🔴 Gearing up and becoming raid ready 🔴

 

You're a fresh 80!

...what do you do now? 

You can make your character much stronger than you are now if you gear up, like, much much stronger. This is a small little guide about how to go from 2k gs (where most people are when they hit level 80) to 5k gs (raid ready!).

You can get better items only by four different ways:
- Looting them from something that drops them
- Purchasing them with emblems or another currency from a vendor
- Purchasing Bind on Equip items (BoEs) from other players who looted them, or created them with professions
- Only a few quests will give items that are worth their salt in raids. The important ones will be discussed later.

You will find that buying powerful items is possible, but can cost a lot of money. If you don't want to spend any gold on items, then you'll have to be patient and wait until you can get them yourself.

Before we start, it's important to know a few things. Feel free to skip all of these topics if you already know about them. 

🟡 Things you need to know 🟡

(Please skip any of these sections if you understand them!)*

• What is the difference between item level and gearscore?

Item levels are blizzard’s way of describing how good an item is, and all slots are considered equal. GearScore is an addon that describes how good gear is, but it weighs more important slots higher than others. For example, all items dropped in ToC10 have a item level of 232, but weapons are worth 402 gearscore each (804 for a two-hand) and rings are around 250. By default, you will not see item levels listed on items. You have to go into the interface settings any turn on “show item level” as an interface option (I think in display).

• Problems with GearScore:

- Doesn’t consider set bonuses
- Doesn’t consider gems and enchants
- Doesn’t really measure how good a player is
- Doesn’t check stats that aren’t important to your class, like extra hit rating past the cap and pvp resilience.

• Why does item level matter?

Because it's convenient to know which items you can upgrade with which raid. More importantly, dungeon locks that require certain gear (random heroic dungeons, and even more for the icc5 dungeons that we discuss later) are based on item level, not gearscore. 
One important thing to remember is that heirlooms have high gearscore, as if they were i200 blues, but their item level is 1. For this reason it is difficult to get into these dungeons if you are using any heirlooms.

• What are emblems and what are they used for?

Emblems of Triumph can be earned from:
- One for each boss you kill in a heroic dungeon,
- Two for each heroic random dungeon completion after your first completion of the day,
- 5 for the raid quest each week,
- Two for your first Northrend rdf of the day (levels 69-80 normal),
- One for each boss that you kill in the icc level 80 dungeons,
- various raid bosses give two or three,

You can use emblems of triumph to buy i232 set gear, and i245 shoulders, helms, trinkets (which usually kinda suck), and other minor pieces. If you don't need gear, you can trade them down to emblems of heroism and buy epic gems for big money!

• Emblems of Frost are the best currency in the game:

- 2 for your first random heroic dungeon completion of the day
- 2 for daily holiday event dungeons (Lvl. 78+). Make sure you do these daily too if they’re happening, you can double your daily earnings!
- 5 for the weekly raid quest
- Two to three for various raid bosses

Emblems of Frost buy i251 set pieces and i264 off pieces, which are valuable raid tier items. You can also exchange EoFs for primordial saronites if you don't need gear for big money!

• When should I use set pieces?

Set bonuses give powerful bonuses that increase your performance a lot. While some bonuses are better than others, most bonuses are worth getting even if the gearscore for those items are lower. For example, heroic dungeon (EoT) set gear starts at item level 232, and there are other items purchasable at item level 245. The because of the bonuses, the 232 set items often out perform the 245 non-set items.

Every single spec uses either the 2 or 4 set bonus from the emblem of frost gear and have at least one set item missing. This is because, generally, non set items of the same gearscore have *slightly* more stats than the set pieces, and there's no need to use 5 set items as there is no 5 piece set bonus. You should look up a class guide to see which set bonuses people recommend for your class and the slots used to achieve that bonus.

• What should I buy *first* with my Emblems of Frost?

This is a subjective discussion and it's best to make the decision on your own. The reason why is because buying certain items will boost your performance (set pieces usually), while others boost your gearscore a lot. *While intentionally buying items for gearscore and not stats usually isn't a good idea, you can occasionally do it once to help you bridge the gap you need to get into the more difficult raids* (a jump from 5.4 to 5.5k gs can do this), which will give you more emblems each week and help you get your important items to perform better much faster. 
Typically, the best items to get are the set pieces, especially the head, shoulders, or chest pieces as the hands and legs drop in the VoA raid and you may get lucky and earn them from there. The set bonuses greatly improve your performance.

