Patch 12.1 Gearing Changes — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] Hey folks, this is Kelani. Patch 12.1 and season  2 of Midnight are almost here, and they're shaking   up how gearing works in a massive way. Raid loot  will be far more valuable than it has been in the   past, with myth track gear being much easier to  acquire thanks to some huge weekly vault updates.  

[00:17] Bonus rolls will be available very early on in the  season to help you target specific gear upgrades.   Solo content players have a few extra ways to get  champion and hero track gear. And there are a few   ways to get some big free gear upgrades right as  the patch goes live if you know what to look for.  

[00:32] So, let's go over the most important gearing  changes coming in patch 12.1 and season 2 of   Midnight. Now, before we jump in, be sure to hit  up that like button and subscribe so you never   miss another video. One of the most important  gearing changes as we head into season 2 is  

[00:47] that raid loot will be better than ever before.  any very rare items or any item from the last   two bosses on Mythic will drop at item level 344,  which is technically nine of six myth. So that's   three bumps higher than you can upgrade myth track  gear 2. And it's the only source of item level 344  

[01:04] gear in the game at the start of the season. Most  of these items also have very powerful cantrip   effects tied to them, and there's even a small set  bonus between a weapon and trinket. Most weapons   are also covered across those two bosses. So, this  truly will be the best gear available in season  

[01:22] two. Raid loot isn't just better for the mythic  raiders, though. The weekly vault rewards have   been updated for all raid difficulties. So, you'll  get a piece of gear from the difficulty above what   you clear to fill up your weekly vault. So, if  you run LFR and take down a few bosses there,  

[01:38] instead of your weekly vault having veteran gear  like it would have in season 1, you'll get some   champion gear rewards instead. Clearing the raid  on normal will yield hero track gear and getting   some heroic bosses down will now reward you with  myth track gear. So getting myth track raid gear  

[01:54] will be much easier in season 2 and you won't  have to raid on mythic difficulty to get some   of your best in slot raid items. If you are a  mythic raider, your weekly vaults will instead   always reward six of six myth gear or myth 9 gear  if the items are from the last two bosses in the  

[02:09] raid or if the item is considered to be very rare.  So mythic raiding isn't being devalued. In fact,   the only way to get the best gear in the game in  season 2 is to be a mythic raider. Something that  

[02:21] hasn't really been the case for quite a while now.  But where this change becomes even more important   is with the return of bonus rolls. Nebulous void  core bonus rolls will be available in season 2 and  

[02:34] you can start earning them as early as the second  week of the season. Because bonus rolls reward you   with an item equal to the weekly vault reward for  the content you're doing. All bonus rolls spent in   raids are going to be that much more valuable in  season 2. You'll be able to bonus roll myth track  

[02:50] gear in heroic raids, for example, which should  help you obtain specific items on higher gear   tracks much faster. To make things even better  for the raiders, the number of bonus rolls that   you need to spend in raids was reduced from two to  one. So, you now only have to use one bonus roll  

[03:06] to get a piece of gear in raids, which solidifies  raids as being one of the best sources of gear   in season 2. Now, if you haven't heard about the  updates to bonus rolls in season 2, that is going  

[03:18] to be very important to know. At the start of  the season, the only way to get a bonus roll will   be from the weekly vault as a consolation prize.  So, if you don't get a good reward in your vault,   you can choose to take a bonus roll instead, which  gives you an extra chance to get something useful.  

