One way to figure out where you stand at level 80 is to log on with your character, make sure you have all the gear on you'd take dungeon running and then log out. Wait about 15 minutes for the WoW Armory to catch up to you and then go here:
Imba will tell you a couple things:- What they recommend for gems, enchants and gear.
- Where you can get the gear at your current gearing level. [red line]
- Where or what you can run (dungeon-wise) in the gear you have [blue line]
Once you have a feel for what you want, and where to get it; consider the fastest way to get to it. For most of us with husbands/wives, kids, pets and family in general....joining a hard-core raiding guild is...unrealistic. So there has to be a better way, gear that'll get me into the occasional raid or high level instance where I CAN get the gear I want...uh, right?!
Yep. Well at least in my opinion there is, and I'm gonna show you how to do it. Here's the Catch 22...IF you want to get geared the fastest as a casual gamer, then the sacrifice you pay will be in how you do it.
PVP! I know I know.. "oh gawd!" you say. But think about it, PvP gear is (even low end) very close to lower end tier gear. Savage will put you somewhere in the T6-7 area and Hateful will put you between T7-8. Will PvP gear ever be better than Tier gear?...probably not. At least in most player circles. Arena gear will get you very close though...but I'm not really an Arena hard-core kind of player.
So here it is. Gearing 101, level 70 and level 80.
- Level 70: Gearing basics. The fastest way out of greens? Old world level PvP blues. Do I really need to PvP to get these?! Nope. They were added to the world as Rep purchases. REALLY? Yep. Here's where we do a little research and then hit the rep grinding in those specific places only for gearing. Click the link, then hover over the gear pieces to see what faction has it and what the minimum rep is to get it. Any gear that shows Thrallmar, the Alliance faction will be Honor Hold. It should be noted that these starter sets that will get you into Kara or Outlands Instances. You could conceivably move on to Northrend with this gear if you did not want to do Outlands Raids (although Northrend greens would become better very fast). I don't know why (specificly) some classes have 1 set while others have 3, maybe because all specs of those classes would use the same set bonus'.
Death Knight - Sorry guys no level 70 rep or PvP gear for you....yet.
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
Druid
Hunter
Mage
Paladin
Priest
Rogue
Shaman
Warlock
Warrior
- Level 70 Epic Gearing: So, you decided to get geared for Outland Heroics and Raids now? The fastest way to this is Season 2 PvP gear [Merciless] or season 3 with some Arena points [Vengeful]. The best way to do this is to set a Honor and Mark goal per PvP day. If you're not into PvP for the most part, then break it up into 'PvP days'. On these days my goal is X, then I'm doing something else. This'll prevent burnout. I reccommend using this formula (I rounded down for simplicity):
At Level 70 or below: Goal;
- 1500 Honor X 10 days = 1 piece of Epic PvP gear [15K Honor] (weapons, shields and accessories will be close to 2x this [30K])
- Do the PvP daily
- Concerted Efforts - A (newer) repeatable quest for turning marks for Honor. At 61-70 this will be about 300 Honor for 1 Mark each in 4 battlegrounds. You get rep ONLY for the first turn in then you'll get some xp and honor after that.
- Marks - You'll want 3 of each Mark for each applicable battleground for the Concerted Efforts turn-in, plus 3 toward the Mark requirement of the armor piece you want. This means you're looking at either 4 wins [3 Marks/win] or 12 losses [1 Mark/loss] or something in-between + 1 win (or 3 losses) in the Battleground whose Marks you need for the armor piece.
- Daily [400 Honor] + Concerted Efforts x3 [900 Honor] =1300 Honor (minimum) + bonus Honor (should) = >1500 Honor. (On days when you're "in the zone" shoot for 3K Honor) [after 10 days you should have 30 Marks for the armor piece you want].
- PvP Daily: This one should scale with your level, I'm not 100% sure however. In any event you won't make less than 400 Honor and at level 80 you'll get 1200 Honor.
- Concerted Efforts - this one probably starts at 300 Honor, again I think it scales, but I'm not positive. At level 80 this give 900 Honor.
Follow the same above formula, you should just get there quicker.
- Level 80: Gearing basics. Fastest way to Heroics in Northrend. Savage Gladiator gear. You'll notice a big difference in cost here. 50,000-60,000 Honor?! Holy cow! Its really not all that bad considering the Honor offset and that these pieces require no Marks, only Honor. That means all your Marks can go to Conserted Efforts. In my experience, good runs in Strand of the Ancients and Arathi Basin have yielded me 1000+ Honor. A token effort on your part should yield 200-400 Honor, and above average effort and participation could/should yield you 500-1000+ Honor. You want to use a new formula to stay in the "every 10 PvP days" ideal. Again, creating PvP days will prevent burnout. I reccommend something like this:
- 6000 Honor X 10 days = 1 piece of Savage Gladiator gear [60K Honor] (as shields and weapons for this set are not yet implemented as of this post I'm going to guess at 2x the cost for these. [Anticipate 120K])
- Do the PvP daily!
- Concerted Efforts - At Level 80 this will yield you about 900 Honor. Alternac Valley has been replaced at Level 71 with Strand of the Ancients.
- Marks - You'll want 5 of each mark for each applicable battleground for the Concerted Efforts turn-in. This means you're looking at either 8 wins [3 Marks/win] (24 Marks total or 6 Marks/BG) or 20 losses [1 Mark/loss] and/or something in-between.
The final result (without battleground bonus Honor) looks like this:
- Daily [1200 Honor] + Concerted Efforts x5 [4500 Honor] =5700 Honor (minimum) + bonus Honor (should) = >7000 Honor. (On days when you're "in the zone" shoot for 12K Honor)
The final outcome should be your basic 5 piece armor set, with good enough stats to run Heroics in Northrend in 50 PvP days. That's less than 2 Monthes real time, and as a casual gamer you could spread it over 4 Monthes and still be ahead of where you would be running dungeons once a week with friends and/or PUGs.
