Ding! You’ve finally hit level cap fighting for the Horde or the Alliance. Now the world is yours to conquer as the Battle for Azeroth rages on and the true end-game begins. With another week until BFA’s first raid unlocks and Season 26 of Rated PVP begins, I’ll be giving you the ten things to get to work on at level 120. From the most important to the least, these will help set you on the path of success no matter what your end-game goals are.

Level Up Your Heart of Azeroth

The Heart of Azeroth is the most important piece of equipment for players in Battle for Azeroth and with this week’s Artifact Knowledge implementation there’s no time like the present to get grinding.Apart from increasing its item level and stats every time it levels up, higher levels unlock further traits on your Azerite Gear. These traits can be serious additions to your class’ arsenal, from increasing a Warrior’s Slam damage with [Crushing Assault] to vital PvP abilities such as [Battlefield Focus]. Raising your reputation with the Champions of Azeroth faction, headed by Magni Bronzebeard, will also raise your artifact’s item level by 15 for each tier (except exalted).

There’s a ton of methods to gather Azerite, which levels up your Heart of Azeroth. While you’ll do most of your collecting through World Quests (which unlock at 120) you can also gather the mineral by engaging in Dungeon Content, performing missions on your mission table, playing PvP matches, going on Island Expeditions and engaging in treasure hunting throughout Kul Tiras and Zandalar. If you can swing a stick at it, you’ll no doubt get Azerite from it in BFA!

Your Mission Table and the War Campaign

The mission table returns in Battle for Azeroth, whether you were a fan of it in previous expansions or not. This time, however, it takes on a much more minimalistic role overall, hosting a few quests on it each day that you can send your followers out on. These quests will return back Azerite, gold, resources, and reputation tokens for the various factions of Kul Tiras and Zandalar and can make your grinds for all of them incredibly valuable. Several professions can also craft follower upgrades which, upon use, will allow your followers to return herbs, ore and more for your professions.

The Alliance’s War Mission Table, a carryover from Legion’s gameplay.

Tied directly into your mission table is the major War Campaign. Headed by the 7^th Legion and the Honorbound for the Alliance and Horde respectively, this campaign will follow your faction’s efforts to make landfall on the enemy continent. Over the course of the multi-mission series you’ll not only make landfall on Zandalar but also unlock the 5 champions for your mission table, as well as Island Expeditions and War Research. Completing the campaign is required for part of [Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One], one of the steps to eventually unlock flying in Kul Tiras and Zandalar, as well as unlocking the opposite faction’s Mythic-only Dungeon. It’s also one of several steps required for unlocking the newest Allied Races, Dark Iron Dwarves for Alliance and Mag’har Orcs for the Horde. Progressing through the Landfall portions of the achievement is also necessary for unlocking World Quests.

Capstone Questlines

As we talked about during our “Zones of…” series, both the Horde and the Alliance zones feature a capstone quest series, wrapping together the final story beats of the three zones you’ve leveled through. [The Pride of Kul Tiras] focuses on finding a missing Jaina Proudmoore and repelling a mighty siege on the city of Boralus. [Zandalar Forever!] looks to resolve the civil war and betrayal begun by Prophet Zul as dark forces look to besiege a vulnerable Dazar’alor. Completing both quest-lines not only awards a decent chunk of reputation for the Proudmoore Admiralty and Zandalari Empire respectively, but during the course of events you’ll also gain access to your faction’s exclusive Mythic-only dungeon, a difficult instance that awards item level 340+ gear!

Each capstone quest is also a requirement for completing [Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One]relevant to your faction.

Azerothian Diplomat

Provisioner Fray, the Reputation Vendor for the Proudmoore Admiralty.

With a whole new expansion comes 6 new factions to earn favor from. As you quest throughout Kul Tiras and Zandalar, you’ll encounter each faction and earn a significant amount of reputation with them. After reaching 120 and unlocking World Quests you’ll be able to continue earning their trust through global World Quests, Battle For Azeroth’s version of the old daily quest system. Every day you’ll also be tasked with an emissary quest for one faction; completing four quests in one faction’s zone will award bonus reputation, Azerite, and a significant reward for that day.

Faction reputation is highly prized in the first few weeks of Battle for Azeroth. After reaching Revered and Exalted with several factions you’ll gain access to item level 335 and 350 equipment, high enough to allow easy entry into Mythic level Dungeons and Looking for Raid difficulties in Uldir. Reaching Revered with all six factions is also required for a portion of [Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One]. Every faction also has unique rewards, from mounts to powerful recipes for each profession.

Get Grinding!