[03:33] However, the bonus rolls will only be available  from the second week of the season, and you can   only pick them up if you have at least three  options unlocked in your vault. So, you won't   be able to get one in the very first week of  the season. And you will always want to make  

[03:47] sure you have three rewards at minimum going into  reset day, even if those extra rewards are just   low tier delve runs or open world content. The  tier or difficulty of the content you're running  

[03:59] does not matter if you just want that bonus roll.  The only other way to get bonus rolls in season   two will become available after eight weeks.  This will be the same deal as season 1 where   we just complete a quest and we'll be able to get  some extra bonus rolls every week. In season two,  

[04:14] we'll get one bonus roll per week from this source  instead of the two that we saw in season 2. So,   it won't let you gear up quite as fast, especially  when you get around to your alts later on in the   season. But hopefully by that point, you'll have  a lot of the big items you've been hunting for  

[04:28] on your main characters. Bonus rolls are  going to have different values depending   on what kind of content you like to take part  in. If you're mainly focusing on solo content,   your bonus rolls will cap out with hero track gear  rewards from nightmare prey hunts or tier eight or  

[04:44] above bountiful delve runs. You'll also get hero  track gear from bonus rolling normal raid bosses   or lower mythic plus dungeons. But if you're  taking part in group content, I wouldn't use   bonus rolls on hero track gear. You should instead  push into the higher difficulties of raids and  

[05:00] mythic plus. Bonus rolls spent in heroic raids  will earn you myth track gear, and you only need   to get up to mythic plus 10 keystones or above  to start earning myth track gear from your bonus   rolls there. That's going to be the easiest source  of myth track gear by far. That's the best most  

[05:15] players will be able to hope for, unless you are  in a raiding guild aiming for the last two bosses.   Now, something else to be aware of in patch 12.1  is that world bosses are no longer world bosses.  

[05:27] They're being called lair bosses instead, but  it's more than just a name change. These are,   for all intents and purposes, additional one  boss raids. They're in their own instances now,   and they have every difficulty option available  to them, including mythic. All of the rewards  

[05:42] are on par with the other season 2 raid. So you  can earn champion from normal, hero from heroic,   and even myth track gear from mythic as you climb  through the difficulties. So instead of world   bosses becoming obsolete very quickly for any  players who take part in endgame content, they  

[05:57] now remain relevant for almost the entire season.  That is a huge change and will give raiders more   content to work through and more options for  gearing up. The mythic difficulty for lair bosses   is also flexible just like sporefall in season 1.  So you can take between 15 and 25 players into the  

[06:15] raid and it will adjust your group size just like  other difficulties do. Add that to the fact this   is a one boss raid with easier mechanics and it  makes it much more pug friendly when compared to   the main eight boss raid. I think that was one  of the major strengths of the one boss raids in  

[06:30] season 1. So I'm glad to see one boss raids with  higher difficulty options become more common.   Now, unlike Sporefall, you will only be able to  use a bonus roll on the new lair bosses once per  

[06:42] week. So, you won't be able to roll again  and again to earn every piece of myth gear   available like you could at the end of season  1, which is probably for the better. We won't   have quite as much access to bonus rolls anyway,  especially early on in the season, but I figure  

[06:55] this is something you should know about. It is  worth noting that these changes do not make the   lair bosses any harder for solo content players  to access. Instead of having an LFR mode, you'll   have a world difficulty option instead. When  you choose that difficulty option, you'll join  

[07:10] a shared instance of the boss, which is basically  the same thing as it being open world without the   zone lag it usually causes. You just have to wait  for enough players to join your instance to start   the fight. Though on the PTR, I was able to defeat  the boss with just two of us in the group. So,  

[07:26] you might not have to wait for very long at all.  The one difference is that the world difficulty   will drop veteran gear instead of the champion  gear that world bosses used to drop. So arguably   world boss drops aren't as good as they used to be  for solo content players. But if you do get loot,  

[07:42] it will be for your class and spec that you're  playing instead of being random warbound gear   from the entire loot table. And you should be able  to clear this raid on every character for a chance   at loot instead of it being locked to once per  week per account. So, it's better in some cases  

[07:58] and worse in others if you are a strictly solo  content player. Another huge change that will   affect every kind of player is that the catalyst  no longer converts gear into a static result.  

