Being a Know-it-All Without Knowing it All: Part 3

Bring it All Together

Now that we’ve had a chance to look at general and specific sources and how each can be used to find the information you need, let’s take a look at how you can put these two types of sources together to cross-reference information and get a more thorough picture of what you’re looking for. Because this seems to be a difficult concept to discuss in abstracts, I’ll use a specific example from my own experience to illustrate the point I hope to get across. I’m going to show you, very specifically, the process I use to determine which gear upgrades to go after and where to get them.

The first step in determining gear upgrades, for me, starts with taking a look at the gear I already have. My first stop is usually The Armory. Once there, I’ll take a look at the items I currently have equipped and determine which of those items could use an upgrade. When looking at my current gear, I start with the general intent of replacing everything. I look at every piece of gear and try to determine how it could be improved. Once I have a general idea of how I might go about improving all my gear, I begin to categorize and prioritize those upgrades based on two criteria: which items are most in need of an upgrade and which upgrades are easiest to get, and then progress from there. Let’s take a walk through my thought processes here.

Step 1: The Armory
I head to The Armory and pull up my character’s info. For each and every equipment slot, I use The Armory’s “Find an Upgrade” feature. Let’s use my head slot item as an example of this process.

So, I click on the “Find an Upgrade” link attached to my current head-slot item: [item]31547[/item] and take a look at the list generated.

The first thing I do is scroll down the list to find where my current piece is placed on the list. Once I find my current piece in the list, I start looking at the pieces directly above it and begin comparing stats. One thing I will usually take into consideration when looking at this upgrade list is the location that The Armory lists the items came from. If upgrades are listed as coming from raid instances, I will make note of those items, but will generally consider them low-priority upgrades opposed to items that come from regular or heroic instances or quest rewards.

Continuing with the example of finding an upgrade for my head-slot item, from the upgrade list generated by The Armory, I see that there are about 15 possible upgrades in the game. I make a note of which of those 15 possible upgrades come from raid instances. Now if those items come from raids my guild is not currently in or has any immediate plans to prepare to enter those raids, then I will discount that item altogether. However, for raids we do plan to attend or are currently attending, I will mark those items down as possible upgrades, but with a low-priority. Here’s an example of what my notes look like so far:

• [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] – Vendor
• [item]28801[/item] – Raid – Gruul’s Lair
• [item]Steelspine Faceguard[/item] – Raid – Karazhan
• [item]28331[/item] – PvP
• [item]31106[/item] – Quest Reward
• [item]31962[/item] – PvP

You’ll notice that, of the 15 possible upgrades to my current item, only 6 of those items made it to my list of things to consider. As I mentioned, I do not include items from raids I’m not in. Let me explain my other criteria: I don’t include leather items, particularly not from raids. Not because I don’t consider them valid upgrades (I am, after all, wearing [item]Edgewalker Longboots[/item] at the moment), but because I expect there to be other people (rogues, druids) that will need the items more than I do. Also, I do not include crafted items in my consideration, unless I know for a fact that I know someone who can make the item. Otherwise, I would have a lot of wasted time and money for an upgrade I can’t even find someone to make. So, once items falling under those criteria are removed from consideration, I’m left with the list of items to investigate further. And that will take us to step two.

Step 2: WoW Head
After visiting The Armory and getting a list of a few items that could be possible upgrades for me, I usually head to WoW Head for more information. I do a search for each item on my list and see what additional information WoW Head can provide.

[item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] – Vendor
This is the first item on our list from The Armory. Now, because I’m familiar with the item already, this part is a bit superfluous, but I’ll go through the process anyway as though I had no clue what this item was all about.

So, I do a search for [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] on WoW Head and it brings me to a page of information about the item. It shows me which vendor I can purchase the item from, and at what cost. In this case, I can purchase the helm from G’eras in Shattrath City, for 50x[item]Badge of Justice[/item]. If I had no idea what a [item]Badge of Justice[/item] was, I would then search WoW Head for that, to follow-up and help determine just how easy or hard this upgrade would be to acquire. Then, I make a note of my findings. My list now looks something like this:

• [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] – Vendor: G’eras (Shatt), 50x[item]Badge of Justice[/item]
• [item]28801[/item] – Raid – Gruul’s Lair
• [item]Steelspine Faceguard[/item] – Raid – Karazhan
• [item]28331[/item] – PvP
• [item]31106[/item] – Quest Reward
• [item]31962[/item] – PvP

Then I move on to the next item on the list: [item]28801[/item] and search WoW Head for that.

