The futility of gearing before 80

[Bigfish]

Maybe this is just my observation, but it seems silly to try and gear up before 80, barring the initial jump to Northrend greens over 70 Outland Greens/Blues. I mean, at this point, my characters are all 78-79, and with so many low level quests in Howling Fjord, Borean Tundra, Dragonblight, and Grizly Hills, it seems to me anyone should be able to get the same solo or grouped. With that in mind, what's the point of gear designed for level 74-79? Seems to me the stuff falls so far behind the epic craftables of level 80, you're better off not bothering with gearing until then, and then grinding dailies for gold to run to the AH with.

At 78-79, my stats are far below what a level 80 would have, but pushing them to be what they should be proportionaly seems useless, since it will take more time to gather and enchant the gear than it will to just finish the push to the level cap.

[Tonuss]

I would definitely not worry about gear until 80. The quest/instance items you get until ~78ish should be just fine, and then you can start work on some (all?) of the reputation grind for upgrades, and start running level 80 normal/heroic instances.

I only gem/enchant items pre-80 in order to get skillups or if I feel I need to boost the stats for one of my characters because it had been so long since they had gotten upgrades and are lacking in an area. I did make sure to enchant my shaman with new gems/enchants/etc because she had Kara/arena/ZA gear that would last her past level 75, possibly until 78. Anything that made the grind a bit quicker was good. I made the mistake of gemming/enchanting my hunter's gear at 70, and that was a badly wasted 1,500ish gold. He had replaced most of his stuff by 72/73.

[Greythan]

Great topic and I hope it gets a ton of replies. As a slow leveler, I have been contemplating the same thing. It sure seems that what I need to do is develop a leveling plan NOW as I'm about to leave Howling Fjord (already did BT) and want to maximize rep while leveling to make as much quality 80 gear available when I ding or at least close.

[Hor]

If you're doing pure quest grinding, you shouldn't have to worry about gear at all till 80 imo, just use those quest rewards for all they're worth. The only time I really can see "gearing" before you're max level is if you're determined to do instances as you level. And even then it's questionable for anyone other than the tank, and possibly the healer. In general though, I think it just provides a drain on your available resources before you really need them at higher levels for training and gear.

[TheBigBB]

I would never run an instance just for gear. I put on the best gear I get, but don't chase it. The only exception is at 74 the tank weapon from Zul-Drak from one of the start quests. That weapon will last until 80 easily and be effective until you get an 80 epic.

[elsegundo]

I would never run an instance just for gear. I put on the best gear I get, but don't chase it. The only exception is at 74 the tank weapon from Zul-Drak from one of the start quests. That weapon will last until 80 easily and be effective until you get an 80 epic.

but if the gear is a quest reward for completing the instance, then that's also a different story. i wouldnt run instances for gear either. if it drops, it drops. if not, get the quest reward and move on. =]
level 80 isnt that far off.

[Greythan]

but if the gear is a quest reward for completing the instance, then that's also a different story. i wouldnt run instances for gear either. if it drops, it drops. if not, get the quest reward and move on. =]

Partly because I'm struggling with bosses in the first two instances, this has been my approach. The quest instance quest gear has been a HUGE boost to the defensive ability of my paladin. Worth it right there. However, farming for gear? Wouldn't make any sense to me. Farming rested exp, breaking up questing boredom.... fine.

[-silencer-]

Skip the instances & their quests until you hit 80 (or can breeze through the instance.. like Nexus at 78 ). Just work on levels.. the rest (gear/gold/rep/etc) can be more easily done when you're 80. However, it's never too early to start the Sons of Hodir quest chain, as that'll have you doing dailies for 3 weeks for exalted.. which you need for shoulder enchants.

[Hachoo]

I'm not sure what the argument is actually about.. If you just quest to level you'll end up with all blues by the time you hit 80 anyway.

I also disagree with skipping instance quests before 80 - for the multiboxer friendly instances like UK, Nexus, DTK, Gundrak, AN, etc, by all means run them at level to do quests. Besides the fact that you get like 40-45k xp per quest instead of the usual 20-25k, you get gobs of rested xp from fighting elites, practice in the dungeon so you can go right into Heroics at 80 and already know the general strats, and you get some ok drops as well, plus good loot to help level enchanting.

[Khatovar]

My husband and I ran dungeons as soon as they became level appropriate {and before in several cases}. Our second group {the paladins/hunters} we did instances almost exclusively because there was just too much gathering in too many places. We did quests and questlines we felt we had to do, and hid in dungeons the rest of the time.

With that in mind, what's the point of gear designed for level 74-79?

Well, I guess it depends. My hunters came up having blown through Outland, started them shortly before Wrath was released. They literally hit STV with starter greys in some spots. They hit Outland with some gear as low as 23. They hit Northrend at 68 or so still schlepping along in some low-end Outland greens. They never touched an Outland Dungeon {except at 63 to tame a wolfie in Ramps}. They took every bit of gear they came across, dungeon or quest. They would havve been nothing but a detriment to our paladins otherwise.

Our paladins, however, were geared to the teeth in epics from BC. And all the quest reward plate was nothing but DPS plate. Ardath is still wearing the Sunwell breastplate, she was wearing level 71 bracers until 2 days ago. A lot of her gear was the same stuff she'd been wearing for months, the itemization just wasn't there for plate casters and what was there was often a sidegrade at best to what she had. The pallies had pretty much no upgrades between 70 and 80 until they could use crafted gear and get drops from heroics.

Long story short, some people need it, some don't.