1. #1
    Warchief Freedom's Avatar
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    Apexis versus Ashran

    Coming back after leaving in 2013, I've already geared one character in Ashran(13 hours total over 4 days starting with 3800 honor), and I was initially wondering if there was another, equal way. I already knew of Tanaan, but have no idea how time intensive and gated it is (daily quests and not constant honor stream potential from a good Ashran group). This Asmongold video caught my eye: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-wayFWn6aI Basically, "go do Tanaan".

    Watching it, I'm pretty sure I like the sound of Ashran and the good versus bad group crapshoot better. For anyone who's done both ways, which is better? What are the advantages and disadvantages of gearing from ding in Ashran(PVP) and Tanaan(PVE)? Besides the 5k gold price of admission to Tanaan, and rage potential of Ashran, that is.
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  2. #2
    Before the most recent PvP season, Tanaan may have been more effective. Afterwards, with 700 ilvl gear being nothing more than a simple grind, Ashran/BG grinding remains hands down the easiest way to gear a new toon since the gear is even better than some of the gear which drops off the normal mode version of HFC.

  3. #3
    Baleful gear drops are pretty meh and I found this last run that the keystone fragments you find rarely house a piece of gear. Then there are other factors like poorly rolled stats and poorly rolled Ilvl ranging from 650-695 which the majority falling to the 650 range. If your lucky and can come across a handful of bosses then you can get to 650 fairly easy, if your looking to crack 700 then Tanaan is not the way to go.

  4. #4
    I just came back to wow recently as well. Did the tannan jungle dailies. Took me around 2 months (20k Apexis in 3 days; 4-5hrs of game play) to fully gear my toon ilvl to 695. Some of the areas were pretty small with slow respawn rate, thus I find myself competing (killing 100 mobs; burning portals/scrolls, clicking banners, bandaging allies etc) with 30 to 40 players at the same time. It was so hard and very time consuming.

    Then came the boosted BG with ilvl 700 gear. It took me just 1 week to fully gear a toon with both ilvl 700/715 gear. In addition, I am also able to get about 200 -> 600 honor points per week through garrison missions.

    I will be gearing my remaining alts this way till Legion launches as it way faster.

    The good news is, 11 May is the upcoming BG week and we get up to 2 times the honor points, so definitely even faster.

  5. #5
    Ashram is a very good source of lvl700 gear. That being said, you will sometime end up with a group so idiotic that you may want to tear your eyes out and feed them to your dog.

  6. #6
    The Insane Aeula's Avatar
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    700 gear has higher stats and better ilvl. Add conquest gear to the mix and you're ready for raiding.

    They kinda went full retard on PvP item levels in 6.2.

  7. #7
    It really depends on where you plan to end up.

    For instance, iplersonally detest raiding, but i still like to progress my characters and achieve the best iLevel/performance possible given the fact that i dont raid.

    Getting full 700 PvP gear is easy (kif youre PvPing inAshran, yer doin it wrong - treasure hunting is the name of the game); if you treasure hunt, you can be in full honor gear in 5-7 hours played.

    Problem is a lot of times, the stats on the PvP gear are garbage. As an Afflock, a piece with Crit/Multistrike is almost useless to me; a 695 Baleful piece with Haste/Mastery is actually better, and can be upgraded via Valor to 705; PvP gear is stuck at 700. You can usually get e Ashran weekly done and will herefore also get he occasional 710 piece, which, if stated right, is great.

    If youre just looking to get into "good enough" gear to farm/dungeon/LFR - Ashran is absolutely the way. Couple of hours and youre 700.

    If your goal is "be as good as i can pre-Legion without raiding", then youre looking at a mixture of Ashran (for 700/710 pieces that are statted well), Tanaan (Baleful with perfect stats), Kazaak (705 neck, cloak, wrist, and trinket - the stats one, not the garbage tertiarry trink), and crafted (Weapon, Trink and Ring) + the legendary ring (you can do up to the pre-HFC version with just heroics and garrison/Tanaan catch up quest, only having to LFR forme boss kills, once).

