[00:00] Hey folks, this is Kelani. Patch 12.1 is in full&nbsp; swing, bringing us much higher item levels from&nbsp;&nbsp; all content types, but only certain activities&nbsp; are available in this first week, and some sources&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:12] have had their rewards restricted quite heavily&nbsp; until season 2 starts for real. There are still&nbsp;&nbsp; some chances to get some great gear upgrades,&nbsp; though, if you know where to look. So, let's go&nbsp;&nbsp; over exactly how you can get up to item level 308&nbsp; gear this week to best prepare your characters for&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:28] the start of season 2. Now, before we jump in, be&nbsp; sure to hit up that like button and subscribe so&nbsp;&nbsp; you never miss another video. The first thing&nbsp; you should do before heading out for any gear&nbsp;&nbsp; upgrades is to pick up the weekly quests in Silver&nbsp; Moon. There are two main quests of interest. The&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:44] Unity Against the Void quest works in the same&nbsp; way as it did during season 1. You'll have a few&nbsp;&nbsp; different content types to choose from. So, pick&nbsp; whatever you think is easiest or what relates to&nbsp;&nbsp; the content that you'll be running the most. The&nbsp; other one is from Verissa, right next to Leandrin,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[00:58] and that one just requires you to gather up&nbsp; some fading void whispers, which can drop&nbsp;&nbsp; from dungeons, delves, treasures, and dangerous&nbsp; monsters. So, if you just like to run dungeons,&nbsp;&nbsp; for example, this weekly quest offers you a very&nbsp; easy way to get your spark every week without&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:14] being forced into any other content type. The&nbsp; first weekly quest you complete will give you a&nbsp;&nbsp; spark of tides, which will be used to fuel some&nbsp; huge crafted gear upgrades. We can only get one&nbsp;&nbsp; spark in this first week, so we'll have to wait&nbsp; until next week to put it to work to get a spark&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:29] item crafted, but it's still important to get&nbsp; your spark this week. So, make sure you complete&nbsp;&nbsp; at least one of these weekly quests at some point&nbsp; before reset day. The next stop on our list is to&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:41] revisit the renowned benders for each midnight&nbsp; faction. You'll need to pop by Southrel's Haven&nbsp;&nbsp; in Eversong Woods to pick up a veteran headpiece.&nbsp; This quest requires you to complete the Southrel&nbsp;&nbsp; Suare event and empower one of the runeststones.&nbsp; Head on over to the Ammanazar village in Zullemon&nbsp;&nbsp;
[01:57] next. They'll have a choice of veteran necklaces&nbsp; for you, so pick whichever has the best stat combo&nbsp;&nbsp; for you. This quest requires you to complete an&nbsp; abundance event, so make sure you pick up the&nbsp;&nbsp; abundance weekly quest at the same time. Our next&nbsp; stop is in Harendar. This rep vendor will give&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:12] you a belt after you complete the Legends of the&nbsp; Haraneer event. So, work your way through one of&nbsp;&nbsp; those stories and hand the quest in for another&nbsp; piece of free veteran gear. And then our last&nbsp;&nbsp; stop is going to be over in the voidstorm. The&nbsp; Crucible of erratic energies trinket is returning,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:27] which was quite a powerful trinket in season 1.&nbsp; So, I'll be interested to see how long it lasts&nbsp;&nbsp; in season 2. This one requires you to complete&nbsp; the Storm Marian Assault event in the zone. Now,&nbsp;&nbsp; if you don't have the required renown for these&nbsp; quests because you either just ignored them in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:42] season 1 or you came back to the game after&nbsp; a large break, it's probably not worth going&nbsp;&nbsp; out of your way to farm it in this first week.&nbsp; You're just going to be a bit behind anyone who&nbsp;&nbsp; got these reps farmed up in season 1. Thankfully,&nbsp; there are some other easy sources of gear that we&nbsp;&nbsp;