[08:10] Previously, when you put a piece of gear into the  catalyst, the result would always be the same,   regardless of the stats or effects on the gear  you're converting. This resulted in everyone   chasing specific slots of tier gear, specifically  the ones with your best stats or the least worst  

[08:25] stats to get your four set bonus active with the  best stat combination possible. That's changing   in season 2. The catalyst will now keep the stats  or effects on any gear you convert. This means you  

[08:38] won't be able to use the catalyst to change  the stats on any piece of gear anymore. So,   you'll need to pay particular attention to  the stats on every piece of gear that could be   used in the catalyst. especially any gear that  matches a tier set gear slot. This also makes  

[08:53] actual tier gear tokens from the raid worse than  any other piece of gear in the same slot that has   better stats. If you can get a pair of legs from  mythic plus with your best in slot stats on them,   and the actual tier set gear token for legs has  bad stats for your class or spec, you will want  

[09:10] to actively farm those mythic plus legs to convert  in the catalyst for a better overall result. Now,   on the flip side here, if your tier set token gear  has your best in slot stats and those stats aren't  

[09:22] available on any other piece of gear for that  slot, for example, from mythic plus dungeons,   the only way to get your best in slot item in that  situation would be to get the raid token itself.   That means you would either have to clear the raid  on mythic difficulty for a chance at a myth track  

[09:38] raid token or get lucky enough to see that piece  of tier gear in your weekly vault. Either way,   that's much harder than just converting any old  piece of gear from other sources. This becomes   an even bigger problem for any item available in  the season that has a special effect. There are a  

[09:55] lot of cantrip items in the new raid, and many  of them fill gear slots that would previously   conflict with tier gear that would have forced you  to use the other four pieces of tier gear so you   could equip these items with a powerful process  in your fifth slot. But the catalyst changes now  

[10:10] that you transfer that cantrip effect onto a piece  of tier gear. So you get the best of both worlds,   a tier set bonus and a powerful special effect.  But once again, these items are mainly only  

[10:22] available to raiders, especially at the highest  item levels. These catalyst changes make the   system far more flexible, but it does mean getting  your best in slot gear will actually take a lot   longer in season 2 with all the changes in place.  Now, with all that being said, and with all these  

[10:40] big catalyst changes in the game, I don't think  it really changes how you should approach your   foreset in season 2, you should aim to equip  your foret bonus as early as possible, even if   it means converting gear with kind of bad stats or  even your worst stats. After you equip your four  

[10:57] set for the first time, you'll earn the season 2  catalyst unbound achievement, which lets you loot   catalyst charges from endgame content, including  raid bosses, mythic plus dungeon runs, and   bountiful delves. Basically, as soon as you get  your four set all squared away, you'll be earning  

[11:13] charges much faster. So, you'll have plenty of  charges to use when you do get your hands on some   gear that has your best in slot stats or some of  those new powerful cantrip effects if you are a   raider. So, don't worry about wasting your first  catalyst charges. Your only goal should be to  

[11:29] equip your four set as quickly as possible. Now,  this also makes LFR very useful for every kind of   player. The first wing of LFR opens up alongside  every other raid difficulty and should have one or  

[11:41] two bosses that can drop tier set gear. So, even  if you're a mythic raider, you'll want to hop into   LFR first to try and secure one of those pieces  of tier gear to get your four set bonus and your   catalyst unbound achievement as early as possible.  As the weeks go by, if you still don't have your  

[11:57] four set complete, you should be running every  LFR wing available to maximize your chances of   completing your tier set. Now, one huge change for  solo content players specifically is for the prey  

[12:10] system. In season two, you'll be able to skip over  the entire hunt portion of a prey hunt, letting   you go straight to the mini boss to earn your  shiny rewards. This will be great for speeding   up nightmare prey hunts and obtaining your two  pieces of champion gear every week. But this new  

[12:24] feature also gives you bonus loot once per week.  When you reach rank four in the Prey season 2   journey track, you'll be able to loot afflicted  souls from any bountiful tier six or above delve   run. And when you use these souls, your next  prey hunt skips over the hunt section entirely  

