Raiding Guide for Fresh Level 90s

[Inori]

To make sure that people aren't lost, here is a guide to raid preparation for fresh level 90s.

1) Unlock the Vale of Eternal Blossoms and set your hearth to the Shrine of the Seven Stars (Alliance capital). This is important because unlocking the Vale of Eternal Blossoms the right way (instead of simply jumping off the wall into it) is required to unlock the Golden Lotus faction. So many people missed this that Blizzard made a blue post about it: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 5?page=1#1

2) Train Wisdom of the Four Winds (Pandaria flying) at the Alliance capital in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. The trainer NPC is Cloudrunner Leng (he's riding a cloud serpent on the second story outdoor terrace).

3) There will be breadcrumb quests downstairs that lead off to the various daily quest hubs. *You do not have to burn yourself out doing dailies*. That being said, there are two factions that you should be working on.

4) You should work on the Golden Lotus faction -- pushing this faction to revered is required to unlock the daily quest hubs for Shado-Pan and August Celestials. The four factions that are tied to valor point gear are Golden Lotus, Shado-Pan, August Celestials, and Klaxxi -- since two of the four are locked behind Golden Lotus, you probably want to work on them first.

5) You should work on the Tiller's faction -- pushing this faction to revered levels your farm up to 12 plots. More importantly, being revered gives you access to Songbell Seed -- this allows you to grow Mote of Harmony. There are no more guild cauldrons in MoP -- raiders are required to bring their own flasks to the raid. Getting your own flasks is not hard; if your farm has 12 plots of land, if you plant songbell seeds in 10 plots just two days a week, that equals two Spirit of Harmony a week. You can trade those two spirits of harmony at the exchange vendor (NPC name is Krystel; she's next to the flying trainer in the Alliance capital) for *six* Golden Lotus. Six golden lotus is good for making six flasks (the other herbs for flasks are cheap; if you really want to be self sufficient, you can grow herbs on your farm) -- that's six hours of raiding. To summarize, two nights of farming is good for two nights of raiding -- easy peasy.

6) You need to get your item level to 435 so that you can queue for heroic dungeons. The internet has some decent guides like: http://www.wowhead.com/guide=1240/mop-p ... r-pre-raid
The way I maxed out my item level as soon as I hit 90 was to do the following.
6a) Craft all eight pieces of your PvP gear set. These eight pieces are item level 450 and fill the head, shoulder, chest, wrist, hands, waist, legs, and feet slots. If you can gather the raw materials, there is most likely a guild crafter who can knock it out for you. If you need to skip a slot, I recommend skipping the feet.
6b) If you have leftover justice points (remember how you could bank 4000 of them), you want to visit the four justice point vendors: Sage Whiteheart -- August Celestials quartermaster is downstairs in the Alliance capital; he has the JP 458 cloaks.
Jaluu the Generous -- Golden Lotus quartermaster is between the Horde and Alliance capital; he has the JP 458 necks.
Rushi the Fox -- Shado-Pan quartermaster is out in Townlong Steppes; he has the JP 458 rings. Note that the rings are not unique equipped; you can buy and wear two of them at the same time.
Ambersmith Zikk -- Klaxxi quartermaster is out in Dread Wastes.
6c) If you have leftover honor points (remember how you could bank 4000 of them), you want to visit the PvP vendor:
Hayden Christophen -- Honor quartermaster is on the wall near the Valley of the Four Winds. I highly recommend using your honor to get PvP trinkets with a useful secondary stat like Dreadful Gladiator's Medallion of Meditation. Remember, PvP power and resilience *do not* subtract from the stat budget on the gear. Those item level 458 honor gear have 458 item levels worth of PvE stats on them. That's why the trinket I linked above has a ton of spirit on it.
6d) Fly out to the temple of the white tiger in Kun'Lai Summit and pick up the new ring of blood quest The Arena of Annihilation. After picking up the quest, manually queue for the arena of annihilation scenario. When you complete the quest (you can turn it in within the scenario), you will get a iLvl 450 weapon.

