Gear Progression from Activities
There are a lot of sources of lower level Adventurer and Veteran-track gear, such as weekly caches and world quests, but these are mere stepping stones to help prepare for greater activities. For solo players, Prey Hunts and Delves will be their main focus, awarding Champion and Hero-track gear, both directly and from the Great Vault.
Nightmare Prey Hunts award two pieces of item level 246 Champion (1/6) gear each week.
Completing Tier 8+ Bountiful Delves awards up to four pieces of item level 250 Champion (2/6) gear every day, though this is limited in practice by the number of Coffer Key Shards.
Completing Tier 8+ Bountiful Delve with a Trovehunter's Bounty activated will award a piece of item level 259 Hero (1/6) gear each week.
Upon reaching Rank 9 on the Delves Season Journey, Tier 11 Bountiful Delves will have a chance to award item level 259 Hero (1/6) gear and unlock a vendor to purchase more.
Endgame gear can be crafted at 272 item level using Sparks of Radiance and Hero crests.
The occasional weekly quest, such as A Shrouded Path Through Time or Cache of Timewarped Treasures, will award a Champion or Hero-track item, though these are not particularly regular sources of gear.
Most of these activities will also contribute to the Great Vault, with Nightmare Prey Hunts and Tier 8+ Delves unlocking up to three item level 259 Hero (1/6) choices on the World row. The addition of Ritual Sites in Patch 12.0.5 has increased this further, now awarding item level 269 Hero (4/6) gear from the Vault. This difference isn't quite as pronounced as it seems, since both upgrade to 275 eventually, though it will save Hero Dawncrests to get there slightly sooner.
The new highest level of gear available to solo players is now 269, upgradeable to 275.
The new Nebulous Voidcore bonus rolls can also be used to acquire more Great Vault-level items, greatly speeding up the gearing process, so spend them wisely, on the highest rewarding activity you can manage!
Crafting is a Long Journey to Even Greater Heights
As a solo player, Myth Dawncrest are extremely hard to come by, with just one reliable source available each week. Upon reaching Rank 4 on the Delver's Journey, players will be able to earn up to 20 Myth crests per week from Tier 11 Delves. These crests aren't particularly useful without any Myth items to upgrade, but can be used to craft 285 item level gear, the actual strongest pieces available to fully solo players in Midnight Season 1.
The gilded jackpot will be the only source of myth crests available to solo players for awhile.
Requiring 80 crests per craft, this is a slow process that won't result in best-in-slot solo gear anytime soon, but it can be sped up eventually. Once players have upgraded all of their Hero gear in every slot and earned Hero of the Dawn, they can trade up their now unused Hero crests into Myth at the rate of 30:10, or an extra 30.3 Myth crests per week.
Trading up crests will allow solo players to gain many more myth crests than otherwise available.
Thus, this becomes the real long term progression for truly solo players, though unless crests are uncapped at some point, the season will end well before its feasible to craft a full set of 285 item level gear.
