WOW:pre-Naxx mage gear

  The best item pieces and gems depend upon the rest of your gear. It's therefore impossible to say exactly which gem and which item will be the best as it depends on the rest of your gear. However if you follow these rules you will be pretty close to the best you can get.   Gems Use a Chaotic Skyflare Diamond Gem for your meta gem. For red slots use 19 gems. For yellow use 8 crit 9 dmg gems. For blue use 9 dmg 12 stamina gems. Gear Head Crown of Unbridled Magic - Heroic Oculus This is the best you can get without setting foot in raids, however heroic oculus isn't a very common heroic for people to try to do so if you can't get it get this. Flamebringer's Crown - Quest Reward The only problem with this is that to make it good you need to use expensive gems which you might not want to spend the money on. If this is the case go for one of these. Volkhan's Hood - Halls of Lightning Cowl of the Vindictive Captain - Quest Reward Enchant Arcanum of Burning Mysteries - Kirin Tor Revered   Neck Titanium Spellshock Necklace - Crafted This is a very good neck piece. Its expensive though, around 1600g. It's worth it in my opinion though.   Shoulder Dark Runic Mantle - AH Pretty cheap from the AH so get it early in your gearing. Enchant Greater Inscription of the Storm - Sons of Hodir Exalted Lesser Inscription of the Storm - Sons of Hodir Honored Use this enchant untill you are exalted. There are dailys that give reputation so be sure to do these. Back Deathchill Cloak - Crafted Costs about 800g. Only downside is it lacks stamina and intellect. Get it as it's very difficult to replace. Enchant Greater Speed - Enchanter Chest Ebonweave Robe - Crafted The ebonweave gear has loads of hit on it. Its very nice until your other gear gets you close to 11% without it. You could also get the spellweave robe if hit is no problem. Enchant Powerful Stats - Enchanter Wrists Azure Cloth Bindings - Heroic VH Enchant Greater Spellpower - Enchanter Hands Spellweave Gloves - Crafted There is an ebonweave version that has hit however the hit from your chest should hopefully be satisfactory make the spellweave gloves better. Bear in mind though that the spellweave sets and ebonweave are interchangeable depending on how much hit you have. Enchant Exceptional Spellpower - Enchanter Waist Plush Sash of Guzbah - Badges Sash of the Servant - Heroic Azjol Nerub These two are pretty close. The badge piece is better until you have very good gear though. Enchant Eternal Belt Buckle - Blacksmith This is very often forgotten. It adds an extra gem slot to your waist. Legs Woven Bracae Leggings - Heroic HoL Enchant Sapphire Spellthread - Tailor Feet Sandals of Crimson Fury - Wyrmrest Exalted This is the second reputation grind you should do. They are very hard to replace. Enchant Icewalker - Enchanter Ring 1 Titanium Spellshock Ring - Crafted Expensive, 1600g, get it. You pretty much won't replace it until new gear gets added. Ring 2 Signet of the Kirin Tor - Bought I wouldn't consider this to be worth it due to its massive price. If you are totally loaded you might want to get it though. Annhylde's Ring - Heroic Utgarde Keep Trinket 1 Sundial of the Exiled - 40 Badges Trinket 2 Mark of the War Prisoner - Heroic VH This is a very useful trinket that will help you reach the 11% hit rate when your other gear doesn't reach there. Once your gear is good enough to get there without it replace this with one of these other trinkets. Forge Ember - Heroic HoS Cannoneer's Fuselighter - Quest reward This is from a pretty short quest chain so it will probably be worth getting before aiming for the better trinkets. Weapon Flameheart Spell Scalpel - Kirin Tor Revered This should be your first reputation reward. Don't bother getting to exalted as there are no rewards that are really worth it. Enchant Mighty Spellpower - Enchanter The price of this one will mean unless you have a lot of money lying around you will probably go for the lesser version. Exceptional Spellpower - Enchanter Offhand Ward of the Violet Citadel - 25 Badges There are only 3 better offhands in the game at the moment. Ranged Rod of the Fallen Monarch - Heroic Azjol Nerub Wand of the San'layn - Heroic Utgarde keep This has hit on it so use it if your other pieces don't reach 11%. It has the downside of having no stamina/intellect so it's your choice. I tend to just stick with the Monarch.