Gearing Up for 5.2

So I was really hoping that by introducing a new raid Tier and a new faction, that 5.2 was going to eliminate the need to grind out dailies for all the original MoP factions in order to gear up.  As I'm analyzing the gearing path for most of my level 90's, it doesn't look like that's going to work as planned.

Granted, it's still possible to get fully geared for the Thunder King raid without doing any of the dailies and getting faction rep.  You just need to grind out heroics until you pass the magic 460 ilvl to let you do Mogushan Vaults, and then run those two wings enough times and be lucky enough with drops to boost your iLvL to 470 using the 483 items that drop in there.  Will likely take several weeks.

Then you're adding 3 more wings to run every week, to boost you those last 10 ilvl points to 480.  It's certainly possible, but getting the factions to revered so that you can spend some of your valor points on 496 gear will certainly help get you there faster.

I managed to get my Pandaren Monk to level 60 last week and safely ensconced in Outland.  And then I sort of got bored with leveling, so I went back to gearing some of my existing level 90's for LFR.

At the beginning of the week, I had three toons already geared for LFR - warlock, shadow priest and paladin, with the warlock and shadow priest also both being geared enough to run the new Thunder King LFR when it comes out.

I decided to work a bit on the hunter and the mage.  As it turns out, I got extremely luck on the mage on a Sha of Anger run, grabbing not only the boots, but also Tier Pants, and that was enough to put me over the edge with the Mage.  My luck continued in LFR that evening as I had both chest and shoulders drop for me, so managed to add four nice upgrades in about 3 hours.

On the other side of the coin, was Mr. Unlucky.  My hunter.   I managed to run about 8 heroics over the weekend without a single upgrade.  My hunter is still rocking green head, back and waist as well as a 350 Arena of Annihilation weapon.  And yes, I know I could just go buy 3 pieces of crafted PvP gear for those 3 slots and take care of the difference in a heart beat, but at this point, it's almost become of a matter of principle.

I did start working on the dailies on the hunter as well, and he's just a day or so away from Revered with Klaxxi.  At that point, he can buy the belt, and that'll put him over the edge.  But for now, it's just a bunch of frustration on the hunter.

In any case, all these other toons will likely go on the back burner for a bit as I start working through the new faction dailies on the warlock and shadow priest to get ready for the first LFR wing to release next week.