How to gear up for the Liberation of Undermine raid if you only have an hour (more or less)

It’s the day before the reset on the first week of WoW patch 11.1.  The Liberation of Undermine raid opens tomorrow and your guild is gearing up to raid, but you’ve spent all week collecting transmog on your Mechagnome Death Knight “Grayspark.”  Worse yet, they’re an alt you were hoping to have raid ready… and between your actual job and what you promised in couples therapy you now only have ONE HOUR to play before the reset!

Things may look dire, but DON’T PANIC! It’s never too late to shore up your item level, even if raid starts in an hour. There’s a lot you can get done in the next sixty minutes.

How to gear up for Liberation of Undermine in only an hour

In this lightning-speed gearing run, you’re looking for the quickest sources of the best upgrades. That means you’re prioritizing:

1. Season 2 Veteran gear, which is better than Season 1 Mythic gear when maxed out at ilvl 645 (and pretty good even before then). Veteran pieces are currently available from chests at the end of certain events, like everyone’s favorite Awakening the Machine. The first two major world events you do this week will award Veteran gear.
2. Crests for crafting and upgrading gear.
3. Valorstones for upgrading gear.
4. Any other Season 2 gear. If you’re undergeared, even World Quests may be a jump, with Explorer gear starting at ilevel 597.

You can potentially earn two pieces of Veteran gear this week (yes, even in just an hour), and by earning as many Crests as possible we can upgrade that gear and get three pieces of 629 gear crafted. Boosting five slots into the 600s is a big improvement that can help rocket you to success in Liberation of Undermine.

So, without delay, in one hour we’re going to get you two pieces of Veteran gear, 90 Weathered Crests (and an indeterminate number of un-weathered), plus more Valorstones than you can shake a lich at. [Ed’s note: Please don’t try shaking a lich. It isn’t safe.] 

Let’s get started.

Minute 1:  Theater Troupe in Isle of Dorn. If you’re starting at the top of the hour, start with the Theater Troupe event. (If you’re starting at any other time, come back to this at the top of the hour.) The event takes roughly four minutes and you can be late, but you have to show up with enough time to nail 50 audience approval. Blizzard has made it easier with “fans” that randomly show up who you can click on and will give you +15 approval, so click them when you see them. Make sure to grab the quest first, which will award you a cache with a chance of a Veteran gear upgrade as well as Crests and Valorstones.

Minute 5: Awakening the Machine in Ringing Deeps. Beeline to Gundargaz and grab the Rollin’ Down in the Deeps quest from Gnawables (we’ll work on collecting wax as we continue through the hour) and start the Awakening the Machine event at Speaker Kuldas (be sure to pick up his quest first). This Machine Speakers event will also give you a piece of Veteran gear (if it’s your first run of the week) as well as many Valorstones and additional Crests at the end. How long it takes varies depending on your DPS and survivability — doing the advanced version of the event without breaks will speed it up — but I’d say an average of eight minutes is needed.

Do these as you continue through the hour! As soon as you’re done with Awakening the Machine, jump into farming all the World Quests in the Ringing Deeps, as they’re rewarding extra Valorstones and Crests this week to help lure you to the the new Undermine storyline that initiates there. This is also when we begin the start of our passive efforts. As you continue on your way, do these things:

• Stop for every single Disturbed Earth you see. 10 Disturbed Earth completes the wax quest as well as rewarding additional Valorstones and Crests. A basic strategy is when you spot one, fly around a bit and you will more than likely find others, as they can spawn together in particular areas.
• Collect any Radiant Echo orbs you see, which will max out your Crests in rapid time. Just flying through those floating globes of light rewards you with Resonance Crystals and Crests. There are claims of players reaching their 90 Weathered Crest limits in less than 10 minutes just by flying around and collecting any orbs they see.  Like disturbed earth they can be clustered in an area, so if you find one look for others.
• Kill all rare mobs. Kill any Elite Rare you’re comfortable soloing. They give Adventure gear, Valorstones, and Renown.
• Collect all treasures. As long as they aren’t treasures that require an extensive search or side quest, it’s worth picking them up as you fly by.

