Let’s say you just returned to World of Warcraft and just hit level 100 or had a supremely undergeared toon. There’s all this new content and it’s pretty overwhelming. What do you do? This guide is aimed at the Super Casual, who aren’t hardcore raiders, lack a guild and probably hate doing instances in fear of getting yelled at or kicked by obnoxious players (generally for low DPS and not knowing mechanics) and want to get some gear quickly.
Right now, the game is at a very good state in terms of returning. The current 6.2.3 patch has a load of methods for gearing and even encourages raiders to inadvertently provide help for us noobs who might be struggling a bit as we return or hit level 100 with not even the bare minimal gear. The biggest thing is the previous patch which introduced Tanaan Jungle that is similar to Mist of Pandaderia’s Timeless Isle in that it provides some quick catch up mechanisms for getting gear. However, one major issue that I’ve found in the Tanaan Jungle area is that there’s an introduction quest which might be a little difficult for undergeared players since there’s a lot of mobs which are overtuned. One wrong pull and you’re screwed there. So if you’re like me and hate being frustrated with situations like this, how can you circumvent all that?
For myself, I quit back in January because I had to find a new job. I didn’t play for almost the whole year but managed to scrap enough gear on my paladin to just get by. Similarly, on my hunter I was hitting a very low ilvl. At the same time, I was working on my Death Knight since I had little to nothing to do as my two main toons were severely undergeared. Doing the intro quest on my paladin was pretty painful but I managed because there were a few others trying to do the same and gave me some help. But what if I had to solo the whole area? Could I complete it? What would happen to my Death Knight once he hit 100? Instance grinding?
No! Instead, you can buy a ton of gear with gold! That’s right! It’s that easy. The thing you want immediately is a good weapon. I will admit I was one of those people who purchased a game time token and sold it on the Auction House. I made over 30k in gold, which was enough to buy a fully upgraded crafted weapon my death knight. Even with that weapon the rest of my gear sucked. If you head over to your faction’s hub in Ashran, the old Apexis crystal traders now sell their gear for gold.
So along with picking up a decent weapon on the AH, you can buy gear from these Arakkoa for gold. My recommendation is picking up the 645 gear since they cost roughly 5k gold per slot. There’s leggings, belts, cloak, bracers, helm, and gloves slots. So if you have access to a profession where you can craft your own gear, you can add 2-3 more and avoid crafting for these slots. My other recommendation here is that to not overspend. Aim for ilvl 615 initially.
So why ilvl 615? ilvl 615 gets you into Highmaul LFR. And right now the Seals of Tempered Fate can be purchased from the same vendors for 300 gold per. The gear in Highmaul LFR is 640 so hopefully you can procure enough to hit the next ilvl of 635. And here’s where the patch comes together: doing each wing of LFR for Highmaul and Blackrock Foundry grants 75 Valor. So that’s why you’ll see raiders in these pugs and how LFR becomes dirt easy. Generally, I’ve found Highmaul to take less than 5 minutes once you’re in because the bosses go down really quickly at this stage.
And as I mentioned, you want to hit 635 ilvl next so you can get into Blackrock Foundry. Once again at this point in time, it’s still pretty easy to get through BRF LFR with most pugs. The gear isn’t the greatest but my personal aim was to get around 650-660 then hit the Tanaan Jungle introduction quest since it would make killing mobs a lot easier.
Now, some people might critique me for making the entry point ilvl at 650 for starting the Tanaan Jungle quest chain. I suppose it’s because I read how some death knight had issues at ilvl 640-ish trying to do the introduction quest. Maybe he just wasn’t good but my thing is that it doesn’t hurt either getting close to that level. The other thing is that ilvl 650 is roughly the base drop rate gear for most of the Baleful drops in Tanaan Jungle. So hitting ilvl 650 might seems silly via LFR compared to just going to Tanaan Jungle and finding all the various zone drops. So for this part, I leave that up to your judgment and what makes you feel comfortable. Again, my claim is that you can get boosted pretty easily via LFR and spending some gold to help you get into and through Tanaan Jungle. I still have to try the intro quest now that I’m a little farther along with my fresh 100s.
One other thing I want to point out is that you’ll also want to push to catch up on your followers in terms of their ilvl. There’s an account-wide thing where if you manage to hit ilvl 650 on 10 of your followers, you can purchase ilvl 645 catch up tokens from a vendor at your garrison. From my experience, you need this one achievement on a single toon before unlocking the items (despite the flavor text saying that it’s supposedly ilvl 650 on the account; I still haven’t received it despite having two toons with 650+). But one thing I do advise is to really save your follower upgrade tokens, especially if you’re working on multiple toons. I would just focus on one or two toons and just keep grinding for that achievement. That way, when you do manage to unlock it, you can just pick up those items for your followers and use all the upgrade tokens you’ve saved to do much higher missions.
A few more ideas to toss in there. Make sure you have the Salvage Yard and a fully upgraded War Mill (or the Alliance version). These help with the follower missions in terms of getting upgrade tokens, not to mention the Hellfire Citadel weekly Seal. If you’re not ready for Hellfire Citadel, then you might as well start saving them up. Also, you can purchase these for gold up to 3/week over at your Ashran hub.
As a personal note, I’m not a huge fan of the Tanaan Jungle. While there are ways to get the gear you want, a lot of the area is overtuned and you really need reasonable gear to not get totally smashed up by mobs. Also, since Flying is now enabled you will want to work on that. The way I’m handling everything is to work on Flying to make it easier for my other toons. I don’t want to spread myself too thin and Flying makes both questing and the Tanaan Jungle grind a LOT faster overall. If you’re lucky, you might be able to group up with others (highly suggested). Otherwise, pretty to spend a lot of time trying to kill mobs with high respawn rates.