Patch 12.1.5 finishes what Curse of Ula'tek started. The Amani never killed Kith'ix; they buried him beneath their own vaults and bound him there. Ula'tek's defeat worked those restraints loose. The whole update bends toward the moment they give way: the campaign walks you down into his lair, and the raid waiting at the bottom is one boss, fought alongside Lady Liadrin. The test realm has been open since the announcement, so everything arriving beside him can be picked apart well before it goes live.
There is no exact date yet: the published 2026 schedule puts Patch 12.1.5 in autumn 2026, ahead of Patch 12.1.7, and nothing since has narrowed that window. The PTR opened on 3 September with development notes for the campaign, the raid, Labyrinths, Aqir Invasions and class tuning. Patch 12.1 went live on 11 August. Midnight Season 2 opened a week later, on 18 August, which split that patch into an open-world week and then the competitive start.
Ascendant Venomstones arrive with the update rather than at the start of the season, so the slots you finish this month are the slots a stone can lift later. Our Midnight gearing guide covers the upgrade tracks they sit on top of.
The update splits into content drops and system changes, and the systems are the half that outlives the patch week.
| Feature | What it adds |
|---|---|
| The Promise of Tomorrow | New story campaign; the finale of the Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman arc |
| The Unbinding of Kith'ix | Single-boss raid fought alongside Lady Liadrin |
| Labyrinths | Mega-dungeon-scale Delve descendants; the first is Kindo'jan, nine Chambers across Tiers 1-11 |
| Aqir Invasions | Zone-wide public events in Eversong Woods and Zul'Aman, ten minutes every hour, with Aqir Research Enclave reputation attached |
| Sporebearer Fungal Strider | 5,000,000 gold vendor mount in Harandar with swappable NPCs, sold only until Midnight ends |
| Ascendant Venomstones | Late-season upgrade stones for a finished weapon, trinket or necklace |
| Warband reputation | Legion and Battle for Azeroth reputations shared across the warband |
| Prey catch-up | Journey progress boosted for characters up to rank 8 |
| Housing and interface | Floorplan keybinds, blueprint shortcut, minimap coordinates, dispel highlighting |
Ula'tek's defeat woke something older. The campaign asks you to hold an uneasy peace between Quel'thalas and Zul'Aman while descending to the deepest part of The Coiled Isle, and it ends in a stand against the Amani's ancient foe. That foe is Kith'ix, a C'Thraxxi general. Seeing it through awards The Promise of Tomorrow and the Light's Faithful title.
He has been leaving fingerprints on the isle since 12.1 launched. Grasp of Kith'ix already spawns as a level 90 elite out there, which is the sort of foreshadowing that reads differently once the patch has a name. The setup was in plain sight.
The Vaults of Atal'Utek sit at the centre of it, and that is where the Amani sealed what they could not destroy, which is also where the campaign now takes you down rather than across. Down is the whole point this time. Our Curse of Ula'tek campaign guide covers the questlines that lead into this one.
Kith'ix was bound in a subterranean lair beneath the vaults, and Ula'tek's death weakened the restraints holding him there. The raid is the moment they fail. You fight him alongside Lady Liadrin in a focused one-boss encounter that Blizzard describes as the decisive confrontation of the campaign, which puts the raid and the story on the same clock for once.
This is not Midnight's first raid built around a single fight. Sporefall did the same job in Harandar during 12.0.7, dropping one boss, the fungal giant Rotmire, into the middle of a season without a full tier attached. The format works. Guilds get a short reset-night stop, and everyone else gets a story payoff they can actually see.
All four difficulties are in. Kith'ix covers the kill on any of them, with Heroic and Mythic tracked separately, and Raid Finder sits at the bottom of the ladder as usual.
Ten pieces of gear come off him: one for every armour type, two swords, a ring and three trinkets. Nothing on that list is aimed at one role.
| Drop | Slot |
|---|---|
| Lu'selama, Light's Justice | Two-handed sword |
| Sanctified Knight's Phoenixblade | One-handed sword |
| Corroded Hulk's Skullcap | Plate head |
| Aberrant Commander's Gauntlets | Mail hands |
| Leggings of Palpable Terror | Leather legs |
| Voidweaver's Vestments | Cloth chest |
| Band of the Swarmcaller | Ring |
| Lightbearer's Shield Fragment | Trinket |
| Sigil of the Impending Eclipse | Trinket |
| Twisted Horror's Tendril | Trinket |
Three trinkets off a single boss is the part worth planning around, and one name misleads: Lightbearer's Shield Fragment goes in a trinket slot, not an off-hand.
