ON SATURDAY I returned to Eversong Woods at level 83 to continue leveling in WoW: Midnight. I was quickly reminded why I stopped where I did last night: I’d reached the first delve of the expansion, the Shadow Enclave. I know many players enjoyed delves when they were introduced in The War Within; I was not one of them. To me, they were slow and tedious and I’d just as quickly prefer to avoid them while leveling.
Your new delve companion for Midnight is Valeera Sanguinar, who you might recognize as a recurring blood elf NPC of some importance. She’s the new Brann Bronzebeard of this expansion, and I immediately made the mistake of assigning her to tank for me in the Shadow Enclave. Even in a tier 1 delve, she died on the very first pull… and many, many times after that. Otherwise, Valeera didn’t get in my way as much as Brann usually did. It probably won’t be until I’ve reached 90 and geared up properly and run a few more delves before I have a real opinion on whether I like delves any more in Midnight than I did in TWW.
I’ve also unlocked two starter dungeons in Midnight: Murder Row and Windrunner Spire. Again, I’m wary of injecting instanced content into my leveling process; it usually drags things to a halt and I’m typically happy just grinding out quests instead of getting stuck in a group of crazy people (and often losing more faith in humanity). Maybe later I’ll queue for a dungeon just to see how it goes; I can always bail and go back to leveling if it turns into a slogfest.
83 -> 84: Following the delve, my next quest mini-hub was Suncrown Village, which looks like a carbon copy of Everbloom-ish areas in Gorgrond. I guess at this point it can’t be helped that some new areas will look similar to older ones, but this one really jumped out at me. The Amani trolls are back and you can guess they’re going to play a bigger role in the story as we venture closer to Zul’Aman.
It’s comical how many times these new quests have tried to reward me a new cloak. I’m wearing level 170 Reshii Wraps from K’aresh. So far these rewards are only up to level 145. Give me other slots!
As I level, I realize how much I miss Titan Panel. I miss being able to quickly see how long I’ve played this level and an estimate of when I’ll ding. I miss being having a little lag readout and how much gold I have account-wide. But Titan Panel hasn’t worked for me since the pre-patch; the developers have acknowledged issues with some new stuff WoW is doing, and I hope they fix it soon.
Comically, just as I’m finishing the last quest hub in Eversong Woods, I stumble across a quest marker I haven’t see before: a “Delver’s Bounty” for the Shadow Enclave delve. Ooof. It’s a hefty 70k XP, which is like 6x the typical quest reward, but do I really want to run this again? I’m bailed out at the last second as I return to Silvermoon City and find another Delver’s Bounty quest for a new delve, Collegiate Calamity. This delve is right in the heart of the city and barely took me 10 minutes, and just like that, I’m level 84.
84 -> 85: Back in Silvermoon City, I turn in one final quest and get the achievement for clearing Eversong Woods. Now I have a choice to make: which of three zones do I want to do next? This is something WoW expansions have done multiple times since Legion, giving players some freedom to pick the order of questing areas.
It very much felt like the Eversong Woods story was leading me straight to Zul’Aman, yet I’m not all that excited about fighting trolls right now. So I decide to do Arator’s Journey, which isn’t really one zone but takes you across several other existing locations in WoW, including Light’s Hope Chapel, Scarlet Monastery, Hammerfall and the Burning Steppes.
Surprisingly, Arator’s Journey barely takes an hour to blast through. It’s breezy and enjoyable and I’m glad I picked it first, but it’s very much like a lorewalking scenario, where you bounce through pieces of Turalyon’s story before returning to Silvermoon and getting back to the current threats.
At this point, I’d dinged 85, and felt like this was another good time for a break. I’m not overdoing it. Tomorrow: Zul’Aman!
