Yeah, you basically need to have crafter alts if you want to get anywhere…
Gotta make the 151 stuff, so you can actually kill junk in some kind of reasonable time-frame, and even then on some classes it’s still a slog until you get a few pieces of your Covenant gear.
And of course on the AH, everybody thinks you should pay an arm and a leg for basic starter gear, so I wouldn’t recommend even checking the AH.