Two drops are not gear at all. Shadeweaver's Hearthstone is a toy, and Kith'ix's Seal is housing decor, which gives collectors a reason to keep killing him long after the loot itself has stopped mattering.
Harandar gets a gold sink. The Sporebearer Fungal Strider sells there for 5,000,000 gold, and it is the first mount in the game whose passengers you choose for yourself rather than take as given. It carries two NPCs at a time. Buying it hands you a mailbox and a repair vendor in those two slots.
The rest are sold separately. An auctioneer costs 1,500,000 gold and a transmogrifier costs 500,000, which puts the full set at 7,000,000 gold for the mount and every NPC currently attached to it. Nothing is locked in once bought: you swap which two ride along by talking to an NPC in the Den in Harandar, as often as you like.
The deadline matters. The mount itself can only be bought until the end of Midnight, the same limited window that took the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur off the table when Battle for Azeroth closed. The NPCs are treated differently and stay purchasable indefinitely, so the thing that expires is the strider, not the roster riding on it. Owning it flags the Fungal Not Frugal achievement.
Labyrinths are the Delve idea scaled up. Blizzard calls them sprawling, mega-dungeon-like experiences with their own progression systems, their own unlocks, and rewards sized to the challenge, and the pitch is aimed squarely at players who already like Delves and want something longer. You keep a companion at your side. Valeera Sanguinar guides you through them, the same way she runs Season 2's Delves.
The pacing is the interesting part. A Labyrinth can be cleared in one long session or picked apart over several, at whatever speed suits you, and how deep you go decides what you walk out with. Stopping early becomes a decision rather than a wipe.
Underneath, it is Delve machinery. A full run is nine Chambers, the tier ladder runs from Tier 1 to Tier 11, and Kindo'jan himself waits at the end of his own Labyrinth. Each rung also unlocks a Delve tier for the season, so the two ladders feed each other. Lives matter too: the hardest clear asks you to finish without losing a single one.
Kindo'jan is an ancient Amani funeral complex, sealed for centuries and open again. Two groups are already picking through it. Looters comb the halls for relics, the Vilebranch are after the same thing, and the spirits interred there defend the place with deadly force, which turns the complex into a three-way fight rather than a corridor of trash packs. Blizzard bills it as the first Labyrinth, so it is the run the whole format gets judged on.
Progress works like a Delve's. Kindo'jan's Labyrinth Journey fills as you run the place, a Labyrinth renown track sits alongside it, and a weekly turn-in closes the loop. What sits under that is a longer achievement list than the format's billing suggests, and most of it rewards poking at walls rather than pushing tiers.
The mount is the real prize. Let Me Solo Him: Kindo'Jan asks you to put him down on Tier 11 with nobody else in the party during Season 2, and it pays out the Loa-Blessed Wayfarer. Fabled Let Me Solo Him: Kindo'jan wants that same solo kill before the first weekly reset after he goes live, so it closes within days of the patch landing and adds the Fabled Vanquisher of Kindo'jan title.
One more sits above both. The Labyrinth of Kindo'jan: One-Champion Army wants all nine Chambers and the Tier 11 kill during Season 2, with no lives lost and nobody else in the party, and it hands over the Lone Raider title.
Aqir Invasions are zone-wide public events that fire in either Eversong Woods or Zul'Aman. For ten minutes every hour, a chain of public events runs across the whole area one after another, and the chain ends in a boss fight. Aerial assaults, ground defence, the usual spread. Rewards scale with how many objectives the zone finishes before the window shuts, so the event pays groups that spread out rather than stacking on one pack.
Each invasion draws from six scenario types, three combat-focused and three built around something other than killing. The combat ones come with affixes.
