Why the Best Great Vault Reward in Midnight Season 2 Isn't an Item
In Midnight Season 2, a Nebulous Voidcore can be worth more than a Great Vault item when you plan to keep bonus rolling the same loot pool. Its knockout protection makes it a strong weekly choice for building a long-term gear set.
A tier piece that completes your four-piece bonus or a weapon needed for progression can be worth taking immediately. The Voidcore’s advantage is that you can choose where to spend it, and each item it awards leaves the bonus-roll pool.
If you would keep bonus rolling the same boss or dungeon after taking its Vault item, favor the Voidcore unless you need that upgrade for current progression.
How Season 2 bonus rolls work
Beginning with the August 25 reset in North America, characters that unlock at least three Great Vault reward slots can select one Nebulous Voidcore instead of an item. Those three slots can come from any combination of the Raid, Dungeon, and World rows.
A Voidcore can be spent after defeating a Season 2 raid boss or completing an eligible Mythic+ dungeon, Bountiful Delve, or Nightmare Prey Hunt. The resulting item uses the loot table for that activity and your active loot specialization.
Bonus-roll rewards use the Great Vault reward level for that content, which can be higher than the ordinary end-of-run drop:
| Content | Bonus-roll reward |
|---|---|
| Heroic raid boss | Myth 1/6 |
| Mythic raid bosses 1–6, except Very Rare items | Myth 6/6 |
| Final two Mythic raid bosses | Item level 344, equivalent to Myth 9 |
| Mythic+ 10 or higher | Myth 1/6 |
| Tier 8 Bountiful Delve | Hero 1/6 |
Very Rare Mythic raid items also use the Myth 9 equivalent reward level.
Raid rolls also cost only one Voidcore in Season 2, down from two in Season 1. Blizzard explains the raid reward changes in its Curse of Ula'tek endgame reward post, while Wowhead's Season 2 bonus-roll guide covers the current acquisition rules and reward levels.
How the knockout list changes the math
Bonus rolls use a knockout system: each awarded item leaves the pool for later rolls.
When a Voidcore awards an item, that item is recorded for your character and removed from subsequent bonus rolls from that loot pool. As items leave that pool, a later roll has fewer remaining possibilities. Blizzard described this intended behavior when it explained and fixed the initial Season 1 duplicate bug: each Voidcore item is checked off a character-specific list.
There is one important limitation: taking an item directly from the Great Vault does not check it off the bonus-roll list. Neither does receiving it as an ordinary drop. If you later spend a Voidcore on the same pool, the system can award that item again.
Suppose a boss has four equally likely items available to your loot specialization, you want all four, and none has been checked off your bonus-roll list. Assume no tuning or loot-specialization changes alter which items are eligible between rolls.
- Taking four consecutive Voidcores and rolling that boss four times gives you all four items. Each roll removes one option.
- Taking one of those items from the Vault leaves all four items available for your first bonus roll. Three Voidcores then remove three of those four items.
In the second scenario, there is a 75% chance that one of those three rolls reproduces the item you already selected from the Vault. After four weekly selections, you expect to own 3.25 unique items instead of the four guaranteed by choosing four Voidcores.
Choosing four Voidcores removes the duplicate risk in this example.
Why target Heroic raid bosses?
Heroic raid bosses are unusually attractive targets because their bonus rolls award Myth 1/6 gear. A character can obtain Myth-track versions of powerful raid weapons, trinkets, necklaces, tier pieces, and special-effect armor without defeating the corresponding boss on Mythic.
Raid bosses also tend to have smaller and more concentrated loot pools than Mythic+ dungeons. If one boss offers three or four items that are all useful to your specialization, every roll is productive and every knockout brings you closer to the remaining pieces.
This is the situation behind much of the current community advice. Izen's video The Great Vault Loot Is a Great Bait explains the Vault and knockout conflict beginning around 8:58. Awoo's Season 2 Gearing Guide argues that most specializations should begin by taking Voidcores, then plan their raid and dungeon pools instead of chasing isolated items.
The same concern appears repeatedly in community discussions. Players in CompetitiveWoW have criticized the system for making a good Vault item a possible duplicate later, while a broader r/wow discussion reaches the same general conclusion while identifying several important exceptions.
You can save a Voidcore for later
When a Voidcore is the better choice for your character, claim it from the Vault. You do not have to spend it immediately.
Banking a core lets you choose its target later. You can wait until your group reaches Heroic, until an early Mythic boss becomes realistically farmable, or until your normal drops reveal which target pool has the greatest remaining value.
Spending without a plan can waste the system's biggest advantage. Before rolling, answer four questions:
- Which boss or dungeon contains several items I would genuinely use?
- Which loot specialization gives me the smallest useful pool?
- Can I repeat this content enough times to finish or substantially thin that pool?
- Does this pool overlap with gear I plan to craft, catalyze, or obtain elsewhere?
Changing loot specialization can sometimes remove an unwanted weapon or trinket from the available list. Removing an unwanted item leaves a smaller pool, but the correct loot specialization varies by class.
When to take the Vault item
Treat the Voidcore as a starting point for the decision. Take the actual item when its immediate or guaranteed value is greater than the long-term value of another roll.
Good reasons include:
- The item immediately completes an important two-piece or four-piece tier bonus.
- It is a major weapon or trinket upgrade your group needs for current progression.
- It is the only item you want from that boss or dungeon.
- The surrounding bonus-roll pool is large and filled with items you would not use.
- You cannot reliably reach or repeat the content you planned to roll.
- You are unlikely to play the character long enough for knockout protection to pay off.
- You have already cleared the high-value pools available to your character.
A guaranteed best-in-slot Mythic+ trinket is the clearest example. If the rest of its dungeon pool is unattractive, accepting the trinket now can be better than spending several weekly Voidcores clearing unwanted items.
The other major tradeoff is power now versus power later. A progression guild may gain more from equipping a large upgrade before tonight's raid than from completing a theoretically perfect gear set several weeks sooner. Long-term optimization is not always the same as maximizing the chance of killing the current boss.
Check your specialization before deciding
The correct target depends on your specialization, active loot specialization, current gear, and the content you can consistently complete. Before claiming your Vault, check the Season 2 Gear, Best-in-Slot, and Bonus Roll sections for your specialization on Wowhead or Icy Veins. Icy Veins also maintains a convenient Season 2 best-in-slot index for every specialization.
For the newest theorycrafting, loot-specialization tricks, and advice following hotfixes, consult the pinned resources in your class Discord. Wowhead provides a directory of current class Discord servers.
Do not blindly copy a generic best-in-slot list. Check the guide's recommended bonus-roll target, required loot specialization, raid difficulty, and most recent update date. A player farming Heroic Ula'tek, a Mythic raider targeting early bosses, and someone who only runs Mythic+ may all have different optimal plans.
Plan around the remaining loot pool
The Great Vault normally asks you to choose the best item from a random collection. The Nebulous Voidcore changes that decision. Instead of taking one result now, you can choose the activity, difficulty, loot specialization, and timing of a future result, and narrow the remaining pool with each bonus roll.
That control makes the Voidcore especially useful when several items in the same pool would improve your gear. If you intend to keep rolling a source, taking one of its items from the Vault does not save you a roll. It creates a chance that a future roll gives you the same item again.
If several remaining items from one source would help, plan your rolls around that pool. If a Vault upgrade would help your group progress now, weigh that gain before choosing the core.