DPS Mage TBC Pre-Patch BiS Gear Guide

While a clear best in slot (BiS) list is always available in WoW Classic, the items contained might be extremely hard or expensive to get before Outland. Thus, we will try to give at least one alternative, for most slots in the list, so that you can pick where and how to farm them. Further, for freshly boosted or ungeared Mages, this guide contains an "easy-to-get" list of items, which are still pretty decent.

If you are in the aoe farming business, you mostly want items with high amounts of stamina and intellect on them. Some farms, such as the Maraudon boost shown in Arlaeus' video, become easier when wearing gear with Nature Resistance, and 5 pieces of the Netherwind Regalia, but these are not required.

With TBC around the corner, it will be hard for most players to get their full Best in Slot gear in time. Further, freshly boosted 58 characters also want to become raid and TBC ready as fast as possible. Therefore, the following list will show you a way to get acceptable gear, which is in some cases worse than the optimal pre-BIS, and is for most cases very easy and fast to obtain. Do not fear wearing a green item, if it is extremely easy to get and has acceptable stats.

Naxxramas is the final destination of the original World of Warcraft, and as such carries the best gear and the most difficult bosses.

Mage Tier 3, Frostfire Regalia looks amazing and has great stats, and in TBC the 6-Set bonus is better than it was in Classic. We will be listing multiple pieces of this set below, regardless, as their raw stats more than make up for the lack of useful set bonuses.

In Naxxramas, all bosses are undead except for Grand Widow Faerlina and Maexxna. This makes specialized anti-undead items such as Rune of the Dawn, Mark of the Champion and the Regalia of Undead Cleansing set really effective. On top of that, these items can also be used against undead enemies in Karazhan and the Mark of the Champion is considered BiS when fighting demons. Consider any of these items and the full set of undead cleansing to be a top 3 piece of gear for its slot.

While the list above contains the absolute best gear setup, you are unlikely to quickly gather all of it. We provide more options below, some which are very close to the best and some which are just much easier to get!