Eight affixes rotate through the combat scenarios, and several of them change what the pull looks like rather than just how hard it hits.
| Affix | Effect |
|---|---|
| Void Protection | An Aqir Voidweaver can appear and shield every other aqir in the area |
| Aqir Burrower | Burrowers tunnel through the zone and launch anyone who gets close into the sky |
| Void Sphere | Void Spheres roam the area trying to trap players inside them |
| Astalor's Anguish | Anguish Crystals damage the aqir and any adventurer caught in the blast |
| Swarms! | Every aqir is replaced with swarms of smaller ones |
| Aqir Elites | Fewer enemies, each considerably stronger |
| Void Infestation | Infested aqir explode a few seconds into combat, hurting players and infecting other aqir |
| Web Weavers | An Aqir Webweaver channels a web on a player unless the cast is interrupted |
Two of those deserve a warning. Void Protection shields every other aqir until the Voidweaver dies, and Web Weavers is an interrupt check in an event where nobody is assigned to anything. For what it's worth, Astalor's Anguish is the odd one out, because his crystals do the work for you as long as you stay out of the blast.
The invasions come with their own faction. Aqir Research Enclave standing builds as you work the events, and Aqir Research Associate lands when you hit Exalted with them.
Three more sit on the events themselves, and all four are Feats of Strength rather than normal achievements. No Hives Left Standing wants one clear of each of the six scenario types, which means the non-combat three as well as the ones with affixes. Driving Back the Swarm counts ten invasions. Bane of the Swarm bundles a set of invasion activities into one meta and pays out its own title.
Ascendant Voidcores return as Ascendant Venomstones once 12.1.5 goes live. The unlock starts with Orin Straylight, who stands near the Catalyst in Silvermoon City and hands out the quest "Ancient Depths, Ancient Venom". Finishing it is not the end. Orin then needs time for his research before stones start dropping, so the sensible move is to clear the quest the week the patch lands rather than the week you actually want the stones.
Four sources, all of them content you are probably running anyway.
| Source | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Raid bosses | Every Heroic or Mythic kill |
| Mythic+ dungeons | Keystone level +10 and above |
| Bountiful Delves | Tier 11 |
| Prey hunts | Nightmare difficulty, from the Champion gear chest |
Ten stones convert into one upgrade. The piece has to be finished first: a fully upgraded Season 2 Hero or Mythic weapon, trinket or necklace, or a Tidal Crafted one at the highest quality. Half-upgraded items are not eligible — the stone rewards closing a slot, not skipping one.
The Season 1 stone was narrower in every direction. Its tooltip covered a fully upgraded Hero or Myth weapon or trinket, or a maximum-quality Radiance Crafted one, and you took it to Decimus at the Howling Ridge out in the Voidstorm. Necklaces were not on the list.
| Detail | Season 1 Voidcore | Season 2 Venomstone |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible slots | Weapon, trinket | Weapon, trinket, necklace |
| Crafted gear | Radiance Crafted, maximum quality | Tidal Crafted, highest quality |
| Where you spend it | Decimus, Howling Ridge in the Voidstorm | Orin Straylight, the Catalyst in Silvermoon City |
The neck slot is the real change. A necklace rarely gets replaced once the stats are right, so it is the safest place in your gear to spend something you cannot spend twice. Honestly, that alone reshapes the end-of-season plan for anyone sitting on a good one.
Three classes carry changes on the first PTR build. The Demon Hunter pass is the largest, and it lands almost entirely on Devourer and its hero talents.
Collapsing Star no longer punishes the cast. Its range now grows once the cast begins, so a target stepping away mid-channel no longer wastes the whole thing, and a cancelled cast no longer locks the ability out for five seconds. The Fury-drain slow it applies is capped instead: roughly 1.5 full casts worth, after which Fury drains at full speed whether or not you start again.
The Void-Scarred tree gets rearranged around that. Demonic Intensity now makes Collapsing Star reset The Hunt, and the empowered version of that ability hits 30% harder. Violent Transformation hands its reset to Soul Immolation and drops both The Hunt reset and the 25% damage bonus it used to carry. Monster Rising trades in the other direction, down to 10% Intellect outside demon form from 15%, and up to 20% Collapsing Star damage from the old 15%.
