Hey folks, this is Librarian Husky. Season one of *The War Within* is almost here, but it’s not too late to set yourself up for a smooth start to the season. There are quite a few things you can do to best prepare for all of the new content coming our way. You could save yourself a lot of time and effort, so you can focus on the fun stuff like the new raid, the seasonal dungeons, and the higher tiers of delves. Let’s go through everything you can do before season one starts to best prepare your characters.

Gearing Up for Season One

One of the most important things to do before the season starts is to generally gear up. You’re going to want to get as close to 590 item level as you can, so you can hit the ground running when all of the new content opens its doors. One of the easiest ways to gear up is to run heroic dungeons. The gear drops at 571 before the season starts, and you can upgrade it to 593. Heroic dungeons also give you Valor Stones and weathered crests, which you need for those upgrades.

Maximizing Your Gear Efficiency

Running heroic dungeons is probably the way to go if you don’t want to put in too much effort. However, a much more efficient way to gear up is to turn your weathered crests into enchanted weathered crests and use those to craft 590 gear. This only costs 30 crests per piece of gear, instead of the 60 it would take to upgrade a piece to 593. You save a huge chunk of Valor Stones too, which are arguably more important anyway. This method allows you to get twice as many pieces of 590 gear for a head start leading into season one.

Crafting Your Gear

The only slight problem with this method is that you need to have the gear crafted at rank five to get the 590 item level. You can either find a crafter in trade chat and put in a crafting order, or you can set up the profession yourself. I set up my tailoring to ensure I can craft what I need.

Crafting High-Level Gear

I can craft almost any item at 590 using concentration. It’s not too difficult; you just need to allocate your points in the right places in your specialization trees. Many people wonder why you would waste upgrade crests now, thinking better gear will come in season one, but there are solid reasons to upgrade now.

The Value of Upgrade Crests

The first reason is that once you upgrade a specific slot, you’ll never need to spend crests on that slot again. For instance, if you upgrade one headpiece to 593, any future headpieces below that level won’t cost crests to upgrade. You only spend crests once per slot.

Weathered Crests and Their Limits

Secondly, weathered crests only upgrade your gear to 593. To go beyond that, you’ll need carved crests. If you get a piece of level 600 gear in the new season, you’ll no longer use weathered crests for that slot. Therefore, spending weathered crests now won’t set you back, and having higher gear at the start can help you progress faster.

Saving Carved Crests for Season One

That said, hold onto your carved crests. They will be far more valuable, allowing you to upgrade gear beyond the 593 threshold. Since you can’t make good use of them before the season starts, saving them will help you skip over lower item levels when tackling higher-tier content.

Maximizing Valor Stones Before Season One

While gearing options are limited until the season starts, another way to get ahead is by capping out your Valor Stones or collecting as many as possible. Valor Stones carry over into the season, and we can hold up to 2,000 at a time. Starting the season with the full amount gives you a great buffer for upgrading your new gear.

Saving Rewards for Valor Stones

There are also various items that give you Valor Stones when used. Keep these in your bags and avoid using them before the season starts. By doing this, you can effectively surpass the 2,000 Valor Stone limit. When you run out or need more stones, you can use these items to quickly replenish your supply.

Collecting Globs of Wax

Another useful option is collecting odd Globs of wax, mainly obtained from digging in disturbed dirt found throughout the world. These events reward you with Globs of wax, which can be traded to an NPC for Valor Stones. Five Globs of wax get you 10 Valor Stones, and since the wax has no cap, you can gather as much as you want before the season starts.

Preparing Valor Stones and Sparks for Season One

You could amass an endless stockpile of Valor Stones, ready to trade in when needed. Another crucial item to collect and save for the season are your Sparks of Omens. These Sparks are essential for creating high-level crafted gear. To obtain them, you need two fractured Sparks of Omens, which can be combined to form a full Spark.

How to Obtain Sparks of Omens

You can get a fractured Spark by completing the weekly quest in Dagal, located just outside the inn. There is also a special one-time quest near the Catalyst in Dagal that rewards an extra fractured Spark, so don’t forget to complete that as well. With the start of the season, you should be able to collect two whole Sparks, allowing you to craft substantial gear upgrades.

Deciding When to Use Sparks

Most guides recommend crafting a weapon first, as it’s one of the most impactful pieces for character power. However, if you manage to get a good weapon from the raid during the first week, your crafted weapon might lose some of its value. Personally, I plan to hold onto my Sparks until after the first week, then use them to upgrade my lowest item level gear or the pieces that offer the biggest improvements.

Restored Coffer Keys

Additionally, make sure to save up your Restored Coffer Keys. These come from various world content caches, such as participating in weekly events or completing weekly quests.

Maximizing Restored Coffer Keys and Delve Rewards

You can earn up to four Restored Coffer Keys per week from the first four caches you unlock. These keys are used to open locked chests at the end of Bountiful Delves, which can provide significant reputation gains, useful currencies, the Radiant Echo event item, and good gear rewards. However, the gear rewards are limited until the season starts, as we currently can only access tier three delves.

Saving Keys for Season Start

If you save your keys until the season begins, you’ll have access to higher tiers of delves. Rewards cap at tier eight, where you can earn item level 603 gear—some of the best available for open-world and solo content players. Completing these higher-tier delves also contributes to your weekly Vault, where you can earn item level 616 gear. Holding onto your Restored Coffer Keys will allow you to gain significantly better rewards after the season begins.

