WoW Midnight Voidforge Guide

The Voidforge sits at The Howling Ridge, squarely in the middle of the Voidstorm zone. If you have been there before and still somehow can't find it, consider reading the map. It was added for a reason.

Coordinates: /way #2405 51.3 68.6: The Voidforge

Decimus himself loiters nearby at approximately 51.20, 68.41. He looks dangerous. He is. You are going to hand him resources anyway because the gear upgrades are, regrettably, worth it.

How to Unlock the Voidforge

The how to unlock Voidforge Midnight process is technically simple: complete the Building the Voidforge introductory questline from Decimus. What it requires in practice is a week-by-week trudge through endgame content to craft six Elemental Voidcores. One by one. Like threading a needle while someone reads you the full Silithus lore.

To create a single Elemental Voidcore, you must collect three Elementary Voidcore Shards. Bring them to Decimus, complete the short turn-in, and repeat via the repeatable quest An Elementary Voidcore until all six are done.

Head Start You could have been doing this since Patch 12.0.1. If you weren't, five Elemental Voidcores were already craftable before Patch 12.0.5 dropped. That means you needed exactly one more. One. If you are reading this after ignoring Decimus for months, feel free to sit with that.

Progression toward building the Voidforge is warband-wide. Unlock it on one character and every single alt you own: past, present, and future: gets access. This is, in fact, a good thing, and it may sting a little to admit that.

Where Elementary Voidcore Shards Drop

Three shards from any combination of the above create one Elementary Voidcore Shard turn-in. Six completed turn-ins finish the Voidforge. The math is punishing but the grind is not: if you are already clearing Season 1 content for your Great Vault, the shards accumulate naturally. The Elementary Voidcore Shards farming guide truth is: just loot your bosses and stop skipping the end chest.

1. Complete the Voidstorm campaign far enough to unlock Decimus (requires finishing Nexus-Point Xenas: Eclipse).
2. Pick up Building the Voidforge from Decimus at The Howling Ridge.
3. Collect 3x Elementary Voidcore Shards from raids, Bountiful Delves, or Mythic+ dungeons.
4. Return to Decimus and complete the turn-in to craft your first Elemental Voidcore.
5. Grab the repeatable quest An Elementary Voidcore and repeat until 6/6.
6. The Voidforge ignites. Decimus grins. You will regret trusting him eventually, but not today.

Nebulous Voidcores: Targeted Bonus Loot Rolls

Once the forge is built, Decimus begins selling you Nebulous Voidcores: the WoW Midnight targeted loot bonus roll currency that the community has desperately wanted since Blizzard nuked the old bonus roll system back in Shadowlands. The weekly cap increases by two every week for the rest of the season. You start small. You accumulate. You eventually stop receiving bracers from the boss that drops your best-in-slot ring.

Decimus accepts Voidlight Marl, Veteran Dawncrests, or gold in exchange for Nebulous Voidcores. You can also purchase one additional Nebulous Voidcore from Vaultkeeper Elysa for six Thalassian Tokens of Merit: this one does not count against your weekly cap, which is the game's grudging apology for every trinket it ever denied you.

After completing Season 1 content, you may choose to spend your Nebulous Voidcores for a random item appropriate to your Loot Specialization. Items already received are removed from the pool on a per-difficulty basis until the entire pool is exhausted. The Nebulous Voidcore Midnight 12.0.5 system means you will eventually get the item you want. Eventually. This season. Probably.

Note on Duplicate Protection Once an item is looted via a Nebulous Voidcore, it is removed from that pool until every eligible item has been obtained: on a per-difficulty basis. Killing Heroic Belo'ren and obtaining a trinket there does NOT remove it from the Mythic loot pool. Two different difficulties, two different pools. Try not to celebrate prematurely.

Ascendant Voidcores: Item Level Upgrades Beyond the Cap

After the Voidforge is completed, Decimus pivots to his next project: the Ascendant Nilhammer, a tool that manipulates Ascendant Voidcores to infuse weapons and trinkets with additional power. This is the part of the system where you stop merely getting gear and start pushing gear past what Blizzard normally allows. It is the Ascendant Voidcore weapon trinket upgrade path, and it is warband-wide just like the Voidforge itself.

Ascendant Voidcores drop from Midnight Season 1 endgame content: raids, Mythic+ dungeons, Bountiful Delves, and Nightmare-difficulty Prey Hunts. Consuming an Ascendant Voidcore on an eligible piece grants it the Ascendant Voidforged status and cannot be upgraded further. It is the ceiling. Do not look above it.

Eligible Items for Ascendant Upgrades

• Fully upgraded Hero track weapons and trinkets
• Fully upgraded Myth track weapons and trinkets
• Maximum quality Radiance Crafted weapons and trinkets

Only Weapons & Trinkets Ascendant Voidcores work exclusively on weapons and trinkets. Your gloves, your helm, your cape: none of them qualify. The Void plays favorites, and its favorites are the two slot types that most directly impact your damage output. Make of that what you will.

For those who enjoy optimizing themselves into a hollow shell of a human being, here is the Voidforge weekly rotation Patch 12.0.5 stripped to its load-bearing bones. Complete this on every character that matters to you, or at minimum on your main, and let the warband unlock do the rest of the heavy lifting for your alts.

The Voidforge alt gearing strategy answer is simple: do this once on your main, collect your warband unlock, then run the same content on alts at whatever pace your sanity permits. The Voidforge is open to all your characters the moment any one of them finishes construction.

Why Bother With Any of This

Because the alternative is staring at your Great Vault every Tuesday, picking between three items you don't want, and quietly accepting that the best-in-slot trinket simply does not exist for you in this lifetime. The Voidforge is a system that, over weeks of play, lets you target specific drops. You will not get your trinket immediately. You will, however, eventually get it, which is more than this game promised you in Battle for Azeroth.

The WoW Season 1 best-in-slot gear targeting potential here is real. Nebulous Voidcores with duplicate protection mean your loot pool shrinks each week. Ascendant Voidcores push the ceiling on your most impactful slots. The only thing standing between you and a competently-geared character is your continued willingness to log in.

And regarding those Elemental Voidcore Shards drop rate concerns: the shards are not a separate grind. They fall automatically from content you are already doing for vault progress. Three shards of any mix: raids, delves, dungeons: craft one Elemental Voidcore. The system is generous by design, which means Decimus almost certainly gets something out of this arrangement that you haven't noticed yet.