7) Make sure you kill the Sha of Anger once a week. This is an open-world raid boss. If you see someone in trade chat spamming for Sha of Anger, join the raid. The very first time you kill him, make sure that you loot the corpse for the quest item Claw of Anger. This starts a quest which gets you iLvl 476 boots (which is why I said you can skip crafting 450 boots).

8) Once you can queue for heroic dungeons, you should work on getting your item level above 460 so that you can queue for LFR. Heroic dungeons drop iLvl 463 rare loot and sometimes 476 epic loot.

9) Get in the habit of farming 90 Lesser Charm of Good Fortune a week. Most daily quests give you two lesser charms, so you only have to do 45 daily quests a week which should be easy if you're doing Golden Lotus and Tiller's dailies like I recommend above. Ninety charms are required to complete the weekly quest Elder Charms of Good Fortune which award three Elder Charm of Good Fortune. The elder charms are used for bonus rolls on raid boss loot -- that's right, if a boss has an item that refuses to drop normally, you can use elder charms to increase your chance of getting that item. Note that if you farm more than 90 lesser charms in a week, they just stack in your bags so that you can slack off on dailies in future weeks. Also note that elder charms cap at 10 on your currency tab -- after the third week of being level 90, you need to make sure that you actually spend those elder charms on bonus loot rolls so that you don't cap out.

10) Similar to the charms, you can earn 1000 valor points a week. Valor points cap at 3000 on your currency tab. The most efficient way to earn valor is to do one random scenario a day (first scenario each day earns double valor = 30 valor) and one random dungeon a day (first dungeon earns double valor = 60 valor). (30 + 60) * 7 = 630 valor. Also note that dailies give 5 valor. Since you're doing 45 dailies a week, 45 * 5 = 225 valor. Lastly, LFR award 90 valor per segment. If you do both halves of Mogu'shan Vaults on LFR, 90 * 2 = 180 valor. 630 + 225 + 180 = 1035 > 1000 valor -- you already cap valor without having to do a normal mode raid. After gathering valor for two weeks, you can afford honored reputution valor gear off the PvE quartermasters.
Sage Whiteheart -- August Celestials quartermaster is downstairs in the Alliance capital; he has the VP 489 bracers.
Jaluu the Generous -- Golden Lotus quartermaster is between the Horde and Alliance capital; he has the VP 489 rings.
Rushi the Fox -- Shado-Pan quartermaster is out in Townlong Steppes; he has the VP 489 cloaks.
Ambersmith Zikk -- Klaxxi quartermaster is out in Dread Wastes; he has the VP 489 necks.

That should be everything important to pursue off the bat. Note that I did not go over cooking. You will want to eventually skill your cooking up to 600 in the particular 'way' for your spec so that you have access to 300 stat food. Unlike cauldrons, feasts do still exist, but they will only give you 250 stats. Those extra 50 stats will be needed for progression kills where we wipe at like 5%, but you don't need to stress over it now. It is probably more important that you have a regular supply of flasks before you tackle personal 300 stat food (note that since you only need to plant motes two days a week, you can plant stat food the remaining five days).

Corrections and additions to this thread are welcome and appreciated.

-HP

[draven]

well done sir, two comments:
6d. you don't need to get the arena of annihilation quest before queuing for the scenario, it will be available when you enter.
2. there are also pandaren banquets that provide 275 stat food, which i think will be sufficient for our purposes.

[Inori]

As noted elsewhere on the forums, in 5.1, the exchange rate for Spirit of Harmony to Golden Lotus was nerfed. If you are interested in farming golden lotus for making flasks or transmuting gems, it is more effective to plant Enigma Seed on your farm. Each plot has a chance to proc as a golden lotus that you can harvest without being an herbalist.

-HP

[coree]

This is what I do to farm materials for raid flasks. There are times I have gotten up to 7 golden lotus out 16 crops. Never less then 4 I don't think. Plus you're getting a lot more other mats for flasks too