    You can get to an average iLevel in the 720-ish range without ever setting foot into a 'real' raid, and only having to do Highmaul and BRF once each.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Kagthul View Post
    You can get to an average iLevel in the 720-ish range without ever setting foot into a 'real' raid, and only having to do Highmaul and BRF once each.
    Hum
    Pretty sure without the legendary ring that is not possible:

    - 3x Crafted with a VP-upgraded ilvl of 725 - if you don't take the weapon
    - 3x (Trinket, Neck & Bracers) from Kazzak with an upgraded ilvl of 715
    - Leaves (15-6=) 9 slots for a max. lvl of 710 from pvp items

    ((9*710)+(3*715)+(3*725)) / 15 = 714
    And that's with the bad pvp pieces included :P - or am I missing something?
    With a maxed out ring (795) you'd land on exactly 719.667, so that'd be 720

  9. #9
    You will get a couple conquest pieces from your time in ashran, and can do mythic dungeons where you're likely to see at least 1 item over a couple weeks of 710+
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    which is kind of like saying "of COURSE you can't see the unicorns, unicorns are invisible, silly."

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Kagthul View Post
    It really depends on where you plan to end up.

    For instance, iplersonally detest raiding, but i still like to progress my characters and achieve the best iLevel/performance possible given the fact that i dont raid.

    Getting full 700 PvP gear is easy (kif youre PvPing inAshran, yer doin it wrong - treasure hunting is the name of the game); if you treasure hunt, you can be in full honor gear in 5-7 hours played.

    Problem is a lot of times, the stats on the PvP gear are garbage. As an Afflock, a piece with Crit/Multistrike is almost useless to me; a 695 Baleful piece with Haste/Mastery is actually better, and can be upgraded via Valor to 705; PvP gear is stuck at 700. You can usually get e Ashran weekly done and will herefore also get he occasional 710 piece, which, if stated right, is great.

    If youre just looking to get into "good enough" gear to farm/dungeon/LFR - Ashran is absolutely the way. Couple of hours and youre 700.

    If your goal is "be as good as i can pre-Legion without raiding", then youre looking at a mixture of Ashran (for 700/710 pieces that are statted well), Tanaan (Baleful with perfect stats), Kazaak (705 neck, cloak, wrist, and trinket - the stats one, not the garbage tertiarry trink), and crafted (Weapon, Trink and Ring) + the legendary ring (you can do up to the pre-HFC version with just heroics and garrison/Tanaan catch up quest, only having to LFR forme boss kills, once).

    You can get to an average iLevel in the 720-ish range without ever setting foot into a 'real' raid, and only having to do Highmaul and BRF once each.
    Baleful gear can rolls worse stats then the Pvp gear so then what, our stuck trying to find a rare that drops the actual piece you need and hope it doesn't screw you on the rolls. Then of course if that doesn't work you can buy an item for 5/10k and hope the rolls don't screw you. So congrats you now rolled a perfect item, 10k Apexis gone, now your hit with the next problem, the gear rolled 650 so now you have to farm another 20k in Apexis to roll t into a 695 piece of gear. So congrats now you have to figure out what your going to do for the other 13 pieces of gear. Kaz isn't an option because he has just as high of a chance to drop nothing.

    As for buying crafting, its around a 35k investment give or take server prices x3 which a player whos been gone for 3 yrs might not have. Not to mention another 30k mentioned for Tanaan legendary ring rocks.

    An yet this is a faster an better way then Trashran?

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by darklogrus View Post
    Baleful gear can rolls worse stats then the Pvp gear so then what, our stuck trying to find a rare that drops the actual piece you need and hope it doesn't screw you on the rolls. Then of course if that doesn't work you can buy an item for 5/10k and hope the rolls don't screw you. So congrats you now rolled a perfect item, 10k Apexis gone, now your hit with the next problem, the gear rolled 650 so now you have to farm another 20k in Apexis to roll t into a 695 piece of gear. So congrats now you have to figure out what your going to do for the other 13 pieces of gear. Kaz isn't an option because he has just as high of a chance to drop nothing.

    As for buying crafting, its around a 35k investment give or take server prices x3 which a player whos been gone for 3 yrs might not have. Not to mention another 30k mentioned for Tanaan legendary ring rocks.

    An yet this is a faster an better way then Trashran?
    Ya, I omitted the time and apexis wasted trying to get optimized gear for my toon. Would have taken longer than just grinding BG or Ashran. And also do note the irony of replacing these hard earned gears when Legion launches when you level 105.