Leveling Bran for Future Delve Success

To help with future delve endeavors, you should focus on leveling up Bran. Each delve you complete will earn companion experience, and as Bran levels up, he unlocks new abilities to assist you. After reaching level 10, every additional level provides a percentage buff to his damage, making him stronger. Currently, pre-season Bran is capped at level 15, but leveling him up can be the difference between a challenging and a manageable delve.

Maximizing Bran’s Level Before Season One

Getting Bran to level 15 before the season starts will give you a significant boost as you begin working on tier four and higher delves. Additionally, you’ll be able to level him beyond the current cap right at the start of the season, allowing him to stay in step with you as you progress through tier eight and beyond. If Bran is underleveled when the season begins, you may end up spending extra time farming experience to make him useful in the higher tiers.

Sharing Companion Progress Across Your Account

One benefit of leveling Bran is that your companion progress is shared across your entire account, meaning that once he’s leveled up, all of your alts will also have access to this powerful companion for their delve runs. If you want to avoid excessive grinding before the season starts, note that you receive a large experience bonus for the first delve you complete each day. Running one delve daily for the bonus can efficiently level Bran without too much effort.

Preparing for the First Raid of the Expansion

In addition to new delve tiers, season one will introduce the first raid of the expansion. While some players prefer to experience the raid blind for a sense of adventure, others may want to be prepared. It’s helpful to research the bosses by reviewing the Raid Journal, which details each boss’s abilities, what each role should watch out for, and an overview of the best loot drops.

Preparing for Season One: Raid Guides and Dungeons

If you prefer learning from visual examples, we will have raid guides for every boss (except the final one) before the raid goes live. You can find these linked below. Additionally, with the start of season one, higher difficulty dungeons will be available. Mythic zero dungeons will open, but they won’t be the eight *War Within* dungeons you’ve seen in normal and heroic mode so far. Instead, we’ll have seasonal dungeons that mix four *War Within* dungeons with four older dungeons from previous expansions.

Revisiting Older Dungeons

If you’re returning to the game or unfamiliar with some of the older dungeons, it’s a good idea to revisit them before the season starts. This will help you get acquainted with how the trash mobs and bosses work, allowing you to have a smoother experience when these dungeons return in season one. Familiarizing yourself with the mechanics will save you time and give you a head start in dungeon progression.

Farming Reputation and Renown

Now is also the perfect time to grind reputation and Renown to unlock better rewards as you progress through the renowned tracks. You’ll earn more Valor Stones and crests, along with some 584 gear at Renown level 7 and 597 gear later on. Near the end, you’ll find Enchanted Runed Harbinger crests, which allow you to upgrade Spark-crafted gear to item level 619 without spending your Runed Crests or Valor Stones. These rewards are also shared with all of your alts, making Renown farming highly beneficial before the season starts.

Setting Up Your Professions for Season One

If you’re looking for something else to do, now is a great time to prepare your professions. There are two main approaches: you can either focus on maximizing your gold-making potential, which requires more effort, or tailor your professions to craft the gear you’ll need as you begin gearing up. Everyone will have access to the Sparks of Omen, allowing easy crafting of 606 gear, but the challenge comes in finding someone to craft the items for you.

Crafting Your Own Gear

If you prefer not to use the crafting order system, the best option is to set up your professions to craft your own gear. Pick an item to focus on and specialize in that first. For example, my Paladin is already maxed out in daggers for my Mage’s weapon and is working on swords next. My Mage is specialized in tailoring and will focus on crafting gear nodes in order of importance. Remember, tier gear slots are valuable and typically won’t have Spark-crafted items unless they are something special.

Focusing on Non-Tier Gear

It’s important to note that tier gear slots are generally not suitable for Spark-crafted gear. Instead, focus on items like cloaks, bracers, belts, and boots</ strong>, which are perfect for Spark gear. Prioritize crafting these at rank five first. Your professions don’t have to be gold-making machines; they can instead be used to save gold by allowing you to craft high-rank items throughout the expansion.

Long-Term Benefits of Professional Setup

Setting up your professions now will save you both time and gold in season one and will continue to provide benefits throughout the next two years. If you want a Spark dagger crafted with a season two Spark, you’ll already have everything in place. This preparation will minimize hassle and make future crafting far easier.

The Best Time to Level Your Alts

When the season starts, you’ll likely be busy with the new raid, running dungeons, or clearing higher-tier delves, leaving less time for leveling your alts. Having multiple alts is useful for farming currencies, accessing multiple maxed-out professions, or simply enjoying different classes and roles. Thanks to the Warband system and account-wide progress in *The War Within*, playing and gearing your alts has become much easier, so leveling them up before the season starts is a smart move.

Preparing for Class Balance Changes

We’re bound to see significant class balance changes in the first few weeks of the season, as is customary. Having multiple characters ready to play is a good strategy, just in case your current main gets nerfed and becomes less enjoyable. Preparing your alts ahead of time ensures that you won’t be caught off guard by any major shifts in the meta or class viability.

Looking Forward to Season One

There are plenty of things you can do to get ready for a great start to season one of *The War Within*. Whether you’re most excited about the new raid, the Mythic Plus season, or exploring higher-tier delves, it’s the perfect time to prepare.

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