omega: Dimensius Looms.
Turbo Boost
Turbo Boost is an event that was originally introduced back in The War Within Season 2 and is back in Season 3. This event is centered around helping players gear their Warband and give small boosts to obtainable gear in Season 3. As part of the event, certain content drop bonus rewards and new rewards systems are added designed to help make gearing more efficient and enjoyable. Here are a few main highlights that come with Turbo Boost:
Puzzling Cartel Chips (Dinars)
Heroic and Mythic Upgrade Track Boosts
Upgrade Currency Changes
Delve Improvements
Crafted Gear Updates
How to Earn Puzzling Cartel Chips
Puzzling Cartel Chips are a new currency available with Turbo Boost, which allow players to purchase any piece of gear from the current seasonal Raid, or Trinkets that drop from the seasonal Mythic+ dungeons. One of two weekly Quests are available to players: Turbo-Boost: Trade Must Flow or Turbo-Boost: Infinite Growth. These quests are available in Dornogal, just outside the Great Vault.
These new quests require players to defeat 4 Raid Bosses from the Raid on Normal Difficulty or higher, or to complete 4 Mythic+ dungeons. Completing the "Turbo Boost: Trade Must Flow" quest will reward players with 3 Puzzling Cartel Chips. The "Turbo Boost: Infinite Growth" weekly quest drops after completion of the first quest, but will only reward 1 Puzzling Cartel Chip instead.
Players will be able to earn a maximum of 9 Puzzling Cartel Chips per character so be careful with what pieces you choose.
Gear Vendors Location and Items
There are two main vendors for this event, Fixer So'kir and Fixer So'tho. Fixer So'kir is your Heroic Vendor while Fixer So'tho is your Mythic Vendor. All items sold by these vendors can be purchased using Puzzling Cartel Chips, with each item specifically costing 3 Puzzling Cartel Chips.
These vendors can be found in Dornogal, just outside the Great Vault.
Vendor Location Items Available
Fixer So'kir Dornogal Heroic Track Raid Gear
Fixer So'tho Dornogal Mythic Track Raid Gear, M+ Trinkets
Bonus Warband Gear and Catalyst Charges
After the initial release of the event, the drop rates for Warband gear out of Mythic+ dungeons will be significantly increased. New to Season 3 Turbo Boost, Catalyst charges will now drop from Mythic+ dungeons, Manaforge Omega, Delves, and rated PvP. These can be used to help acquire your 4-set bonus or acquire certain Transmog options from the Tier Set armor for Season 3!
Heroic and Mythic Upgrade Track Enhancements
During the Turbo Boost event, gear on the Heroic and Mythic upgrade tracks will receive an extension, increasing the number of upgrade steps from 6 to 8. This improvement also applies to all gear sold by the Puzzling Cartel Chip vendor mentioned earlier.
Keep in mind, players must earn the required currencies to unlock these additional upgrades—these bonuses are not granted automatically.
Valorstones Turn Warbound and Ethereal Crest Caps Removed
In The War Within Season 3, upgrading end-game armor and weapons relies heavily on two currencies: Ethereal Crests and Valorstones. With Turbo Boost, Valorstones will become Warbound, and the cap on Ethereal Crests will be removed.
These changes make it easier for players to afford armor upgrades and help streamline end-game gearing progression.
Summary
So to summarize what you should be doing to get geared up:
Get your renown up with the main factions (excluding K’aresh).
(Optional) Find friends to run you through mythic 0s.
Starter quests for upgrade system.
2 weekly activities in Khaz Algar.
Complete the “Durable Information Storage Container” quest to get your D.I.S.C belt and upgrade it to 701.
K’aresh questline to get your Reshii Wraps.
Upgrade your Reshii Wraps to 730 using Ethereal Shards.
K’aresh renown for 668 chest piece.
Reshanor, The Untethered (world boss).
You should be 660 by now. Keep an eye on the Great Vault for upgrades.
At 651 ilvl, you can do heroic dungeons, so you’ve probably been doing them already. But if not, you can start doing them now.
Do Mythic 0s to get some additional gear and the Great Vault rewards.
Que up for LFR for Manaforge Omega. You cannot do this step until you have the Reshii Wraps.
Use the Matrix in Dornogal to upgrade high ilvl gear pieces into tier set gears.
Craft gear, or use the work order system to get upgrades.
Complete the Weekly Turbo Boost Quests to get Puzzling Cartel Chips (up to 9 per character).
Make sure you are upgrading your gear as you go using the upgrade crest system, but don’t upgrade something that isn’t too worth it unless it opens up more options (example: your ilvl 650 and need 651 for heroics).
Looking For More?
How to gear up fast in The War Within Season 3 before Midnight comes out.