WoW Dragonflight 10.1 Preparation Guide - 10 Things To Do Before Patch 10.1/Season 2

Patch 10.1 is rapidly approaching, so we'll be moving into season 2 of Dragonflight very shortly. Check this WoW Dragonflight 10.1 prep guide, we discuss what to do now in patch 10.0.7 to prep for patch 10.1 in WoW Dragonflight.

WoW Dragonflight 10.1 Preparation Guide - 10 Things To Do Before Patch 10.1/Season 2 Dragonflight

How to prepare for Dragonflight 10.1 and what to do before the patch 10.1 release? There are a lot of different rewards and achievements being removed with the end of season 1 and there are also a lot of things you can do to best prepare yourself and your characters for the new season. The new patch goes live on May 2nd, so that's our deadline for getting any end-of-season bucket lists completed. Now, let's see what is removed from the game and what should you hurry up to accomplish in the coming weeks. 

Check everything to do before patch 10.1/season 2 releases.

1. First Story Chapter of 10.1

Something everyone is going to want to get done before 10.1 rolls around is the initial set of story quests that became available in 10.0.7. These are the quests that pointed you towards the Forbidden Reach and ask you to join Embethal in Search of Answers. You may have thought that this quest line was just some story for 10.0.7. But it's actually the first chapter of the 10.1 story campaign. So if you don't complete these Quest lined in the Forbidden Reach, you won't be able to pick up the new story quests in 10.1 that lead down into Zaralek Cavern. So be sure to follow through with all the main story quests in 10.0.7 and help Embethal chase down Sakareth. It is important to note that you only have to do this once as soon as you've completed the first chapter on one character any of your owns can skip over the entire thing. There's one skip that lets you teleport straight to the Forbidden Reach Zone and then there's another skip that lets you skip the actual story content in the Forbidden Reach. You do forfeit any rewards you may have gotten, but if you want to quickly catch up alts to continue the story content when 10.1 rolls around, it's probably worth it. 

2. Raid Deadlines 

As per usual when a new season is coming our way, there are lots of rewards in the current season that will become unobtainable. So you have until patch 10.1 rolls around to get most of this stuff done. The first set of achievements going away in season 2 are the Ahead of the Curve and Cutting Edge achievements for the Vault of the Incarnates raid. 

3.  Mythic+ Deadlines

We also have some Mythic+ achievements tied to season 1, getting up to 1500 Mythic+ rating will reward you with the Keystone conqueror achievement and the Thundering title, and then getting up to 2000 Mythic+ rating will get you the Keystone Master achievement and the Hailstorm Armoredon mount. So if you want either of those rewards, you will need to hit the rating requirements before the end of season 1. If you want to push further you can get the Keystone Hero achievement at 2500 rating that rewards you with the Gleaming Incarnate Thunderstone that unlocks new effects on the season 1 tier gear.

There are also the dungeon teleport rewards for each season 1 Mythic+ dungeon if you complete a keystone on +20 or above you'll get the Keystone hero achievement for that specific dungeon which includes a Teleport spelled directly to the dungeon. With season 2 bringing us a completely new round of dungeons to run, you won't be able to get these teleport spells or achievements in patch 10.1. So if you want them, you'll have to get those +20 keys finished up quickly. If you really want to prepare for season 2 WoW Dragonflight, you could take a look at the new dungeon rotation and refresh yourself on how those dungeons work. They'll all have the same abilities, trash packs and bosses, it's just going to get harder and harder and obviously we'll have the affixes in play. So if you haven't run some of these dungeons in a little bit, it might be worth going through them once or twice to see where the pain points might be and what routes might give you the best chance of success.

4. PvP Deadlines

There are also various PVP rewards going away with the start of season 2. The season 1 Gladiator title and mount will no longer be available. So you have a limit a time if you're shooting for that one, but there's also the vicious saber tooth mount for winning rated PVP matches or the elite PVP trans box sets which you can get from getting up to 1800 rating in either twos or threes rated Arena. All of these rewards are seasonal, so you don't have too much longer to secure them.

5. Get Your Alts Ready

There are other things to look into before 10.1 goes live. Right now is a perfect time to level up some alts if you're wanting to try something new in 10.1. Don't wait for the patch to arrive to start working on your alts because you'll be far too busy with all of the shiny new content. If you've been looking for a change of pace or just want to have a few alts going forward and get them all ship shaped before the new patch goes live. If you're looking for some suggestions, Shadow Priests seem to be doing pretty well with the new rework. Devastation Evokers are getting some interesting changes which could be a lot of fun to play, but also be very powerful. You can have at least one max level alt to take advantage of any large swings in profession changes, also help supply your main character with profession materials. Also been very useful in other ways like Zskera Vault keys in 10.0.7 to make upgrading your mains primordial stones incredibly quick. So there are plenty of reasons to have a few alts up at max level even if you don't play around with them too much. 

