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Insider Trader: Popular enchants and where to get them
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.If you've ever spent any time sitting in trade chat, you could probably make a list of some of the most popular enchants. Requested frequently, any enchanter possessing the the knowledge to imbue a weapon or piece of armor with the proper stats stands to make a fair amount of gold. For example, a healer seeking Major Healing, or a meleer seeking Mongoose, will know the materials, and gather them. Each time they replace their respective weapons, back into trade they will go to request the enchant. Today, Insider Trader presents a list of some of the most requested enchants with information about how to obtain them so that you can offer them to friends, guildmates, and your server. It is by no means a complete list, but it will get you off to a shining start and provide you with quite a to-do list. Check out the comments section for helpful details as well. Drop rate data was gathered from the Armory, and Blizzard uses ranges such as Very Low (1-2%). This is narrowed down with data from Wowhead where appropriate, but keep in mind that some bind on pick-up recipes can only be seen by enchanters, and Wowhead cannot filter out that data, making their estimate much lower than the actual drop rate. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be working on the faction recipes series, focusing on enchanting, so stay tuned.
Blizzard C&Ds iPhone Armory app
Blizzard has been hiring mobile developers for a little while now, and we might finally be getting a hint as to why. Theoria, the developer of Armory Browser, recently received a cease and desist letter from Blizzard legal, and will therefore be suspending development on the program, and pulling its distribution on Monday the 25th. Armory Browser is a $0.99 app for viewing Armory profiles on the iPhone/iPod Touch. The interesting part is that it contains all original artwork – nothing taken from Blizz – and, as the author puts it, is "basically a fancy web browser." So why should Blizzard bother putting a stop to it, when it doesn't really infringe? Well, maybe they're writing their own. Legions of WoW fans would certainly love to have a little bit of the game to carry around in their pockets, whether it's mobile auctions or just an Armory viewer. I've certainly installed an Armory viewing app already, and I just got my iPhone three days ago. Anyway, the only way I can make sense out of Blizzard bothering to put a stop to this little development project is if they want their own software to be the only iPhone Armory browser out there. Or it could also be because they don't like someone else making money off their game – $0.99 isn't much, but it's something, and as far as I know the free Warcraft Characters app is still in the clear. I prefer to believe it's a sign of a Blizzard iPhone project in the works, though.
Why Blizzard needs to put AH data on the Armory
There is a certain party, a regular emailer to us among our readers, who believes that we here at WoW Insider take a little too long at the start of our posts to get to the actual point of each story, so in this one, I'll just get right down to it: Blizzard needs to put Auction House information on the Armory.I've been on the grind to the 5000g for my epic flying mount lately, and I've been playing the Auction House like a demon: calculating, buying, selling, and crafting my way to as much gold as I can throw together. And while Auctioneer has definitely helped, the best way I've found to track prices and make sure I get the most for my time in the AH is just to see the prices themselves -- no average price calculated by Auctioneer is worth enough as seeing the real thing. And that's where Blizzard comes in -- while there are a few sites that attempt to track prices with various methods, they have actual, constant access to the prices on every server. And they have a great place to put them: on the Armory.The item pages on the Armory right now are practically empty -- besides some vendor and reagent information, there's almost nothing there (especially compared to, say, Wowhead). Giving player access to AH information would pull them into the game even when they couldn't play, not to mention let some of Blizzard's most talented web programmers -- their fans -- at data that they could do tons of great stuff with. Want a text alert when your favorite mats drop in price, or when there's room on the AH to finally sell off those Elixirs of Agility you've got? By passing out AH info to the Armory, Blizzard could give fans access to the data needed to make their own great tools, not only leaving Blizzard free to work on actual development, but giving us Auction House haunters all the access we need to track prices and have that much more fun playing the AH.
