Hmm, only a light smattering of Warlock hate? Well I suppose it is the holidays after all.

@ Zhivra

I think the correct order would be Normal Trial of the Champion (5-man), then Heroic (again 5-man) for both the badges that they will net you allowing you to purchase a few epics as well as the 10+ epics that are mage friendly upgrades. This will then get you into just about any heroic 5-man netting you even more badges and more loot. This only gets better in 3.3 with the badge changes...

I highly recommend the linked articles that Mr. Belt has towards the end of this article. I read those right after I dinged 80 on my mage and was in the fast-lane to full epics in a very short amount of time.

Once you have normal/heroic 5-man on farm (note heroic does have a reset timer so only one run per day) then its onto ToTC & ToTGC...(if you're ready to raid that is).

@ Mr. Belt, great work as usual and certainly understandable on the pie. Oh the pie.

Trial of the Champion. Note the distinct lack of "Heroic" in that phrase.

ToC is great gear for a little output. Heroic ToC is the hardest Heroic 5-man in the game. Not the same, despite sharing an acronym.

@JKWood

I lost count of "just-dinged-80" players whom I carried through heroic TotC. They said that they were told that they should do a) heroics, b) TotC, so they went into heroic TotC.