Project Lore

I just picked up a new iPhone 3GS, and I must say I am really enjoying it. I've used a few WoW applications on it that aren't very good, but now Blizzard has released their second official application - the World of Warcraft Mobile Armory for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Once you login using your Battle.net credentials, you can access all of the armory in a very slick interface. You can see your gear, achievements, stats, and pretty much anything else that you could see in the full version of the Armory. In fact, it seems a lot faster than the web version of the Armory (even over 3G), and the interface is a lot easier to use. The home screen allows you to choose from your characters or bookmarked characters. You can quickly switch between them with a beautiful "page-flip" animation. Searching allows you to quickly find characters, items, guilds, or arena teams to view. The item view is wonderful and detailed showing where items can be obtained, their full stats and description, as well as disenchanting data. There appear to be notifications with the calendar feature, which could end up being extremely useful. I've been trying to find an easy way to get my armory calendar in Google, and having my iPhone let me know when its time to raid solves the problems entirely. Other features include a leaderboard for achievement points among your characters and bookmarked characters or guild, talent calculators, and armory news directly in the application. This replaces all of the other WoW applications I've been using and it does a much better job. Check it out at the official armory site! What do you think? Will this replace your alt-tabbing to evaluate players in-game, and do you really need the Armory on your phone?

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I'm always on the look out for new tools to use to keep track of trends in WoW. And it looks like a favorite of mine, what used to be called TalentChic, recently updated to allow users to find the most popular gear, enchants and gems, depending on a number of filters. I wrote a post a while back about how to use the same site to find talent builds and appropriate glyphs for those filters, so I'll skip over that information this time around. Now, the site is renamed WoW Popular, and has several other useful tools. Here's a refresher on how it works:

"To find the most popular talent builds, the (WoW Popular) system scans both the US and EU WoW armory sites to find the talent points, glyphs, gear, enchants, and gems chosen by characters. It then sorts those according class, spec and playstyle and collates the results."

Now I'm sure this is a debatable point, but the site asserts that the results of this search show the most accessible gear for a class.

"Because there are a limited number of choices, the collective mind of all players usually migrates to the best, most accessible option for players. What’s ‘best’ (top tier raid gear, or top arena gear) is not attainable for most players so it is usually shown a little further down the list."

Time for a little fun. Let's test out the system by taking a look at the most popular gear items among players of ALL classes. Here's the top 5, as of my writing this post!

1. Sundial of the Exiled
2. Band of Channeled Magic
3. Ward of the Violet Citadel
4. Tabard of the Kirin Tor (I guess we have a lot of raiders looking for Kirin Tor rep rewards out there!)
5. Shroud of Luminosity

Now, how about a look at the most popular main-hand weapon, again among all classes:

1. Hammer of the Astral Plane
2. The Turning Tide
3. Wraith Strike
4. Torch of Holy Fire
5. The Impossible Dream

Let's narrow it down a bit - Now a look at the most popular main-hand weapon for a fury-specced warrior:

1. The Jawbone
2. Betrayer of Humanity (I'm envious of that DPS)
3. Titansteel Destroyer
4. Armageddon (You will destroy the world with this weapon)
5. Ironsoul

As you can see, you can narrow down or broaden your search depending on what you're looking for. The search works for each armor slot, and you also can add in another search requirement based on one of five playstyles: crafted, mob, PvP, quest and raid. If it's not gear you're looking for, you can search for glyphs, gems or enchants, too. It's pretty handy and can simplify the dilemma in choosing gear - if you have faith in what other players are using. For the skeptics out there, try it out and let us know what you think. Are the results surprising? About what you expected? ...Laughable?

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If you haven’t been over to the Armory lately, you should definitely check it out. Blizzard has just done a major update which displays all of our achievements and game statistics along side the typical gear and reputation information. Reviews have been a bit mixed on this. I, for one, think it's great, but there are those that would argue there is now a bit too much information available to anyone interested enough to look it up. For me the armory has always been an invaluable tool when deciding if it is worth my time to go along on that PUG heroic. You can check out the groups gear and see if they are up to the task. It can also be very useful when filling out raid slots. I remember a few slow raiding nights where we almost took a few people in quest greens into The Eye because they claimed to be “geared.” A quick Armory can usually let you know really quickly what you are dealing with. Now the new Armory goes a bit beyond that; not only can you check out a persons gear, you can check to see if they have cleared that heroic before, or any heroic, or if they have ever earned an emblem of heroism. You can even see if what raids they’ve done, how much gold they’ve earned, and how much their biggest heal has been for. It’s all amazing really. I’ve heard arguments though. Is it really good to have the amount of gold you have earned out there? Doesn’t this make you a target for gold farmers, or beggers in Stormwind? While I personally like it, and don’t feel like I have much to hide. It still begs the questions. How much available information is too much? What do you think? Are you digging the new armory, or wanting your privacy back?

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