WoW Insider Show Episode 51: Downranking no more
I didn't realize until right now that that was Radiohead's National Anthem sneaking into the WoW Insider Show's theme song -- shows how much I listen to the cool mix of Warcraft sounds that Duncor put into our intro. But yes, if you listen to this week's WoW Insider Show, now available on WoW Radio's website and over in iTunes, not only do you get the dulcet tons of my voice, Turpster's accented vocalizations, and the stylings of WoW Insider's Amanda Dean, but you also get to hear a little bit of Thom Yorke's band as well. And, you'll hear us talking about: The whole BlizzCon deal, specifically if the apology from Mike Morhaime smoothed things over (we mostly think it did). What's up with potion sickness, and whether it'll stay until Wrath goes live. How the downranking changes might affect both PvE and PvP, among a number of other changes coming in the beta And lots of other stuff, including Turpster's appearance on How I WoW, and all kinds of emails from listeners, including a tip about a mobile Armory app, and whether I'm still a Shaman fan or not (I am, but frankly I'm slipping a bit -- Hunters are just so much more fun). If you'd like to email us about something you hear on the show, please do: the address is theshow@wow.com. Enjoy the show this week, and we'll see you next Saturday as always over on WoW Radio for the WoW Insider Show.
Characters for iPhone updated to 2.0
The Warcraft Characters app for iPhone that we reported on a while ago has been updated to version 2.0, and with it come a host of terrific improvements. As we were told last time, gear has been added in, so your iPhone can not only show you information about your (or anyone else's) characters, but it can now also show you all of their gear, and even reputation status. And there's good news for non-US users, too: the app now supports characters from any and all realms, not just US and EU, but Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese realms as well. The only thing that's still missing is seeing individual talents -- otherwise, it's as featured an app as you can get. Sure, guild search and stats might be nice, and there's always extra features like be.imba integration, or character comparisons, but as a portable Armory, it works great as is. We're not sure if this is all Rudi's work or a result of a teamup with Omen of Clarity (who's been working on an iPhone web app for a while), but either way, great job.And there's a shiny new icon, too (and I like it a lot better). Characters is now available on the iPhone's App Store for the low, low price of free.
Warcraft Characters for the iPhone
Finally, we've got a WoW app for the iPhone, but it's not quite what we'd expected. Apparently tired of waiting for Blizzard to release an official app, Rudi has taken things into his own hands and released Characters for the iPhone, a slim little app that lets you pull up your characters (or anyone elses), and browse through their Armory stats.I installed the app (it's free), and took a look at it -- unfortunately it's not very robust, as there's no way to see gear (unlike Omen of Clarity's iArmory web app), but it does run great and look shiny. Upon running the app, you can just punch in your character's info (or anyone else's -- all you need is a name and realm), and it'll get added to your list. Choosing one sends you to screens where you can see information about professions and talents, ability stats, or combat stats.And that's pretty much it -- more is planned, including reputation, talents, and items panes. EU and China support should be up in a few days (right now, it only works on US characters, and of course it depends on the Armory being up to update). Very nice for a first try, but we still can't wait until we see something a little more in-depth, or, dare we ask whoever's working in Blizzard's mobile division, even official.Note: This writeup is current as of version 1.0. Later versions of the app will likely include added functionality.%Gallery-28793%Update: Good news from OOC: he and Rudi are planning to work together on the Characters app, which means it should soon have all the functionality of the iArmory web application, and then some. Saved characters? Character compare? Guild progression and be.imba integration? Yes please!
I Play WoW on Facebook
A little while back, we checked out a Facebook app to show your WoW characters in your profiles, and just this week, reader Orangelick asked for an update to the other app we linked to, called I Play WoW. Previously, I couldn't get it working, but I gave it another try, and as you can see above, it works just fine. In fact, it's pretty customizable, even moreso than what I implemented above -- you can upload a picture for your character, and even give status and description updates for every character on the roster.If you're looking for some WoW representation on Facebook, it'll do you right. The only real complaint I have is that it doesn't by default show off any armor or stats that you have (the other app, WoW Armory, does, and here's another app that's even flashier if you want to go that way), but then again, how many of your Facebook friends really want to follow your characters that closely? And there's a quick link to the Armory page for those who do. All in all, nice app, and the perfect way to show a little WoW pride on Facebook.