    - - - Updated - - -

    By the way, if you are aiming for the heirloom rings (5% increase in XP), then you can do the Tannan dailies to get rep first up till a point where you can buy the spyglass counter for your fleet. Once you get a few baleful, then do BG to get the remaining gear. Do note the PVP gear scale to lvl 730 whereas baleful gear remain at ilvl 695.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Xcuse View Post
    Hum
    Pretty sure without the legendary ring that is not possible:

    - 3x Crafted with a VP-upgraded ilvl of 725 - if you don't take the weapon
    - 3x (Trinket, Neck & Bracers) from Kazzak with an upgraded ilvl of 715
    - Leaves (15-6=) 9 slots for a max. lvl of 710 from pvp items

    ((9*710)+(3*715)+(3*725)) / 15 = 714
    And that's with the bad pvp pieces included :P - or am I missing something?
    With a maxed out ring (795) you'd land on exactly 719.667, so that'd be 720
    Mythic dungeons.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by darklogrus View Post
    Baleful gear can rolls worse stats then the Pvp gear so then what, our stuck trying to find a rare that drops the actual piece you need and hope it doesn't screw you on the rolls. Then of course if that doesn't work you can buy an item for 5/10k and hope the rolls don't screw you. So congrats you now rolled a perfect item, 10k Apexis gone, now your hit with the next problem, the gear rolled 650 so now you have to farm another 20k in Apexis to roll t into a 695 piece of gear. So congrats now you have to figure out what your going to do for the other 13 pieces of gear. Kaz isn't an option because he has just as high of a chance to drop nothing.

    As for buying crafting, its around a 35k investment give or take server prices x3 which a player whos been gone for 3 yrs might not have. Not to mention another 30k mentioned for Tanaan legendary ring rocks.

    An yet this is a faster an better way then Trashran?
    Reading comprehension not your thing, then.

    Im not sure how you got anything other than "Ashran is faster" from this rather unequivocal statement in my post:

    If youre just looking to get into "good enough" gear to farm/dungeon/LFR - Ashran is absolutely the way. Couple of hours and youre 700.
    bolded for emphasis.

    I was pretty clear there, i think.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Xcuse View Post
    Hum
    Pretty sure without the legendary ring that is not possible:

    - 3x Crafted with a VP-upgraded ilvl of 725 - if you don't take the weapon
    - 3x (Trinket, Neck & Bracers) from Kazzak with an upgraded ilvl of 715
    - Leaves (15-6=) 9 slots for a max. lvl of 710 from pvp items

    ((9*710)+(3*715)+(3*725)) / 15 = 714
    And that's with the bad pvp pieces included :P - or am I missing something?
    With a maxed out ring (795) you'd land on exactly 719.667, so that'd be 720
    Kazaak drops four items, not three (neck, cloak, bracers, trinkets), and they can rather easily be warforged.

    You're also missing out on upgrades. Valor is farmable just by doing a daily heroic and a mythic dungeon every now and then.

  14. #14
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Xcuse View Post
    - 3x Crafted with a VP-upgraded ilvl of 725 - if you don't take the weapon
    - 3x (Trinket, Neck & Bracers) from Kazzak with an upgraded ilvl of 715
    - Leaves (15-6=) 9 slots for a max. lvl of 710 from pvp items

    ((9*710)+(3*715)+(3*725)) / 15 = 714
    And that's with the bad pvp pieces included :P - or am I missing something?
    Yes you forgot mythic dungeon wich have the possibility to drop ilevel 725 which can be upgraded to 735.

  15. #15
    Mechagnome
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aeula View Post
    700 gear has higher stats and better ilvl. Add conquest gear to the mix and you're ready for raiding.

    They kinda went full retard on PvP item levels in 6.2.
    Not really, the pvp item lvls for 6.2 were 670 for honor gear and 700 for conquest gear. New pvp gear comes always with new content patch, ergo new raid. If they happen to fail horribly with their time frames and they are forced to have 2 pvp seasons in a single content patch, the 2nd batch of pvp gear is abnormally better than anything else that is offered. Pretty much what is happening at the moment.

  16. #16
    Well, I spent two days in Ashran and got a mage to ilvl 700. I leveled a hunter, which also has 3 of the Warlords BoEs and I gave plenty of Baleful + 5 Empowered Apexis Fragments (they boost a baleful item to 695) as my main had plenty of Apexis. It's been two days as well, and it's far from 700 ilvl. Although when you do start in Tanaan, Baleful items drop very often.

    It depends on what you want to do for end-game - some pugs simply won't allow PvP gear, for instance, if pugging HFC is what you want to do. Tanaan can also be hard on an undergeared character.

    I'm tired of PvP so I've gone a little on the PvE side, but I'd say Ashran is way faster for breaking the ilvl barrier

    Edit: My hunter is 676 atm

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