Posts with tag gear-choices

I'm sure you've heard this one before. Cloth gear drops in an instance, and the leather or mail wearing caster rolls Need on the item because, "it's an upgrade". Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon to see paladins wearing dresses -- and not just in the privacy of their own dressing rooms, either. It was sometimes alright to get armor that wasn't intended for your class because the stats were superior to the item you already possess. Cataclysm intends to reduce the instances of those happening by introducing bonuses with the new Mastery feature:

Ghostcrawler

There is a small Mastery bonus for wearing "your" gear. So a Balance druid who takes cloth will be essentially giving up free stats. Sometimes that may be worth it to them (just as sometimes it's worth it for a Resto druid to take that piece of +hit gear), but often times it won't be worth it especially if it's an upgrade for you.

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Along with the many gear and stat changes that are coming our way in the next expansion, we should look forward to better itemization and gear distribution. It's probably safe to assume we can finally say goodbye to other classes stealing what is rightfully "your" gear. Except for hunters, that is. Everyone knows everything is hunter loot.

Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we'll be talking about the methods used to break down gear and talents into their fundamental parts, and compare them intelligently.

While it's not recognized as an official term by the Oxford Dictionary, "theorycrafting" is definitely the biggest buzzword in the Rogue community. Originally coined by Starcraft players looking to use their mathematics knowledge to perfect their strategies and unit build orders, it refers to the idea of using math to guide your choices, instead of simply playing from your gut.

From the lowest level of forum troll to the most serious raiders, many Rogues love to punch numbers into spreadsheets and talk about the PPM (proc-per-minute) chance of Mongoose. Theorycrafting is a largely arcane art, and unfortunately an inability to play ball with these math magicians can be grounds for ostracism from the discussion at hand. Asking for talent or skill help on the Public Rogue Forums will likely result in recommendations like "Check the spreadsheet or delete your character."

Obviously you've become attached to your assassin of the shadows, so after the cut we'll talk about how to become a theorycrafter even if you weren't first in your algebra class.

Two aspects of my personality come into conflict quite often during my time playing WoW. You see, I love getting the most out of my gear, and pushing every little point of damage I can get out of my equipment. However, I hate doing math in my leisure time. When you really want to get down to min-maxing, you're stuck with that little math part.

Fortunately, there are tools out there to help that out somewhat. The latest tool being Chardev.org, a website that allows you to either build a character from the ground up or import yours from the Armory. Everything from gems to enchants to talents are able to be altered here, and while this isn't the first website to do something like that, it does do something differently. It allows you to see all of your stats, and the breakdown of your spells. Their damage, damage coefficients, casting time after Haste, all of that.

It definitely isn't perfect or a replacement for good math, but it's quality work regardless. The ability to refine your item searches further would help a lot. As it is right now, it just throws you a giant list of what could technically go in that slot, with no way to narrow it down. Still, seeing spell stats and how gear will affect them laid out for you is very cool. Chardev is worth at least a look!

[ via Massively ]