The Warcraft Hunter

One of the coolest pieces of software I have ever seen in a long time is a program called Wow Matrix. It helps you manage your Warcraft add-ons, removing the necessity of searching the Internet for the various add-ons that you might want to use, get updates for, or even search for. Not only that, it will install them for you as well as update regularly.

When you open the program, you have two tabs that you can look at. One shows you the add-ons that you currently have installed and whether they are up to date. The second tab shows a long list of add-ons that are available to be installed. On both tabs they give a short description of what the add-on does. This makes it really easy to pick which add-ons that you want to add.

I would be careful about adding too many add-ons at once though. All add-ons affect the user interface in some way, and too many changes at once could be quite confusing. Until you get used to using an add-on, you don’t always know how to manage the configuration. If you have more than one new add-on, it might be confusing as to which of them is affecting your user interface in a negative way. I currently limit myself to one new add-on per day, so I can get used to what ever an add-on is doing for me. Then once I have the configuration exactly the way I want, I can add a new one without fear of getting too confused. And at my age that’s an important thing!

Wow Matrix is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux… but I have only used it for Windows, so I cannot speak to how it works on the other operating systems.

Add Ons, Basics Add Ons, Basics, Hunter, Resources, software, Warcraft

A friend of mine told me about a great website that objectively rates your gear and shows you which instances and raids that you can expect to do well on currently. It also shows you which instances and raids you can expect to get upgrades from.

When you enter your character name and realm, it looks up your current gear based on what is in the wow Armory, and compares it to what you ought to have.

When I checked out my main character on this site, it listed three issues for me to look at. The first was one low-level item, the second was upgradeable enchants, and the third was one unenchanted item. This gives me a really good idea about what I should go for in terms of my gearing.

For instance, I know that the next thing I need to do in terms of reputation is to get myself revered with Knights of the Ebon Blade. They have an enchantment for the head slot that will give me extra attack power. This is the one unenchanted item that I have, and thus it is the most important thing that I can do to improve my enchantments.

Second, my worst item is a trinket that I am already working to replace. Only after both of these items are done will I actively seek to improve other gear. Of course, if I end up getting better gear I will accept the upgrades, but it won’t be what I am actively working towards.

The assessment also takes a look at sockets and gems, and looks at hit rating. In my case, my gems are fine but my hit rating still needs 92 more to cap.

There is an area on the report where it says that talent builds and talent checks are under development, so presumably it will also at some point begin to check your talents to determine whether you have chosen correctly. I am not sure how this will be implemented, but I am looking forward to seeing it.

At the very bottom there is a summary of your gear given in both numeric and graphical form. The numeric is simply displayed as a PVE gear score, which in my case is 318.29. The graphical display is in two parts: the top part shows you which raids and instances you should expect to get gear upgrades from, and the bottom part shows you which raids and instances you should perform well in based on your current gear. In my case it shows me that I should be ready for the first three 10 man raids, and that I should also expect to get upgrades from here.

What I really like about this site is that it gives us an objective rating that we can show to Guild mates to explain why we think they are ready for something or not. More than this, it also shows us precisely what they can improve giving them clear objective goals.

The only thing that I would like to see different on this site, is for the grass to begin with the lower five man instances. Perhaps it does so for lower-level characters, meaning below 80, but I have some Guild mates at level 80 who simply aren’t ready for most of the instances below this. It would be nice to pinpoint exactly where they ought to be, but at least we can see which slots they most desperately need to improve. And the truth of the matter is, they really don’t need to be doing five man instances in order to get upgrades. They can do so by grinding reputation like the rest of us have.

We are looking at implementing this site as the means of a objectively rating whether or not people are ready to run instances with us at this level. Of course, what this site cannot do is objectively determine how well the player can actually play the game. You can be geared to the nines, and still play stupidly and cause a wipe in even the lowest instances. There is no website that can possibly check that — at least not now.

Resources Hunter, Resources, Warcraft

The WoW Armory is one of the best tools for learning how to play a Hunter (or any class really) because it gives you a chance to compare your stats to those of someone else. For instance, if you have seen that you are not killing as quickly as another Hunter, or you are not putting out enough DPS in raids, you can use the Armory to look up the stats of both yours and the other player’s characters.

When you do a search on a character’s name, you will be given a list of characters to select from (players can use the same names if they are not on the same server). Just find the one that is on your server and click the name, and you will get a screen with their gear and stats. This will be based on when they logged out last, so if that player is still on you will not see any changes they have made.
Each slot shows what they are wearing, and the equipment info related to that item. Even better, you have an option to “Find an Upgrade” that takes you to a page with a list of items that Blizzard says are better than the one shown in the slot, but you need to be a little careful about their definition of “better”. However, the listing is pretty accurate, and I have found many a good item to go looking for based on this. In addition, each item has info on it saying what its source is: player made, quest reward, mob or chest drop, rep or PvP reward.

I have also used the armory to compare my equipment to another player’s, and to look at how much the item’s stat differences contribute to our overall stat differences. This is important in deciding which items to upgrade first. If you have the 2nd best gun in the game, and the other person has the very best, upgrading probably won’t make that much of a difference. However, if you have a different slot that your stats are way lower on, then this is the one to concentrate on first.

Another thing you can look up on the Armory is the Talent specs they have chosen. I have made improvements to my Talent selection by comparing talent by talent what someone else has and what I have. If the talents each of us have chosen are only slightly difference, I would compare what each one gives and try to determine if the trade-off is worth it. If the spec is completely different, I might ask the player if they really enjoy the spec and if it made a big difference if they recently switched to it. I have noticed that several good Hunters I know have switched to Survival, at least those that are raiding. In talking to those who have switched, you can ask for tips like shot rotation, pet talents, and even if they would do something different if they were to respec again.

The Armory has many other good things you can look up, but these are the features that have helped me the most.

Resources Hunter, Resources, Warcraft