[02:58] can use. Now, assuming you've completed the 12.1&nbsp; story quests, which you absolutely should have,&nbsp;&nbsp; you should also be able to pick up a pair of&nbsp; veteran braces for reaching renowned rank two with&nbsp;&nbsp; Zjara's forces. You'll need to complete a curse&nbsp; surge event to get your last piece of rep gear,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:14] and you may as well pick up the weekly quest right&nbsp; next to this NPC at the same time. That one asks&nbsp;&nbsp; you to complete three curse surge events, and it&nbsp; rewards another Pinnacle Cash and your Spark of&nbsp;&nbsp; Tides if you haven't completed the other weekly&nbsp; quests already. The curse surges themselves don't&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:30] offer amazing rewards. It seems like their gear&nbsp; rewards cap out an adventurer, so you can skip&nbsp;&nbsp; this weekly quest if you plan on completing at&nbsp; least one of the others. It's also worth noting&nbsp;&nbsp; that you can pick up all of these rep items on all&nbsp; of your characters, even though the renown itself&nbsp;&nbsp;
[03:46] is accountwide. So, it is a great way to get your&nbsp; alts some very quick gear upgrades as well. Now,&nbsp;&nbsp; all of the weekly quests and event quests are&nbsp; going to reward you with a pinnacle cash. The&nbsp;&nbsp; first two that you get will contain a random&nbsp; piece of veteran gear. So hopefully that doesn't&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:01] overlap with the other pieces you obtained from&nbsp; the Midnight Renown factions. Every other cash&nbsp;&nbsp; will contain crests and other currencies. So&nbsp; they're still somewhat useful and you should&nbsp;&nbsp; end up with a lot of veteran crests that you can&nbsp; put to work. And we want the free veteran gear&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:15] from completing these quests anyway. Another easy&nbsp; source of veteran gear is hard mode prey hunts. In&nbsp;&nbsp; this first week, we're limited to just normal prey&nbsp; hunts and hard mode prey hunts will have to wait&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:27] until next week to complete nightmare prey hunts&nbsp; to earn champion gear. The first two hard mode&nbsp;&nbsp; hunts you complete will reward you with a piece of&nbsp; veteran gear. So that's two more items to add to&nbsp;&nbsp; your loot hall. And then the lair boss will be&nbsp; available on the world difficulty option only.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:43] You can join a group and head into the special&nbsp; shared instance or just walk in by yourself and&nbsp;&nbsp; the system will create a group for you. The boss&nbsp; is very easy to kill even with just a handful of&nbsp;&nbsp; players. And these lair bosses have been designed&nbsp; so you don't need quite as many tanks or healers&nbsp;&nbsp;
[04:58] as you might expect from a standard raid boss.&nbsp; The lair bosses can drop veteran gear on the world&nbsp;&nbsp; difficulty and there are quite a few interesting&nbsp; items in the loot table. So keep your fingers&nbsp;&nbsp; crossed and you might walk away with another&nbsp; piece of loot. So, that's at least nine pieces&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:12] of veteran gear you can get your hands on, and up&nbsp; to 10 if you get lucky with the lair bots, and at&nbsp;&nbsp; least five are guaranteed to be in different gear&nbsp; slots. Hopefully, you get lucky with your rewards,&nbsp;&nbsp; and they don't overlap too much, but the best gear&nbsp; available in the first week of patch 12.1 mainly&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:30] comes from running Mythic dungeons. We can't do&nbsp; Mythic Plus just yet, so we're limited to just&nbsp;&nbsp; Mythic Zero dungeons. But each boss you defeat in&nbsp; a Mythic Zero dungeon has a chance to drop a piece&nbsp;&nbsp; of item level 292 champion gear. That gear can be&nbsp; upgraded all the way to item level 308 if you can&nbsp;&nbsp;
[05:46] find enough champion crests to fuel your upgrades.&nbsp; That's going to be much easier next week. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; for now, just clear each dungeon to maximize&nbsp; your chances for some big loot drops. During&nbsp;&nbsp; the first week, Mythic Zero Dungeons will have a&nbsp; weekly lockout, meaning you can only clear them&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:02] once in the preseason. After season 2 starts on&nbsp; August 18th, the lockout drops back down to daily,&nbsp;&nbsp; but by then, you'll probably have moved on to&nbsp; farming Mythic Plus. So, clear each dungeon&nbsp;&nbsp; on Mythic Zero once this week if you want to nab&nbsp; some champion gear. If you want to increase your&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:18] chances of getting some gear, I would recommend&nbsp; you run as many dungeons as you can with the same&nbsp;&nbsp; group, preferably with as many players with&nbsp; the same armor type as yourself. For example,&nbsp;&nbsp; you can run a full group of plate wearers to&nbsp; ensure all gear drops are plate. That way,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:32] if a player gets two pieces of loot for the same&nbsp; slot, they will hopefully offer that extra piece&nbsp;&nbsp; to the other players in the group, sharing the&nbsp; loot, so every piece is put to good use. There's&nbsp;&nbsp; nothing worse than running a dungeon and seeing&nbsp; a piece of gear drop that isn't useful for the&nbsp;&nbsp;
