Project Lore

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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The smoke is starting to clear from all the changes in patches 3.1 and 3.1.1, and players are figuring out how all the class changes have affected preferred talent specs and accompanying glyphs. Also, with the recent addition of dual spec, there are a lot of players out there who've recently been looking into the best builds for different aspects of gameplay. So there was plenty to consider with the patches, and thankfully we have a lot of tools out there for figuring out which builds we like best. When I was trying to figure out how to spec for my foray in the arena tournament, I used the WoWWiki page for rogue builds, found the PvP spec I liked best, then figured out how to gear up based on my new talents. But there are downsides to that route - posters don't always have the best insight into which builds are best, and there's a whole array to choose from, each with slightly different tweaks. Now I'm all for personalizing your character based on your own preferences and playing style. But when thinking about completely switching your specs (or adding a dual spec), sometimes it's good to go for the tried and true specs to start off with, then figure out what changes you want to make from there. I think the best tool out there for this is TalentChic.com, and the recently added sister site, GlyphChic. Here's how it works:

"To find the most popular talent builds, the system scans both the US and EU WoW armory sites to find the talent points chosen by characters. It then sorts those according class, spec and playstyle and collates the results... We continually scan the armory and update the popularity score of the most popular builds hourly. "

Just by looking at the TalentChic home page, we can see that the overall most popular builds among "the best players" who are included in the calculation are:

1. Elemental Shaman 57/14/0
2. Restoration Shaman 0/16/55
3. Fire Mage 0/53/18
4. Combat Rogue 15/51/5 (And coincidentally, also the spec I'm working my main toward)
5. Shadow Priest 13/0/58

But the interesting part is when you use the site's filters to break down the popularity of a build according to class and find out specifics. As of my writing this, the top 10 most popular Death Knight builds are either Frost or Unholy, with Blood only making the list at number 11. You also can sort the list according to specific talent trees. The top four builds for hunters, for example, are minor variations on a survival spec.  But you also can look specifically at the beast mastery tree to see that among those specs, several different versions of a 53/11/7 build are the most prominent. And if you want to watch and see how any patch changes affect the popularity of builds, you can sign up to get updates when a specific page on the site changes. Currently, the site is updated based on how players have rebuilt their specs that were reset with patch 3.1 and again with 3.1.1. The sister web site, GlyphChic, operates very similarly. You choose your specific considerations, and the site reguritates useful stats back at you. Among players who also use my favored combat spec, for example, the most popular major glyphs are of sinister strike, rupture and slice and dice, while the favored minor glyphs are of blurred speed, vanish and safe fall. The site's been around since the talent respec that came with 3.0.2, and the WoW community continues to be a little smarter because of it. So for anyone who hasn't checked it out yet or who hasn't been back since last Tuesday, definitely take a look. You may find yourself surprised, entertained or at least more informed.

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