Raids seem to come to a screeching halt when it comes time to roll for loot, and a big reason for that is people really don’t know whether an item is an upgrade for them.
There are several tools out there to help you. One of the simplest is an add-on called RatingBuster. It compares stats of what you have equipped to what you are looking at, and shows the differences. One drawback to RatingBuster is it also compares stats regardless of importance, and people often look at a big change in one stat (say, Armor on a cloth item) and don’t realize that the increase in other more important stats (Int, Spirit, Spellpower) aren’t as big. They roll on it and win, when in reality, it may have been an even better and more significant upgrade for someone else.
That’s where http://lootrank.com comes in. At LootRank, you set values for the most important stats, weighting them according to importance. For instance, for a Holy (CoH) Priest, those would be Int, Spirit, Spellpower, and Mp5, with maybe a little bit for Crit Rating.
This might seem a little daunting, but for Holy Priests, at least, most of the work has been done. Dwarf Priest, a very knowledgeable member of the Priest community, has done a lot of work on this, and has posted a template at LootRank.
In my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that Int and Spi should be valued equally, so I’ve modified her numbers a bit, and created my own template. In reality, there isn’t a lot of difference between DP’s results and mine.
Keep in mind with the way both DP and I assigned point values, a difference of 3 points or less (under the Score column) is probably more of a sidegrade than an upgrade.
For healer classes who are interested in other armor types (e.g., Paladin looking at leather or cloth…why, I have no idea!) you can use "All" in the Armor Type box, or perhaps just Plate and Mail. Just be sure you also plug in numbers suitable to your class and spec. (For instance, a Healadin looking for a high Spirit gear probably needs to research the class a bit more.)
There are plenty of other resources out there besides the two I mentioned. I’ve shared a couple of my favorites: Do any of you have any others you use? If so, let the rest of us know!
I use Rating Buster as well.
I also use Pawn. (http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/pawn.aspx)
You can use the different stat weights to compare gear. For example, I use Dwarf Priest’s scales for my Holy Gear set. Then I get to compare a drop or quest reward to what I’m wearing stat wise, but without alt-tabbing to LootRank to do so.
Isisxotic´s last blog post: Should Real Life Affect Your Game?
I second Isisxotic’s Pawn recommendation. Much lighter weight than RatingBurster (which is a PIG for some reason) and allows you to easily insert your Loot Rank formula(s) of choice. (Which, for a druid, is a godsend – it allows us to see kitty points, bear points, and resto points all at once).
Regarding loot rank, there are a couple of druid templates pre-made on the site, but I went ahead and made a couple of my own – linked here:
http://teethandclaws.blogspot.com/2008/12/pre-naxx-feral-worksheet.html
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@Isisxotic – @Karthis – Thanks to both of you for the Pawn recommendation. I’d seen a reference to it somewhere, but hadn’t followed up. I’ll be sure to do so tout suite!
Personally I’ve been relying on the wowhead item compare tool…and Pawn is a must have for in game comparison.
http://www.isheepthings.com/blog/wowhead-item-comparison-tool/
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