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Notable 2026 Game Releases Feb 27 - Pokémon FireRed/Leafgreen Feb 27 - Resident Evil: Requiem Mar 2 - World of Warcraft: Midnight Mar 5 - Marathon Mar 26 - Life is Strange: Reunion May 19 - Forza Horizon 6 May 27 - 007 First Light Sep 15 - Marvel's Wolverine TBD - Grand Theft Auto VI TBD - Control Resonant TBD - Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis TBD - Professor Layton/World of Steam
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GDC Festival of Gaming Mar 9-13 / San Francisco, CA
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Summer Game Fest 2026 June 5-8 / Los Angeles, CA
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World of Warcraft: Midnight – day 3
ON SATURDAY I returned to Eversong Woods at level 83 to continue leveling in WoW: Midnight. I was quickly reminded why I stopped where I did last night: I’d reached the first delve of the expansion, the Shadow Enclave. I know many players enjoyed delves when they were introduced in The War Within; I was not one of them. To me, they were slow and tedious and I’d just as quickly prefer to avoid them while leveling.
Your new delve companion for Midnight is Valeera Sanguinar, who you might recognize as a recurring blood elf NPC of some importance. She’s the new Brann Bronzebeard of this expansion, and I immediately made the mistake of assigning her to tank for me in the Shadow Enclave. Even in a tier 1 delve, she died on the very first pull… and many, many times after that. Otherwise, Valeera didn’t get in my way as much as Brann usually did. It probably won’t be until I’ve reached 90 and geared up properly and run a few more delves before I have a real opinion on whether I like delves any more in Midnight than I did in TWW.
I’ve also unlocked two starter dungeons in Midnight: Murder Row and Windrunner Spire. Again, I’m wary of injecting instanced content into my leveling process; it usually drags things to a halt and I’m typically happy just grinding out quests instead of getting stuck in a group of crazy people (and often losing more faith in humanity). Maybe later I’ll queue for a dungeon just to see how it goes; I can always bail and go back to leveling if it turns into a slogfest.
83 -> 84: Following the delve, my next quest mini-hub was Suncrown Village, which looks like a carbon copy of Everbloom-ish areas in Gorgrond. I guess at this point it can’t be helped that some new areas will look similar to older ones, but this one really jumped out at me. The Amani trolls are back and you can guess they’re going to play a bigger role in the story as we venture closer to Zul’Aman.
It’s comical how many times these new quests have tried to reward me a new cloak. I’m wearing level 170 Reshii Wraps from K’aresh. So far these rewards are only up to level 145. Give me other slots!
As I level, I realize how much I miss Titan Panel. I miss being able to quickly see how long I’ve played this level and an estimate of when I’ll ding. I miss being having a little lag readout and how much gold I have account-wide. But Titan Panel hasn’t worked for me since the pre-patch; the developers have acknowledged issues with some new stuff WoW is doing, and I hope they fix it soon.
Comically, just as I’m finishing the last quest hub in Eversong Woods, I stumble across a quest marker I haven’t see before: a “Delver’s Bounty” for the Shadow Enclave delve. Ooof. It’s a hefty 70k XP, which is like 6x the typical quest reward, but do I really want to run this again? I’m bailed out at the last second as I return to Silvermoon City and find another Delver’s Bounty quest for a new delve, Collegiate Calamity. This delve is right in the heart of the city and barely took me 10 minutes, and just like that, I’m level 84.
84 -> 85: Back in Silvermoon City, I turn in one final quest and get the achievement for clearing Eversong Woods. Now I have a choice to make: which of three zones do I want to do next? This is something WoW expansions have done multiple times since Legion, giving players some freedom to pick the order of questing areas.
It very much felt like the Eversong Woods story was leading me straight to Zul’Aman, yet I’m not all that excited about fighting trolls right now. So I decide to do Arator’s Journey, which isn’t really one zone but takes you across several other existing locations in WoW, including Light’s Hope Chapel, Scarlet Monastery, Hammerfall and the Burning Steppes.
Surprisingly, Arator’s Journey barely takes an hour to blast through. It’s breezy and enjoyable and I’m glad I picked it first, but it’s very much like a lorewalking scenario, where you bounce through pieces of Turalyon’s story before returning to Silvermoon and getting back to the current threats.
At this point, I’d dinged 85, and felt like this was another good time for a break. I’m not overdoing it. Tomorrow: Zul’Aman!