[06:46] player who got it, and there's no one else who can&nbsp; make use of it. Now, I know not everyone can do&nbsp;&nbsp; this as it requires a large time investment, and&nbsp; it's much easier if you have an active guild or&nbsp;&nbsp; some friends, but even doing two or three dungeons&nbsp; with the same group could improve your chances of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:01] getting some loot for yourself. There is one other&nbsp; source of champion gear in this first week. Down&nbsp;&nbsp; in the vault of you, you can pick up an important&nbsp; quest that introduces you to the various events in&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:13] this underground mini zone. That quest rewards you&nbsp; with a venom cursed fragment. And when you combine&nbsp;&nbsp; two of them together, you'll get a piece of random&nbsp; champion gear. On the PTR, we were able to pick up&nbsp;&nbsp; the toxic tour quest as well as the purging the&nbsp; vaults weekly quest at the same time. And they&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:29] both reward you with a venom cursed fragment. So&nbsp; that should give you another piece of champion&nbsp;&nbsp; gear if both quests are up. There's a chance&nbsp; the dev team pushes the weekly quest back to&nbsp;&nbsp; the start of season two, in which case you'll&nbsp; only be able to get one fragment this week,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:42] but that does set you up to earn another piece&nbsp; of champion gear right as the season starts,&nbsp;&nbsp; which should help you take on harder seasonal&nbsp; content. Now, you may be wondering if you can skip&nbsp;&nbsp; over all of the veteran gear and just go straight&nbsp; into farming mythic zero dungeons for that sweet,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[07:57] sweet champion loot. And you absolutely can.&nbsp; But the veteran gear is more valuable than you&nbsp;&nbsp; might realize. Even as we head into the start of&nbsp; season 2, every piece of veteran gear you get will&nbsp;&nbsp; make mythic zero dungeons easier, which is always&nbsp; nice. But more importantly, when you replace that&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:13] piece of veteran gear with a piece of champion&nbsp; gear in the same slot, you can use the veteran&nbsp;&nbsp; gear to upgrade your champion gear once, more or&nbsp; less for free. After looting the champion gear,&nbsp;&nbsp; upgrading a piece of veteran gear in the same slot&nbsp; will be free up to five of six. And then you just&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:29] have to spend 20 veteran crests to get it up to&nbsp; six of six. That will then make your champion gear&nbsp;&nbsp; free to upgrade to two of six. So you can spend&nbsp; 20 veteran crests to upgrade your champion gear&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:41] instead of having to spend 20 champion crests,&nbsp; which just lets you upgrade your gear much faster&nbsp;&nbsp; overall. So veteran gear is still very useful in&nbsp; this first week, even if the main goal is getting&nbsp;&nbsp; as much champion gear as possible. The same thing&nbsp; can be said about champion gear as you start your&nbsp;&nbsp;
[08:56] season 2 gearing up adventures. For every piece&nbsp; of champion gear you have, it can save you 20 hero&nbsp;&nbsp; crests in the exact same way when you start to&nbsp; replace your gear. So, make sure you keep your old&nbsp;&nbsp; gear and take advantage of this crest upgrading&nbsp; trick. It can set you weeks ahead of where&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:12] you would be otherwise. After you're done with&nbsp; everything else, there's one last source of gear&nbsp;&nbsp; upgrades in this first preseason week. The field&nbsp; accolade vendors in Silver Moon had their wares&nbsp;&nbsp; upgraded to season 2 adventurer and veteran track&nbsp; gear. You can buy adventurer gear for 200 field&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:28] accolades, but at this point that's probably not&nbsp; worth your attention. Veteran gear boxes will cost&nbsp;&nbsp; you 500 field accolades, but those will contain a&nbsp; random piece of gear, so there's a high chance you&nbsp;&nbsp; won't get an upgrade from those if you've done&nbsp; everything else in this video. But you can also&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:43] buy specific pieces of veteran gear for 750 field&nbsp; accolades. Now, that is by no means cheap, but if&nbsp;&nbsp; you are smart and saved your field accolades from&nbsp; the end of season 1, you may have a nice stockpile&nbsp;&nbsp;
