The Great Vault is the single biggest gear payout of your WoW week, but most players leave slots empty or fill them with rewards they'll never equip. The Vault gives you up to nine reward options every reset — three from Mythic+, three from raid, three from Delves and world activities — yet you only get to keep one. That one-pick limit is exactly why optimization matters: more unlocked slots means more chances to roll the slot, stat combo, and item level you actually need. Here's how to fill all nine in The War Within without burning your whole week on it.

The exact thresholds for all three columns

Each column unlocks its three slots at different activity counts. Memorize these and you'll never miscount mid-week:

  • Mythic+ (Dungeons): complete 1, 4, and 8 Mythic+ dungeons. Eight runs unlocks all three slots.
  • Raid: kill 2, 4, and 7 raid bosses. Seven kills unlocks all three slots.
  • World (Delves & world activities): complete 2, 4, and 8 qualifying activities. Eight unlocks all three slots.

Hit every threshold and you've got the full nine. The catch is that item level scales with the difficulty of your best runs, not just the count — so completing the threshold is step one, but which runs count toward each slot determines the reward quality.

How each column decides your item level

The Vault doesn't average your activity — it ranks it. For Mythic+, the game looks at your highest keystone levels: slot 1 reflects your best key, slot 2 your fourth-best, slot 3 your eighth-best. That's the trap most people fall into. If you run one +10 and seven +2s, your first slot is great but the other two are capped by those low keys. Spread your effort: aim for eight runs at a similar, meaningful key level rather than one hero run and a pile of filler.

Delves work the same way by tier. To pull Hero-track gear from the World column, you need to clear Delves at Tier 8 or higher (or complete the equivalent harder world content for the season). Eight Tier-3 Delves will unlock all three World slots but reward weaker loot — so if you're chasing gear, push the tier, not just the count.

Raid is the most straightforward: bosses you've killed on Heroic or Mythic feed item level directly, and your three slots reflect your three highest-difficulty kills among the 2/4/7 thresholds.

The lowest-effort path to nine slots

If your goal is simply "every slot filled" with minimal time, the World column is your cheapest three slots by far. Eight Delves — even solo, even at a comfortable tier — is the least demanding way to guarantee three options. Many players bang out their eight Delves Sunday or Monday so the Vault column is locked in before the week even gets busy.

A realistic full-nine week looks like this:

  • World (easiest): 8 Delves at the highest tier you can clear comfortably. Solo-friendly, no group needed.
  • Mythic+ (best gear-per-slot): 8 dungeons. If you can hold a steady key level, this column tends to give the strongest, most class-relevant loot.
  • Raid (group-gated): 7 bosses. This is the one column that depends on other people, so it's usually the bottleneck for solo and casual players.

For a lot of players, two columns are easy and the raid column is the wall. Seven Heroic kills means a guild raid night or a pug that doesn't fall apart at the third boss. If you're short on raid time but want that third high-item-level column, a Heroic raid carry for the 7-boss threshold is the kind of time-for-money trade that makes sense — you bank three extra Vault options for one evening you didn't have to organize. The same logic applies to a Mythic+ carry to push your slots to a key level your own group can't clear yet.

Where the real optimization happens: the pick

Unlocking nine slots is half the game. The other half is choosing correctly on reset day, and this is where free value lives. A few rules that consistently pay off:

  • Don't auto-pick the highest item level. A 6-item-level upgrade in a slot you've already got covered is worth less than a slightly lower piece that fills a genuinely weak slot or gives you a tier set bonus.
  • Prioritize tier set pieces when you're assembling a 2-piece or 4-piece bonus — the set bonus almost always beats a few raw stat points elsewhere.
  • Check trinkets and weapons first. These have the widest performance swing, so a Vault weapon or a best-in-slot trinket is often a bigger DPS jump than any armor token.
  • Consider the crest/disenchant value. If nothing is a real upgrade, the highest item level piece you'll scrap for crafting materials or Crests is the correct "throwaway" pick.

When to just play it out

Optimization has diminishing returns. If you're already clearing your own +8s and raiding with a guild, the Vault fills itself — chasing all nine slots every single week isn't worth grinding eight dungeons you don't enjoy. The honest answer for most players is: get your eight Delves done early as a safety net, run Mythic+ at whatever level is fun, and only reach for a carry on the weeks you specifically need to break through a gear wall — a new tier opening, a key level your group keeps wiping at, or a raid night you can't make. Spend the time-for-money trade where it removes a real bottleneck, not as a weekly habit.

Fill the cheap columns, push item level where the loot matters, and treat the final pick as the most important decision of your week. Do that and the Great Vault stops being a participation chest and starts being the engine of your character's progression.