Midnight Delves tier list: Fill your Great Vault fast in Season 2
Today, we prepared a fair Delves tier list for you. We arranged every Delve from easiest and fastest to hardest and time-consuming. We also added all locations of Sturdy Chests in Delves.
Table of Contents
Tier list
- Easiest Delves: Sunkiller Sanctum, Atal’Aman, Twilight Crypts, Collegiate Calamity, The Ring of Glory.
- Fine: The Darkway, Parhelion Plaza, Shadowguard Point, The Grudge Pit, The Gulf of Memory.
- Worst: The Shadow Enclave, Gnarldor Isle.
Delves are a key end-game activity, offering loot, resources and gear across multiple difficulty tiers. Higher levels can be tough, so we’ve prepared a tier list ranking them from easiest to hardest to help you choose efficient runs. Keep in mind any tier list is subjective.
Focus on the easiest Delves if you want to quickly fill your Great Vault. By completing a Bountiful Delve Tier 11 three times, you’ll also earn 15 Crest.
Related posts:
Our Midnight Delves tier list focused on both leveling and high-end Delve completion.
Delves tier list
Midnight Season 2 has 12 regular Delves. Patch 12.1 added The Ring of Glory and Gnarldor Isle on the Coiled Isle, while Venomfall Deeps serves as the Season 2 Nemesis Delve and is not included in this regular Tier 8+ ranking.
Here is our Season 2 Delves tier list, ranked from the easiest and fastest to the most tedious options for Tier 8+ runs:
- Easiest Delves: Sunkiller Sanctum, Atal’Aman, Twilight Crypts, Collegiate Calamity, The Ring of Glory.
- Fine Delves: The Darkway, Parhelion Plaza, Shadowguard Point, The Grudge Pit, The Gulf of Memory.
- Hardest (Or longest) Delves: The Shadow Enclave, Gnarldor Isle.
Note
Our tier list primarily focuses on Tier 8+ runs, but leveling efficiency is also considered. Fast Delves with dense enemy packs are still excellent for leveling alts, although your priorities are different from max-level Bountiful Delve farming.
The original 10 Midnight Delves also have Delver’s Call quests that can provide additional leveling value. The two Season 2 Coiled Isle Delves, The Ring of Glory and Gnarldor Isle, do not currently have Delver’s Call quests.
Delves variations
The active Story remains one of the most important factors affecting how fast or difficult a Delve feels.
Season 2 makes this even more noticeable. Patch 12.1 added a new Children of Ula’tek story to eight of the original Midnight Delves, meaning most of them now have four possible Story variants instead of three. The Gulf of Memory and Sunkiller Sanctum are the exceptions, while the two new Coiled Isle Delves each have three stories.
The easiest Delves Tier 8+
Here’s a list of the easiest Delves to complete quickly, along with all Sturdy Chest locations:
Sunkiller Sanctum
Sunkiller Sanctum is located in Voidstorm at /way #2405 54.8, 47.1.
This Delve deserves a significant upgrade compared to its Season 1 placement. The Gravitational Effect and Not What I Expected are both very fast variants, while Core of the Problem is somewhat slower but still perfectly reasonable.
The layout is fairly direct, and there is less objective busywork than in many Season 2 Delves. The main thing to watch for is the final boss, Esuritus.
Atal’Aman
Atal’Aman is located between Eversong Woods and Zul’Aman at /way #2395 63.7, 80.1.
Atal’Aman remains an excellent Delve. Ritual Interrupted and Toadly Unbecoming are particularly efficient, while Totem Annihilation is only slightly slower. The outdoor layout and ability to move quickly between objectives also help.
Season 2 adds Venomous Vapors, which involves cleaning up the poison infestation created by the Children of Ula’tek. This variant adds more interaction than the original stories, but the underlying Delve remains easy to navigate.
Twilight Crypts
Twilight Crypts is located in Zul’Aman at /way #2437 25.4, 84.4.
The original stories remain among the better Midnight Delves for speed. Loosed Loa is especially quick, while Party Crasher and Trapped! are both straightforward once you know the route and trap locations.
