Some WoW Alts Can Get a Third Season 2 Spark This Week

Neglecting your World of Warcraft alt for five months may finally have paid off. Some Midnight characters can currently obtain a third Spark of Tides during the Patch 12.1 pre-season week, potentially putting them one step ahead in Season 2 crafting. The strange part is who qualifies. It isn't your hardest-working main. It is characters that never bothered completing an old one-time quest from the beginning of Midnight. Apparently procrastination has entered the gearing meta.

Season 2 Sparks Are Already Available

Spark of Tides is Midnight Season 2's new crafting Spark. Most crafted items require two Sparks, while two-handed weapons require four, making the opening weeks particularly important for players planning high-value crafts. Blizzard deliberately started distributing Season 2 Sparks during the Patch 12.1 pre-season week, before the raid and Mythic+ season officially begin. We already highlighted that in our Patch 12.1 pre-season checklist. What nobody particularly expected was that some characters would apparently be able to leave the week with one more than everyone else.

The Extra Spark Comes From Midnight: World Tour

The unusual third Spark comes from Midnight: World Tour. This was a one-time quest available earlier in the expansion. If your character already completed it during Season 1, it cannot simply be repeated for another reward. But if an alt never finished the quest, that character can still have access to it now. And the quest currently awards a Spark of Tides. That means an eligible character can combine the old World Tour reward with the new pre-season Spark sources and potentially reach three Sparks this week. So this isn't really a reward for creating a brand-new character. It is a reward for having a character whose quest log spent Season 1 saying: “We should probably get around to that eventually.” Eventually has arrived.

The Third Spark Doesn't Immediately Unlock a Huge Craft

There is one reason not to panic. Three Sparks does not create an immediate major crafting breakpoint. Most normal crafted items require two Sparks, so characters with two Sparks can already make one. A two-handed weapon requires four. Having three therefore mostly becomes interesting when we reach next week's Spark distribution. If eligible characters receive another Spark normally, they could potentially reach four earlier than characters that started this week with only two. That is where the gearing advantage could become significant. A Season 2 crafted two-handed weapon during early progression is considerably more exciting than simply having one extra purple crafting object sitting in your bags.

Blizzard Hasn't Said Whether This Is Intended

This is the big unanswered question. Wowhead considers the third Spark very likely unintended, because eligibility depends entirely on whether an individual character completed a one-time Season 1 quest. Blizzard has not yet confirmed that interpretation or explained how it intends to handle the difference. There are several possibilities. The World Tour reward could be changed. Players with fewer Sparks could eventually receive a catch-up reward. Characters with three could simply receive their next Spark later. Or Blizzard could decide that an old uncompleted quest awarding its current reward is working exactly as designed. For now, we simply don't know. There are also player reports of some normal weekly quests displaying a Spark reward but not actually awarding one once a character has reached the intended weekly limit, making the current pre-season Spark system slightly more confusing than Blizzard probably intended.

Don’t Build Your Entire Season 2 Plan Around It Yet

If you have an alt that never completed Midnight: World Tour, it is certainly worth checking the character. But I would not spend a small fortune preparing a four-Spark weapon based entirely on the assumption that Blizzard will allow the current difference to carry cleanly into next week. Season 2 doesn't officially begin until August 18. That gives Blizzard several days to clarify the situation or change how the extra Spark interacts with future drops. Still, there is something wonderfully World of Warcraft about the whole thing. Main character: Completed every quest. Cleared every weekly. Did everything properly. Two Sparks. Forgotten alt sitting in Silvermoon since April: Three Sparks. Sometimes the optimal strategy really is not doing your homework. Source: Wowhead / Icy Veins