WoW in an Hour: Tools of the Trade - Part 2

In part 1 I looked at the class and race that form tools of the trade for playing WoW in an hour. This time I'm going to look at some of those technical thingoes... add-ons, macros, and resources outside the game.

Add-ons

Questing/Leveling/Doing Stuff
Tour Guide - get it, use it, love it. Combined with Jame's leveling guide - I think this is leaps and bounds ahead of any of the quest helpers - and does not slow your interface down or clog up the screen with anything other than the tomtom pointer. If you're already at max level there are also guides for doing your dailies, and doing the holiday achievements - less time spent traveling and more time killing is the key. Jame's leveling guide has been developed by analysing where you need to go and what you need to do to optimise the time spent traveling back and forth. I've used it with all my characters now at various stages of leveling and questing and having it as part of tour guide is fantastic (no more alt-tabbing)!!

Lightheaded - the power of wowhead from within WoW. This basically exports the quest information straight from www.wowhead.com into an add-on that is visible from the in-game quest log. Useful for reading tips on how to complete quests or finding people/things involved with quests that sometimes are missing from Tour Guide. It is pretty hefty in terms of download size and memory usage, so I would place it under the optional category... but again it should stop you having to alt-tab to read a website.

A bag add-on
I'd call this a must because less time searching for those little things is time saved. My pick for an ease of use and easy setup bag add-on is Combuctor. The extra tabs that provide sorting is fantastic for quickly finding that item you can never see in your inventory when you need it - and includes a quest item tab, and being able to view items by quality (I most often use this for finding those BoE greens to send to my disenchanter). For a more comprehensive look at bag add-ons have a look at this post of No Stock UI. One thing I learnt from reading this article is that I was never using all the advanced features of ArkInventory (I'll have to go back and have a look at it again).

Shopping
Auctioneer - if you need to use the auction house to sell things Auctioneer makes it a (relatively) quick task. Playing the auction house is a mini game in itself... one which I've only ever dabbled in... but I like auctioneer also for the statistics that it provides in the tool tips (that come from the Meta package that is Auctioneer - this includes Enchantrix which provides disenchanting values for items as well). This can be a meaty add-on - so often what people do is have a bank alt that uses Auctioneer and then their mains don't have it enabled. I've not really noticed much slow down (particularly since upping my system memory to 4G) so I just leave it enabled, but if you are having trouble in instances/raids then try disabling it.

AuctionLite - I also use this one... because I prefer its interface for buying items. You can choose what you want to buy and the quantity and it'll go off and list the best price (including resale of excess if need be) amongst all the entries listed on the auction house. This makes buying a quick and painless process. I haven't yet, but should also install a good add-on to get all my mail from the mailbox... I used to have one (I thought it was part of Auctioneer) but haven't in a while (/emote makes a mental note to self).

Add-on for Add-ons
LoadIt - because logging in and out takes time. I always cringe (and then recommend LoadIt) when I see guild/party members say 'brb just need to (en/dis)able an add-on'. LoadIt makes this a breeze by actively enabling/loading or disabling add-ons without having to restart WoW. Still I have some guildies that persistently ignore me...


Just a note with add-ons - it is worth looking into a tool for keeping your add-ons up-to-date. I used to use the Curse client until they switched to a premium/non-premium model and then I switched to WoWInterface's MMO Minion which I had great trouble installing (I basically had to work out where to put stuff manually because the installer borked after trying to download things). When my laptop died and I had to install again on my new one I didn't bother with MMO Minion and switched back to using Curse - if you keep your add-ons generally up-to-date it isn't a big task to manually update two at a time with Curse. Additionally, I have just been given a complimentary subscription to a premium Curse account because I'm 'a valuable member of the Curse.com community' - I'm guessing because I have written an add-on (MTarget... must finish version 2 at some point) that is hosted by them (well I develop it on www.wowace.com and they are now one and the same thing).

Macros

Macros are immensely useful for all areas of the game but in terms of saving time I really only use one macro... this one:

/script for bag = 0,4,1 do for slot = 1, GetContainerNumSlots(bag), 1 do local name = GetContainerItemLink(bag,slot); if name and string.find(name,"ff9d9d9d") then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("- Selling "..name); UseContainerItem(bag,slot) end; end;end

when you are talking to a vendor and you click this macro it will go through your bags and sell any grey items you have.
Note: be careful if you cut and paste this - that all needs to be on one line in your macro. Also - add it to your 'general' macros tab and then you can use it on all your characters.

I might do a more detailed post about macros in the future - but for now have a look at WoWWiki - Making a Macro for an introduction (the macro above is more complicated than most as it is actually running API code).

External Resources

News/Tips/Reading Stuff
Knowing what is going on in the World of Warcraft from a general level really can help you get the most out of your time (and can consume a lot of time too - but perhaps time you have available that can't be used for playing). I've culled my reader a lot, but I still read a number of blogs and read wow.com to keep up-to-date with what is happening. News sites like wow.com are useful for disseminating the useful bits of info from the trivial ones, but one thing I particularly pay attention to is the patch notes - to know what changes are coming up and how that might affect my game play. The amount you read really is up to you - I love being a know-it-all!

