armory-tools
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Breakfast Topic: Presenting the ever-accessible auction house!
So a few days ago, word was released that Blizzard is working on a new feature for the ever-changing armory...they're going to add auction house access without being in-game! Now, I don't know about you, but I find that all kinds of awesome. I love playing the auction house (it's oddly satisfying...don't ask), and have many times in the past simply logged on to check my auctions to see how they were doing. Personally, I find this to be an amazingly convenient ability for the armory. Unfortunately, the dreaded 'p-word' has reared its ugly head: Premium. Most of us know that 'premium features' will usually equal 'if you want it, let's see some green.' I have to say that I wasn't super impressed with the idea of paying for yet another feature, but in today's world of micro-transactions and the like, would you pay extra money for that kind of convenience? Take the iPhone app, for example. Say the 'freemium' version is, well, free, and the premium armory--complete with auction house tracking--is...an extra five dollars. As far as micro-transactions go, that's not too shabby. Honestly? I'd pay it. So what do you guys think? Are you excited about the auction house tracking in the WoW Armory? Do you think it's the worst idea ever? If you like it, would you pay for it? Yes/no/banana? Discuss!
Mining the armory for Hunter pet statistics
With Hunter pet information recently added to the armory, Data Miner Zardoz has wasted no time getting his hands on the raw Hunter pet data and breaking it down. The data is only for level 80 Hunters, and only 10,000 of those at that, but it still gives a very interesting snapshot of what's going with the Hunter's best friends. It might not be too big a surprise that Cats are far and away the most popular pet at a count of around 9500, nearly doubling again the amount of Wolves, who come in just under 5000, which are in turn used in numbers over twice as much as the next popular choice, Gorillas, who are just above 2800 in number. Now mind you, this information does take into account pets that are in the stables as well, and there's certainly the possibility that a lot of them have just stayed in the stables for a long time.
Wowhead releases character profiler
Wowhead has been promising a profiler system for quite some time (it's been under development for over two years, according to the site), and now it's finally here. Wowhead's profiler has pretty much every feature you might want from a modern profiling site, and fits right in to the excellent Wowhead interface. Armory import, 3D character view, gear sets, gear scores, upgrade search - it's all there. You can save your characters however you want, link them to your friends, check puggies, and so forth. It's just gone public, so bugs are to be expected. Report them to Wowhead if you find them; the Wowhead team is very responsive. New features are also in development, such as embeddable 3D widgets of your characters, or automatic comparison between items in the site database and a profile of your choice.
Armory Light updated, renamed "Armory Heavy"
Armory alternative Armory Light (not to be confused with Armory Lite) has just passed its first birthday, and to celebrate, the site is relaunching with a bevy of new features. Pages for each item, with information on where it comes from, what it disenchants into, and how to link it in game. All the same info from the official Armory, basically. 3D models for some items. Not as good as Wowhead's, but nice if you're already on the site, I guess. A desktop app, built in Adobe Air (and hence cross-platform) to show 3D models of items. Not really sure what the point of this is, but somebody probably likes it. Heirloom calculator: Now this is cool. It lets you take any heirloom item and see how its stats scale at any level. Not many sites have this. A talent calculator. It's slow, jittery, and not particularly attractive, but they do have a talent calculator. A "powered by Armory Light" JavaScript to include on your own site, which gives you not only item tooltips (which a few other sites do), but also character tooltips, like the one at right (an example character, not one of mine). Seriously cool. I can definitely see myself using this feature; it's a great way to get a thumbnail sketch of a character.
Guild calendars implemented in the WoW Armory
You all know about the new in-game calendar feature that came with patch 3.0.2, right? Right! The calendar has just been integrated into the Armory as well, and it's really quite cool. By logging into the Armory and clicking on the Guild tab, you can check out all of the events your guild has listed on the calendar via the interwebs. You can Accept and Decline event invitations right from the Armory, but I haven't seen an option to create new ones from there. That's something you'll still need to do in-game.When I saw this on the official WoW website, I sort of rolled my eyes because the Armory hasn't updated my Shadow Priest's gear or spec in months. How can it possibly keep up with the calendar? I did a little poking around with it, and I was pleasantly surprised. I created a new event in-game on our guild calendar, and it showed up on the Armory about ten minutes later. I accepted the event on my alt on the Armory, and that showed up in-game almost instantly. If the features keeps that kind of stability long term, I will definitely appreciate having it. Little conveniences like this really help the community feel of guilds.Now to bug people about integrating this into Facebook and the like.
Slippery stats and spells revealed by Chardev
Two aspects of my personality come into conflict quite often during my time playing WoW. You see, I love getting the most out of my gear, and pushing every little point of damage I can get out of my equipment. However, I hate doing math in my leisure time. When you really want to get down to min-maxing, you're stuck with that little math part.Fortunately, there are tools out there to help that out somewhat. The latest tool being Chardev.org, a website that allows you to either build a character from the ground up or import yours from the Armory. Everything from gems to enchants to talents are able to be altered here, and while this isn't the first website to do something like that, it does do something differently. It allows you to see all of your stats, and the breakdown of your spells. Their damage, damage coefficients, casting time after Haste, all of that. It definitely isn't perfect or a replacement for good math, but it's quality work regardless. The ability to refine your item searches further would help a lot. As it is right now, it just throws you a giant list of what could technically go in that slot, with no way to narrow it down. Still, seeing spell stats and how gear will affect them laid out for you is very cool. Chardev is worth at least a look![ via Massively ]
Gankbang: For those times you really need an ego boost
While not a new site, Gankbang has recieved a push on a few different realm forums recently and it seems few know about it. A shame!Gankbang pulls character stats from the Armory and compiles them into a fun little searchable tool. It gives you the option of breaking down your search by class, talent spec and specific stats. You can also choose to search by specific realms, factions and battlegroup. You don't have to pick through those things if you don't want to, a WoW-wide search works as well.The most obvious use of this tool is to stroke your ego when you come up in the top ten of a search. I'm pretty sure everyone who's been to Gankbang before has done that at least once. Another good use of the tool is to find the players of your particular class who either know what they're doing, or at least are doing really well in the end-game. As a shadow priest, it was fun to do a few searches(shadow damage, spell haste) to see who's on top, and use their Armory profile to see what's available to me. If you're on a friendly, homely server, those people on top might have some good advice for you too, if you're in need of it.It has a few issues, though. Due to Gankbang's update frequency and that of the Armory, your stats may not always be current if you have multiple sets of gear. In addition, while Gankbang strips most buffs when grabbing character data, there are a few things that slip through. For example, a search for melee crit on warriors has the number one warrior listed with 116% crit.Oh, by the way, if you're not showing up on a search? You can add yourself manually by using the link at the top of the Gankbang website.
