Gearing up in WoW Midnight looks a lot different from The War Within. Valorstones are gone, and the whole upgrade path now runs through one currency: Dawncrests. If you jumped back into the game for patch 12.0.7 and feel lost about which crest goes where, this guide breaks the system down piece by piece — what Dawncrests are, how much each upgrade costs, where to farm them, and which pieces of gear deserve your crests first. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to move your item level up without wasting a single crest on gear that won’t matter in two weeks.
What Are Dawncrests in WoW Midnight?
Dawncrests are the seasonal currency behind every gear upgrade in Midnight. Blizzard dropped Valorstones entirely and folded everything into this single system, so you no longer juggle two currencies to raise your item level.
There are five crest types, and each one is tied to a specific gear track. You earn crests from dungeons, delves, raids, and world content, then spend them at the upgrade vendor to push your gear from one rank to the next. The system applies to both dropped loot and crafted items, so professions are part of the same currency loop now.
Buy services for
World of Warcraft!
Get help with the parts of the game that take the most time. Browse available services or place a custom order.
Order
WoW Midnight Gear Tracks Explained
Every piece of gear you pick up belongs to one of five tracks: Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, or Myth. Each track has six ranks, and you’ll see this written directly on the item — something like “Hero 3/6” means the gear is on the Hero track and has been upgraded three times out of a possible six.
Tracks don’t blend into each other automatically. A Champion piece stays a Champion piece even at full rank; it won’t turn into Hero gear just because you maxed it out. To move up, you need a new item that already drops on a higher track.
| Track | Crest Type | Item Level Range |
|---|---|---|
| Adventurer | Adventurer Dawncrest | 224–237 |
| Veteran | Veteran Dawncrest | 237–250 |
| Champion | Champion Dawncrest | 250–263 |
| Hero | Hero Dawncrest | 263–276 |
| Myth | Myth Dawncrest | 276–289 |
Crafted gear runs on a slightly different scale for Hero and Myth tracks, usually landing a few item levels below the dropped-gear equivalent, but the crest requirements work the same way.
How Much Does It Cost to Upgrade Gear in Midnight?
The cost per rank is flat now, and that’s one of the biggest quality-of-life changes in Midnight. Every upgrade — from rank 1/6 all the way to 6/6 — costs 20 crests per step, no matter how high the rank already is.
Here’s what that means in practice:
- One rank up: 20 crests
- Full upgrade (1/6 to 6/6): 120 crests
- Crafted gear upgrade: 80 crests, roughly equal to four ranks of power
On top of crests, each upgrade also asks for a small gold fee. It’s nowhere near the resource drain Valorstones used to be, but it still adds up if you’re gearing several pieces in one week.
WoW Midnight Weekly Dawncrest Cap Explained
Season 1 caps you at 100 Dawncrests per week. That’s enough for five full ranks of upgrades, spread across however many items you choose to touch.
This cap is the reason random upgrading hurts you more than it helps. If you spend crests on gear you’re about to replace, you’re burning a resource that resets weekly and doesn’t roll over. Plan your upgrades around gear you expect to keep, not whatever dropped last night.
Best Ways to Farm Each Dawncrest Type
Crest tiers scale with content difficulty, so the harder the activity, the higher-tier crest it drops.
- Adventurer and Veteran Dawncrests — heroic dungeons, low-tier delves, general world content
- Champion Dawncrests — Mythic+ keys in the +2 to +3 range, Normal raid difficulty
- Hero Dawncrests — Mythic+ keys +4 and above, Heroic raid difficulty
- Myth Dawncrests — Mythic+ keys +10 and above, Mythic raid difficulty
The Great Vault also hands out a batch of crests every week based on your best completed content, so check it before you decide what to farm manually.
Where to Upgrade Gear: Cuzolth and the Silvermoon Crest Exchange
All gear upgrades happen through Cuzolth, the upgrade vendor stationed in Silvermoon City. Bring your gear and your crests to him, and he’ll raise your item’s rank on the spot.
Right next to him sits Vaskarn, who runs the crest exchange. He lets you trade crests between tiers in two directions:
- Convert higher-tier crests down to lower-tier ones whenever you want, with no limit
- Convert lower-tier crests up to higher-tier ones once your gear hits a certain item level threshold
This matters most for alts. If your main is swimming in Myth Dawncrests but your alt still needs Adventurer-tier crests, Vaskarn is how you move that value across characters instead of letting crests sit unused.
How to Upgrade Crafted Gear With Dawncrests
Professions got folded into the same crest economy. When you craft an item, or place a crafting order, you can add Dawncrests as a reagent during the process instead of waiting for a lucky drop.
The number of crests you add directly decides the final item level of the crafted piece. This gives crafters a reliable way to hit a specific power target without relying on raid or dungeon RNG, as long as they’ve stocked up the right crest type.
Gear Upgrade Priorities: What to Upgrade First
Not every slot deserves the same attention, and spreading crests evenly across your gear is usually a mistake. A weapon or a chest piece upgrade delivers a bigger stat jump than the same investment in a ring or a trinket, so prioritize accordingly.
A few rules that hold up across most classes and specs:
- Upgrade your weapon and chest slot first — they give the largest stat gains per crest spent
- Don’t fully max Champion-track gear if you expect to replace it with Hero-track items soon
- Push Myth-track pieces to full rank as soon as you get them; the jump from 0/6 to 6/6 on Myth gear is substantial
- Hold onto Myth Dawncrests for confirmed best-in-slot items rather than the first Myth piece you see
Sporefall Raid and Sporefused Gear Explained
Patch 12.0.7 introduced Sporefall, a single-boss raid, and it changed how a lot of players think about their crest spending. Gear from this raid, labeled Sporefused, drops at the maximum item level for its track right away — no crest upgrades needed.
That makes Sporefused items a safe long-term investment. You’re not gambling crests on a piece that might get replaced next patch, because it’s already sitting at its ceiling. If a Sporefused item drops for your slot, it usually beats spending crests on a lower-track piece from other content.
Buy services for
World of Warcraft!
Get help with the parts of the game that take the most time. Browse available services or place a custom order.
Order
Dawncrest Mistakes to Avoid in WoW Midnight
A few habits quietly waste crests more than anything else:
- Mixing crest types across tracks. A Hero item only accepts Hero Dawncrest. Champion crests won’t work on it, even if you have plenty saved up.
- Overcapping low-value gear. Fully upgrading an Adventurer or Veteran piece feels productive, but if you’re about to replace it, those crests are gone for nothing.
- Ignoring the weekly cap. Since you can’t bank more than 100 crests per week, spending them on filler gear means you can’t spend them on something that actually lasts.