The way to measure what you should buy first:
- Check your spec's best in slot loot list, know what your non set item(s) are. You don't need to buy set gear you won't use.
- Consider whether you should buy an off piece instead, sometimes a trinket (tanks) is more valuable than the set bonus
- Prefer head, shoulder, and chest slots first, as you can get set items from the VoA raid for hands and legs
- Lastly, consider which of the possible options will represent the biggest stat upgrade and buy that one

• What's the deal with the i200 low GS trinkets?

Because of how trinkets work, they can vary vastly in how good they are regardless of how much gearscore they might have. As an example, you can buy an i245 Talisman of Resurgence which gives a bunch of intellect and it will give 600 spell power for 20 seconds every 2 minutes. That's an average of 100 spell power through out the fight (600 * (20/120 seconds)). Instead, you can buy the i200 Sundial of the Exalted which gives sightly less crit (which turns into more damage when Mana isn't a concern because it's a damage stat) and less spell power, but the spell power will activate every 45 seconds, giving a average of 131 spell power (590 * (10/45sec)). The lower i200 trinket causes significantly more damage than the i245 trinket. This happens for almost every class or spec, so be sure to look at guides or ask around to see which trinkets you really should be using. Most of the time, you will either have to buy trinkets with emblems of heroism or farm the toc5 dungeon, as those are sometimes the only places that drop the best pre-raid trinkets.

- Head: i245 helm, EoTs
- Neck: i232, ICC5
- Shoulders: i245, EoTs
- Back: i219, icc5. Nothing significant, you'll either need to spend honor, EoFs, or money to get one
- Chest: i232, EoTs or ICC5
- Wrist: i232, ICC5
- Gloves: i232, EoTs
- Belt: i219-232, ICC5
- Pants: i232, EoTs or ICC5
- Feet: i232, ICC5
- Rings: i245 and 251, EoTs and ashen verdict rep
- Trinkets: i245 and i200 from EoTs or ToC5
- Ranged slot: i245, EoTs
- Weapons: i232, ICC5
- (Note: Shields don't drop in heroic ICC5s, they only drop from the normal versions)

Now for stuff you can buy with money - they're all i264 unless otherwise specified (color coded green to red in terms of cost):
Physical:
🟢 Ring of rotting sinew (plate dps)
🟠 Raging Behemoth's shoulderplates (plate dps)
🟡 Carpace of Forgotten Kings (mail dps)
🟠 Ikfirus' sack of wonder (leather dps)
🟡 wodin's lucky necklace (agility dps)
🟢 harbringer's bone band (tank)
🟢 Rowan's rifle of silver bullets (tank gun)
Casters
🔴 Blood Queen's crimson choker (second best caster necklace in the game)
🟡 belt of the blood Nova (mail healer)
🟢 leggings of dubious charms (mail healer)
🟢 belt of the lonely noble (plate healer)
🟡 crypt keeper's bracers (plate healer)
🟡 professor's bloodied smock (leather caster)
🟠 Nightmare ender (wand)
🟢 stiffened corpse shoulderpads (cloth)
🟠 lady's brittle bracers (cloth dps)
Both:
🔴 battered hilt (i251 weapon +special note below)
🟠 Profession Boots
🟠 Profession Pants
🟡 Profession i245 wrists
🟠 Profession i245 chest

+The battered hilt usually fetches a price between 8-20k and gives a 251 weapon. It's important to note that shadow's edge is the best 264 weapon in the game for plate users. It costs 25 primordial saronites to make + an item that drops from the 5th and 6th boss in icc25. Sometimes it's cheaper to buy the primordial saronites and pay a guild to let you in for the quest items than it is to buy the battered hilt, and you'll get a much better weapon

 

🟢 2k gs (The actual gearing guide) 🟢

Most fresh 80s start at around here. If you're lower, don't worry! Your goal here is to get to 3-3.5k GS (don't use heirlooms!) for heroic dungeons. Do the following in order until you get enough gear to go to the next section.

• Look at the information above, figure out what gear you're going to buy, and go buy it
• If you have extra money left over, search the auction house for blue items that are a higher item level than what you're wearing. There are often lots of really cheap blue items that you can use for a small helpful bump
• If you plan on grabbing a pvp cloak or other piece, head over to wintergrasp and do the battleground (Lvl. 77+) or the quests for honor. There are normal quests there to kill things and pick up quest items that are very easy and require no pvp, they give ~19k honor. You might need to play a few battlegrounds to top off on honor you need to buy the item, or wait for the weekly quest reset.
• If you still need items, you'll want to do is run forge of souls (FoS), pit of saron (PoS), and halls of reflection (HoR). They're level 80 dungeons that are harder than normal dungeons, but they drop emblems of triumph and epic items that are better than any other item you can get while questing and leveling. Check first with your guild, then global to find a group to walk in with. If you walk in with a party, you can do it even if your gear isn't good enough. Our guild runs these dungeons all the time, so just type in chat that you want to run them and we'll set you up with a group and teach you how to clear them. 