The WoW Head search tells me that [item]28801[/item] drops off of High King Maulgar in Gruul’s Lair. I make a note of that, and now my list looks like this:

• [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] – Vendor: G’eras (Shatt), 50x[item]Badge of Justice[/item]
• [item]28801[/item] – Raid – Gruul’s Lair: High King Maulgar
• [item]Steelspine Faceguard[/item] – Raid – Karazhan
• [item]28331[/item] – PvP
• [item]31106[/item] – Quest Reward
• [item]31962[/item] – PvP

For larger raids, I would also include which boss it is: 1st, 2nd, etc. But, because it’s Gruul’s, I know that there’s only two bosses, Maulgar being the first, so I don’t make a note of it. But, in case I did want that information, I would visit Bosskillers to follow-up and determine how far into the raid I would need to go to get to that boss and have the chance to get that upgrade. Then I would return to WoW Head and continue searching for information on my other upgrades, as I did for the first two.

The point I’m trying to illustrate here is that for each piece of gear, there’s a chain of resources I visit to gather as much information as possible about each, so that I can determine how easy an upgrade is to get and thus better prioritize which items to go after first.

Once I have gathered as much information I can about where/how to get each item, then I’m off to step three.

Step 3: Lootables
Before I found Lootables, this is a process I did with pen and paper. I’ll explain the easiest way to do this (using Lootables) first, and then how I did it myself using pen and paper.

Once at Lootables, I’ll do a search for each of the items, just as I did at WoW Head. This time, though, I’ll do a search for my current item first, and then the first three items on my list. Once I’ve found each item, I’ll load it into the side panel of Lootables and do a comparison of their stats, as shown:

Because Lootables will only let you compare 4 items at a time, if I have more than that many items to compare, I will load in my current item plus the first three items on my list and do a comparison of stats. From there, I will determine the best item, then remove the other items from the comparison bar and add the next three items from my list into the comparison bar to continue my comparison. Things I will also take into consideration at this point are how easy the item would be to acquire (based on my previous findings at WoW Head) and whether or not I would need to go into a raid to get an item.

This is the point at which you’ll have to do some math in your head or on paper to determine which items are actually better, and that is why I used to do this step on paper anyway. As yet, I have not found a better system of doing this, although I am currently working on developing one through a web-based application that I will release to the public as soon as I’m satisfied with how it works. Anyway, here’s how I go about comparing items once I have all the information I need:

I write down the item stats side-by-side for all the items I’d like to compare, then I break down the math based on pertinent stat combinations. For example, many hunter items have increases to both Agility and Attack Power, so for each item I would also make a notation of what the total increase to Attack Power would be with the Agility increase included, etc. Here’s an illustration of how I do this:

I break down each comparison by each stat the items have. In the image above, you’ll see I compared every stat that both item had, and gave the totals for the differences. By upgrading to [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] from [item]31547[/item], I would gain 129 armor, 14 intellect, 12 stamina and a red socket and a meta socket, but I would lose 6 agility, 12 attack power and 5 mana per 5 seconds. I follow this process for each item that I could upgrade to, to help me determine which would be most beneficial. This is a perfect example to bring me to the next step in the research chain.

Step 4: Fill In the Blanks
At first glance at the image above, comparing [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] and [item]31547[/item], to a hunter, it would actually be a bad upgrade. Why? Because I would be decreasing my scores in two of a hunter’s most important stats: Agility and Attack Power. However, there is an x factor in the consideration that we haven’t explored yet: sockets. Because the [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] has two sockets, there is still a chance that the loses to Agility and Attack Power could be made up through the use of socket gems, thus rendering the helm a much better item than the eyepatch in the long run. So, we need to fill in the blanks. Are there sockets I could use to make up the difference of 6 Agility and 12 Attack Power with a red gem and a meta gem? Let’s find out.

