I Dinged Level 80: Now What? Preparing for Raiding: Heroics, Enchants, and more for Mage

Congratulations! Your mage reachecurrent d the pinnacle of level achievement in World of Warcraft and reached level 80. Relaxing and taking a few months off from the daily mmorpg grind does not prepare the Azertohian mage for his next set of challenges. The focus of the end game for a mage characters is boosting the amount of damage that he can do.

A player can do dailies or pursue the more bizarre achievements if he desires, but most likely he wants to get his character ready to help defeat the minions of the Scourge and the Lich King. A mage needs to know what factions help him most, which enchantments he should apply to his gear and gain one or two items of must have gear that will aid him and his guild turn back the tide of the Scourge. The Kirin Tor faction quartermaster sell gears with desirable spell caster stats.

Mages need intellect and crit rating while leveling up. Raiding mages need these stats as well. Intellect increases the amount of mana in a character's mana pool, and a character's crit rating makes it more likely for a mage to score a critical hit when his spell lands. Hit rating decreases the chances of a spell missing its target. A player can find the hit percentage of his character by opening the character panel and using the mouse to hover over the hit rating. A pull-down box displays your character's hit percentage. DPS casters need a hit rating of 17 percent.

Players use the term enchantments to mean items added to a piece of armor or weapon that add stats to the item. Mages need to go for spell power, hit, crit, and haste. (Spell power is the most important of these stats.) Enhancements from enchanting or from other trade skills further increase these stats. Enginers can add spellpower to their cloak and have it funciton as a parachute. Only engineers can use tinkered items. (Mages also get featherfall and do not have a need for the parachute function.)

Major Enchantments exist that add spell power to gloves and your weapon. Crit percentage adjustments exist for the shoulder, although this adds attack power which a mage does not need. Because spellpower, crit rating, and haste commonly appear on caster gear, enchantments that add to the mage's hit ratings take great priority. Hit rating gems allow the mage to help make up for the lack of gear that boosts a caster's hit rating.