WoW Heroes sets you right at endgame
We've covered sites like this before (Be Imba is probably the one best known), but here's another character comparison/improvement tool for you to use online. WoW Heroes is a site that will look up your character's significant info from the Armory, put it in an easy-to-read format, and then help you check out all your stats, enchants, and gear, and help you find improvements to what you're wearing. It's not as judgemental as Be Imba -- you just get the stats and the facts, not yelled at for not having gems in your sockets (though getting yelled at might be just the motivation you need to get better), but it does provide suggestions in a much gentler way, including what kinds of enchants to use and what kinds of instances to run.And one fun feature that isn't as easy to do on Be Imba is the comparison tool -- you can put in two characters' names and servers and very easily look at both at the same time, comparing item levels and/or seeing where the gear came from. Neat feature, and very easy to get up and running, no login or signup needed.There is one drawback -- you can't see any characters in the system that are below level 70, so WoW Heroes is only for people trying to find improvements and options in the endgame -- if you're below 70, you'll have to go elsewhere. But as an endgame character improvement tool, it's another good option to use.
Armory updated with Season 4 gear
The World of Warcraft Armory has just been updated with Season 4 Brutal Gladiator and Guardian -- or Honor-bought -- gear. This update comes hot on the heels of the new Arena season, which began last June 24. This probably isn't what Robin had in mind when she asked if the Armory needs more information, but it's a timely addition to Blizzard's extensive database and may help players plan out their gear. For a more extensive overview of all the class armor sets, however, you can go check out WoW Insider's Season 4 gear guide.
Breakfast Topic: Is more data needed in the Armory?
Yogi suggested in the forums that the Account Create Date should be added to the Armory. He would like that info so that he can tell the difference between people telling tall tales and actual veterans. Nethaera pointed out that there are many ways to assess people's abilities without this often inaccurate information. After all, some players are currently playing mains on what began as alternate accounts purchased months or years after first playing the game.I think it would be fun to know the real veterans from the professed veterans, but I don't think exact account creation dates are the best or most fun way to do it. Actual in-game veteran rewards and titles would be much more fun, in my opinion, and could be listed in the Armory.What information would you like to see added to the Armory? Do you think that account creation dates would be useful? And is it really necessary to call my poor neglected druid "untalented" for all the world to see -- in capital letters no less? Yes, I haven't logged on to her in years and her talent points are now reset and unspent but that hardly means that the poor thing is not gifted. Wouldn't "unknown" or "undecided" convey the same information without being so pejorative?
5 loot ranking sites to check out
I am often flummoxed when trying to decide which piece of loot to take from a quest or to purchase for an upgrade. I end up doing math on index cards or, if I'm really desperate, cranking out Excel and going for full-on geekery. Sometimes, though, this seems like way too much trouble and I will probably end up dumping the thing soon anyway. Although the Armory offers a "find an upgrade" tool, it's simply a list of items with stats. I still end up doing the math. So I went searching for some easier ways to figure out my next best loot options and here I share them with you. Kaliban's Class Loot Lists - Probably considered the gold standard of loot resource sites. Choose your class and then slice and dice until you find your perfect match. I found loot for level 68+. Loot Rank - Lets you enter complex stat requirements and weight the stats you like best. It seems targeted to endgame players for the most part. Lootzor - Lets you choose any level gear and even normal instance gear. Weighted stats. ShadowPanther - Rogues R us. Breaks down recommendations by every category imaginable. Druid Wiki - Recommendations for druids of all specs, including a section called "Must have quest rewards."
Yet another character manager for WoW
Magelo, a Switzerland and UK based company which gained popularity with its Everquest character profiles, has launched a WoW version of the profile system. It offers a slick view of your toon's Armory information, but with some additional functionality that you can usually only get in-game. Additionally, using their Magelo Sync, you can hot-sync your information whenever you want. (No more waiting for the Armory to update.) You can also use the client in-game to find information on items, quests, and mobs.I tried it today and found it fun to play with. Even though installing everything takes a bit of jumping through hoops, after you've synced, you can view everything about your toon that you can see in the game: bank and inventory contents, or show anyone your profile with a link. Here's Slig's profile so you can see the output provided. A feature I really liked was the tab called "bonuses" which lets you see which pieces of armor contribute to each attribute (e.g., click Intellect and see each item's bonus to that stat). After the beta there will be a charge for Premium access -- a trend we're seeing more of -- which involves things like getting a certified profile, customizing your profile page with backgrounds, viewing your toon in 3D, and creating alternate profiles. I liked fiddling around with the alternates but I'm not sure I'd pay extra for it when the time comes.