Since I’m still at Lootables, that’s the resource I’ll use for now (otherwise I would head to the Crafter’s Tome or Thottbot) to do a search on gems. Below is a screen shot of the search I did for gems:

Lootables will then return a list of all the gems that meet your criteria. From there, you can hover over each gem to view it’s stats, and the listing will also tell you whether the gem is created by a Jewelcrafter, whether it’s a drop, or whether it’s a PvP reward. Also, for gems created by Jewelcrafters, by clicking on the gem Lootables will also tell you what is required to make the gem (both the design and the raw gems).

So, to return to our example, we’re looking specifically for gems that will increase Agility and/or Attack Power in this case, and so I make a list of gems that will do that:

• [item]Bright Living Ruby[/item]
• [item]Delicate Living Ruby[/item]
• [item]Potent Unstable Diamond[/item]
• [item]Relentless Earthstorm Diamond[/item]
• [item]Swift Skyfire Diamond[/item]
• [item]Swift Windfire Diamond[/item]
• [item]Bold Ornate Ruby[/item]
• [item]Mighty Blood Garnet[/item]
• [item]Bright Blood Garnet[/item]
• [item]Delicate Blood Garnet[/item]
• [item]Bright Tourmaline[/item]
• [item]Delicate Tourmaline[/item]

So, as you can see, there are plenty of gems, both easy and difficult to come across, that would help make up the difference between the two helms. Personally, I find that [item]Bold Ornate Ruby[/item] is not that hard to come by, as far as PvP stuff goes, so I’ll likely go for that gem. Also, I know that I have plenty of [item]Spirit Shard[/item]s saved up, so [item]Swift Windfire Diamond[/item] would not be difficult for me to go pick up. With the two gems combined, I would have an additional 40 Attack Power, which would make up for the loss of 18 Attack Power from stats, although I would not gain back the added benefits from the 6 Agility lost on crit, armor, etc. At that point, it’s a judgment call. For me, I think the loss of 6 Agility and the benefits associated with it is not worth giving up all the other benefits I would get from upgrading to the [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] and adding the [item]Bold Ornate Ruby[/item] and [item]Swift Windfire Diamond[/item] to it.

Summary
Now that I’ve shown you an example of the process I go through when researching, particularly for gear upgrades, let me summarize the whole thing. First I start with a couple general resources, to get the bigger picture of what I’m looking for. Then I break the findings down into categories and pursue specific sources for more in-depth information to help me fill in gaps in my knowledge. After that, I will go back and pursue any other sources required to get all the information I can on everything I may want to take into consideration, and then I’ll make a personal judgment based on all the data I’ve collected.

In practice:
First I start with a couple general resources, to get the bigger picture of what I’m looking for.
This was Step 1, where I checked The Armory to find possible upgrades. Step 2, where I visited WoW Head, would be considered a transition to the next part of the process:
Then I break the findings down into categories and pursue specific sources for more in-depth information to help me fill in gaps in my knowledge.
Step 2, WoW Head, would be a part of this stage of the process. Also, Step 3, where I visited Lootables and did some pen and paper work, would fall under this part of the process as well.
After that, I will go back and pursue any other sources required to get all the information I can on everything I may want to take into consideration
This would be Step 4, where I fill in the blanks. As illustrated, I had to do some research on gems to help me determine if the [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] would be a smart upgrade or not.
And then I’ll make a personal judgment based on all the data I’ve collected.
After taking into consideration the information I gathered on gems, and looking at the other stat increases/decreases from my research, I determined that the [item]Warpstalker Helm[/item] would be a good upgrade from my current piece.

So, there you have a working example of how I use general and specific sources and cross-reference them to help make judgments on gear upgrades. This is just one example of how this process could be put to use. I used the example of upgrading a piece of my gear, as this is a question I’m asked very frequently. Now you know how I do it! And now you also have the tools to do it yourself, in a thought-out and educated manner.

Hopefully you’ve found this series of posts helpful!