Guide: How to improve from i308 to i380 in a day

[TeaLeaf]

Anyone think that improving your toon's ilevel is difficult?  My hunter did some Hyjal at L80 and then got bored, heartstoned back to Stormwind and levelled from L80 to L85 on the XP from the daily cooking & JC daily quests, so it's gear sucked and equipping some BOE gear that other toons had picked up left it on a mixture of old L80 epics (i264) and some L84-5 green and blues, combining for a lofty i308.  So when I decided to improve its gear level yesterday I wondered what I let myself in for!

Anyway, firstly may I thank those who helped me yesterday afternoon with my hunter in his meteoric rise from i308 to i380 and a 2 set T13 bonus, in particular Hendrik for tanking several heroics for me and shortening the queue time!  Looking back on it, it does seem somewhat bizarre that you can increase the gear level of a toon that quickly.  So here's what I did:

-bought BOE VP items (bracer & boots) using unused VPs from my priest
-used my LW to craft myself some i397 legs
-bought 2 cheap epics from AH
-bought a Darkmoon agi trinket
-used my LW to craft myself some i377 blue PVP 'Vicious' items to gap-fill and raise ilevel to the minimum for Hour of Twilight heroics

Once qualified for the Hour of Twilight heroics:
-got drops as I ran through the HoT heroics several times
-used the Justice Points to buy a i378 neck and a i378 ring

This then got me qualified to i372 for LFR
-in which I got 2 set pieces drop for the 2 set T13 bonus

So I ended up on i380.   Not bad for less than a day's work and I never had to do any Cataclysm heroics, I just jumped straight into HoT heroics and then LFR!

Many thanks to all who joined for the fun!  :cheers:

It was an interesting experiment and here's the activity feed to show it step by step:
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/aszune/Teaele/feed

[Niel]

Aye....i did similar with my lads rogue. Having a crafter, spare VP/JP and a little bit of G and u can get yourself an entry level raider with little effort or time ( and a little luck on the lfr drops ).

[Switchback]

Yeah i geared my rogue also pretty quickly...did 2 ZA hcs and 4 drops then 2 VP items and then couple drops from the new hc's. Not quite a good days work as you Tl but got about 50 ilvl points in a day....

I just have no luck in LFR!!!! On the main,Moon, i have run LFR every week as healer since it started and not won 1 item! :ranting2:

[Sithvid]

Similar story with my DK today not quire LFr ready but 4  HOT HC's and a Head Trinket Back and Weapon all dropped
New Necklace with JP and some nice VP in the bag too. I even got 2 maelstrom from my DE my old loot.... to balance this "luck" i sucked at Cheltenham