I’m level 90, now what?

So, the questing experience was pretty nice, except for the last few bars trying to hit 90 this weekend. However, once I hit 90, I was totally overwhelmed with all the things I needed to do! So, today, as I went on my journey of discovery, anguish, and frustration… I took notes! Now, I’m sharing these notes with you.

Here’s the general plan of what to do when you hit 90:

• Train Pandaria Flying (At shrine of the seven stars or the shrine of the two moons)
• Start the black prince quest line (raiders need this for working towards the legendary weapon enhancements): http://www.wowhead.com/quest=31488 See also: http://www.wowhead.com/news=206937/mists-of-pandaria-starting-your-legendary
• You can now buy Justice Point gear without needing to reputation grind. http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/6759237078?page=1#1
• Pick up assorted daily quest threads from the shrine of the seven stars or the shrine of the two moons
  
  • Start working on the most relevant daily quest threads: http://www.wowhead.com/news=206830/mists-of-pandaria-reputation-quick-facts
  • Start Golden Lotus first! You have to be revered with Golden Lotus before you can unlock Shado-Pan & August Celestial quests, so in this way, the reputations are somewhat gated.
  • Klaxxi is another rep you can start right away to start working to unlock the justice/valor gear, though you have to do a bunch of dread wastes quests to unlock it. Unless you need blacksmithing recipes, you can probably survive without this for a little while.
  • Things like the anglers, lorewalkers, and cloud serpent reps can all wait until after you start raiding unless you need specific patterns from them.
  • You can also start the daily quests for cooking, which will help with raiding food
  • The daily quests are easier if you do it with someone else, so grouping in general is recommended.
• Start running scenarios or finishing dread wastes quests to get the gear you need to run heroics:
  • You can also acquire Contender’s PvP blues from the AH that are 450 ilevel to boost yourself up.
  • Pick up the weapon from the Arena of Annihilation scenario (queue specific to get this one): http://www.wowhead.com/quest=31207/the-arena-of-annihilation
• Run heroics when your ilevel is high enough (440)
• Figure out what gear you need:
  • http://www.wowhead.com/news=206813/mists-of-pandaria-pre-raid-gear-guide
  • Resto gear:  http://wtsheals.com/5-0-pve-resto-druid-gear-guide/
  • Moonkin gear: http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/p/moonkin-raiding-gear-list-as-of-9242012.html
  • Moonkin  http://syrco.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/balance-druid-pre-raid-gear/

But I need to raid sooner than I can rep grind:

The reputation grinds are great for long-term gains, but not so great in their rewards over the short-term (if you need to be raid ready by the end of this week). So, if you really need to quickly get caught up with your raiding guild, then I would recommend not spending time on the reputation grinds. Instead, get your ilevel boosted high enough through PvP gear you can buy on the AH and whatever quest items you can to start running the heroics ASAP. NOTE: The JP vendors now no longer require reputation grinds first, so you can buy JP ilevel 450 gear now! If you are running by yourself, then you can do quests (daily quests or dread wastes for items) while you wait in queue.

Conclusions:

If you are in a raiding guild that is planning on starting either this week or next week, your window for being raid-ready is pretty small, unless you were able to take time off work/school/responsibilities to get ahead at the launch of Mists. I was so overwhelmed that I had a total emotional breakdown this afternoon because I just didn’t feel like I could do all the daily quests, run instances, and make sure I was geared up in a reasonable amount of time. Since there is an overwhelming amount of things you can do when you first hit level 90, if you plan on raiding, it helps to have a clear plan for what your priorities are once you ding 90! While the race to 90 is important, it is equally important to know what to do once you ding!