Grab the weeklies that progress while you play, get to your Spark cap, make your first craft with an actual plan, use the Season 2 Delve intro and Trovehunter's Bounty for guaranteed gear, protect your high-level crests, and do not rush your Great Vault choice just because it is glowing.
If you are trying to push hard, optimize the fuck out of the first couple weeks. If you are not, you have an entire season. Do the things that move you toward the content you actually want to play.
Good. This guide starts from the August 18 Season 2 reset. If you never finished the campaign, unlocked the Coiled Isle, opened Atal'Utek, or got your Delve tiers ready, use the Patch 12.1 Week One guide first. I am not going to make everyone reread all of that shit here.
That is the version I would keep in front of me. Everything after that depends on what you are actually trying to accomplish this season.
I am going to optimize the fuck out of the first couple weeks.
I am not a full-time Mythic raider, but I want to get AOTC within the first couple weeks, get geared enough to start pushing into some Mythic raid progression, and put myself in a position where I can move through the lower levels quickly instead of spending half the season catching up.
That is my goal. It does not have to be yours.
If you want to push hard, there are absolutely ways to squeeze more value out of your first week. If you mostly play solo, run Delves with a friend, raid casually, or just want to experience the season without turning reset day into a second job, you have an entire fucking season.
Start in Silvermoon and pick up Unity Against the Void and Trailing Xal'atath before you disappear into Delves, dungeons, Prey, raid, or whatever catches your attention first.
This is one of the few pieces of optimization I think basically everyone should do. Not because the quests are difficult. Because forgetting them is stupid.
If you are already going to be doing the activities that progress them, you might as well have the quests in your log while you do it.
The current Spark cap is four Sparks of Tides total. If you already got your preseason Sparks, the normal weeklies get you where you need to be. If you are catching up from zero, additional weekly sources can continue feeding Sparks until you hit the cap.
Four Sparks is enough for two normal crafted pieces or one two-handed weapon. That is enough power that I would decide what I am crafting before I start throwing expensive materials and crests around.
My default recommendation is simple: craft your weapon first.
Yes, a weapon can drop from raid. Something can always drop. You could also spend the next three weeks waiting for that weapon and never fucking see it.
A weapon is one of the biggest individual power upgrades you can make, it gives you a guaranteed piece you can keep upgrading, and it removes RNG from one of the most important slots on your character.
If you already know there is a specific crafted BiS item that your build is going to revolve around, that can absolutely take priority. The point is to craft something you know you are building around — not avoid a guaranteed upgrade because a boss technically has something on its loot table.
If I am spending my serious early-season currency, I want it going into something that is going to matter for a while. Most of the time, that means the weapon.
If you did anything last week, you probably have a Great Vault waiting. Go look at it.
You do not necessarily need to take the item immediately.
If the Vault has a tier helm and you grab it the second you log in, then that same tier slot drops when you raid later, you just duplicated one of your best gearing opportunities of the week.
I would rather get some of the guaranteed gear out of the way first. Run your Delves. Use the Bounty. Spend some keys. Raid if that is on your list. Then come back and make the Vault choice with more information.
I am not telling you to stare at an unopened Vault until Monday because there might be a theoretical 0.7% efficiency gain hiding somewhere. If it has an absurd weapon, a great trinket, tier you desperately need, or something that immediately fixes a terrible slot, take the fucking item.
The point is not optimization paralysis. The point is avoiding an obvious duplicate when waiting costs you basically nothing.
I really like where Delves sit at the beginning of a season. They are great for solo players, great for two people, good for small friend groups, and they give you a real path into Hero-track gear without needing to live inside Mythic+.
Do the Season 2 Delve introduction and you get two free Restored Coffer Keys. If you are doing Prey anyway, finish the weekly and get the item that lets you summon the Season 2 Nemesis so you can get your weekly Trovehunter's Bounty quickly.
Get the Trovehunter's Bounty first
Take the Nemesis summon into a Tier 8+ Bountiful Delve. Reach the checkpoint, summon the Nemesis, and get the weekly Bounty if you have not already received it.
After that, spend your Restored Coffer Keys in Tier 8+ Bountiful Delves for the Champion-track rewards.
That is fantastic value early.
But once you are sitting in fully upgraded Hero gear, Delves lose a lot of their progression value for me. You can still use them for crests, challenge content, achievements, cosmetics, or because you actually like doing them. But I would not treat them as my primary long-term Myth Mistcrest farm once higher Mythic+ becomes comfortable.
