Hello! It’s Librarian Husky. Phase 4 is here and that means the Pre-BIS grind has finally begun. But this Pre-BIS grind is way different than it was back in 2019. I’ve hit level 60, I’m working really hard on my pre-BIS, and I’ve learned a ton of secrets. I can’t wait to share everything I’ve learned in my ultimate pre-BIS farming guide that we’re about to get into right now.

Changes in Pre-BIS Farming

So pre-BIS farming in Phase 4 has some really big changes. We’re going to cover exactly what you need to do to get your gear as fast as possible. We’ll also cover the three new and updated vendors that have many new pre-BIS items you won’t want to miss out on.

Dungeon Sets and PVP Gear

We’ll also be talking about 0.5 Dungeon sets. Of course, we’ve got to talk about the PVP gear that came out and the Alterac Valley gear, and how to get it way faster.

Pre-BIS Farming in 2019

In 2019, pre-BIS farming was very much about atlas loot, Wowhead pre-BIS lists, and making your own level 60 upgrades list. Ideally, you would go to different dungeons and power farm for a specific item.

Stratholme Farming Method

So let’s say I needed a piece from Stratholme. I would just do five or ten Stratholme runs in a row back to back, and that was basically how we all got our pre-BIS back in the day.

Phase 4 Currency System

Jump ahead to Phase 4, and pre-BIS farming is way different. Sure, we still have the atlas loot and the Wowhead BIS list, and we still have our level 60 upgrades. But there’s one major difference. Instead of going to Stratholme and just grinding an item for hours, we’re now incentivized to do world tours because there’s a brand new currency dropping from every boss in the endgame dungeon.

Tarnished Undermine Reals

You really don’t want to miss out on these new Tarnished Undermine Reals. That’s the currency you’re getting from all the endgame bosses. Every single boss is going to drop a real but only once per day, so you’re really incentivized to zip around to all the different dungeons.

Currency Estimates and Dungeons

Current estimates suggest that if you do all the different endgame dungeons, including Stratholme and the Demon FS Canyon dungeon, you’ll get about 83 reals per day. Talking about that new dungeon for a second, it provides quite a few pre-BIS pieces. For example, there’s a trinket that gives 80 strength when activated, which looks very strong for Enhancement Shamans.

Using Tarnished Undermine Reals

Back to the Tarnished Undermine Reals, you’re going to be turning these in at PCK in Booty Bay. The items she sells are really impressive. There are huge weapons and very strong idols and totems. It seems like Blizzard put about two items per class that you really want to focus on.

Black Rock Eruption Event

While you’re blasting your pre-BIS using these Tarnished Undermine Reals, make sure you hit up the Black Rock Eruption event at least once per day. Most of these quests are around the level 55 range, so you’ll want to get there as quickly as possible on all your different alts.

Thorian Point Quests

When we were doing this event, we were able to grab eight different quests at Thorian Point. Each of these quests gave around 9,000 experience and also provided around 200 Thorian Brotherhood and Hydraxian Waterlord reputation as well. The event starts on every even hour (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12). These are essentially fancied-up incursions that you can easily complete with a group of five random people in about 20 to 30 minutes.

Firelands Ember

The important item you get when you turn these dailies in is the Firelands Ember. This is an item you take to Lokhtos in the Grim Guzzler. He’ll sell you insane pre-BIS items like the Tempered Black Amnesty, which gives you 30% threat reduction. The catch is that you need a crafter to make the original base items and then combine those with the Firelands Embers to make these really souped-up versions.

Crafting Requirements

A lot of these items you need to craft cost up to 25 of these Embers, but the problem is you can only make 11 Embers per day. You’re going to want to use all your different alts and characters to get all these dailies done every single day. For example, some casters might want the full Flarecore set and the Tempered Black Amnesty, which would take at least nine days of dailies to get all those different items.

Priority in Phase 4

Getting as many Embers as possible should be your number one priority in Phase 4. We also haven’t talked about the updated Argent Dawn vendor, Quartermaster Miranda. She sells all these upgraded pre-BIS epics. For example, she has my pre-BIS shoulders that I desperately want.

Upgraded Pre-BIS Epics

The idea is that you take a crafted blue item and combine it with Stratholme items like the Fright Stitching. The catch is that all of these require a lot of effort and time, so planning and prioritizing your activities is essential.

Challenges with Crafted Items

These blue items are bind-on-pickup, so you’ll have to drop a lucrative profession like Alchemy if you want to make them. It’s a devious trick by Blizzard. For example, I really want to get my shoulders, but I have to drop my Alchemy, which I spent so much money leveling up.

Importance of Crafted Items

Talking about professions and leveling them up, one of the big aspects of Phase 4 pre-BIS is the crafted items. A crafted BoE like Hide of the Wild, for example, or just the dungeon drops and the three pieces of your Tier 0.5 set, are really going to be a big gold sink for you.

Cost-effective Crafting Tips

I highly recommend farming or buying the materials and then taking them to a guild crafter to craft them for way less money. Also, a pro tip: if you’re really strapped for gold and want to get these items, the Tarnished Undermine Real vendor is kind of a gold printer.

Using Tarnished Undermine Reals

With five Undermine Reals, you can turn them in for damaged goods, and inside the box, you might find items like five Winterfall Firewaters, which is exactly what I got. Imagine if you had 15 of these boxes a day; you could get all sorts of crazy items, even Black Lotus, and really pay for a lot of your crafted items that way.

Tier 0.5 Set Farming

Pre-BIS farming in Classic wouldn’t feel right unless we were doing our Tier 0.5 set farming as well. The idea is to start by farming your Tier 1 dungeon set, so in my case, the Devout set. To save you some time, there are three buyable pieces for your tier set: the bracer, the belt, and the gloves.

Dungeon Farming and Quests

The rest will come from different dungeons like UBRS, which you’ll hopefully be doing because of the real currency. As for the quest line itself, you have many busy work activities to do, such as gold sinks, a lot of travel, and killing mobs.

Sunken Temple and Lockout Resets

The good news is that you can now do Sunken Temple twice a week with a Tuesday lockout reset and a Saturday lockout reset. If you’re missing some items until Molten Core comes out, I definitely recommend going back to Sunken Temple.

Alterac Valley and PvP Grind

It wouldn’t be right to talk about pre-BIS without covering Alterac Valley and the PvP grind. Pretty much every class has at least one item they want from AV exalted. In my case, as a priest, I want the Lay of the Lifegiver for a BIS off-hand.

Rank Up in PvP

A nice perk of getting AV exalted is that you’ll also be ranking up in PvP. There are newly upgraded pieces for rank 8 and rank 10. They’re not really pre-BIS, but they have a lot of stamina, so if you want to do any PvP, they’re definitely a good bet.

Pre-BIS Farming Simplified

After all this discussion about new systems, item farming, and dungeon farming, the big takeaway I have about pre-BIS farming is that it’s actually easier than it ever has been before. You just need to find a group of five players, knock out as many dungeons as possible, and you’ll be pre-BIS geared in no time.

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