Marksmanship swaps a talent. Unload is gone, replaced by Blood Fletching: a critical Aimed Shot applies the Master Marksman bleed at 20% of the damage dealt, and for four seconds afterwards any ability that damages that target adds more bleed on top. Blizzard's note frames it as a window of opportunity opened by the crit, which is a different rhythm from the old talent's flat value.
Protection Warriors have been struggling to fit Execute into the rotation, and Blizzard names the high Rage cost as the reason. The choice is gone. Execute no longer consumes extra Rage for extra damage, and its base damage is up 100% to compensate, so it always hits as if you had fed it everything. Colossus follows suit: Practiced Strikes now also cuts the Rage cost of Execute and Revenge by 10, which is a straight threat and rotation gain for the tree that is supposed to be the efficient one.
The rest of the patch notes is housekeeping, and one item in it is worth more than the others.
Prey gets the friendliest change. Look, if you skipped it during Season 2, this is the patch that lets you catch up. Characters below rank 3 pick up 4000 Journey progress per hunt, a full rank each time, and that award takes precedence over the bonus normally attached to your first four hunts of the week. Between ranks 3 and 8, each of the week's first four hunts pays 2000 progress instead. Blizzard's stated aim is to let people who skipped Prey during Season 2 still finish the Journey and collect what it holds, decor and Hero track gear included.
Reputation gets a quieter one. Legion and Battle for Azeroth reputations become shared across the warband, which means the alt grinding old-world standing is no longer grinding it alone.
Housing gets two shortcuts and a fix. Floorplan edit mode now has keybinds for moving between floors, bound to page up and page down by default, and the Housing Controls blueprint button gets a direct route into your blueprint collection. On the neighbourhood side, Public Neighborhoods can no longer draw the same Endeavor twice in a row.
The interface changes are small and land where you look most.
The dispel border is the one healers will notice — tracking dispellable auras across twenty frames has always been an addon job.
Midnight Prey System GuideNo date has been announced. Blizzard's published 2026 schedule puts 12.1.5 in autumn, ahead of Patch 12.1.7, and the PTR opened on 3 September 2026. For reference, Patch 12.1 launched on 11 August and Midnight Season 2 followed a week later, which is the closest thing to a cadence anyone can point at right now.
The Unbinding of Kith'ix, a single-boss raid against the C'Thraxxi general Kith'ix, fought alongside Lady Liadrin. It follows the campaign rather than opening a new tier, the same role Sporefall filled during Patch 12.0.7.
The Sporebearer Fungal Strider is 5,000,000 gold on its own, and it arrives carrying a mailbox and a repair vendor. The two optional NPCs are sold separately: 1,500,000 gold for the auctioneer and 500,000 for the transmogrifier, which brings the full set to 7,000,000 gold for the mount and everything that rides on it. Only the mount expires. It leaves the vendor when Midnight ends; the NPCs stay available after that.
Two are confirmed so far. The Sporebearer Fungal Strider is the gold purchase in Harandar, and the Loa-Blessed Wayfarer comes from Let Me Solo Him: Kindo'Jan, which needs a solo Tier 11 kill inside Kindo'jan's Labyrinth during Season 2.
They share the DNA. A Kindo'jan run is nine Chambers and the tier ladder goes from Tier 1 to Tier 11, with a Journey track and a weekly turn-in attached. Clearing Labyrinth tiers also unlocks Delve tiers for the season. What Labyrinths add is scale and a boss at the end, plus the pacing choice: you can clear one in a single session or work through it in pieces over time.
Every Heroic or Mythic raid boss, Mythic+ keystone dungeons at +10 and above, Tier 11 Bountiful Delves, and the Champion gear chest from Nightmare Prey hunts. You need the quest "Ancient Depths, Ancient Venom" from Orin Straylight first, and Orin needs research time after that before stones begin dropping.
Yes. Necklaces join weapons and trinkets as valid targets in Season 2, which the Season 1 Ascendant Voidcore never allowed. The piece still has to be fully upgraded on the Hero or Mythic track, or a Tidal Crafted item at the highest quality, and each upgrade costs ten stones.
No. Characters below rank 3 earn 4000 Journey progress per hunt, which is a full rank each time, and ranks 3 through 8 earn 2000 from each of the first four hunts in a week. The change exists specifically so a late start can still finish the Journey and its rewards.
