Wow Midnight Dawncrests Guide | Midnight Season 1

Blizzard graciously killed off Valorstones just to make us learn a new currency! Meet Dawncrests: the mandatory, minimalist, and mildly grindy way to upgrade gear. Time to chase blue sparks and argue over progression again. So what you will find in this WoW Midnight Dawncrest guide?

• How long does it really take to max out a single piece of gear?
• Can I finally gear my fifteenth alt without completely losing my mind?
• Where are the new upgrade vendors hiding in Silvermoon City?
• Is it ever mathematically worth it to trade my hard-earned crests?

The Five Types of Dawncrests

Adventurer Dawncrest

Item Level Range: 224–237
 Gear Track: Adventurer
 How to Get It:

• Repeatable Outdoor Events
• Normal Prey Hunts
• Delves (Tiers 1–4)
• Floating blue sparks in the open world (yes, really — go chase lightning bugs like it's 2005)

If you're using Adventurer Dawncrests, you are at the beginning of your journey. Congratulations on existing. These are so easy to get that you'll probably hit the weekly cap by accident.

Veteran Dawncrest

Item Level Range: 237–250
 Gear Track: Veteran
 How to Get It:

• Weekly Outdoor Events
• Raid Finder: Voidspire, The Dreamrift, March on Quel'Danas
• Heroic Seasonal Dungeons
• Hard Prey Hunts
• Delves (Tiers 5–6)
• Trovehunter's Bounty (Tiers 4–5)

Veteran Dawncrests are for players who are technically progressing but still haven't committed to a real raid schedule. No judgment. Heroic dungeons are valid content. We believe in you.

Champion Dawncrest

Item Level Range: 250–263
 Gear Track: Champion
 How to Get It:

• Weekly Outdoor Events
• Normal Raid: Voidspire, The Dreamrift, March on Quel'Danas
• Mythic Seasonal Dungeons
• Mythic Keystone Dungeons +2 to +3 (yes, that low — someone has to start somewhere)
• Nightmare Prey Hunts
• Delves (Tiers 7–10)
• Trovehunter's Bounty (Tiers 6–7)

Champion gear caps at 6/6 but tops out lower than Hero 2/6 in the long run, so don't pour your soul into Champion upgrades. It's the "good enough for now" track, which is a perfectly respectable place to be.

Hero Dawncrest

Item Level Range: 263–276
 Gear Track: Hero
 How to Get It:

• Heroic Raid: Voidspire, The Dreamrift, March on Quel'Danas
• Mythic Keystone Dungeons +4 to +8
• Delves (Tier 11)
• Trovehunter's Bounty (Tiers 8+)

Hero Dawncrests are where real progression begins. Once you have every slot at 276 ilvl, you'll earn the Hero of the Dawn feat of strength and unlock the ability to convert Hero Dawncrests into Myth Dawncrests at a 3-to-1 ratio. That's not great math, but progression is progression.

Myth Dawncrest

Item Level Range: 276–289
 Gear Track: Myth
 Max Item Level in the Game: 289
 How to Get It:

• Mythic Raid: Voidspire, The Dreamrift, March on Quel'Danas
• Mythic Keystone Dungeons +9 and above

Myth Dawncrests are the pinnacle. The apex. The thing you will frantically farm while three guild officers argue in Discord about whether the 9th key counts as "real progression." Once every slot hits 289, you earn the Myth of the Dawn feat of strength. And then you wait for Season 2 to make your gear obsolete.

Upgrade Costs

After several beta iterations that had the community in various states of rage-posting, Blizzard settled on a flat 20 Dawncrests per upgrade rank, across all tracks, from 1/6 all the way to 6/6.

Total to fully upgrade one item: 120 Dawncrests.
Crafted gear: 80 Dawncrests (gets you to rank 4/6 equivalent power, limited by the 2-Embellishment rule).

Each upgrade also costs a small amount of gold — which at this point in WoW's economy may as well be pocket change, but it's worth knowing.