This one for the most-part goes without saying; as World of Warcraft is a gear-based MMORPG, grinding for more powerful gear and equipment is almost a necessity to step into end-game content. After finishing out your leveling adventure, your character should be sitting in the 280-290 item level range, allowing you to start right off with Normal mode dungeons. Heroic dungeons are unlocked at 305 item level, Mythic Dungeons at 315, and it’s believed that Uldir’s LFR mode will unlock at either 325 or 330.

If you enjoy Player vs. Player content more, then item level still has a big impact, especially with the beginning of Season 26. While it hasn’t been confirmed yet by Blizzard, it’s expected that Item Level will increase all stat values for a character by a set amount as it worked with Legion, promoting a higher item level over superior stats. Before gear becomes standardized with Conquest and weekly chests, higher item levels will dictate your DPS, Healing, and survivability in PvP. While you can get armor from Dungeons, PvP Battlegrounds and more, World Quests also offer rewards ranging from item level 300 to 340 depending on your average item level.

Wide World of Quests

A typical readout of available quests available to players, as well as Emissary Quests and rewards.

Once you unlock World Questing through your War Campaign, these become a daily resource for players to adventure through the world of Azeroth. On top of completing the daily emissary quests, World Quests in Azeroth reward Azerite, gear, gold, crafting materials, war resources, everything a hero needs. Not only will completing these daily adventures reward reputation with specific factions, you must also complete 100 of them for [Wide World of Quests], another mandatory part of [Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One].

Island Expeditions

The newest iteration of the three player instanced scenarios introduced in Mists of Pandaria, Island Expeditions are now a vital part of progression in Battle for Azeroth. These scenarios come in tiers similar to five-man dungeons, and feature Horde and Alliance players going head to head to harvest vital Azerite from islands in the seas of Azeroth. While Normal, Heroic and Mythic versions feature players squaring off against smart AI on the opposite faction, there is also a PvP mode that will have players competing against players of their opposing faction for Heroic Tier Azerite rewards, Conquest and Honor.

These Expeditions are a vital part of your routine but are easily finished in only a few hours. Each week a quest will appear at your Expedition Table to collect a large amount of Azerite over multiple expeditions, later rewarding approximately 4000 Azerite for the player; enough to fill a great percentage of the player’s Azerite levels, if not cap a level entirely. With each expedition taking only fifteen or twenty minutes, you can quickly do six in rapid succession or over a week and collect a large amount of Azerite. Expeditions also have the rare chance to reward several pets, mounts and unique gear upon completing them, though these drops seem to be random.

Professions and Gold

An Alchemist’s readout of some… atypical transmutations.

With item level 350 reputation gear being fairly expensive this expansion, it shouldn’t come as a shock when you hear that leveling professions may be a good idea to make some gold. With [Anchor Weed]currently selling at almost 500g on multiple servers, raw materials gathered from Mining, Herbalism and Skinning are a great method for stockpiling liquid cash on characters. As Uldir is just around the corner, the demands for epic crafted gear, flasks and more will peak in the next few weeks resulting in a healthy wallet for the smart seller.

There are a ton of resources on the internet for stockpiling gold and cornering the Auction House. I personally recommend The Gold Queen, an avid WoW Player who regularly updates her website with gold making tips and tricks.

Finish Those Dang Quests!

One of the last quests in Stormsong Valley…

We’ve all done it before. After hitting the level cap, we give up questing and let things fall by the wayside, especially if it comes to boring quest-lines like those found in Vol’dun and Stormsong Valley. However, with the new Capstone Quests, completing the main storylines of each zone is a necessity to not only [Battle for Azeroth Pathfinder, Part One] but also to unlocking your Capstone Questline and faction specific Mythic-only Dungeon.

After completing those quests, there’s also still a ton of one-off quests dotted throughout every zone, offering a sizeable amount of reputation for that zone’s faction and reducing the work you need to do to reach Exalted in the long run.

Conquer Azeroth!

As a PvPer at heart, I couldn’t not include this on our list. With the addition of War Mode to World of Warcraft, World PvP has returned to Azeroth with a sense of force and verve. Toggling on War Mode offers players 10% bonus rewards when completing objectives in the world and opts them into Player versus Player combat, dynamically scaled so players all feel like they’re playing at 120. This also enables the Assassin and Bounty Hunter systems in the world; kill ten players without dying and you’ll be labeled as an Assassin for your faction, marked on the World Map for all to see. Kill an assassin of the opposite faction and you can loot a bounty from their corpse which not only includes a large chunk of honor as a reward, but also rare crafting materials and gold.

War Mode is a fantastic system to engage with in Battle for Azeroth, incentivized not only by additional rewards through the World Quest system, but a title and mount through the [Conqueror of Azeroth]Meta-Achievement. While it certainly makes your daily grind a little lengthier, battling throughout Kul Tiras and Zandalar can be a fun distraction once you’ve paired up with a party and set yourselves on the opposite faction.