Blog Archive by month: May 2011



Blog now also on Facebook

by Tachyon on Thu. 05. May 2011, 16:27

Filed under: blog, facebook



Good news for those too lazy to subscribe in a news reader:
You can now also follow this blog on facebook!

Gear planning and you

by Tachyon on Wed. 04. May 2011, 23:01

Filed under: equipment, loot, planning, gear, stats, items



Gear planning is part of the endgame experience that starts the moment you hit the level cap with a new toon, decked in quest blues, some epics of the last expansion and some green drops. Whether you're a tank, healer or damage dealer, getting gear now pretty much is your key driver that determines your next activities, from the faction reputation grinding to which dungeons you farm.

Know your stats
The first step in gear planning is to find out which primary and secondary stats are useful for your class. In general, primary stats (like intellect and strenght) are more useful than secondary stats (such as crit and haste rating).
Comparing different stats is possible if the stats are interchangeable, so that having more of one stat compensates having less of a second stat.

Stats compensation
For damage dealer classes, the compensation metric is the DPS (healers and tanks have different metrics in form of HPS and damage mitigation).
Let's look at DPS as the function of a set of stats, DPS->f(a, b, ...).
At any given vector of (a, b, ...), there are stat exchange values of dA/dB such that DPS(a, b, ...) = DPS(a-dA, b+dB, ...), meaning we can get the same DPS when reducing stat a by dA when we add dB to b. If, let's say, the DPS remains the same when reducing intellect by 10 and adding 20 crit rating, we could say that 10 int = 20 crit, or 1 crit = 0.5 int.

Stats weighting
Finding those interchange values for your stats is rather complex and can be acomplished by either using statistic models or simulations.
Fortunately programs that calculate those values exist already:

Using those programs, you can calculate stat weights for your current class/spec/gear. Here's the current weigths I get for my mage with RAWR:
  • Intellect : 3.98
  • Spell Power: 2.88
  • Mastery Rating: 1.41
  • Haste Rating: 1.18
  • Crit Rating: 1.13
  • Hit Rating: 0
More intellect is the most important stat for me, worth twice as much as more mastery, and more hit rating is completely worthless. Here we see a problem: more hit rating IS useful for me, because of reforging (I could reforge the hit to another stat), and more so because I already reforged other stats to hit rating (if I had more hit rating, I could reforge back some other stats). I usually assume that I reforged the most worthless stat, so hit rating has the same value for me as that stat.



Normalizing stat weights
In order to compare the stats, I also normalize them to spell power by dividing it by the spell power rating:
  • Intellect : 1.38
  • Spell Power: 1
  • Mastery Rating: 0.49
  • Haste Rating: 0.41
  • Crit Rating: 0.39
  • Hit Rating: 0.39 (reforge back crit)
Now I can directly compare the stats and state that 1 intellect is worth 1.38 spell power, and 1 haste rating is worth 0.41 spell power. Using those values I could even say that 100 intellect is worth as much as 354 cirt rating.

Loot ranking
Given those stat weights, we can now effectively rate how much each item, enchant or gem is worth, by weighting the stats accordingly (for example, an item with 30 Intellect and 20 Mastery Rating is worth 30*1.38+20*0.49 Spell Power). Calculating how much items are worth allows us to compare and rank those items.

Loot ranking can be done in RAWR, with wowhead.com's item search, or with GuildOx LootRank (my recommendation!).


In LootRank, enter your stat values, select the gear sources available to you (instances, crafting professions, PvP items, faction rewards, quest items, etc) and even load your armory profile get a rated gear list that shows you from which items you benefit the most. It also suggests gems and which stats to reforge. You can also have an overall rating that lists the items by added value, I use that to determine my DPS spending preferences.

Improving your gear
Having that list at hand helps you improving your gear over time. You may see some 'low hanging fruits' there, for example trinkets you could buy at the auction house, or faction rewards for which you're already entitled. Get those first.
General strategy:
  • buy items in the auction house
  • craft BOP items
  • grind faction reputation
  • run dungeons for gear and tokens
  • start raiding, and stick to your item priority list
Whoa, that article got longer than I thought it would, sorry for that and kudos for those reading it entirely.
TLDR version: calculate gear weights using RAWR, use LootRank to list gear improvements, grab low hanging fruits, WIN.
Subscribe to Articles:
Subscribe to Comments: