You basically just don’t want to play the game and that’s ok. Go find a game you enjoy. At 14 hours at 80 I have full pve 591 ilvl and full pvp set. 14 hours to basically be able to do anything you’d like in the game.
I hate delves and have no friends or guild. This was all done solo.
I don’t know…I have not run any TWW normal dungeons (nor heroic), have only run a little over a handful of T3 Delves and am currently at 575 ilvl and using no crafted gear.
I am a returning player and noticed this on an alt. I did the campaign with a class I ended up not enjoying, and his armor was really easy to upgrade to a high level. However, he was boring, so I made an alt. When I hit 80, gearing him up high enough to do heroics was a HUGE pain. The options are so incredibly limited and frustrating. I eventually did it, but locking out heroics by ilvl, and not dropping gear in normal dungeons high enough to get there, NOR the valorstones to upgrade the crap gear now… A lot of people who don’t have friends/support to help them out will probably get bored and quit out of frustration.
But you can run delves, world events, pvp gear, and craft pieces as well. There’s myriad routes to get you into heroic content.
As a returning player, I haven’t felt any pressure to spam run normal dungeons in order to meet the requirements to then transition into heroic dungeons. The same goes from heroic dungeons into delves or mythic 0 content.
The game is set up in such a way now that between gear drops, normal dungeon drops, the auction house items, crafted items, renown items, quest reward items, and the other items from all the other stuff. By the time I am ready to run heroics for better gear, I am all set and ready to go.
Best of luck to everyone who bypasses the plethora of other activities of acquiring gear just to strictly farm normal dungeons. 
Delves wasn’t a real option because with such a low ilvl, it was frustrating and died constantly. They should be tuned a bit more, they were fun at launch when Brann was super helpful. Then he got changed to dying by the smallest mobs. Thankfully I had a friend to duo, and he basically carried me to the good loot enough to get it. But solo, it’s a huge pain at the lower levels, IMO. This may change if they buff Brann up again. Till then I stay away from delves mostly because it’s a cluster and the balance and bugs are too annoying.
World events worked great on launch character, but they haven’t been giving me any good gear lately for my new main. The weekly rewards haven’t been giving gear either. I think it’s bugged for a lot of players.
The normal dungeons giving really crap gear and basically no valorstones is just bizarre. It worked great for my original char, but today, with an alt, there is zero point in doing them for better gear to reach heroics. It would make more sense to have FOLLOWER dungeons only give limited valorstones and gear, but NON-FOLLOWER dungeons should have the original valorstones and better gear to reach heroics because it’s helping players work together.
So complete the main story line. That’s not a grind, that is fundamentally how the game has been played from the beginning. Remember they call end game “end game” for a reason. It is suppose to come at the end of the game.
Retail is not grindy at all and almost everything is shared with your warband.
(As someone who came back after a few months and has several characters at max)
Second character fast level/gear guide:
I noticed this pattern too. I delayed leveling my alts to just play on my main. And when I went to play my Alts they were stuck behind an item level gate until I could pass them warbound gear to surpass the restricted content.
Rather annoying to be gated to enter heroic or lfr (same item level for both).
Quit? no. Leave for 29 days and come back? They don’t care.
:flicks flea off shoulder:
Fire Bradley
You can literally get gear upgrades from world quest, weeklys, world bosses. Stop trolling.
did they change classic?
in vanilla it took me months to get max level alone.
retail 2 days.
i think i saw something similar, so we can call “who” streamerbot3000 told us that
Im in the same boat, i left SoD when it took a year off (okay not that long) to go from phase 3 to 4. I started retail during the 9th month of phase 3 in sod and havent been back to classic. I just finished my 2nd 80 and I just dont seem to have enough time to level up a 3rd or 4th so much to do on my 2 80s now but overall, it is “easier” to level up from 70 to 80 (I took advanatage of that pandaland SoD game mode so i made each class with horde/alliance in panda to 70) - i have so many 70s now its hard to pick one and get the 3rd 80! lol
Getting to lvl 80 is far less grindy than classic. And if you DO THE STORYLINE you’ll wind up geared for Heroics, or at east geared enough that you can improve your gear for heroics.
It ain’t Rocket Science. It’s not even Library Science. The first geared 80 is always the toughest.
this is an MMORPG. grinds are a core gameplay mechanic
You can buy full 560 gear from the AH for like 300g per slot… At that point, you do two weeklies for the 580-something gear those give, and you’re good?
I am working on gearing my 4th level 80 now, as mentioned after completing the main story, you can buy some BoEs off the AH to get to ~560ish for pretty cheap. Do the delves, the WQs, World Boss to get up to 567. At 567 I run heroics/LFR/Higher delves to get the gear. The mats for crafting are ridiculous on my server, so I tend to stay away if possible unless I am using a spark or something. Also Warband bound items is another way to farm gear on your main and send over to your alts.
You should be able to have your alt at 570 easily with warbound dropped gear, the BoEs you get, World Quests, Shared warbound renown to allow you to buy 584 gear, etc.