Season 2 adds Why’d It Have to Be Snakes?, which is more involved. You must deal with exploding snakes and eventually fight Replicating Venomborne.
Collegiate Calamity
Collegiate Calamity is located in Silvermoon City at /way #2393 40.6, 53.7.
Collegiate Calamity remains one of the most consistent Delves in Midnight. Academy Under Siege, Invasive Glow, and Faculty of Fear are all reasonably quick, with no particularly punishing route.
Invasive Glow is still great when your character has strong AoE damage. The Grimgrow Deweeder also helps remove smaller Lightbloom enemies and speeds up the objectives. For leveling alts, Collegiate Calamity also remains one of our favorite choices because of its enemy density and compact layout.
The Ring of Glory
The Ring of Glory is a new Season 2 Delve located on the eastern side of the Coiled Isle at /way #2512 71.2, 56.5.
This is a small, combat-focused arena Delve, which immediately gives it an advantage over large Delves where half of your run is spent traveling between objectives. Adopt-a-thon is currently the best overall variation. You defeat enemies while rescuing animals before fighting Gnok. Game Day is slightly more gimmicky because you must kick skulls into pillars, but the compact arena keeps the run from becoming too long.
Open Night is the exception. It is essentially an arena gauntlet with multiple opponents before the final boss, so it can take considerably longer and requires more interrupts.
Normal difficulty Delves Tier 8+
The following Delves don’t stand out in terms of quickness and don’t require any special skill. All of them take up to ~10 minutes to complete. These are fine to choose during your runs, or run once for leveling purposes, but are not as easy as previously mentioned Delves.
The Darkway
The Darkway is located at the docks of Silvermoon City at /way #2393 39.3, 31.7. Enter through the boat to travel to the Arcway beneath Suramar.
The Darkway is actually more attractive in Season 2 than it first appeared. Its original stories are fairly consistent rather than spectacularly fast, and Eggsplosive Growth gives it another relatively efficient option.
Parhelion Plaza
Parhelion Plaza is located on the Isle of Quel’Danas at /way #2424 46.8, 40.9.
Parhelion Plaza is difficult to rank because its Stories differ enormously in efficiency. Bombing Run is one of the fastest regular Midnight Delve stories available. If that is active, you can comfortably treat Parhelion Plaza as an easy-tier Delve.
Shadowguard Point
Shadowguard Point is located in Voidstorm at /way #2405 37.1, 49.1.
Stolen Mana remains the variant you want. The objective is simple, and the borrowed weapon allows you to destabilize the required containers without wasting much time.
Captured Wildlife and the other original alternatives involve more movement and environmental mechanics, making them less attractive for repeated runs. Season 2 also adds Basilisk Blitz, where Ula’tek’s specimens have escaped throughout the area. Its final boss, Disciple of Vash’nik, is manageable as long as you interrupt Malignance and avoid Living Venom.
The Grudge Pit
The Grudge Pit is located in Harandar at /way #2413 70.4, 64.8.
The Grudge Pit remains one of the most entertaining Delves, but Season 2 makes its completion times much less predictable.
Arena Champion is straightforward and fast. Lightbloom Invasion is slower, while Dastardly Rotstalk involves additional crowd interactions and objectives that can stretch out the run. The new Fungal Pharmacon Story is another downgrade for speed. You must collect Pharmacon and enter burrows to destroy Ula’tek’s ritual totems, adding extra traversal and interaction before the final boss.
The Gulf of Memory
The Gulf of Memory is located in Harandar at /way #2413 36.7, 49.6.
We would no longer call this the worst Midnight Delve. The Gulf of Memory does have annoying environmental elements. Plants hanging from the ceiling can grab you if you walk underneath them, and some routes encourage more careful movement than other Delves.
However, Alnmoth Munchies and Sporasaur Special can both be cleared at a reasonable pace once you know the layout. Descent of the Haranir is the Story that hurts its overall rating, as it is noticeably longer.
The worst Delves Tier 8+
These Delves sit at the bottom primarily because they combine long objectives with awkward layouts or mechanics that cannot simply be solved by pulling more enemies and dealing more damage.
