PSA: leveling your gear - a primer

Okay - brought on by my posting this a few times in threads here/there - and by the request that I make this a post...

TL;DR: upgrade your gear, one at a time to each breakpoint (5/20/40) and then bring the other pieces into line with that first one - in order to maximize the character stats of the upgrading

Gearing should be the following:

Focus on Head (+def), Chest (+Health), feet (+health), gloves (+attack), then Utility (+crit chance) in that order. The (+stat) is the base stat on those items - in this order, it will grow your threat most quickly. What to roll on the talents themselves is outside the scope of this post but is covered here.

These will give you the best return on the base stats/threat.

Take one to 5 (to get the gear bonus talent), then the next until your gear is all 5/5/5/5/5

Then take one to 20 and repeat that in priority order (then the climb to 40 if you want - but your roster will be better off if you repeat the leveling-to-20 on every character first).

This minimizes time without the talents, and maximizes the stats which increase your threat and splits the upgrade into manageable chunks which shouldn't take forever.

To get gear shards, you should PLAY OR SIM the highest heroic levels you can - buying energy refills as-needed.

Play >> sim by an order of magnitude on drop rates, btw. * I started simming today since I'm not really grinding anyone to a /10 breakpoint and I got plenty of drops. Who knows anything anymore?

I currently clear heroic 5 & 6 and 3/4 of heroic 7 every day and average between 3-5K shards for doing so.

As always, YMMV.

EDIT: If a character has gears that drop in late campaign (MMDS, for example) do NOT prioritize getting those pieces to 5/20 - wait until you're getting the drops FROM campaign.

It's also been pointed out that some characters' synergies with stats might suggest a different priority order - that's fine - I just wanted to provide a base template for those who aren't already min/maxing