12.1.0 Gearing Update: The Venomous Abyss, Tidebound Grotto Lair & Full Reward Tables

The Venomous Abyss is Season 2's primary raid, with 8 bosses across four difficulties. Loot ranges from 282 at LFR up to 321 at Mythic — a 39 ilvl jump from LFR to Mythic — so a Heroic clear is still worth doing even once you're pushing Mythic progression, since trinkets and set pieces can drop at either difficulty. Kills also count toward the Great Vault's Raid row alongside the Tidebound Grotto Lair below, so a mixed week of raid and Lair kills still fills that row. Use the difficulty selector below each boss to see exactly what drops at your target tier.

All eight dungeons are live in the current Mythic+ rotation: Temple of Sethraliss, Murder Row, Den of Nalorakk, Voidscar Arena, Altar of Fangs, Ruby Life Pools, Kings' Rest, and The Blinding Vale — including three returning dungeons brought back for this season (Ruby Life Pools, Kings' Rest, and The Blinding Vale). End-of-run item level climbs steadily with key level, so pushing from a +6 to a +10 is worth roughly 6 extra item levels on top of whatever drops. Plug your current key level into the Weekly Planner to see how that stacks up against your other weekly options. Use the key-level selector below each dungeon to see the exact matching item level.

Tidebound Grotto Lair is a new weekly system built around a single instanced world boss, Nymrissa Wavecaller, on The Coiled Isle. It scales from World difficulty up through Mythic, but only World is open in week 1 — that first kill drops Veteran-track gear, and higher difficulties unlock as the season progresses. Kills here count toward the Great Vault's Raid row alongside The Venomous Abyss, so it's worth killing every week even on a non-raid night, since the vault takes whichever kill gave the better reward.

The Great Vault's three rows unlock at different completion counts: the Mythic+ row fills its 3 slots at 1/4/8 dungeons, the Raid row at 2/4/6 boss kills, and the World row at 2/4/8 completions. Because the Raid row counts Tidebound Grotto Lair kills alongside Venomous Abyss kills, four total kills across both sources — not four raid boss kills specifically — is enough to open that row's middle slot.

This season's crest tiers run Adventurer → Veteran → Champion → Hero → Myth Mistcrest, low to high. Fully upgrading one item costs 100 crests total — 20 per step across 5 steps — and once you're capped on a lower tier, 10 of those crests convert into a pouch of the next tier up via Vaskarn (never downward). Earning the matching Warband achievement on any one character halves that tier's per-step cost to 10 crests for every character in your Warband, which matters most when your other characters are catching up on their own upgrade tracks.

Delves scale across 11 tiers this season, with a Coffer Key bumping several of the higher tiers' drops and the Great Vault reward always sitting a notch above the base drop.

Not everything opens on day one. Mythic+ and The Venomous Abyss unlock in week 2 (Aug 18), alongside Coffer Keys, Bountiful Delves, and Nightmare Prey. Voidcore bonus rolls open in week 3 (Aug 25) once you've filled at least 3 vault panes, and from week 8 (Sep 29) Orin Straylight appears beside the Catalyst in Silvermoon offering a free bonus roll every week.

This season's tier set covers Head, Shoulder, Chest, Hands, and Legs. The Matrix Catalyst converts an eligible non-tier piece into your class's tier piece while keeping that piece's own item level, stats, and upgrade track — as of this patch a Catalyst conversion can carry better secondaries than a raid drop in the same slot, since it no longer forces a fixed stat roll. Check the Guides section for your class's token group and which pieces are worth converting.