Being a power leveler I’ve had to find ways to get ready for Heroic Instances and Raids as fast as possible. Blizzard has made this job extremely easy over time. Now PvP gear comes equipped with PvE stats it is somewhat usable in the raids and also can increase your item level to get you there.
So there are three things to focus on to get yourself to item level 480 and into the Throne of Thunder Raids.
- Item Level 476 Malevolent PvP gear + 493 Conquest Pieces
- Valor points from running Heroics, Dailies, and any raids you can get into, so that you can buy reputation gear from the vendors which is typically 489+ in item level
- Making gold to buy BoE epics from the Auction House
PvP Your Way into Raids – Honor Point Farming
The fastest way to get into the 480 raids I’ve been finding is to just go ahead and do random battlegrounds until you have every single 476 piece of Malevolent PvP gear and in that time you should be able to buy 1 or 2 pieces of the 493 Tyrannical Gear with Conquest Points.
This gear can be bought from PvP vendors and starts at 1250 Honor Points.
The PvP vendors for both Horde and Alliance are located on the big wall in MOP.
The Alliance PvP master is in Valley of the Four Winds and the Horde is found in Kun-Lai summit in the western part of each zone on the wall. This is marked on your map as well.
Once you have a full set of 476 PvP gear you can reforge them for your stats to raid.
Valor Point Farming
The point of farming Valor is to obtain Valor points mainly from participating in the Item Level 460 and Item Level 470 Raids from the Looking For Raid tool.
From the 460 raids you will receive item level 476 gear with the occasional rare drop being much higher. From the 470 raids you’ll receive item level 483 gear, this gear will help you boost yourself to the 480 mark. From both of these raids you will receive Valor Points which can be used to purchase reputation gear.
I don’t recommend farming Heroics because it’s a waste of time now with the PvP gear being Item level 476 and so easy to get.
Instead of Farming Heroics for Valor I recommend doing dailies. This will get you 5 valor points per daily and at the same time it will increase your reputation so you can buy gear with these points.
Making Lots of Gold
If you don’t own the Secret Gold Guide that shows you how to make over 5,000 gold an hour — now’s the time to consider getting it. Buying BoE Epics off the auction house will save you a lot of time in farming Valor and Honor Points.
There is an Item Level 476 trinket available for each class, this is the one for Agility classes: Relic of Xuen
Additionally, there are a ton of Bind on Equip epics for sale in the Auction House ranging from item level 476 to 522.
Could you imagine how fast you’d hit 480 item level if you bought a few 522 epics?
They cost a lot of gold but they save you so much time from farming.