If you are sticking with one class (and even one spec of a class) - I'd recommend finding a blog that focuses on it, particularly one written by someone who has more time to test out the best way to do things. You don't have to be a cookie cutter, but it is useful to know the ins and outs of your class - to be able to know what gear to look for, what helps with problem x, etc. Finding one might be the tricky part - but have a look at the twisted nether wiki, have a look at the Author Introduction thread at Blog Azeroth or just see what Google turns up for your class and spec (or post a comment here with recommendations and I'll see about making a list).

Databases
www.wowhead.com - this is the database I use. There are others out there (I used to use thottbot and Allakhazam back in vanilla days) but I haven't found them to be anywhere near as good. If something is lacking there - then I tend to check it out on WoWWiki.
What do I use it for? Primarily finding out what drops from where, and what I can craft/buy, reading peoples comments on how to do achievements/bosses, reading up on spells, talents and anything else that might be useful information that I could potentially get in game... but when I'm not in the game. Making the decisions outside the game means I can get on with the doing when I'm playing. Also - the compare feature is invaluable for comparing two similar items and seeing what works best.

wowecon - auction house price database. Although I find that the amount of data is lacking for my server (I should really contribute myself - but I rarely scan the auction house these days... 15+ minutes is too much play time chewed through) - it is useful as a general guide for the cost of items on the auction house. I used this recently to calculate how much it will cost me to power level alchemy and engineering to max level.

Character Development
As I mentioned above - part of what I do on the database sites is look at what gear drops from where. At the moment apart from running my random heroic for the Emblems of Frost I tend to go places where I know I'll get upgrades. So I try and plan out what I'm going to buy and how that will affect my character. This is where the character development tools come in...

WoW Armory - mainly I use this to check up on my character when I'm not logged in. Seeing how far I am from a reputation requirement, or how far along I am with an achievement, and also just seeing what gear I do have currently (and is currently equipped).

wowhead profiler - this is the one I use most mainly because it is also the database I use - and it is easy to look for better gear. Like most of the character development tools then numbers don't necessarily equate to the real numbers in game (dodge for example) but for checking that hit/expertise/defense requirements are met it is a great tool.

CharDev - I've also used this one in the past. The main advantage here is that it also lists the materials required for crafting items - so if you are about to hit max level and want to make use of some crafted gear (and also enchant materials) to boost you into heroics and raids then this tool is great! (Looking at the current version it seems like the materials section is not working). It also allows you to set the buffs that you would have for a more accurate perception of your stats when in a group.

Edit to add this in:
Rawr - I've just been playing around with Rawr (yes I'm a bit slow on the uptake), but it is the tool I've been looking for for gear upgrades and also optimizing what you already have (I should really regem some of Keluin's tanking gear for example). It pulls data from the armory and/or wowhead and does some fancy maths to work out the best upgrades for you and ranks them. I particularly like the option under the Optimize tool that builds the best upgrades for your character and ranks them - so for example when looking at how to spend my hard earned Emblems of Frost the upgrade I get from upgrading my belt is worth more than the upgrade of the cloak. It provides a useful way of prioritising upgrades - although obviously it doesn't weigh in the 'but I might just get a good drop that will do for now' part of the equation. The one downside is that is is an application (and given the amount of number crunching it does, this makes sense) so it is not quite as accessible as a website.

Guides

Leveling guides
As I mentioned before Leveling guides are great for helping you level most efficiently. Jame's Leveling guide is the only one I can recommend from personal use.

Profession guides
WoW-Professions.com - guides for leveling your professions (primarily from the auction house) - it basically lists the most efficient way to level your professions. I'd also recommend having a look at an add-on I just found LilSparky's Workshop and combine this with a profession leveling guide. The advantage of the guide is two-fold:
1. It tells you where you need to go for quests and training
2. It tells you about the recipes/plans you have to buy rather than learn from the trainer that might be cheaper to craft

Raid bosses
Guides for the raid (and dungeon) bosses are useful to help you be an effective team mate especially if you are having to PuG them. I tend to read the strategy guides from wow.com, but there are specific sites dedicated to the task.

Bosskillers - I find the quality varies here, but it is a good place to start for looking at the mechanics of each boss and what you need to do.

Tankspot - Project Marmot - fantastic guides to all the raid bosses in video format (with appropriate commentary). I find these are fantastic, particularly as a tank (but also as other members of the raid) because it means you aren't going into a fight completely blind - you can see what it is going to look like before you get there. It certainly takes some of the raw edge of fighting bosses for the first time (I look back fondly at the time my guild tried Northrend Beasts for the first time - I had done the most reading about it and spent a good while explaining what I thought I knew on vent, but basically we had no idea other than the basic mechanics... and not to mention we were severely under-geared for it... after about an hour of wiping we managed to see Dreadscale and Acidmaw once and then promptly wiped - I'd love to have the time to be in a progression raiding guild to have that experience more often), but ultimately useful for those without a lot of time for playing.


So that completes my thoughts on the tools of the trade for playing WoW in an Hour. There are plenty more tools out there, so if you have more suggestions please leave a comment!