[12:40] to let you go straight to the boss. And the first  time you do this each week, you'll earn an extra   piece of champion gear. So you'll be able to get  three pieces of champion gear from your prey hunts   per week up from two. It gets better, though.  When you reach rank nine on the journey track,  

[12:54] you'll be able to loot tormented souls from your  delve runs. These do more or less the same thing,   except the once per week bonus loot will be on  the hero track instead of the champion track. So,   Prey Hunts will be able to reward you with hero  gear in season 2 instead of being limited to  

[13:09] just champion gear like they were in season 1.  There's another way for solo content players   to get an extra piece of champion gear. The  weekly quests for the vaults of Italy rewards   you with an item that when you combine two of them  together, you'll get a piece of champion gear. So,  

[13:25] it'll take two weeks worth of quest completions to  earn that extra piece of gear. But at least these   rewards are better than every other weekly quest  or open world event, which have historically been   limited to rewarding just veteran gear. You might  want to complete these quests anyway, as they do  

[13:40] reward you with a Trove Hunters bounty map to use  in your delve runs for a piece of hero track gear   every week. So, that extra piece of champion gear  is just icing on the cake. Now, something else to   be aware of is that there are some older gearing  options that are being updated for season 2, and  

[13:56] they can offer you some very quick gear upgrades  when the season starts. The first one is the   older Midnight Renown factions. In season 1, these  factions offered up a piece of champion gear when   you reached a specific renown rank. Those pieces  of gear are being offered again in season 2 with  

[14:11] updated item levels. There'll only be veteran gear  this time around, but in season 2, veteran gear   can be upgraded all the way to item level 295. So,  that should be a huge upgrade for most players. If  

[14:23] you've already reached the required renown ranks  before the patch goes live, this is just four free   pieces of veteran gear to help you gear up faster.  Another source of old gear that is getting updated   are the field accolade vendor boxes. When patch  12.1 goes live, all of the season 1 gear boxes  

[14:40] will be replaced with season 2 gear boxes. You'll  be able to pick up warbound adventurer gear for   200 field accolades or veteran gear for 500 field  accolades with specific veteran gear boxes costing   750 field accolades. The veteran gear starts at  item level 279 and can be upgraded all the way  

[14:57] to 295, which should be an upgrade for almost  everyone. So, you can arguably start working on   getting yourself some item level 295 gear before  the season even starts. Now, you may be thinking,  

[15:10] if this gear is actually useful in season 2  and you can farm the field accolades before   the patch goes live, is that something you should  be focusing on? Personally, I wouldn't go out of   your way to farm field accolades before the  patch goes live. Veteran gear is going to be  

[15:24] very easy to acquire or replace. Between the four  pieces from the old reputations, the two pieces   per week from weekly quests, extra loot from  oddmo prey hunts, and champion gear dropping   from mythic zeros in that first preseason week,  we are going to be drowning in loot. So, I would  

[15:40] save any field accolades you have or you happen to  obtain before the patch goes live, but I would not   farm them specifically. Spend that time working  on other end of season goals or just relaxing  

[15:52] before the new patch launches. No one wants to  be burnt out from a needless farm right before   a huge content drop. But that's all of the most  important gearing changes coming in patch 12.1 and   season 2. So that's it for this video. What do you  think of the catalyst changes and how they shape  

[16:08] your journey to best in slot loot? And is a good  thing that mythic raid loot is so much better than   everything else now? Leave all your thoughts in  the comment section below. A big thank you to all   of our supporters over on Patreon and all of our  members here on YouTube. You can see their names  

[16:22] on screen. If you're interested in supporting the  channel and you can find links in the description   or click the join button just below the video.  If you enjoyed the video or found it useful in   any way, make sure to subscribe and ring that  notification bell so you're always kept up to  

[16:34] date. Thanks for watching folks. Good luck and  have fun. And as always, I will see you next time.