Getting Started At 50 & Understanding Chromie Time

[greatlinx]

So I am questing in BFA on my locked 50 that just hit. All the azerite gear is very low item level. Is this expected? Does it matter if I am in chromie time for BFA? I changed to BFA and wanted to quest a bit, but wonder if I should be in my present timeline and just go quest in BFA zones to get better item level gear?

Does that actually matter or maybe the chromie time doesn't change anything from a gear perspective.... Please help. Thanks!

Perhaps there is a better place to quest to get initial gear to build towards gearing at this level? Just looking to get started somewhere, I am playing solo so getting carried isn't an option, nor does it sound fun.

 

[cletus]

Chromie Time does 2 things:

1. Puts you in a separate layer; and
2. Raises the level of the content you're doing to your current level, max 71 (currently)

So each expansion's content has an inbuilt max level. 30 for Vanilla/TBC/WotLK, 35 for MoP, 40 for WoD, 45 for Legion, 50 for BFA. If you're level 60 in any of those zones, the content will be at that max level. If you're in CT, it'll be level 60 instead. If you're level 20 in any of those zones, it'll be level 20, CT or not.

As for the layering, this is a little more complicated but basically, outside of CT, if a level 80 goes to that zone, you will see them and they will see you. If you're in CT, you won't see any level 80s. You are, in fact, in a completely separate "zone". This can be incredibly useful for hunting rare mobs and drops.

For completeness, there are up to 4 layers in WoW content for outdoor zones:

• CT off, Warmode off
• CT off, WM on
• CT on, WM off
• CT on, WM on

So should you be in CT at 50? That depends. Sometimes it's helpful to have high level kill things. Sometimes it's annoying. Often CT zones are "fresh" and a lot of rares won't spawn for a couple of hours or longer when a zone is "fresh" so it can be a hindrance. But if you really want to see no one, go CT on, WM on. You might be worried about getting ganked. But you won't see any level 71+ people. You'll probably only see people who are maximizing levelling with the 10% WM bonus.

As for gear scaling, it's all over the place. Benthic gear, for example, is still ilvl 66 (base). That's ridiculously low at 50 (which is also the minimum level for Benthic). I mean TBC dungeons will drop ilvl 140ish gear at level 30. BFA dungeon gear will be a lot better.

 

[Krater]

Chromie time shouldn't make a difference in ilvl for a lvl 50 doing BFA, since 50 was the max level for BFA anyways. A lot of the azerite quest rewards just never had their ilvls updated, same with the world quests and emissary quest rewards. A lot of gear from previous bfa endgame zones was also never updated (naz, mechagon, darkshore and arathi assaults, and the 8.3 assault zones)

Gearing up solo at 50 is gonna be tough with so many things never being updated. I'm not sure if running dungeons in group finder would be acceptable to you, but you can get 252 gear in those as well as 252 azerite from bfa dungeons. The dungeon azerite kinda sucks tho because it only has 2 trait rings. You will need to chromie time into whichever expansion you want to run so it shows up in group finder. BC socketed dungeon gear is probably best for the non-azerite slots.

Previously in BFA and even during SL you could run horrific visions and get raid level gear solo, but these have also never had their ilvl updated and the gear is trash now.

There are 271 ilvl green boes available at 50, but they are somewhat rare so you will probably have to search multiple servers to get a full set.

There are lots of videos of 50s soloing raid bosses, but I'm pretty sure most of those people gear up their characters with carries thru Nyalotha first, and then solo the bosses...it's probably almost impossible in quest or dungeon gear.

 

[greatlinx]

Thank you both for the replies, highly appreciated and useful information as I move forward.