So you’ve hit 100, you’re ready to raid! Right? Well.., soon. Depending on how much raiding you did in Mythic Siege of Orgrimmar, and how much questing you did in Nagrand, your item level will be a little off.
There’s a myriad of ways to get geared up. Its the start of an expansion, its exciting! There are so many things to do! Hopefully you’ve spent some time accumulating Garrison Resources. You’ve built a Trading Post and Lumber Mill right? Upgrade that Garrison to level 3 and get the right building in there. For Garrison guides, see our list of resources here: Coaches Corner: Garrisons or Wowhead’s guide.
One option to gearing up for those of you that like the story line is to finish of Nagrand. There are quite a few high level items as quest rewards and you can potentially get some great followers out of it. The music, the quests, the cinematics, are really incredible with this expansion. Enjoy them.
Another option is to start farming Rare creatures along with all the treasures that are around Draenor. A great add on for these is Handy Notes along with the Draenor Treasures plugin. This will allow you to see where all the Garrison Resources are, where the rares are, and what items(upgrades) they drop. If you’ve done enough questing you should also be able to get the Ashran 615 trinkets. 500 gold each.
Once you’re around 600 item level, and you feel ready to start dungeons, pick up the Legendary Quest Line from your Garrison. You can start this quest at level 98 but it isn’t necessary to start it that early. Doing just a normal Skyreach, you receive a 640 Ilvl ring. Do it! No slacking!
Running normal dungeons is another good next step. Blizzard recently lowered the required item level for normals down to 595 instead of 600. These normals drop 600 and 615 item level pieces. And with the upgrades to personal loot, you’re guaranteed an item from the last boss. Run a few normal dungeons and very soon you’ll be 610.
At that point, Proving Grounds are your next path. You’ll find your Garrison Commander can teleport you there, or go to a class trainer. You receive a decent weapon from doing Bronze Proving Grounds but Silver is necessary in order to queue for heroic randoms. You can only queue for the spec that you have completed in Proving Grounds. So as a healer, I can’t queue as DPS unless I complete Silver DPS challenge. Running Silver is generally easier than any heroics you’ll have to face so for those that are coming back to Warcraft or trying to master a new spec, play around with them. Try Gold and Endless! You’ll get an awesome title for completing 30 waves of Endless. For really amazing players that don’t believe they need the 610 Ilvl, there are some pieces you can buy with gold (Ring of Trials) or Honor(Ashran) to bypass the 610 Ilvl requirement. I would recommend players to gear up properly and work their way up.
After Proving Grounds and the ability to unlock Heroics, start your Heroic Dungeon Grind. Now there’s a few things you should be doing. Firstly make sure you’re on the section of the Legendary Ring to do specific dungeons. You want the Core of Fire, Core of Life, and Core of Iron. While you’re gearing up through Heroics it makes sense to knock those out of the way. Use every upgrade you can even if the stats are not the best for your spec and class. Remember that gear will change based off your spec. So you can also easily gear your offspec while gearing your main. Don’t forget to be excellent to each other. Many people are doing these dungeons for the first time, help make the experience better by communicating and asking questions if you’re not sure how to handle a certain boss.
That Legendary Ring that you’re working on should be 680 after completing the quest line. You can do it within a day easily! At the same time, if you’ve been leveling your followers in your garrison as you’ve been leveling and running heroic dungeons, they often give you quests for blue upgrades. The missions you receive are based off your follower level and item level. So a numberof level 100 followers will give you access to 615 items. If you upgrade those followers to 615, you’ll have 630 missions. At 630, 645 missions and so on. Again the best ways to gear up your followers are through a Salvage Yard(level 2) and Dwarven Bunker/War Mill(level 2).
For those of you that love to mindlessly grind, there is an option for you too! Apexis Crystals! At level 100 we get a choice of dailies that usually reward 800 or 1000 Apexis Crystals. These crystals are using for purchasing 630, 645 and higher gear, as well as being a currency for one of your roll tokens. There is usually a 40man raid group farming them at the Pit in Frostfire Ridge. They also drop off most rares, can be found in your work orders in your garrisons, and are bonus objectives on quests. Turn these Apexis Crystals in to the bird npcs in Ashran near the Inn.
For those of you that are moneybags… there are a ton of 665 epics on the Auction House and the price is continuing to drop everyday. In addition crafted gear is now available on the auction house and through your professions. You can craft gear for yourself even if you don’t have that profession. Just use the appropriate profession building in your garrison. Though it will take longer if you don’t have the profession. Garrison invasions few people are doing these days. Essentially there are 6 types of garrison invasions – where enemies attack your base and you must defend. The better job you do defending, the better the rewards. Achieve a gold reward and you have a chance at a 645 item. In order to trigger these invasions, you need to grind and farm out enemies of that specific invasion. For example: killing enemies in Shattrath will trigger the Shadow Council invasion. Killing high level enemies in Shadowmoon will trigger the Shadowmoon invasions. Highly encouraged to do these as a group and its way more fun that way.
Molten Core LFR! Yes for those of you that want to experience a somewhat authentic Molten Core from vanilla, then single queue for it… Otherwise come to my weekly Molten Core run on Sundays. End resultis a guaranteed 640 helmet, and a Core Hound Mount. You also have a chance at a rare unlimited flame transmog as well as a pet. A good run takes approximately 1.5 hours to complete. A legitimate LFR will take around 3-4.
Challenge Modes! These are much more difficult than heroics where crowd control and finesse are important. Standing in the bad will not only damage you, but kill you very quickly. These are scaled to 630 item level. So if you are 640, your items are scaled down to 630. But if you are 615, you gear is NOT scaled up to 630 and instead you will have a difficult time completing them. I highly encourage everyone to make stream groups instead of PuGs. Use our FORUMS to create groups, leave your battletags and find likeminded, competent people that will make the experience enjoyable rather than a 4 hour pain train.
And finally, prior to stepping into Highmaul for the first time, the first world bosses will be available on December 2nd. Great chance at high level gear and for those non-raiders, a good opportunity to use those weekly rolls.
Twitch Tv Highlight: Coaches Corner Gearing in Warlords of Draenor