Mistcrests replaced Dawncrests in Patch 12.1, and the system carries three details that get misreported constantly.
The weekly cap is per tier, not a single shared pool. You can bank Champion, Hero, and Myth Mistcrests simultaneously in the same reset. Capping a tier doesn't waste your farming — the reward downgrades one tier instead of vanishing. And a full 1/6 to 6/6 climb costs 100 crests, not 120, because six ranks means five upgrades.
Get those three wrong and you'll plan your week around constraints that don't exist. Here's the complete picture.
The Five Tracks
Five crests, five tracks, no crossover in either direction. A Hero Mistcrest cannot upgrade Champion gear and a pile of Champion crests cannot be forced into a Hero upgrade regardless of how many you have.
Crest | Upgrades Gear Through |
|---|---|
Adventurer Mistcrest | ~263–276 |
Veteran Mistcrest | ~276–289 |
Champion Mistcrest | ~289–302 |
Hero Mistcrest | ~302–315 |
Myth Mistcrest | ~315–328 |
Every rank costs a flat 20 Mistcrests. Blizzard tested a scaling cost structure on the PTR, called it a bug, and reverted it after community feedback. Flat 20 is the live system.
Six ranks per item means five upgrade steps. 1/6 to 6/6 is 100 crests, not 120. This matters when you're budgeting a week.
Standard progression tops out at Myth 6/6, around item level 328. Anything above that comes from Ascendant Venomstones and rare drops from the penultimate and final Venomous Abyss bosses — not from spending more Myth Mistcrests.
The Track Overlap Trap
Tracks overlap at several item levels, and this catches people at the upgrade vendor.
Champion 5/6 and Hero 1/6 are both around item level 298. Identical power. Completely different currency requirement.
The track printed on the item determines the crest you need — not the item level. Two pieces at the same item level can demand different currencies, and no amount of the wrong crest will work.
Practical habit: check the track on the tooltip before you plan an upgrade, not the item level. The upgrade interface tells you which Mistcrest it wants, but by then you've already walked to the vendor.
The Weekly Cap — How It Actually Works
Roughly 100 Mistcrests per tier per character, which covers five upgrade ranks of that tier each reset.
Three things about this that change your planning:
The cap is tracked separately for each tier. Adventurer, Veteran, Champion, Hero, and Myth all have their own ceiling. You can earn several types in the same week without one eating into another. Pushing a Hero piece to 6/6 never touches the Myth budget you're holding for raid drops.
Capping a tier downgrades rather than wastes. Once you hit your ceiling on one tier, additional rewards hand you the crest one tier below instead of disappearing. Your farming is never lost — it just lands lower on the ladder than you wanted.
The cap climbs each week on a cumulative catch-up curve. It rises by roughly 100 per week, which means it constrains you in the first reset or two and stops mattering by mid-season. If you're joining Season 2 late, you're not permanently behind — the accumulated cap lets you catch up quickly.
What this means in practice: early-season weeks are the only time the cap genuinely bites. Plan carefully in the opening fortnight, then stop worrying about it.
Where Every Crest Comes From
Crest Type | Source |
|---|---|
Adventurer Mistcrest | – Repeatable Outdoor Events |
Veteran Mistcrest | – Repeatable Outdoor Events |
Champion Mistcrest | – Weekly Outdoor Events |
Hero Mistcrest | – Venomous Abyss (Heroic) |
Myth Mistcrest | – Venomous Abyss (Mythic) |
The Breakpoints Worth Memorising
Mythic+ +4 — Hero Mistcrests begin. Below +4 you're earning Champion crests you'll stop needing quickly. Once you're geared for it, there is no reason to run +2 or +3 for currency.
Mythic+ +9 — Myth Mistcrests begin. Not +10. This is the most commonly misstated breakpoint in the season. If your group can't reliably time +10s, +9 gives you the same crest tier on a more forgiving timer.
Delve Tier 11 — the only Delve tier that yields Hero crests from treasure rooms, and the only source of Myth crests in solo content via Gilded Stashes. Those Stashes require Delver's Journey Rank 4, which makes Rank 4 your first real Journey priority.
Note the mismatch: Mythic+ vault rewards cap at Myth 1/6 from +10 onward, and end-of-dungeon loot caps at Hero 3/6. But crest tier tops out at +9. If your goal is purely currency, +9 is sufficient. Push higher for rating and vault quality, not for crests.
Uncapped Crests — The Exception Worth Knowing
Azta'rec, the Season 2 Nemesis boss in Venomfall Deeps, drops uncapped Mistcrests. They don't count against your weekly ceiling.
Tier ? — 30 uncapped Hero Mistcrests
Tier ?? — 30 additional uncapped Hero Mistcrests plus Myth Mistcrests
Once you've hit your weekly cap through normal content, this is one of the few sources that still produces full-value crests. That alone makes Azta'rec worth killing every week regardless of whether you need the achievements.
