I Capped in a Day

At an approximate item level (ilvl) of 502 (I say approximate because it changed and is currently higher), I capped my huntress' Valor Point (VP) in one day. I did this by running a single dungeon and scenario - both of which give double VP for the first time you run them everyday - doing the Cooking dailies in Halfhill, and running all the raids.

Now, technically speaking, I capped in two days but that is nitpicking - a single day and a single night, as Plato might say; I lacked about 20VP and we stood in queue for over an hour and a half. This was very late night/early morning - somewhere around 2-3:00am CST - on a Wednesday morning, so it's somewhat understandable. In fact, we stood in queue for nearly 40 minutes before one member dropped, forcing us to requeue, at which point we stood in queue for an hour and a half before quitting. I could have run a handful of dailies or even another scenario or dungeon and capped but I still had at least three raids to do - which I have to do anyway for gear drops - and gardening everyday so, having made my point to myself, I went to bed and finished capping the next morning.

My point here is manifold: There are nine raids, all of which you should run all the way through each week for gear drops, and all of which award 90VP - that's 810VP right off the bat; dungeons award 80VP for the first time they are run each day and scenarios award 40VP (IIRC) the first day - in addition to some number of Justice Points (JP), usually; you need to run at least the main Cooking daily in Halfhill for the Ironpaw Token which is worth 5VP but you might as well take all of those daily quests since you are going to be in the area anyway, and that's usually around 20-25VP combined. That, right there, is between 935 and 950 VP, putting you approximately 50-60VP away from capping. That can be accomplished with a single dungeon run.

There's no need to do them all in one day. In fact, if you garden, you might not want to run a scenario and dungeon everyday. At any rate, so long as you do all the raids each week and keep up with your cooking, you will cap your VP weekly. I have two 90-level toons, so it was important to me to cap early so that my alt gets the +50% VP bonus. If you do not have another 90-level toon in the same faction on the same server, the speed with which you cap is probably of no concern to you. But it can be done in a single day.

At the risk of being considered "l33t" and shitty, if you're serious about wanting to raid outside of LFR (or simply improving your ilvl), there's no excuse as to why you have a sub-par ilvl. Run LFR for the drops and purchase your 522 equipment from the Quartermaster at Niuzao Temple in Townlong Steppes as you can. I like the upgrade system and am glad they brought it back but I wouldn't bother with it until you have a full set of 522 gear. There is higher ilvl gear available but it is exceedingly hard to come by, so I wouldn't worry too much about that either. Upgrade your 522 gear only unless you find yourself maxed-out on VP at the beginning of a new week. In that event, upgrade your lowest ilvl piece of gear first.

I am nowhere near an expert on World of Warcraft - just barely an authority to any degree, in fact - but this is what I've gleaned from just over a year of playing the game.

© C Harris Lynn, 2013