[09:55] to buy a couple of pieces of gear. You can use&nbsp; these gear boxes to fill in your gaps and upgrade&nbsp;&nbsp; your lowest item level pieces. If you really want&nbsp; to, you can go back to the 1207 zones to farm some&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:07] more field accolades, which could be worth it&nbsp; if you're close to buying another piece of gear,&nbsp;&nbsp; or you can just wait it out until the rest of&nbsp; the gearing options become available next week.&nbsp;&nbsp; Another easy way you can replace your lower&nbsp; item level pieces is with crafted gear. We&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:22] can only get one spark in this first week.&nbsp; So, we can't get any spark crafted gear made,&nbsp;&nbsp; but you can use adventurer and veteran crests&nbsp; to fill in some gaps instead. When crafting with&nbsp;&nbsp; lower quality recipes in your professions, so any&nbsp; of the blue recipes really, you can use adventurer&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:38] crests to increase the item level up to 279 or&nbsp; veteran crests to bump the item level up to 292.&nbsp;&nbsp; The adventurer crafts are particularly useful here&nbsp; if you do have some very low item level pieces of&nbsp;&nbsp;
[10:50] gear because you probably won't be using them&nbsp; to upgrade your gear anyway. Crafting veteran&nbsp;&nbsp; gear does come at more of a cost though. You'll&nbsp; want veteran crests to help upgrade your champion&nbsp;&nbsp; gear using the upgrade trick we just talked&nbsp; about. Now, personally, I would recommend not&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:05] using veteran crests to upgrade veteran gear, at&nbsp; least right away. Even if you're a solo content&nbsp;&nbsp; focused player, you should be able to start&nbsp; earning champion gear next week very easily. So,&nbsp;&nbsp; I would hold on to your crests until you've used&nbsp; up all of your restored coffer keys and completed&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:20] the nightmare prey hunts at the start of season&nbsp; 2. It's also worth considering making two pieces&nbsp;&nbsp; of veteran gear for the crafting embellishments&nbsp; if you don't have high item level crafter gear&nbsp;&nbsp; already. These embellishments provide a decent&nbsp; boost of power, and they're very easy to acquire.&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:36] You just slap them on as an optional crafting&nbsp; choice when making your gear. You can only have&nbsp;&nbsp; two embellishments active at a time, so just be&nbsp; aware of that. If you're curious about the other&nbsp;&nbsp; gear sources available in this first week, you can&nbsp; get adventurer gear from world quests on the coil&nbsp;&nbsp;
[11:51] aisle, from killing rares or completing cursed&nbsp; surges in the new zone, from completing normal&nbsp;&nbsp; prey hunts, and from running heroic dungeons.&nbsp; This content might be worth considering if you&nbsp;&nbsp; need to fill in some lower item level gaps,&nbsp; if you didn't gear up that much in season 1,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:05] or if you just don't want to run mythic dungeons.&nbsp; It's also worth noting that delves are limited to&nbsp;&nbsp; adventurer gear and veteran crest rewards this&nbsp; week. Even though all 11 tiers are available&nbsp;&nbsp; to unlock and play, so even if you do a tier 11&nbsp; delve, you still can't get higher than adventurer&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:22] gear until the season starts for real. Delves&nbsp; can be a good source of veteran crests, though,&nbsp;&nbsp; so you can farm them to get some easy upgrades for&nbsp; your gear or to get enough crests for some crafted&nbsp;&nbsp; gear. But that's how you can get up to item&nbsp; level 308 gear in the first week of patch 12.1,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:36] so you're as strong as you possibly can be&nbsp; when the season starts up next week. What are&nbsp;&nbsp; you going to be focusing on in this first week of&nbsp; the patch? And what are you most looking forward&nbsp;&nbsp; to in season 2? Leave all your thoughts in the&nbsp; comment section below. A big thank you to all&nbsp;&nbsp;
[12:49] of our supporters over on Patreon and all of our&nbsp; members here on YouTube. You can see their names&nbsp;&nbsp; on screen. If you're interested in supporting the&nbsp; channel, you can find links in the description or&nbsp;&nbsp; click the join button just below the video. If you&nbsp; enjoyed the video or found it useful in any way,&nbsp;&nbsp;
[13:02] make sure to subscribe and ring that notification&nbsp; bell so you're always kept up to date. Thanks for&nbsp;&nbsp; watching, folks. Good luck and have fun.&nbsp; And as always, I will see you next time.