gear-alts
Latest
How easy should it be to gear an alt?
That's been the question this expansion, ranging from "The daily quest rep faction grinds lock gear away, I can't get it fast enough" to "The Timeless Isle makes it too easy to gear up my alt" and I'm not sure where I fall, but the EU forums had an interesting discussion on the issue this week. CM Takralus weighed in with an opinion as well, and it's one I figured we could chat about. Takralus - Way too easy to gear up alts now I dinged a fresh 90 on Monday, and yes I went straight to the Timeless Isle. However, in questing greens & blues, I had a very hard time. Also, I still have to go through all the old raids in LFR to unlock the latest content, not to mention get my item level high enough to enter. I've picked up a few purples on the Timeless Isle, but I'm still nowhere near high enough yet to enter SoO LFR. Sure, if you go for it really hard and prepare with crafted goods, Valor gear etc. I'm sure it can be done. But that's why the system's good IMO, if you put in the effort you can be caught up quickly, if you're more of a casual player like me it's going to take a while, and I'm fine with that personally. I much prefer this to the alternative-getting my alt to level 90 then having to go through the exact same content I spent months on with my other characters. source This is hardly new to Mists of Pandaria - we've been walking a balance on gearing up alts forever, with some expansions (Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King) having a see saw between difficulties similar to the one Mists is now showing. It was much easier to level an alt in Wrath than it was at the beginning of the expansion, as the improved Dungeon Finder debuted and multiple tiers of heroic dungeons were released with better gear in each. Without new five mans in Mists, we've seen LFR and Heroic Scenarios trying to do the work that dungeons did in Wrath and Cata to an extent, and now the Timeless Isle has made that process much easier. For myself, I'm actually running the Timeless Isle on my main, whose rotation I have down cold and who I know backwards and forwards, for gear to send to my shaman alt, who has been neglected this expansion. Since I can send any mail drops and any cloaks and rings his way, boosting his iLevel while not even playing him has become possible, and I'm not sure how I feel about that - I was very fond of it at first, until I realized I'm not getting any practice in on how to make his rotation work, and that's a big counter-intuitive to me considering it's always been Blizzard's stance that you should have to play a character to get it geared. So how about you? Are you gearing up your alts via the Timeless Isle? Do you have to catch yourself from calling it the Timless Isle, as if its major characteristic was its lack of Tims? Where are all the Tims? Sorry, digression. What are your feelings about the ease of gearing this patch?
Blizzard's guide to gearing up for patch 5.4
With an exciting new raid on the way, one question sure to be on many people's minds is that of gearing. How to make sure that you're ready to step into the Siege of Orgrimmar the moment it drops? Our own Olivia Grace covered that very topic earlier this week with this comprehensive guide, but today Blizzard released their own, as well. If you want the truncated version, it looks as though the Timeless Isle will offer the most diverse and quickest potential ways to upgrade your gear, however, it could be difficult for fresh level 90s or certain classes to solo there, so keep in mind other options--like intro ilevel 476 PvP gear, reputation gear, Valor gear, and Battlefield Barrens gear (while it still lasts!). The full Blizzard post is available behind the cut, and good luck gearing up for the Siege of Orgrimmar!
Six ways to gear up right now
So you know the score. You've taken advantage of the reduced leveling XP required, you've made the best use of your rested XP, and here you are at level 90 in record time. But now what? There's such a lot of gear available to you that actually getting yourself ready to raid is a bit of a daunting prospect. But fear not, friends, we're here with a list of top tips to get yourself up over 500, and into Siege of Orgrimmar LFR in no time at all. OK, a bit of time. We're writers, not wizards. And, as ever, we'll be scouring the comments for top reader tips to supplement our list. And with patch 5.4 on the way, you'll want to know how to get the best out of the new content, right? 1. Honor Point Gear We spoke about this in an earlier gearing tips article, and the information hasn't changed. Honor point gear, at item level 476, is still vastly superior to its justice point equivalent. However, with the point conversion coming in just a couple of weeks, you'd be very wise indeed to save up your honor and your justice for patch 5.4. When the patch drops, the current conquest point gear will be bought with honor points, and that's ilvl 496, so a huge boost to a flagging character. However, honor point gear should be used wisely, to fill gaps. Particularly in 5.4, when the JP-HP conversion is being nerfed from 375JP:250HP to 500JP:250HP, meaning the most reliable way to get HP gets slower. So what should you look at doing first?