Use Delves to build the Hero-track foundation that gets you comfortably into the harder content. Once that gear is no longer moving your character forward, you are allowed to stop running them just because they exist.
Crests feel plentiful until suddenly they are not, and then one stupid early-season decision leaves you short on the currency you actually need.
My general approach is to work through the upgrade tracks intelligently instead of spraying expensive currency across every green arrow I see.
If Champion-track progression can still cheaply advance that slot, use it. Take advantage of the upgrade-discount system. Get value out of your Hero-track pieces before you start burning the currency that is going to constrain your Myth-track upgrades.
Once Myth crests enter the picture, I want to be deliberate.
And if I have a Myth-track weapon sitting there? That thing is getting fed first.
The question is not just “does this item go up?” It is “am I spending a limited currency on something I am likely to replace immediately?” Early mistakes become much less painful when crest caps eventually loosen. Right now, they matter.
At some point early in the season, kill Azta'rec on ?? difficulty.
Your first higher-difficulty kill gives you 30 Hero Mistcrests and 30 Myth Mistcrests outside the normal weekly crest cap. If you never got the lower-difficulty first-time reward, the higher kill can also give you another 30 Hero Mistcrests.
That is enough currency that I would not leave it sitting there for weeks.
The special solo achievements require you to actually solo the encounter. The first-time crest rewards do not.
If all you want is character power, bring people and kill it. There is no reason to turn free Myth crests into a personal honor duel unless you actually want the achievement.
If you finished the available story leading into Season 2, grab the quest asking you to clear The Venomous Abyss before you go into raid.
The reward is a choice between two Champion rings with different secondary stats. Champion gear is not some unbelievable prize once you are properly into Season 2, but if I am already doing the raid, I am taking the free targeted piece.
My goal is to get AOTC quickly and start pushing into Mythic progression, so raid is the content I want to touch as early as possible. I want gear, I want experience on the fights, and I want good logs while everyone is still building out their progression.
LFR Has One Job: Tier
If you normally raid higher difficulties, I still think the available LFR wings are worth looking at while you are trying to assemble four-piece.
I am not running LFR because I desperately need random lower-track gear. I am there because another tier roll is another tier roll when tier matters the most.
Once you have the tier you need and LFR is no longer doing anything for you, stop going if you do not enjoy it.
Mission accomplished.
My early Season 2 path is probably going to look something like Prey → Delves → Raid → Mythic+ when I have a proper block of time.
That is not because it is the objectively correct order. It is because raid is the thing I care about progressing first.
Use Tier 8+ Bountiful Delves, Nightmare Prey, your weekly Bounty, and the World Vault to build your Hero-track foundation. If you want more Myth Mistcrests without group content, Ritual Sites give you another route.
The useful gearing breakpoints are +6 for Hero drops, +9 for Myth Mistcrests, and +10 for a Myth-track Vault. Once Delves stop advancing you, this is where I would look for more efficient long-term crest progression.
Grab the Venomous Abyss quest, use your guaranteed early pieces to clean up weak slots, run LFR while tier matters, and start clearing whatever difficulty your group is capable of.
Rated PvP is live. Grab the general progression stuff that actually helps your character and then go queue. You do not need to become an outdoor-content completionist because a new season started.
If you are trying to push AOTC immediately, get into Mythic raid progression, climb keys, or squeeze everything possible out of your character, then yeah: optimize the fuck out of it.
Use the guaranteed gear. Be smart with your Vault. Protect your crests. Craft something that actually matters. Run the extra tier opportunities. Take advantage of the early-season power sources that help you reach the content you are chasing.
But if that is not how you enjoy WoW, do not do it.
You have an entire season. There will always be another weekly, another reputation bar, another map icon, another system, and another thing trying to convince you it is mandatory.
Figure out what you are actually trying to accomplish. Do the things that meaningfully move you toward that goal.
Then go play the fucking game.
Still missing campaign or Coiled Isle unlocks? This is the full preseason route, including Atal'Utek, Sparks, Delve prep, and everything that opened before Season 2.
The actual numbers: solo gearing, Delves, Mythic+, raid, Mistcrests, crafting, Vault breakpoints, and the BiS mega-sweat section.
The outdoor progression system, reward tiers, challenges, Field Accolades, and another solo route into Myth Mistcrests.
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