Pandaria reputation priority

Thels wrote:... I would recommend against converting JP to Honor to buy 476 items. Upgrading 463 items will go smoother.

I take the point about item levels/cost. But I don't think that's the right criterion. For me the focus is on getting to 480 ilevel as fast a possible. 471 gear doesn't help much with that. 476 gets you very close, so that the 489, 496 and 522 bits can get you over the bar.

With my most recent alts, I only did one or two 5 mans. I would jump to LFR as soon as possible. What you get out of that is very RNG, but the 476 honor gear is great for filling in the gaps.

I got all my alts to 480 before the last patch (but one?) so they could do ToT LFR (sadly almost none of them did!). Looking at their gear, the only 471 piece of gear I have is an upgraded weapon. But they are wearing a ton of 476 gear.

Well, if your character is "stuck" at that level, and maxing out at that level is the character's endgoal, then naturally, it's better to go for the 476 items, since those have a higher cap on your ilvl. If you're willing to take the time to gather a crapload of JP/Honor, then yes, the PvP gear will net you a higher ilvl in the end.

However, you're not waiting for the end. You just want to jump into MSV LFR asap, and for that you only need like 2 dungeons runs, upgrade some 463 items to 471, and you're ready to rock. If you manage to loot a few pieces in MSV, you should be ready for HoF/ToES LFR, and if you manage to loot a few pieces in there, you should be ready for ToT LFR/HC Scenario.

At least, that's how I geared up my DK two weeks ago. Was queueing ToT within 24 hours, and I even wasted a lot of time on that stupid Isle of Thunder, rather than just looting the epic key and the incantation, using them both, and getting the heck out of there...

Now perhaps after doing all 5 LFRs you're not 480 yet, and you still have a 450 cloak/neck/ring, it might be worth it to save some JP for upgrading those. Then again, if you're not 480 yet, you must be really close, so upgrading 1-2 463 items might still be faster.

There's another big risk with honor gear (though admittedly less with one of the rings). If you go buy say a 476 honor cloak, and MSV LFR drops a cloak for you, you basically wasted all your JP on the cloak. If say, you looted a 463 cloak and upgraded it to 471, you only wasted a bit of JP on your cloak.

I highly recommend the 463 -> 471 upgrades over the honor items. The upgrades provide for a much smoother ride.

Thinking back about the last alt I got to 90 (a brewmaster a few weeks back), I actually got no 463 gear that I could have upgraded. I ran two dungeons. The healer ninja'd one of the few drops I could have used. That made me give up on 5 mans for a bit. It made more sense to run LFR (and do Tol Barad/Wintergrasp) - I got to 460 pretty quickly due to crafted gear. I do use 5 mans as a fast way to cap valor on my main, but with my new 90s I tend to find better things to do with their time.

On the stupid Isle of Thunder, that used to be my view of it too. But as my main is now running down on coins, it seems a very efficient way to replenish the stock: 30 coins for the daily PvE quests. (I found the dailies interiminable while the zone was opening, but now seem to whip through them much faster. Perhaps it's just the difference between trying to do them each day and doing them only once or twice a week)

Well, it might of course be a different story if you don't have 463's to upgrade. And yeah, once you're able to run LFR, you should immediately (after getting your coins from Trove scenario and maybe Incantation). If you did all LFRs for the week, and aren't 480 yet, then going back to 5 mans is probably worth it, if you still have weak item slots worth upgrading.

Also, Tol Barad/Wintergrasp (if you enjoy doing that) might be a decent source of Honor, and probably well worth it. I didn't try them myself. I merely ran a few instances, looted a couple of 463 items, and upgraded those. Perhaps four at most before/in between LFRs until I was 480.

Either way, 463 -> 471 upgrades and 476 honor gear are close options. I personally prefer the upgrades, but honor gear should get you there in a similar amount of time. If you already did the LFRs and got some 476/483 epics here and there, but not 480 yet, then honor might actually have a bit of an advantage, as you get to pick exactly which slot you get the upgrade.

As for the Isle, I kinda forgot what I tried to do there. I knew the Isle was a good source of Elder Charms, but there are only two good sources: The Trove scenario, and the Incantation. Both are quite worth doing, but you don't need to do the scenarios and dailies to get to those. Of course, once you're 480, then it might be a decent source of Lesser Charms, but so might the barrens be, and I find the barrens to be much less frustrating. I just don't like it when I'm forced to use a ground mount.