6. Gear Up in Season 2 Dragonflight 

A big topic that always crops up in videos is gearing up your characters. Should I gear up my alts, should I try and get some better gear on my main and it usually depends on which patch we're going into. With 10.1 season 2 of Dragonflight will completely rearrange the entire gearing up process item levels across the board will be increased, so be able to get way better gear from world events, dungeons, Mythic+ raid, PVP, everything. So no matter what kind of player you are, you will be replacing all of your gear pretty quickly. If you do range or Mystic+ dungeons, you will replace it even faster. The patch also includes a whole new upgrade system for gear, but it's only going to work for season 2 rewards. So while you will be able to upgrade world gear, raid gear and Mythic+ gear way easier and further than before. That's only going to work for gear that drops in season 2, that does devalue most types of Gears that you can get right now in game.

Now profession gear can be upgraded in the new system, so anything you have that was crafted can be brought forward. So that's the only stuff you won't have to replace, but upgrading it is going to be a pretty lengthy process, so you might end up replacing it initially and then upgrading it later on down the line. With all that being said, better gear will still give you a smoother start in season 2. Better gear lets you move faster through keystone levels or lets you kill bosses faster or just survive easier in the open world. 

Read more: Dragonflight Season 2 Progression & Gear Upgrade (Item Levels Boost) Guide in Patch 10.1

7. Timewalking Event/Leveling

Another great option that we have for either gearing up or leveling up is the special time walking event that lasts until 10.1 goes live. Timewalking dungeons are quick and easy leveling and there's a weekly quest to run five time walking dungeons that rewards you with a random piece of heroic raid loot and that's going to be for every week that this event is active. That's probably the easiest and best source of gear in the game right now in terms of effort versus reward. So if you want to get some extra gear whether it's on your alts or your main, make sure you're doing those weekly timewalking quests for the free heroic raid loot because you never know how lucky you might get.

8. Professions

Another important factor to consider are your professions. 10.1 will bring us a lot of changes for professions including new raw materials, new recipes and crafts, and a complete change to how upgrading crafted gear is going to work. So if you're looking to pick up a new profession or change things around, now is a perfect time to make those choices. One of the big updates is tied to enchanting. Instead of collecting primal infusions, upgrading profession gear is also tied into the new shadow flame crest system. But to use shadow flame crests on profession gear, you're going to need an enchanter to create Enchanted Shadow Flame Crests. Basically Shadow flame crests are required for any and all gear upgrades in 10.1 with enchanters being the only ones who can facilitate the use of crests for profession gear. That means they're going to be in high demand in patch 10.1. Whether you're wanting to craft new gear or upgrade your profession gear from season 1, you're going to want to either be an enchanter yourself or at least know an enchanter in the new patch.

Another big update comes through for Alchemy, they have new cauldrons including a vile cauldron. There's a new transmit for Alchemists to learn to create Dracothyst. This new material is used in almost every new recipe in 10.1 including the cauldrons, various pieces of new crafted gear and the Enchanted shadowflame quests from Enchanted. It's also a transmute which means it's got a baked in limit on how many can be created, which should keep prices relatively high. So if you wanted to make some quick gold at the start of 10.1, quickly leveling up an alchemist and spec into the transmutation points could be worth the effort. If either of these profession updates look good enough to pick up, you can swap around your professions and get started on the profession knowledge grind before patch 10.1 goes live.

With the new Enchanted Shadow flame crests, any and all crafted gear from season 1 can be brought forward and upgraded to new higher item levels. That means all of your specialization points are still valid and as higher item level upgrades are going to need higher skill levels to guarantee those rank 5 crafts. So every profession is still relevant and important.

9. Dragon Riding Glyphs and Talents

Clearing the map of dragon riding glyphs if you haven't already in 10.0.7 and the Forbidden Reach added quite a few extra glyphs to hunt down with two new talents to unlock. But as we head into 10.1, we will have even more glyphs to collect in Zaralek Cavern with two additional talents. But with the recent changes to dragon riding talent, you can now untalent and swap things around very quickly and easily. So if you get all the glyphs in 10,0,7, you can drop Aerial Halt or Airborne Recovery to immediately pick up the new talent ground skimming and see if you like that one better. You will also need all of the 10.0.7 glyphs to unlock every talent after collecting the 10.1 glyphs. You can use add-ons like handy notes to display the locations on your map to make things super quick and easy.

10. Renown/Reputation

None of the renown levels will be required for anything in patch 10.1. So you don't have to do the story segments or earn any achievements or any of that to continue with the content in 10.1. So farming reputation and getting to max renown is definitely not required.

There are actually more ways to earn reputation in 10.1 for these factions.

The main story quest lines reward a lot of rep for the Valdrakken Accord including big tokens that instantly give you 2500 rep. And one of the new main events in the patch are the fire rack assaults. These are going to pop up in a few different areas of the Dragon Isles and the locals will give you quests to fend off the assaults. Those quests reward you with reputation for the general area for whether your salt is, so you have more opportunities to earn rep for the Maric Center and the Iskaara Tuskarr. The Emissary system from 10.0.7 also seems to be sticking around in 10.1, it's still active on the 10.1 PTR at any rate. So you should still be able to take advantage of those 10% rep game buffs as we head into the new patch as well.

So renowned and reputation farming is up to you, it definitely isn't required for anything in 10.1 and it might be easier or faster to earn rep in the new patch.

That's everything to do to prepare for patch 10.1 Dragonflight and some things that might not matter too much. What are you going to be focusing on in the next few weeks? Do you feel like you have enough time to achieve your goals? Are you going to be rushing around before the patch goes live?