Choices To Make Your Head Spin
iTZKooPA on Thursday, December 18, 2008 - 15 Comments Tags: Strategy, gear replacement, ghostcrawler, itemization, macros, min-maxing, rogue items, rogue loot, tough decisions, trinket 
Blizzard is 100% serious about making us think before we chose to replace our items. While I still have not replaced much of my S2/T4 gear, I am finally at the level which this should start happening. At the moment I have only easily replaced four items, both of my craptacular trinkets from The Burning Crusade days and the rings to boot. The odd thing is, I have replaced my old pair of trinkets nearly three times over. That is right, I have a total of five trinkets that are an obvious improvement.
Of course, this is where the difficult choices Ghostcrawler discussed come in to play:
- First Mate's Pocketwatch
- Fury of the Crimson Drake
- Talon of Hatred
- Fury of the Encroaching Storm
- Death Knight's Anguish
Unfortunately, the WoWHead item comparison isn't of much help because of the trinkets possessing “Use” or “Chance on hit” buffs. Initially, I went back to min-maxing, a practice that I became to loathe so much from vanilla days. Rather than performing the calculations of average gains over time and all that crap, I just guestimated what was best, taking into account the vendor potential. And no, I didn't even bother checking shared cooldowns for swapping potential. I did check for this post though, the Pocketwatch is the only “Use” trinket not shared with the others' cooldown.
My thought process went something like this. Fury of the Crimson Drake is easily vendored once I look at that Pocketwatch, which beats it in every category. Due to my fast weapons, Death Knight's Anguish pops to its full extent (+150 crit) nearly every fight, adding a solid amount of +crit. To top it off it gives you two separate buffs, making me look more beefcake to the opposing faction and generally badass.
The second trinket seems like it will be a more difficult decision, Fury, Talon or Pocketwatch? Fury and Talon offer the same benefits, static +Haste with AP on use. Naturally the numbers are ever so slightly different, Talon with more haste but less AP. However, Fury is only on a one minute cooldown, meaning I can pop it twice as often. Seems like a good enough reason to beat out the Pocketwatch as well.
Pop in a simple macro and finito:
/use Fury of the Encroaching Storm
/cast Slice and Dice
Now that you are out of my head, you can see that I have finally recovered from obsessing over a small increase in DPS. The case can be made for using the later two “Use” trinkets, Fury and Pocketwatch, since they are on separate timers. The added haste over crit would probably increase DPS due to energy generation off of Focused Attacks, though, and again proving Ghostcrawler's point, I would be losing a chunk of +crit to get the haste. I am just gonna stop now...It'll all get replaced soon.
How do you guys go about these hard decisions? I have a few friends who just go for “whatever is cool,” rather than racking their or someone else's brain over the numbers. This goes for everything, armor, tabards, weapons, trinkets. If the gear is comparable the only stat they analyze is coolness. How I envy them.
Reader Comments (15)
Thankfully, with Naxx 10 and 25 man becoming like the new Kara, all of your gear will soon be replaced at level 80.
You would think until you get your T7/T8 and begin collecting your other gear only to find yourself in the same boat. As a caster for me the decision used to be easy when presented with +healing gear that even if it was an upgrade I should hold out because that was obviously meant for a healer. Without it we are left with +haste and +crit +spirit items that depending on where you are at might make huge differences in your ability to push out max dps and its no longer as simple as max my crit and max my dps its now a tricky balance were unless you understand the ratios and numbers your bound to get it wrong. If your raiding you might find a little mp5 helps your dps because you no longer go oom with a boss at 15-25%. Something I have also noticed, misses don't happen nearly as much as they used to when your hit rating is lower than the max was this a known mod that I missed or will they be fixing that soon and I should get all my raiding done quick?
I think its a bit frusterating to get what are essentially identical items from each quest. Yes, one has haste instead of expertise, but they are the same stats. I like clearer choices. X is the best item to use, that kind of thing. Also, am I alone here, does anyone else hate that every piece of armor of a certain class, all look the same? Cmon Blizz wheres the originality?
>Unfortunately, the WoWHead item comparison isn’t of much help because of the trinkets possessing “Use” or “Chance on hit” buffs.
It's also problematic with "X Y of the Z" items as their database only includes the base item and not the various "of the Owl," "of the Whale," etc., variations. :(
I find it's best to keep in mind some of the golden rules for your class and role when making these decisions.
Also keep in mind that what's good for raiding/instances may not be best for leveling in the open.
I personally carried around 6+ trinkets from Northrend while figuring out what's best and what works best together, and still do so for other gear, simply because as I went along I found gear that would replace sacrificed stats somewhere else. There's a lot more gear synergy to watch out for now. Especially in the quest and dungeon blues.
maybe he should try http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35937
I'm not so good a number-cruncher as a lot of other people are, I'm certain. So when I'm in doubt, I usually go for the tried-and-true (ie. keeping what I already have).
Unfortunately, Blizzard has apparently homogenized most of the items for Northrend, making it much more difficult for me to decide on what to equip. C'mon, Blizz! Not everyone can understand the mechanics as well as other players do (and I openly admit to being one of them)!
Id recommend checking out, maxdps.com; they have links to imtemization and comparisons for every class and just about every spec. Currently Rogues are one of the specs not fully update for wrath, and it still suggests combat as your preffered choice and basis some decisions from that. I imagine in the near future and 2nd option for mutilate will be added.
Currently I'm leveling my rogue going on their advice for item ratings, and had similar choices in trinkets. So far from what I can, many rogues are doing this, and it seems to be pretty solid so far.
Best of luck
- David (Omgninja)
I agree with David, Maxdps.com, whilst not perfect gives a good guide on equipment upgrades. Not everything is covered but it will help at the higher levels.
Also people need to understand once you hit 80, and you want to raid, then there is a massive increase in the amount of Hit Rating you need, especially as a caster and this will affect your enchants and gear.
And finally never underestimate a good glyph, especially for an extra 2% in crit.
As a tank i unfortunatly dont have the problem of 5 new trinkets. Since blizz seems to think for those kinds of quests a healer/melee/spell trinket is enough >.>
On other slots i do find items that are almost as good where i have to go figure out which stat would work best with the rest of my gear etc.
I am the same way as KooPA, while leveling I never really think too much about my itemization (let alone check out a website like MaxDPS for the breakdown).
It just seems so pointless to do so much research when something will get replaced in a few levels, as the OP and a few other commentators pointed out.
As I am a tank myself, I have had very few choice issues with gear in Northrend. I've replaced a few items here and there, and Pre-WOTLK I wasn't decked out in raid gear either. I had a few Kara pieces and that was about it.
What I've noticed in Northrend from a tank's point of view is that for every 20 or 30 quests you do there maybe one reward piece that is actually a tank piece. Otherwise, all I have been getting is dps gear that I will never use, lately I have had to run instances and raids just to even pick up the tanking gear. Anyway I'm off the soap box. I'll just have to gear up and shut up. hah.
imma mage and ive now replaced all my gear the prob im having is finding some good trinkets im still using 2 green trinkets ive found in a quest any sugguestions on a good mage trinkets?? im frostfire i mind you some a good majority of my damage is crit based?
Well i use Rating Buster for my gear which tells me exactly wat bonuses imma get from the ger so it comes in handy heaps, try it out =D
I just put all my extra trinkets and rings in the bank. I'll sell them off when there is obvious upgrades.