🔵 3.0-3.5k+ 🔵

Once you get this much gear, you’re ready to do heroics. There’s not much to say about this, just grind out those heroics every day and you’ll earn emblems that you can use to buy really good gear. 
Your goal here is to get to around 4-4.5k GS, because that unlocks the icc5 dungeons that drop many of the best pre-raiding items you can get. 
You should be completing one random heroic every day to get emblems of frost because those are really hard to get without raiding gear. You can buy items that are much better than anything else you’ve seen before, but it takes a while to gather up the emblems. 
At this point, you can also farm out dungeons for your other characters. Emblems of triumph can also buy heirloom armor and weapons, which drastically improve the leveling experience for your alternate characters, along with speeding up xp gains.

If you need help finding your vendor in Dalaran, just ask in guild chat or look it up, people will help you. 

🟣 4-4.5k+ 🟣

 You should still be doing heroics, but at these gear levels you’ll unlock the heroic versions of FoS/PoS/HoR in the dungeon finder. These dungeons on heroic give items that are the same gearscore quality of the set pieces that you can buy with emblems of triumph, but they also drop trinkets, necklaces, belts, and the other items that you can’t buy with emblems of triumph. You should do these three dungeons every day (or at least the ones you need), they give really good items. 
You're also getting to the gear level where you can run ICC rep runs. ICC rep refers to ashen verdict reputation, which is only increasable through killing monsters in the difficult icecrown citadel raid. Getting to a new relationship (friendly, honored, revered, and exalted) with them will give you a free ring that increases with each reputation level increase. At exalted this ring is one of the best rings in the game, and it’s very easy (but somewhat time consuming) to achieve. I recommend everyone get to at least friendly, because it’s fast and will give you a ring that is better than ones you can by with emblems. The rings range from i251 to i277. 

🟠  5k+ 🟠

If you’ve followed everything in the above tips, you should have no problem reaching 5k gearscore. With a bit of money you could possibly even reach 5.2-5.4k. having the gear alone doesn't make you raid ready though, you'll need to make sure that your items are fully upgraded first before you raid. This comes primarily down to enchantments and gems. 
Below are a couple of really handy websites that will help you get ideas for the best enchants and gems to use. Please consider looking through them and make sure all of your items are fully empowered:

Enchants: https://worldofwarcraft.fandom.com/et/wiki/Northrend_enchantments_by_slot
Gems: https://3cgov.com/

If your gear is past 5k, and your items are gemmed and enchanted, then congratulations!! Your character is surely super powerful and raid ready. Make sure you reach out and express an interest to join a raid team too, we’d love to have you!  

Raids and gear levels
Now that you're ready for raids, here are all the raids that give decent gear, along with the public group GS requirements and the item levels that they drop for quick reference!

HC versions give a bump up to dropped loot (like i264 goes to i277, i271 goes to i284, i245 goes to i258) but will obviously require more gear to join:

Onyxia 10 (4.8k-5.0k gs): i232,
Onyxia 25 (5k-5.2k gs): i245,
ToC 10 (4.8k-5.0k gs): i232,
ToC 25 (5.0-5.3k gs): i245,
RS 10 (5.5k gs): i258,
RS 25 (5.5k-5.6k gs): i271,
ICC10 (5.5-6.0k gs): i251,

Tier 10 bosses get increasingly difficult the more you do, so the following are generic average requirements for the different possible aims:

ICC25 3-4/12 (~5.5k gs): i264,
ICC25 6-7/12 (~5.5k-5.7k gs): i264,
ICC25 8-11/12 (~5.7-5.8k gs): i264,
ICC25 12/12 + ~3HC (~5.9-6.0k gs): i264-i277,
ICC25 ~6 HC (~5.9-6.0k gs):  i264-i277,
ICC25 ~8 HC (~6.0k-6.2k gs): mostly i277,
RS25 HC (~6.0k-6.2k gs): i284,
ICC25 ~10-12 HC (~6.2k-6.4k+ gs): i277-i284

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