These days I mostly have time blocks of 15-20 minutes to play. I'm a bit lost with all the possible options in retail, but I'd like to do whatever has the best chance of keeping Janthun in striking distance of raid viability. His gear is only 407 at this point. Any suggestions? I know I can do dailies for emissary loot, just wondering if anything is better.
Or I can just play Classic :)
Hard to do anying in Classic for only 15 min ).
The current catch up mechanism in Retail is the Benthic gear, which means pearls. Log on, see what quests in Najatar award pearls, and do any of them that interest you. (Avoid jumping jellies.) The companion quests always award 2 pearls each if you don't see anything else, and the Ankoan Emissary usually awards 25 pearls. For 5 pearls, you can buy a token for any armor slot at 385, and for an increasing number of pearls you can upgrade the piece to quite high levels. The armor bits can't warforge or titanforge, but the non-Azerite pieces can randomly generate a gem socket; for many classes, some of these pieces are Best In Slot, even better than mythic gear.
The nice thing about this is that you can see how little steps get you closer. 5 pearls for the first piece is easy; the first upgrade for the shoulders would be 20 pearls but would raise it to 400. So, earning 4-6 pearls in a day is progress.
I try to cycle each of my characters through the mission table, doing whatever missions award azerite power and I can get to 200% (typically without followers to save on order resources). That takes less than a minute per character, and actually produces quite a lot of Azerite power over a week. Once in a while there are missions for pearls.
If you have more time once during the week, maybe 40 minutes, then run a mythic plus. That will possibly drop gear, but each week your chest (known affectionately as the 'box of disappointment') will give you a guaranteed piece of gear, some azerite power, and other stuff for essences. This week, there is also the Heroic Battle for Stormgarde, which we'll do as a group at the start of the Tuesday raid--it gives a guaranteed 430 piece to everyone.
Best of course is to come on the raid with us. ) But, that does take more than 15 minutes.