A clean run can already take around 20 minutes, and mistakes can make them considerably longer.
The Shadow Enclave
The Shadow Enclave is located at the southern edge of Eversong Woods at /way #2395 45.5, 86.0.
The original Shadow Enclave was already somewhat slow, but Season 2 gives us an even stronger reason to place it near the bottom: Infiltrate and Ameliorate.
This Story makes you sneak through part of the Delve, sabotage cauldrons with Oddball Ingredients, use jumping mushrooms to reach some objectives, and deal with the Children of Ula’tek before fighting Abominable Blunder. It is one of those Delve stories where additional gear does not solve the main problem. The objective itself takes time.
There have also been recent reports of Oddball Ingredients disappearing, failing to provide credit, or becoming impossible to interact with. Because the number of ingredients can be limited, this may force a complete reset if it occurs. For now, we recommend avoiding The Shadow Enclave when Infiltrate and Ameliorate is active unless it is Bountiful or you need the Story completion.
Gnarldor Isle
Gnarldor Isle is the other new Season 2 Delve and is located on the southern side of the Coiled Isle at /way #2512 64.4, 77.7.
Unfortunately, it is also our pick for the most tedious regular Delve in Midnight Season 2.
The biggest problem is not that its mechanics are exceptionally difficult. The Delve is simply large, and all three Stories require substantial objective work.
Olds and Ends has you rescue eight Tortollan while collecting supplies throughout the area. Speaking Their Language eventually puts you in a War Turtle and asks you to kill 50 Gnarldin before you can fight the boss.
Then there is Minchi’s Osseous Adventure, where you must activate multiple Bone Piles, defeat their spawned enemies, collect Gnarldin Hearts, complete the ritual, and finally fight Osseous Amalgamation. Current Tier 8+ timing data also places this among the slowest measured Midnight Story variants, which matches the amount of mandatory objective work involved.
The trash can also punish careless large pulls. Stonerender Raiders can stun you with Charge before following with heavy frontal damage, while Tuskcrusher Outriders can knock you into additional packs. Gnarldor Isle is worth completing for achievements, Story progress, or when it is Bountiful, but if your only goal is finishing Tier 8+ Delves as quickly as possible, this is the one we would skip first.
This is it for our Season 2 Midnight Delves Tier 8+ tier list. As you can see, most of the Delves are actually fine, especially in comparison to Season 1 Delves.
Which Delves do you find the easiest to complete? Are there any favorites of yours? Let us know your opinion in the comments below!
Comments
Im not sure when you created this but on t11 you probably didn’t tried all the versions, or its completely different on different characters. I agree with Waterworks, the end boss is pretty much one shooting you with most of his specials, best tactic for the totem is always drop it so you have a nice arena and can run inside it as you have to dodge a lot so it would go off quickly , but the tree leaders in Night sanctum are pretty much one shooting you without even trying just their basic attack even with one of them CC. Its completely unbalanced. I completed already 8 of the 12 delves on ilvl610. the only ones that I still have to do is Waterworks, Nightfall sanctum, The underkeep (this with the trials is a bad joke, fighting groups of enemies where most single ones can kill you in seconds and you have mostly 3-4 of them at once + the end boss.. got him to 10 percent twice and he just stopped inside the blue shit witch one shots you and started casting the spell that you must interrupt or you are pretty much one shooted … bad rng not enough lives to get more tries.) and the Spiral weave. Most of the ones you have in the most difficult i had not much issue with ….
Spiral wave on Tortured hostages is quite ok zero issue there.
I’ve done them at all tier 11 except for Skittering Breach. It’s at least 500x harder than the others, blizzard really need to address it
Clear the previous platform right before the boss, and fight him there instead. It’ll make the fight a lot easier.
why is dread pit in secon tier? its actualy easyest and fastest delve at all, Im able to run it under 8min
After Mycomancer Cavern for me Kriegval and Waterworks are without question the easiest and fastest at 10-12 min solo on T8 both as tank and DPS.