Back on topic, please...

I'm a little split, I guess. My rets are currently at about 3200-3800-- they *just* got a complete set of Garfrost iLvl 219 hammers last night. My DK is significantly beefier due to having 6 iLvl245 pieces, but he also has some major trinket/sigil holes and could use more overall health.

I am able to easily do several heroics and a lot of bosses, so I can generally fill my 2-3 hour night full of heroic farming, but there are a lot of instances that I have to bail out of if I was to just spam random heroic runs for bonus triumph badges. My gear is low enough that I can't even random Heroic Pit of Saron or Forge of Souls yet (as well as other instances).

So, strategy A would be to buy some PvE gear (which is cheaper, badge-wise) in order to jump start my team into a badge farming machine. If I thought that a team full of 232 PvE gear could go into arena and clear the magical 1500 mark, I would go this route for sure. I still get Arena points each week, so I can spend badges->PvE and arena/honor->PvP and cobble together a mixed set.

Strategy B is to foresake most all PvE gear and spend badges on L232 PvP gear (for the pallies). While not the best gear for PvP, the 232 badge stuff is miles ahead of the iLvl 187 and 200 gear the pallies have now in many spots. I have no doubt they would farm heroics faster and safer in a set of arena gear, even if it was L232. Arena point gain would be the same as Strat A, with the possibility that I might start to do better as I got a more complete set of Resilience gear.

Anyhow, I guess I'm conflicted. The badge-PvP gear is more expensive and not as good for PvE, so it's bothering me that I'd buy it first right when I'm desperate to get over the hump with really clearing heroics in style.