Loot Sources and Gearing Approaches
Your raid schedule is fixed, but how much you farm outside of raid varies - from minimal effort to hardcore grinding, here are the four approaches.
Introduction
Your Raid schedule is fixed; you raid when your guild raids. The variable is how much time you spend on other content. This creates four distinct approaches to gearing, each with different time commitments and outcomes.
Minimal: Focus only on raid nights, minimal outside farming.
Efficient: Weekly vault filling and targeted upgrades
Hardcore: Farm until zero upgrades remain, often required by progression guilds.
RWF/Day-Raiding: You raid, sleep, eat then repeat.
The Minimal Approach
Time commitment: Raid nights only, minimal outside activities.
This approach works for casual guilds where performance requirements are relaxed. Your gear comes primarily from Raid drops and occasional Great Vault rewards from whatever activities you complete for fun.
Trade-offs: You'll consistently be behind on item level compared to raiders who farm outside of raid. This affects your damage output, survivability, and parses. However, if your guild doesn't have gear requirements and you can perform your role effectively, this approach is sustainable.
The Efficient Approach
Time commitment: 6-8 hours per week outside of raid nights.
Mythic+ Strategy: Run 8 dungeons weekly at the highest level you can manage. This fills your vault with three options and provides the most time-efficient path to upgrades. Once you reach Myth track in all slots, Mythic+ becomes maintenance-only until the next tier.
Delves Weekly: Complete Tier 8 with bountiful maps for guaranteed Heroic track rewards. Use the Wave Scrambler 2000 to force spawn specific bosses when targeting particular trinkets. Many delve trinkets remain competitive across multiple item level tiers.
The Hardcore Approach
Time commitment: Extensive daily farming, often filling the day with farming loot outside of raid.
Mythic+ Farming: Continue running keys beyond vault requirements until zero upgrades remain available. Target the highest possible item levels in every slot, regardless of time investment. This approach maximizes character power but requires significant time commitment.
Delves: Complete all vault requirements and continue farming during downtime between other activities. Fill all available vault tracks for maximum weekly upgrade opportunities.
Guild Requirements: Mythic progression guilds (top 300ish) typically mandate this approach, perhaps not to this extreme extent, but falling behind compared to the team is not a good look. Common requirements include capped Mythic+ vaults during progression, specific item level thresholds, and consistent farming between raid nights. Even some Heroic guilds expect minimum weekly key completion or "best effort" vault maintenance.
The RWF/Day-Raiding Approach
Time commitment: Your entire existence during progression.
You don't make gearing decisions - you follow orders. External powers have already spent hundreds of hours planning every piece of loot distribution across multiple raid teams and mirror characters. Are you helping someone gear in this run? Are you rolling RNG on your mirror? How many more runs do you have left today? You don't know and you don't have to know.
Got 30 minutes of downtime? Planning to do some Mythic+? WRONG! Did anyone tell you that you're allowed to play Mythic+? You'll play Mythic+ when you're told to play Mythic+. You'll eat when you're told to eat. You'll sleep when you're told to sleep and don't you dare to try and sneak a M+ instead.
And don't know which mirror character you're playing tomorrow? Surely someone will tell you soon, right? Your job is to execute the plan, not understand it.
The Reality: Your individual gearing approach is irrelevant. You're a cog in a highly optimized machine where every action serves the greater goal of world first progression. Personal preferences become meaningless when you're told exactly what to do and when to do it.
Understanding the Great Vault
The Great Vault is your weekly lottery ticket, and how you approach it depends entirely on which gearing philosophy you follow. If you're taking the minimal approach, you might get one vault option from whatever activities you accidentally completed. That's fine - any upgrade is better than no upgrade.
Efficient players focus on filling the Mythic+ track with 8 dungeons. This gives you three weekly options at the highest item level you can manage, and it's the most time-efficient way to get vault rewards. You'll skip the other vault tracks unless you're already doing those activities for other reasons.
Hardcore players cap everything they possibly can. Eight Mythic+ dungeons, eight raid bosses if your guild clears that far, and twelve bountiful Delves for maximum weekly options. More choices mean better odds of getting exactly what you need.
What Your Guild Expects
Your guild's expectations will largely determine which approach you can realistically take. Mythic guilds almost universally require you to cap your Mythic+ vault during progression. Many also have specific item level requirements or expect you to be farming constantly between raid nights.
Heroic guilds usually have lighter requirements - maybe one key per week or "best effort" to maintain vault options. They want you geared enough to contribute, but they're not going to kick you for missing a week of farming.
Casual guilds generally don't have formal requirements, but remember that your gear affects everyone's success. If half the raid is undergeared, progression slows down for everyone. Being appropriately geared is part of being a good guild member, even in casual environments.
Key Things to Remember
Tier sets always take priority over raw item levels. A 4-piece bonus from lower item level pieces will usually outperform higher item level gear without the set bonus. Don't break your tier set for small item level upgrades.
Jewelry provides the highest DPS value per upgrade because rings and necks have massive secondary stats. When you're deciding what to target in Mythic+ or what to pick from your vault, jewelry should be your first choice.
Raid items start at 2/6 upgrade level, which saves you 15 crests compared to vault items that start at 1/6. This means you can upgrade your raid drops faster and more efficiently than anything else you get.
- Four approaches: Minimal (just raid), Efficient (targeted weekly farming), Hardcore (farm until zero upgrades), RWF (follow orders)
- Guild expectations determine your approach: Mythic requires hardcore, Heroic wants effort, Casual is flexible
- Minimal: Show up to raid, maybe do a key if required, log off - works for casual guilds
- Efficient: 8 Mythic+ for vault, weekly Delves with bountiful maps, 6-8 hours/week
- Hardcore: Cap everything, farm constantly, often required by Mythic guilds during progression
- RWF: You're a cog in the machine - do what you're told, when you're told, no questions asked
Your guild's expectations will largely determine which approach you take, but understanding all three options helps you make informed decisions about your time commitment. Raid is your foundation - everything else is about how much extra effort you want to put in.