Seven graphical WoW signature generators - and one for your car
Want to have a picture of your WoW toon (or, in my case, toons) on your blog, forum posts, or emails? There are plenty of tools out there to help you. They all work by tapping the Armory to find information about your character -- some better than others. They can only update as often as the Armory does, but some of them take even longer. Most have customization options which allow you to choose the background, colors, and stats your sig displays. They also usually include code for your sig (if you want it dynamically updated) in HTML and BBCode format. After the jump, nine different ways to sign your character's profile.
[1.Local]: Readers speak their minds
[1.Local] serves up a smattering of reader comments from the past week, from the sublime to the ridiculous.Improving the gaming process seemed to be top of mind for many readers this week. A number of threads saw a flurry of suggestions about ways players handle current game mechanics and wish lists for improvements they'd like to see in the future. We touched on Armorying PuGgers, retooling old content versus adding more mid-level content, the state of bleeding-edge guild membership and the sometimes weighty demands of being a tank. We chewed the fat over just how serious matters of WoW are to us ... and never one to shirk matters of fashion, we considered footwear options for WoW players and Hello Kitty fans alike.Be sure to dive into the comments area of each thread (not this one!) and add your own thoughts – unlike your mama, we like us some hot, fresh backtalk.
Mages and Rogues jump in Arena stats, while Hunters fall behind
Vhiari, keeper of the Armory stats, has updated once again, this time taking a look at Arena performance across all three rankings and all of the classes contained within. The 2v2 comparison (showing Arena rankings, across the bottom, with the percentage of players in each class at that ranking) tells the overall story: Mages are seeing major gains in the Arena, as are Rogues, which Vhiari speculates may be at the cost of Warlocks (who took a small tumble). And just as last time, Hunters continue to struggle in all three brackets -- 5v5 has the same situation as above, but in less extreme amounts.Of course, these are stats, and what these stats actually mean is up to you (and more importantly, up to Blizzard -- this is just a sign of who's getting which rankings at which levels, and this could be the result of many different things, so there's no reason to expect buffs or nerfs based on just this information). Still, it's a pretty clear look at just who's winning out there, for whatever reason -- the stats say Mages have done well the past few months, while Hunters continue to struggle inside the Arenas.[via WoR]
Blizzard web services down for maintenance
Blizzard's US websites and all related web services are currently down for a scheduled maintenance and should be up at around 5am PDT. This means that all US versions of Blizzard sites such as World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and web-accessible services such as account management and the Armory are down. Maybe when they come back up, we'll see some more visible changes to the site such as the aberrant switch to a Wrath of the Lich King theme of the official forums. Or maybe there'll be an abundance of small changes such as the minor tweaks to the Death Knight information page. Then again, it could just be nothing but a regular maintenance. We'll see in a few hours. At least Blizzard was nice enough this time around to actually put up a sign to say they'll be back.
Testers wanted for new iPhone Armory application
Elad Shahar, a student at University of Massachusetts Lowell, has developed a web interface that will allow you to search the Armory on your iPhone or iPod touch's MobileSafari. He's released a new version today, polished to the point where he's looking for people to help him test the application and to offer ideas and suggestions. iArmory lets you do the searches you'd expect -- by player or guild -- and serves up results in a clean, Apple-like format that's designed especially for the iPhone's screen. The one catch is that the Armory has been stripped of its images, including items, tooltips, and fancy borders. What you get is a simple text display of the information you searched for. You can see images of the interface on Elad's website, Omen of Clarity. So, if you are, you know, hip enough to own an iPhone or an iPod touch (which I'm, uh, not), and you are reading this post (which means you probably play WoW), then get your Armory-lovin' self over to Omen of Clarity's contact page and volunteer your services as a tester. Git, I said!
