In this post, I will try to ease and speed up your gear progression while maintaining stats coherence.
It starts before level 80 and should end before hardmodes. Results depends on your playtime, motivation, perseverance and a bit on luck. Moreover, another element must be taken into account : golds. I will try to always suggest an alternative when golds are needed. However, the more you have the faster it will be especially when it comes to Primordial Saronite and BoE items. I also assume you have access to at least the first ICC wing in 10 and 25 man every week.
So to make a quick recap, you will have to :
- do heroics
- do daily heroic and weekly raid quest
- farm golds (if you don't want it to take ages)
- try to join Trial of the Crusader raid
- do Vault of Archavon every week
- do at least ICC first wing every week (when your gear starts to be ok)
It definitely starts before level 80. From 70 you have the possibility to do daily normal dungeon for 2 Emblem of Triumph which, depending on how fast you get to 80, can help you start with a good amount of badges.
Once lvl 80 spec like this and use Glyph of Swiftmend, Glyph of Nourish (or Glyph of Wild Growth if you plan to raid) and Glyph of Innervate.
If you have golds, the first thing you should buy is mats to craft your Blessed Cenarion Boots :
12x Jormungar Scale
5x Arctic Fur
10x Eternal Life
If you have more golds to spend, you might take a look at the following items at the Auction House (in order of preference) :
Merlin's Robe (or the mats to craft it)
Bejeweled Wizard's Bracers (or the mats to craft them)
If you don't have enough golds, start doing heroics as much as possible. If you can't because your hidden gearscore does not allow you to enter heroics, buy cheap frost resist items or blue items at the Auction House and equip them to enter. Once you have access to heroics, stack Emblem of Triumph.
You must keep balance between spell and haste and it can be achieve with optimal gems setup. Play with Reckless Ametrine, Runed Cardinal Ruby and Quick King's Amber. You can do the same with blue quality gems if it's too expensive for you. When you start to get ilvl 251+ items, you must definitely aim for 735 haste (soft cap).
Evoker's Charm (by changing to Emblem of Conquest)
All items you could find in heroics with Spell, Spirit and Haste (or crit) better than your green quest items are good too. If you can do ToC 25, try to upgrade your item set with Trophy of the Crusade and get some good upgrades :
Solace of the Defeated (extremely good trinket)
As soon as possible, complete the 3 heroics in ICC to get the 6 Emblems of Frost from the related quests. You might find some interesting item too.
Forge of Soul :
Pit of Saron :
Hall of Reflection :
While progressing with Emblem of Triumph you will start to have a good amount of Emblems of Frost. Now you will face hard choices. A 4T10 costs 310 Emblems of Frost and 4T9 bonus is better than 2T9 + 2T10 (even with stats upgrade). So in a perfect world you would want to drop your full T9 for a full T10. I can definitely imagine how hard it is to keep stacking Emblems of Frost till 310 so I'll not advise you to do that (even if it's what I did). Once you dropped 4T9 bonus, you can drop all the set.
Circle of Ossus (if you don't have access to Professor's Bloodied Smock or don't have the gold to buy it at the AH)
In ICC you should focus on :
Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom Reputation
Midnight Sun 10
Keep in mind that Emblems of Frost need focus. Miss the least possible daily heroic, weekly quest, VoA 10 and 25, ICC 10 and 25.
Now it's up to you.
For advanced gear advices and specifications check this post.