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The weekly cap in Midnight Season 1 is 100 Dawncrests per crest type. Each of the five crest types has its own separate 100-cap, so theoretically you could earn up to 500 Dawncrests per week if you're some kind of content-consuming machine with no family obligations.

With a cap of 100 and a cost of 120 to fully upgrade, you will need approximately 1.2 weeks to fully upgrade a single piece of gear. Blizzard calls this "progression pacing." Players call it something less publishable.

Practical weekly upgrade math:

• 100 crests ÷ 20 per rank = 5 upgrades per week maximum
• Fully upgrading one item = ~1.5 weeks of capping

Plan accordingly. Prioritize weapons and tier pieces first, as usual.

Dawncrest Downgrading: When You Have Too Much of the Good Stuff

Talk to Vaskarn, located at coordinates 48.6, 62 in Silvermoon City, to convert excess higher-tier crests into lower ones. This is useful for gearing alts or filling out lower-tier slots you've been neglecting.

The exchange rates are not glamorous, but they exist, and sometimes that's what you've got.

There's also an upgrade direction: once you've achieved Hero of the Dawn (all slots at 276 ilvl), your spare Hero Dawncrests can be converted to Myth Dawncrests at a 3-to-1 ratio via a Glorious Cluster of Myth Dawncrests. Similarly, after Champion of the Dawn (all slots at 263), Champion crests can be exchanged for a Celebratory Pack of Hero Dawncrests.

Upgrade Vendor Location: Silvermoon City

Both upgrade vendors are located in The Bazaar district of Silvermoon City:

• Cuzolth — The Item Upgrade Vendor. Speaks to your gear, upgrades it, silently judges your choices. Located at 48.6, 62.
• Vaskarn — The Crest Exchange Vendor. Where you go to swap crests down (or up, under the right conditions). Same location.

To unlock the upgrade interface initially, Vaskarn will ask you to complete the introductory Adventurer gear quest. Complete the Midnight Campaign and you'll have full access to all systems automatically.

In a rare moment of generosity, Blizzard has introduced upgrade achievements that cut Dawncrest costs by 50% for alt characters across your Warband, once your main crosses certain ilvl thresholds.

The logic: once your average item level surpasses the ceiling of a given gear track, you earn an achievement. That achievement permanently reduces upgrade costs for that track on every other character you play.

This makes the second, third, and fifteenth character you level significantly less painful to gear. Warband-wide progression has entered the chat.

With a 100-crest weekly cap and 120 crests needed per item, you will not be upgrading everything at once. Here's the hierarchy that wastes the least of your precious time:

Always upgrade first:

• Weapons (highest stat impact per slot)
• Tier set pieces (once you have 4pc, prioritize completing and upgrading the set)
• Trinkets (especially if you landed a BiS)

Upgrade second:

• Helm, chest, legs (largest stat pools)

Upgrade last or skip for now:

• Rings and neck (wait for great vault or raid drops before investing crests)
• Pieces you expect to replace soon from the weekly vault

Do NOT waste Hero or Myth crests on slots you'll replace in 2 weeks. We've all been there. It hurts.

Full Gear Track Reference Table

Max item level in Midnight Season 1: 289 (Myth track, 6/6 rank).

What to do?

1. Do your content. Crests drop from the same difficulty content as the gear they upgrade. Easy to remember, easier to forget at 2am.
2. Cap every week. 100 Dawncrests per type. Five upgrades per week per track. Don't let it go to waste.
3. Upgrade in Silvermoon. Find Cuzolth and Vaskarn at 48.6, 62 in The Bazaar.
4. Weapons and tier pieces first. Always.
5. Push your main to ilvl thresholds to unlock 50% alt discounts via the Dawn achievements.
6. Don't waste Hero/Myth crests on gear you'll replace. You will be tempted. Resist.
7. Valorstones are gone. It's okay to be happy about that.