Delves Guide: Locations, Rewards, Tiers, & More

Delves Guide

Delves are a new type of content for World of Warcraft in The War Within. These instanced adventures offer bite-sized, flexible content for solo players and small groups. You’ll defeat enemies, navigate obstacles, and collect treasure, all with the help of a seasonal NPC companion.

Getting Started

If you follow the main story campaign for The War Within, you’ll be pointed to your first Delve shortly after arriving in Khaz Algar. Leaving the city of Dornogal on the Isle of Dorn, you’ll be sent to Freywold Village, where Adelgonn will give you the quest Delve into the Earth. This quest directs you to the nearby Earthcrawl Mines to meet with Brann Bronzebeard.

Upon completing this delve, you’ll be sent back to Dornogal to the Delver’s Headquarters, which is where you will find Brann Bronzebeard as well as delve vendors Reno Jackson and Sir Finley Mrrgglton and other members of the Dragonscale Expedition and Explorer’s League who you will visit for delve-related quests and rewards.

delvers headquarters

Difficulty Tiers

There are 11 tiers of difficulty for each delve. Unlocking higher tiers requires completing any delve at the previous tier with revives remaining. You will then be able to select the next tier for any delve.

Tiers work similarly to Mythic+ key levels, increasing the health and damage dealt for enemies in the instance. Tier 2 and 3 delves also grant more experience (10% more for Tier 2, 15% more for Tier 3). Additional traps and challenges will also appear on higher tiers. To progress beyond Tier 3, your character must reach level 80 and your Warband must complete the main story campaign in Khaz Algar.

Rewards progressively improve for Tiers 1-8, while rewards for Tiers 9-11 are the same as Tier 8. Bountiful Delves offer significantly better loot than normal ones.

delves tiers

Revives & Checkpoints

Delves above Tier 3 have a limit to the number of times your party can revive before you fail the delve. That doesn’t include resurrection spells, although Soulstone revives do count toward the limit. The number of deaths will also affect the quality of loot you receive at the end of the delve. You can see your remaining revives in your Objectives pane. You have a total of 5 per delve.

You’ll gain a stack of the Delver’s Determination buff each time you die, increasing your health, healing received, and damage dealt. While it’s better to avoid using your revives, this buff can help you if you’re struggling to complete the delve.

If you do die, you’ll respawn at the most recent checkpoint you reached. Checkpoints are marked with what looks like a summoning stone. You’ll also find some Explorer’s Supplies there to allow you to change your companion’s loadout.

delves checkpoint

Boons

Boons are special buffs you can acquire in delves by killing special elite enemies or looting unique treasure. They grant a variety of fun and useful temporary abilities to help you progress through the delve.

Treasure

Treasure can be found throughout a delve in the form of chests and smaller items like bags and jars.

delve treasure room

Companions

You’ll be exploring delves with the aid of an NPC companion who brings their own set of abilities to assist you. Each season will bring a new companion who will accompany you on all of your delves.

Your companion’s loadout can be changed from the Delves tab of the Group Finder, or by interacting with Explorer’s League Supplies that are found inside delves and at the Delver’s Headquarters. As your companion gains experience, they will unlock new abilities and become more effective in combat. They can also equip curios that you find, giving them extra combat and utility bonuses.

Brann Bronzebeard

The NPC companion for the very first season of delves is everyone’s favorite explorer, Brann Bronzebeard. Brann is capable of filling the role of a damage dealer or healer. Here are his abilities for each role:

Damage Dealer

Healer

One important thing to note if you are using Brann as a damage dealer is that you will need to position enemies so that they trigger his traps. Otherwise they will not deal any damage. Likewise, if you are using him as a healer, you will need to walk over the healing potions he tosses out in order to benefit from their healing.

Brann’s Gathering Tools ability will help you gather more materials inside delves, which is especially useful if you have a gathering profession!

delves brann bronzebeard

Delve Locations

Delves are marked on the world map with a door icon.

Isle of Dorn Delves

  • Earthcrawl Mines – 38.5, 74
  • Fungal Folly – 52, 66
  • Krieval’s Rest – 62, 43
isle of dorn delve locations khaz algar world of warcraft the war within
Isle of Dorn Delves Map

Hallowfall Delves

  • Mycomancer Cavern – 71.3, 31.3
  • Nightfall Sanctum – 34.3, 47.4
  • Skittering Breach – 65.5, 61.8
  • The Sinkhole – 50.6, 53.4
hallowfall delve locations khaz algar world of warcraft the war within
Hallowfall Delves Map

The Ringing Deeps Delves

  • The Dread Pit – 74.3, 37.4
  • The Waterworks – 46.4, 48.8
the ringing deeps delve locations khaz algar world of warcraft the war within
The Ringing Deeps Delves Map

Azj-Kahet Delves

  • Tak-Rethan Abyss – 55.0, 73.5
  • The Spiral Weave – 45.1, 19.1
  • The Underkeep – 51.8, 88.3
  • Zekvir’s Lair – 32.8, 76.9

azj kahet delve locations khaz algar world of warcraft the war within
Azj-Kahet Delves Map
azj kahet lower delve locations khaz algar world of warcraft the war within
Azj-Kahet Lower Delves Map

Rewards

Delves are another source of endgame PvE loot along with raids and dungeons. They can be completed as an alternative to World Events to unlock the third row of rewards in The Great Vault each week. They also offer their own rewards track and achievements to earn as well as gear and currency that can be looted inside each delve.

Gear that can be looted in delves scales with difficulty, maxing out at the same item level as gear from Heroic raids or +5 Mythic dungeons. Gear earned from the delves (World) row in The Great Vault will max out at the Heroic raid or +15 Mythic dungeon level.

The World slots in The Great Vault can be unlocked by completing 3, 6, and 12 delves or other world events throughout the week. Your progress toward unlocking these slots can be seen in your Delves tab in the Group Finder window.

Delver’s Journey

Delves have their own progressive rewards system, similar to a Renown system. You’ll be able to track your progress with the current season’s Delver’s Journey in the Delves tab of the Group Finder. As you progress through this track each season you’ll earn incremental rewards such as schematics for your Delver’s Dirigible mount.

delvers journey

Delve Treasures Vendors

There are two vendors at the Delver’s Headquarters in Dornogal where you can spend the currency you’ll earn by completing delves:

sir finley mrrgglton delve treasures
reno jackson delve treasures

Delver’s Dirigible

The Delver’s Dirigible is a customizable mount that is unlocked through delves along with additional customizations for it. To acquire the mount, you must complete the quest Bountiful Delves. This quest requires opening a Bountiful Coffer with a Restored Coffer Key.

You can get a Restored Coffer Key by collecting 100 Coffer Key Shards from world events in Khaz Algar and combining them. You can also buy them for 2000 Undercoin from Sir Finley Mrgglton in Dornogal.

You’ll be able to see if a delve has a Bountiful Coffer inside by hovering over it on the map. The tooltip will say “Bountiful Delve” right below the name of the delve. There should always be one Bountiful Delve in each zone, but its location rotates.

delvers dirigible mount

Delve Achievements

General

The War Within

 

About the Author

Luxrah

I've been playing World of Warcraft on and off since vanilla, usually as a healer or caster and often as a guild leader. I play both retail and classic. I also love RPGs, sandboxes, and sims.
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