Minute 20: Spreading the Light in Hallowfall. It’s time to help the Arathi by lighting Keyflames. Grab the Defender of The Flame quest from Keyrra Flamestonge, which requires you to kill two elite mobs in the area, and get to work dropping Radiant Remnants into Lesser Keyflames to complete the world quest Spreading The Light.

This is one of the easier major quests and can be done in less than a minute if you already have a good supply of Radiant Remnants just by jumping between Lesser Keyflames, powering them up, and ignoring the attached quests (which aren’t a good value for your time). You’re getting the elite quest off of Keyrra just in case you see any rares in the area: don’t wait around or hunt them down if you don’t see any. This is also a great area for Disturbed Earth.

Minute 30: Surge Pricing in Undermine.  While the Theater Troupe event happens every hour at the top of the hour, Surge Pricing happens on the half hour. Get yourself into Undermine, grab the weekly quest and DRIVE. You don’t have to complete 10 tasks, and you definitely won’t reach the maximum tip… but the weekly offers another chance at Veteran gear in its spoils bag and Renown if you haven’t already completed it (or completed it on another character).

Minute 40 and beyond: Renown. If you’ve been active in your passive efforts and followed the above list — doing Ringing Deeps World Quests, collecting wax, hitting Radiant Echo orbs, killing rares, and picking up treasure — you might be at your Weathered Crest limit and have your two pieces of Veteran (among several pieces of Adventurer and Explorer) gear. If you haven’t finished these, keep working on them while doing the following, because there’s still more to pump in this hour: Renown and quests.

If you’ve maxed out your rep with any of the original four War Within factions, you should be on your way to earning some Overflowing Troves (particularly after finishing Theater Troupe, Awakening the Machine, and Spreading the Light), which you get whenever you’ve earned enough reputation to get a new Renown level after max. There might also be several Special Assignments available, which unlock after you complete three World Quests in a specific zone.

As you finish out the hour, your priority should shift into completing anything you haven’t finished and maxing rep for your closest Overflowing Trove, depending on where you’re at with the factions. Both of these will offer non-weathered Crests which will be key in upgrading Veteran gear and getting you past that normal-raid-upgrade-hump. Do what you can, and if you have the time (and it would increase your reputation enough to get an Overflowing Trove), pick up the weekly dungeon quest as it has a substantial reputation reward that you can put to any faction.

Wrapping up: Crafting. Now it’s time to take all of the Crests you’ve collected and turn them into crafted gear. Along the way you should have collected the maximum of 90 Weathered Crests for the week which you should use to buy three Enchanted Weathered Undermine Crests from Syenite, an Earthen just outside the crafting order area in Dornogal. You can use these to boost the quality of any crafted item to a maximum of 629, so hit the auction house for any materials you may need and craft (or recraft) gear for your lowest ilevel slots.

Be sure you don’t craft gear that will break your tier set bonus, which is worth more than just a few item levels. If you don’t have a Season 1 set bonus, go to the Revival Catalyst in Dornogal and convert Season 1 items into tier. You need four tier set items (helm, shoulders, chest, gloves, legs) to get the full set bonus, and having that bonus will help you out even if they’re lower item level Season 1 pieces. You’ll also be keeping your Cyrce’s Circlet ring for a while (but if you don’t have it maxed out at 658, you should hit the Siren Isle if you have time and do all of the story quests marked with a purple triangle). That means you should check your other ring, amulet, belt, wrist, feet, and back slots to see which are your lowest ilevel pieces, and craft upgrades for the lowest. If your weapons are lagging behind, they’re a good early craft as well — though you may be looking for a better replacement in the raid or Mythic+ soon, a crafted piece can help you through the early season.

The results of your hour of gear-grinding

All in all this should net you two pieces of Veteran gear, an assortment of Adventurer and Explorer gear (much of it Warbound, so it can be useful even if it isn’t an upgrade for your main), three pieces of 629 crafted gear, and a whole slew of Valorstones and lower level Crests.

And yes you can do all of this today! In an hour (more or less).

At the end of the hour, pat yourself on the back. Good job. Your raid leader may just respect you yet.