Golden Lotus Notes

Questing in Pandaria was pretty good fun. But once you reach level 90, what's the next step? Gearing up, of course!

If you have not already done so, you must open up the gates to the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. To do this, you must complete the quest chain that starts with "Temple of the White Tiger" in Kun-Lai Summit, where you meet Anduin Wrynn. If you haven't already got this quest, you can get it in Binan Village (in south eastern Kun-Lai Summit). Once you meet Anduin Wrynn there, complete "A Celestial Experience" at the Temple of the White Tiger, pick up "A Witness to History" and go south for the opening the Gate of the August Celestials into the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

At the gates (on the Kun-Lai Summit side), pick up the start of the Black Prince Wrathion questline "Stranger in a strange Land", if you don't already have it, and start on it as soon as you can.

By the way, while you are in Kun-Lai Summit, listen out for raids forming to kill the "Sha of Anger". Ask the raid leader for an invitation. When you kill the Sha of Anger for the very first time, loot his body and pick up the "Claw of Anger". You can turn this in at the Shado-Pan Garrison later for ilvl 476 boots. This is a forty-person raid, and nobody will care if you aren't well-geared.

Go into the Vale, picking up quests on the way. They'll direct you to the Shrine of Seven Stars (it's in the south-east). This is the most important city in Pandaria (and has portals to the old world). Pick up the flight-point from the flight master on the upper floor. The flight trainer (Cloudrunner Leng) is right next to the flight master: pay 2500 gold to him and learn "Wisdom of the Four Winds". Now you can use your flying mounts again!

Go to the ground floor and pick up all the "reputation" quests there. The most important reputation to work on initially is the Golden Lotus reputation, as it gates all the dailies for other factions' reputations.

If you haven't yet killed the Sha of Anger, go and do so now (see above), and once a week thereafter. His drops are seductive.

Fly over to the Shado-Pan Garrison in Townlong Steppes and pick up your new ilvl 476 boots.

A little further west is the Niuzao Temple, where you should find Commander Lo Ping. He sells ilvl 458 gear for Justice Points. Spend all your JPs here, now! You'll never get better use out of them later.

Now you should be geared for Heroic MoP dungeons. They require you to have ilvl 435 on average. If you're not there yet, you can either queue for normal MoP dungeons, for scenarios, or buy ilvl 450 PvP gear to get your ilvl up.

Once you get into heroics, you'll be picking up ilvl 463 gear, which will get you into LFR raids.

As you're building up rep with the various factions through dailies, you'll also be earning 5 Valor Points per daily. Note that you can't spend these until you have built up sufficient reputation with the faction to which the quartermaster belongs. Different gear requires rep with different factions, so check with Commander Lo Ping (who sells gear for all factions) to see what rep is most important for you, and work on that rep second (first rep you should work on is the Golden Lotus rep, to unlock rep dailies with the other factions).