Bear with me, because I am a little slow today. I’ll put the TLDR first:
TLDR:
- If you can get 1800/2100, always choose a pvp item from the vault
- Always choose a vault item that is of highest cost or highest cost weighed on value, until you have them all
- On all alts, get to at least one vault item - capping conquest does not matter
So each week we get a rolling 550 conquest. You earn rated honor in arena and the vault rewards are a CHOICE from:
- 1 item - 1250
- 2 items - 2500
- 3 items - 6250
Each week, on all of your characters, the most important thing to do is at least get a choice of a vault item. This means, You should minimally on your alts, get 1250 honor. You do not need to get full conquest - it is rolling over per week.
Now everyone can use one legendary. This means there is one slot fewer to get. Legendary wise, most people will take a slot that gives sta/main stat and on an item that gives the most per secondary stat (i.e. chest/shoulders/head).
Conquest Gear Costs
- Gladiator Trinkets, Wrists, Cloaks, Rings, Necks: 525 Conquest
- Two-Handed Weapons: 1800 Conquest
- One-Handed Weapons: 900 Conquest
- Off-Hands : 450 Conquest
- Chest, Helms, Legs: 875 Conquest
- Damage Trinkets, Boots, Gloves, Shoulders, Belt: 700 Conquest
- Conduits: 200 Conquest
Now here we have effective items (i.e. weapons for DPS, trinkets) and items with high stats (i.e. chest/helm/legs).
Almost everyone is saving for weapons right. They give the most effective upgrade for most people (at least DPS).
Thus your gearing path should generally be:
- Save conquest until you can buy weapons
- Each week, choose the most expensive pieces from the vault. This is generally irrespective of your gear unless you have a bis piece.
You can upgrade all items with honor, thus you can reduce how much conquest you need to buy the full set, by choosing items from the vault that have the highest conquest value.
So if you have in the vault
- chest, ring, belt - choose chest
- head, feet, weapon - choose weapon
- head, feet, ring - choose head
And so on - remembering to ignore whichever slot your legendary is for. I don’t know if weapons can drop either, but here’s hoping (or maybe hoping not…since it would give a huge advantage :P).
Ilvl per rank: (remember you can upgrade upwards with honor)
- Unranked (from vendor) Item level 200
- Combatant (1400-1599) Item Level 207
- Challenger (1600-1799) Item Level 213
- Rival (1800-2099) Item Level 220
- Duelist (2100+) Item level 226
If you want to speed gear in the short term, you should spam m+ and I guess, focus on slots you don’t have items for but bear in mind that by doing so, you risk having to spend more conquest if you had say chest/shoulder/head.
You should NOT choose mythic plus gear unless it is max ilvl (from a +15) and BiS. This gear is NOT upgradeable so anything less than 226 is only short term.
The only other thing to add as an extra complication - some classes massively favour certain stats over others (i.e. WW/sub favour vers/mastery) and they are not on all pieces. That adds some extra complication that you probably want to favour those pieces first if they give the best upgrade (but sta/main stat seems to have a lot of value at the moment).
Oh and enchants/sockets as far as I know, stay on items through upgrades. So you can do those early too.
Anyway hopefully this is helpful and not some long-winded bullcrap (also that its also not wrong - feel free to correct if it is wrong or if you have differencing of opinions).