I’ve recently gotten back into the game; I admit, it’s an odd time given how close the new expansion is. Regardless, I am wondering if there are any catch-up mechanics that could help such a late start to Shadowlands. I am aware that there is an experience buff, but I don’t think I will be leveling any other toons until I at least unlock flying on my main.
Thanks!
The first thing you should do is finish the story to the point you can unlock Zerith Mortis. There’s a vendor with (essentially) free 239 gear to get you started, and slaps a free 269 belt (your first iteration of the unity legendary. Up to you if it’s worth grinding revered to get the memory of Unity when DF is so close). They upped the ilvl on heroic dungeon loot, so if you don’t have people to run M+ (which also got a huge ilvl bump) with you may want to start there with some 240(?) gear.
Everyone now has access to purchasing 278 conduits from the vendor in Oribos (10k cosmic flux, which shouldn’t be hard to get as you meander around ZM). After that it’s picking up a memory for your legendary, and you’re pretty good to go on doing the usual climb.
Ignore Korthia, do your covenant campaign until you get your desired soulbind, and that’s pretty much it for getting your foot in the door. Your gearing experience after will vary depending on what you want to do.
Thank you very much!
So I progressed far enough into my Covenant campaign last night up to Rule 3: Trust is Earned. About how close am I to being able to travel to ZM?
Also, I don’t mind grinding reps, since the guild I am in is in a lull until DF drops. I probably won’t be running keys or anything like that.
No problem! I am also a super late comer spurned on by the DF trailer drop.
ZM is unlocked through the greater SL campaign separate from your covenant, so I can’t give you an exact ballpark of what that means for your progress there. You’ll be thrown into ZM in the Chains of Domination storyline, if I’m not mistaken. It was kind of a blur to me with how much is dumped on you when you come in late.
Same here! I’ve had tunnel vision, just trying to burn through as much content as I can, as fast as I can, with the limited time I have to play.
I just decided to grind Heroic dungeons for drops since they up’d the Ilvl for my alts until prepatch gear drops. I did craft a few legendries but just because my main has sooo much dust. Might be a bit harder for an actual new character. Not sure at what point in the covenant campaign it will let you do ZM as I’ve had the skip unlocked for quite some time. But then the main campaign doesn’t take all that long to do now that they got rid of the time gating.
It seems like there are a lot of things gated behind Renown. Is there a faster way I can earn this, this late in the game? I know I can buy something that increases it to 60, but alas, this is my first SL toon and I don’t have access to that.
Make sure you’re doing all the dailies/weeklies from your covenant sanctums, like callings and the souls weekly. Dungeons, BGs, and Torghast should also drop renown for you.
Grab a +2 key & spam them.
Write “bonus valor” in the title & downgrade the key to +2 after every completion.
Now is actually the perfect time to get back into the game, just don’t get too comfortable with your class, because once the prepatch is out, we’re getting the new talent trees to muck about with and a lot of things are going to play differently. I have a strong feeling that 10-20% of our abilities will have to be relearned, leveling from 60-70. Not sure, just a feeling.
But I mean aside from that, getting to 60 and gearing up a little will make the transition into the new expansion much smoother.
Heroics and LFR are definitely a great option into getting some halfway decent gear, to start your new journey. You definitely don’t need to do any SL content right now, unless you just want something to do. ZM is only important nowadays for the catalyst, which lets you turn mythic+, rated PvP, raid, and sandworn relic gear into tier pieces, for their set bonuses. The actual gear you get from the zone isn’t worth farming for anymore.
Also, you just missed the timewalking weekly. If you get any more chances to do those, they give you some normal raid gear that comes in handy, especially if you get a weapon or a fun trinket. There’s a mythic dungeon weekly that gives a heroic raid piece too, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that one.
As far as your OP question, the only real catchup mechanics that I can think of, are for players that have done everything at least once. To get to where we all are now, you’d have to meticulously do everything at least once. But hey, it’ll be new to you, so still fun I guess. Just don’t feel the need to rush. I got a feeling most people aren’t even playing right now. Just twiddling thumbs until DF. 
For sure!
I don’t believe I have unlocked dailies yet, though. I did get some World Quests done, so I know that I’m at least that far. I should be pretty close to unlocking the scouting map, right?
You might need to do a bit more of the covenant campaign. If you’ve gone into Torghast and unlocked the Runecarver, it should send you back to the covenant zone and then you should be able to pick up callings.
Thanks, again!
I think I am going to push for flying, and then finish my Covenant campaign.