Blizzard has announced a number of changes to gearing for Midnight Season 2, with the goal of addressing pain points from Season 1.
Players feeling discouraged from running Heroic or Normal raids, rejoice! Blizzard is addressing many of the pain points of running Heroic and Normal raids, increasing their vault rewards, and allowing you to coin Myth and Hero items on Heroic and Normal, respectively.
The tl;dr is:
- Bonus Rolls will be a Great Vault reward from the start of the season.
- Bonus Rolls starting from Week 8.
- Using Bonus Rolls in raids will cost only 1 coin instead of 2
- Raid rewards on the Vault will be one tier higher.
- LFR Vault rewards 1/8 Champion
- Normal Vault rewards 1/6 Hero
- Heroic Vault rewards 1/6 Myth
- Mythic Vault rewards 6/6 Myth
- Loot from the last two bosses will be 9/6 Myth
- This is already the case in the raid itself
- Bonus rolls follow the same logic, so coining a Heroic raid boss will give you a Myth track item.
- Using the Catalyst will now retain the secondary stats from the original item, plus any cantrip effects.
- Ascendant Voidcores will return as Ascendant Venomstones later in Season 2
- In addition to Weapons and Trinkets, you will be able to upgrade Necklaces
- Same restrictions as Season 1, only maxxed out Hero or Myth items
- Same way to obtain Venomstones, but it will cost 10 instead of 5 to upgrade an item
Bonus Rolls
Starting with Midnight Season 2, bonus rolls will be available as a direct vault option from the start of the season. You will start receiving bonus rolls around the same time as you did in Season 1, around week 8, likely Patch 12.1.5.
When using Bonus Rolls in raids, you’ll now receive the loot one tier above. That is, coins in LFR give 1/8 Champion, Normal gives 1/6 Hero, Heroic gives 1/6 Myth, and Mythic gives 6/6 Myth.
Another change is that it will only cost 1 coin to bonus roll a raid boss, down from 2.
Great Vault Updates – Better Rewards for Raiders
Raid rewards are getting updated, as many raiders felt Heroic and Normal raids have been unrewarding in Season 1, when compared to Mythic+. For that, now Great Vault rewards loot one tier above the raid you complete.
- LFR Vault rewards 1/8 Champion
- Normal Vault rewards 1/6 Hero
- Heroic Vault rewards 1/6 Myth
- Mythic Vault rewards 6/6 Myth
- Loot from the last two bosses will be 9/6 Myth
- This is already the case in the raid itself
Catalyst Items Now Retain Their Stats
Catalyst is getting a minor revamp in Midnight Season 2. Now, when you catalyze an item, it will retain its secondary stat spread, plus any cantrip effects the original item had. This change should allow for more diverse character customization.
Ascendant Voidcores Return as Venomstones
Ascendant Voidcores will return later in Season 2, once again allowing players to upgrade their maxxed-out Hero or Myth Weapons and Trinket another 2 stages. With Season 2 you will also be able to apply Venomstones to your necklace as well.
You will obtain Venomstones from the same sources as Voidcores, being guaranteed from Heroic/Mythic raid bosses, Keys above +10, Tier 11 Delves, and Nightmare Preys. It will cost 10 Venomstones to upgrade an item, up from 5 Voidcores in Season 1.
Full Blizzard Announcement
Below you can see the full post with the details about the decisions.
Curse of Ula’tek Endgame Reward Changes
With the Curse of Ula’tek content update on the horizon, we wanted to share a few thoughts on endgame rewards and additional context on some upcoming changes.
Nebulous Voidcore Rolls
Overall, we are happy with how Nebulous Voidcores have enabled players to target specific chase items and gear up alts who have missed a few too many Great Vaults. The option to take Nebulous Voidcores as a Great Vault consolation reward also created interesting new choices around that weekly reward ritual which has otherwise changed very little over the past several expansions.
However, the resulting pace of gearing in Midnight Season 1 was a bit quicker than we initially intended due to a combination of the unlock timing and the number of Voidcore rolls per week, and the increased relative value of Mythic+ dungeon rewards was particularly detrimental to Heroic raiding.
Heading into Season 2, Nebulous Voidcores will be available as a Great Vault reward option from the beginning of the season directly from the Great Vault UI. Decimus has decided to pursue other projects but has generously offered to train Orin Straylight in the basics of weaving Nebulous Voidcores from void energy. Orin has relocated to the Catalyst in Silvermoon to continue his work. Once players have helped Orin kick off his research at the start of the season, he will require eight weeks before being able to provide players with one Nebulous Voidcore each week. Orin is significantly more independent than Decimus and will not require additional weekly quest effort from the player during his research.
This immediate access to Nebulous Voidcores as a Great Vault reward is intended to allow players to begin progressing towards their desired items from the start of the season in a way that offsets the reduced quantity and later timing of supplemental Voidcores.
The Value of Raid Rewards
To better reflect the time and effort required to defeat raid bosses and align with the rewards value proposition of Mythic+, we are making several significant changes.
Great Vault rewards for raiding will now behave in the following ways:
- LFR, Normal, and Heroic Great Vault rewards will always jump to the first step of the next upgrade track; for example, all Heroic raid vault rewards will be Myth 1/6.
- Mythic raid Great Vault rewards will always be Myth 6/6 apart from Very Rare items and loot from the penultimate and final bosses. These latter items will now be acquired at the equivalent of Myth 9 regardless of whether found as a boss drop or in the Great Vault.
Nebulous Voidcore costs will also be reduced from two to one for raid items. As in Season 1, the power of items acquired with Nebulous Voidcores is aligned with the equivalent Great Vault reward for that content.
Catalyst Changes
Since the Catalyst’s introduction, the value of armor item drops in class set slots has been greatly reduced because the vast majority will simply be converted into a class set item. In order to give these items their own identity and allow for further character customization, class set armor will now inherit the secondary stats from the original converted item. This will also apply to certain special effects going forward such as Ula’tek’s Venomcursed armor cantrip.
As in previous seasons, players may also still acquire class set armor directly from the Venomous Abyss raid.
Ascendant Voidcores Venomstones
Ascendant Voidcores will return as Ascendant Venomstones at a later point as in Season 1, allowing players to push the limits of their power to new heights.
Orin’s prowess with Ascendant Venomstones is not quite as impressive as what Decimus pulled off with Ascendant Voidcores, but he has discovered a couple of tricks of his own. In addition to weapons and trinkets, players will also be able to upgrade their necklaces to a maximum item level equivalent to Myth 8. As in Season 1, only fully upgraded Hero, Myth, and maximum quality crafted gear of the equivalent item level may be upgraded with Venomstones.
Players will acquire an Ascendant Venomstone from every Heroic or Mythic raid boss, Mythic+ Keystone dungeons at +10 or higher, T11 Bountiful Delves, and Nightmare Prey Hunt Champion gear boxes. Players will require 10 Ascendant Venomstones to upgrade each piece of equipment.