When the going gets tough
A few friends and I have begun leveling alts in the interests of having a few more 70's around for Wrath, and I got a comment on my Warrior after she dinged 29. "We'll need to get you some good blues," said a buddy, a 70-Paladin-turned-10-Shaman (in hindsight, probably cringing over said toon's Armory profile). "Warrior 30-40 is kinda tough."It didn't mean much to me at the time, but I started thinking about it while contemplating the possibility of starting a Hordeside Hunter. A 1-10 Hunter without a pet is a fairly unpleasant (if mercifully quick) experience, but that one is pretty obvious while others seem less so. There's a strange alchemy of level, quest drops, scaling, gear, dungeons, and skills that seem to combine to make life tougher in certain level ranges.A 2005 guide to classes' relative leveling speed insisted that classes alternately sped and slowed as they aged and that the difference could be tracked statistically, and while I'm not sure I trust all of their math (and the information's outdated anyway), you can't fault the amount of work that went into it. Moreover, as the commenters point out, someone who picks a Rogue as a main is not necessarily playing the game with the same goals in mind as someone who picked, say, a Priest. A less scientific, but more detailed, look at leveling speed and class difficulties was written by Breanni of WarcraftPets.com, and her experiences seem to gel a bit more with conventional wisdom, particularly with respect to the speed of Hunter and Warlock leveling. That being said, Druid 1-20 was pretty ugly, Shaman late-30's is a parade of mana inefficiency, and I'm not looking forward to getting another Hunter to 10.
Officers' Quarters: What's in a guild name?
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Naming your guild is a funny thing. You want it to stand out in some way, but, at the same time, you don't want to give it such a weird or offensive name that people are embarrassed to walk around with it above their heads. It can be an agonizing decision. I remember back in the days before my officers and I founded our guild, we exchanged dozens of messages trying to find the perfect name. So I can sympathize with the author of this week's e-mail, who discovered that her carefully chosen name had also been chosen by another guild with some eerily similar characteristics.Hello, Scott. I don't know if I have a conundrum, a mystery, or a coincidence. I find it kinda funny more than anything else, but wonder if I should feel some concern or do something about it-- More than a month ago, I split off from a friendly, pretty well-knit social guild to form my own of same. I had decent ideas about the sort of people I wanted together, and still have aims of trying to build a Kara team (I follow the casual raiding articles religiously). We're still very small, but we're out there, and we have a pretty notable guild name. It was also the only guild of that name across all servers -- I checked the Armory at that time. Just last night I happened to be trawling the armory, looking up some friends and their gear, and, of course, popped in my own guild name. Much to my surprise, I see a brand new guild (~10 members) on another Normal server with the same name, cross-factioned. Further, their guild tabard is nearly identical (save for a slightly different border; the colors and image are same), and their GL is the same class as I am, a Blood Elf to my Human.
LFG Armory uses Armory to match up characters and guilds
LFG Armory is a new site that's aiming to beat the official Armory at its own game. Blizzard's site, as complete as it is, is still occasionally buggy and slow, and LFG Armory is looking to give players an alternative. And it works fairly well -- while the FAQ claims that data may be a little behind (due to caching of Blizzard's information), both the guild and player profile pages look pretty good and load quickly (and if the site can stay up after we link to them here, that'll be a real sign that it's a stable server).But the real feature that makes LFG Armory something more than Blizzard's official site is that it has a guild and arena team matching system built in. Once you register your name and your characters, you can do a search for guilds and arena teams and try to find one that matches what you want -- percentage of level 70s, class makeup, and number of members. On the guild side, you can set your guild as looking, and then when you hit a match, LFG will match you up.It's an interesting system, but like all social networks, it all depends on participation -- when I looked for a guild for my Hunter on Cenarius (who could use a guild, by the way), nothing came up, because likely no one on the server was looking (for a Hunter at least). But as an alternative to the Armory, LFG is looking pretty good. If they can get people to the site and stay up, they might give Blizzard's official site a run for its money.[Via World of Raids]
