1. Accurate magelo for everyone to see.
2. Submit your magelo to and view the profiles of better-geared Shamans in guilds slightly ahead of you in progress; find those guilds at
3. Visit and and view the drops for the zones you'll be hitting. List what would be good upgrades for your gear and focus. I suggest avoiding 'active pursuit' of an item (significant dkp or effort) unless it's at least a 20% hp upgrade from what it replaces, a significant focus/clicky, or a good combination of hp and focus/clicky.
4. In a spreadsheet, list your current gear by slot, and what upgrades are worthwhile to pursue, with a column for each zone. Example:
![Image](http://samanna.net/ss/gearupg.20jul05.jpg)
Ding! You're now an educated consumer.