I thought I’d share with you my “shopping list” for Emblems of Frost. It’s not a BiS list, and I’m not telling you this is what you should do with your badges; I just think it’s valuable to see how other people are prioritising their spending. It helps when you’re weighing up your options. I always like reading what other people intend to do with theirs.


Purified Lunar Dust (60)

My trinkets were quite poor – I was still using Je’tze’s Bell and Sif’s Remembrance. Sadly, not everyone got their hands on Solace/s. So before diving into other gear choices, I wanted to improve my trinkets for a quick spellpower boost. I was lucky enough to snag Sliver of Pure Ice in 10 man (which is almost as coveted, in my guild, as Althor’s Abacus), so those two will serve me very well until I can get an abacus of my own.


Circle of Ossus (60)

This is a 15 int, 21 haste, 13 spellpower and 1 socket upgrade (at the loss of armor and 3 spirit) over my current belt, so it’s a bit of a no-brainer. This belt is my BiS – and in my mind, the faster I can obtain my BiS items, the better. This is the next item I’ll grab.


Vestments of Spruce and Fir (95)

This is another BiS item, heavy on haste (unlike the Tier 10 chest), and all-round delicious. 30 haste and 11 spellpower (at the cost of 18 spirit). Again – if I can cement BiS items early, they are my priority. Expensive, but badges will start to flow a little faster now that the second gate is opening.


T10 shoulders (60) + T10 gloves (60)

The cheapest/fastest route to 2pc T10, which isn’t amazing, but a boost to WG is definitely welcome. I won’t look that gift horse in the mouth. I could go gloves/pants, for two haste items, but my haste is OK at the moment, so I’m not concerned about taking the crit shoulders.

In terms of stats, on the gloves I gain 4int, 4 sta, 12spi, and 7 spellpower. I lose 4 haste (I am currently using T9.5 balance gloves). On the shoulders I gain 13int, 13sta, 19spi, 63crit and 20 spellpower (and a red socket instead of blue), at the cost of 60 haste. That’s a big haste loss, but I’ve picked up 51 haste from the belt and chest, so I’m only down a small amount so far. If I upgrade to the sanctified gloves, I’d gain 9 haste over the original gloves.


T10 legs (95)

The “base” T10 item in this case gives me 6 extra haste and 9 spellpower, but I lose a socket (so it is basically a small downgrade). For this reason, I’d prefer to wait for a token before I get the T10 legs, which would be a 14int, 14sta, 12spi, 18haste and 31 spellpower upgrade (still at the cost of 1 socket). This picks up a bit of the haste I have lost on the other pieces.


T10 head (95)

The helm is a big haste hit – I lose 74 haste and gain 6stats, 80 crit, and 9 spellpower, plus swap from yellow to red socket. Because of the haste hit, this will probably be quite low priority for me (but ultimately, the upgraded version is what I want to be wearing – down the track). I don’t really care for the 4pc bonus, so I will probably wear my current helm quite happily until then.



What’s the damage?

Stats and spellpower are going to go up, that’s pretty much a given – but the question is, what will the changes be to my haste?

All up, by hypothetically equipping these badge items, my haste would change by:

+20 belt
+30 chest
-4 gloves (+5 if sanctified)
-60 shoulders
+18 legs (sanctified)
- 74 head

Total: -69 haste.

My current haste is 780, so that would bring me down to 711. Overall not as bad as I thought it would be. Once we can access heroic modes, my haste will get a little more padding; but for now, while it fluctuates (as I swap new gear in and lose/gain chunks of haste all over the place), I’ll stick with Celestial Focus.

Remember, with full 25man buffs, at 735 haste you need 3/3CF, 775 haste is 2/3, 815 is 1/3, and 856 is required to drop CF altogether.

What does this mean? Basically, it just means that I can’t ditch CF as early as I had hoped. If my haste drops to 711, I’ll need 3/3 CF and 3 more Reckless Ametrines to reach the soft cap of 735. Alternatively, I could go with a Reckless Ametrine and put a Quick King’s Amber in somewhere – probably in my exalted ring – which has a yellow socket. It depends on what my sockets and socket bonuses look like – it may just be easier to go with a King’s Amber, if I don’t have “room” for two Ametrines). I could also opt to put a Quick King’s Amber in my belt buckle, since that has no bearing on socket bonuses.

So it’s not all that bad, really. I’d like to get Revitalize back, soon, but it’s not so bad to have to wait a little while. I have the option of ditching my tailoring cloak enchant and going with 23 haste (I’d prefer not to, though), and tossing in some haste or haste/spellpower gems to top up to the soft cap, if I desperately wanted to recover a point or two from the balance tree. We’ll see.

For now, I’m happy to stick with CF and some gems, until we start getting those heroic items. I’m not feeling the loss of those points too badly.



Possibly Related Posts: