Warning: Text wall incoming.
Welcome back to the game. I’m sorry to break it to you, but at this point into the expansion, “halfway ok gear” is 470 ilvl. Especially with the Corruption vendor and after a whole expansion of collecting weekly M+ caches, people are unbelievably strong nowadays…
If you want to be efficient, you should honestly just look for a guild that’s willing to carry you through a few heroic raid clears. WoW has always punished people insanely hard for not having a network of friends, and this late into the expansion, the effort of gearing yourself isn’t even worth it anymore. Heroic raid gear is already 460 ilvl, and if you just complete a +15 key, regardless of the timer, you’re guaranteed a 475 item next week in your cache. That same cache also comes with about half the currency you need to buy a 480 Azerite piece, so people who get carried by friends can easily go from fresh 120 to 470 ilvl in a week or two.
Aside from getting carried through heroic raid/+15 keys, a decent way to get upgrades is actually through heroic Warfront. Do the Tyrande Night Warrior questline to unlock the weekly Warfront quest, and then you’ll be able to get a piece of 460 gear when Darkshore comes around for your faction. That only happens once every two weeks, but it’s basically being handed a piece of gear for free.
Another thing is, Blizzard is currently doing like a month-long Timewalking marathon for some reason. Run 5 of those every week, and you’ll get a piece of Normal raid gear. 445/455 items are obviously nowhere near endgame, but they’re still upgrades for you, especially if you get really lucky and get a Carapace Dagger/Raden Fist/Vita Shard. In that same vein, whenever the dungeon event comes around, make sure you do the 4 +0 Mythic dungeons. That’s a free piece of heroic raid gear, and some of those legit are endgame for people who don’t raid Mythic.
Finally, you 100% need to look into the whole Black Empire Invasions/Greater Visions/daily quests thing. This part is super important, so pls read even though it’s exhaustingly long…
1, Greater Vision itself isn’t a great way for low ilvl people to get items, since soloing Visions isn’t nearly as easy as the other stuff I’ve mentioned, but advancing your cloak research and upgrading the actual ilvl of your cloak are both vital to playing 8.3. The cloak basically gives you a 470 Alchemy stone proc for free at rank 12, while unlocking all research allows you to spend the rest of your currency on an item that puts a gem socket onto your unsocketed item. Both of those are huuuuuge for improving your DPS once you start doing real content.
2. The Weekly Invasion and daily quests are the only ways to generate reputation with the new 8.3 factions, and Breath of the Dying, which is objectively the best Essence in the game, is locked behind the Uldum Accord rep. There’s not a single rogue build that does not use the essence as a minor, and taking that as your Major Essence is also mandatory in PVP.
3. After you hit 175 with your professions, the 8.3 questline(wowhead Void Focus for exact details) that leads you to craftable 470 gear is started through Black Empire Invasion content. Those 470 gears are honestly pretty nuts, since they always roll with a socket and you can keep making them over and over until you get the right secondary stats. If you just max out leatherworking and get crafting, that’s 2 item slots that you never have to worry about ever again, even after you put mythic Ny’alotha on farm. Even the gold sink of feeding your profession isn’t that bad, since Blizzard officially sells gold nowadays with WoW Tokens.
4. Basically all Ny’alotha-related contents give you this currency called “Echoes of Ny’alotha.” You can use that stuff at Mother to buy Corruptions to put onto your gear, and Corruptions is like the ultimate thing of this patch. Just to give you an idea, I have about 75% Haste with my raid set of full Expedient Corruptions, and that’s buff-less + out of combat. My friend’s Demon Hunter, who runs the Infinite Stars Corruption, deals about 40% of his total damage through proccing Infinite Stars. That’s the power of Corruptions, so save up your Echoes of Ny’alotha lol.
As a side note, whenever you have the time, you should go into Epic Battlegrounds and just park your character near the big fights. Especially in a place like Ashran, that’s about 1000 Honor points every BG, and you only need 30k Honor to unlock Blood of the Enemy rank 3. Once you get that, you’ll basically never need another Major Essence again in PVE. Getting honorable kills in BGs can also get you some progression toward your 470 profession gears, so that’s a nice bonus.