Category Archives: Technology

Stat weight editor gets a MAKEOVER!

Believe it or not, Mr. Robot studies humans at length. He’s fascinated at how we interpret things and how we find things easy or hard to use. He’s noticed that the stat weight editor has been a bit confusing for some humans in the past, so he really wanted to present it better.

Overview of the changes
New stat weight editor for tanks, healers, and DPSers
Haste breakpoint picker
Also, you can view Haste breakpoints for every class on our new Haste breakpoint pages (found in the “World of Warcraft” drop down menu at the top of our site).

Here are the changes we’ve made:

Widgetization (the act of turning things into widgets): we turned the haste cap into a little haste-breakpoint picker, moved the hit-cap option to a drop down menu, and a few other things.
Haste-breakpoint picker: This is super, super-cool. It’s hard to figure out (or even find) haste breakpoints. So we list them ALL for you, and you can even look at breakpoints with different buffs. We also show the Haste Rating & the percentage side-by-side (a popular request). You really, really should check this out.
Stamina simplification: we removed the stamina cap option because getting to a specific cap isn’t meaningful. Instead, we replaced it with 4 stamina levels. Each level is meant to do something different, for example, the highest stamina level will gem, enchant, and do everything to stack stamina. The lowest level won’t choose stamina gems or enchants.
Removed the 7.5% EXP cap for all tanks except DKs: It’s the general theorycrafting consensus that there is no reason to aim for 7.5% expertise over 15% (except for DKs). So we’ve removed that option (except for DKs). DK’s have an ability that is not affected by parry, so it makes sense for them to keep that option.
Removed soft-cap crit for all classes except Frost Mages: Nobody is really in danger of reaching the melee-soft cap on crit yet (except Frost Mages). So we removed that option. We will keep an eye on this as higher levels of gear come out (including Valor upgrades) and revisit this as needed.
Why remove options? A few reasons: if the option isn’t useful, we don’t want people trying to use it and getting confused. Less stuff on the editor makes it easier to digest It also speeds up the optimizations.

Tank stat weights

Tank_Weights

Tanks have a couple changes:

Stamina targets: We now provide different Stamina targets, from low to high levels of stamina. You’ll see a description next to each option that explains what should roughly happen. For example, if you choose “Medium Stamina” Mr. Robot will only suggest gems with stamina on them to pick up socket bonuses, and weights stamina trinkets a bit lower.
Expertise caps: We removed the Expertise Cap of 7.5% for all tanks except DKs. All other tanks are automatically capped at 15% Expertise for raiding, 12% for 5-mans, and 6% for PvP. You can choose the cap in the drop down menu from the Hit/Exp widget.

Healer stat weights

Healers have a few changes:

Haste breakpoint picker: this is amazing. Click the green “Change Soft Cap” button to get a Haste picker tool. When the Haste picker is open, you can select which permanent and temporary buffs you want to see in order to pick your breakpoint. You can now turn off the 5% Haste raid buff if your group doesn’t have it (a popular request we can now accommodate).
Haste stat weights: you’ll see that Haste is listed twice in the stat weight editor (on the left). Once is listed as a pre-cap weight, and the other is listed as a post-cap weight. In english, you’re saying, “Hey, Haste is worth a lot to me up to my breakpoint, after that it’s not very important.” This will make Mr. Robot give you all sorts of Haste until you reach your cap, then give you hardly any Haste (or even no extra Haste).
Spirit soft cap options: you can enter a cap (as a rating) at the point where you feel your mana regen is comfortable. Note that sometimes you don’t even need a cap: the idea is if your regen is high enough, you can keep on casting and casting and never run out of mana. However, some players want a cap, so here it is (Mr. Robot won’t judge either way!). You can now also choose to include or exclude Spirit from trinket procs, enchant procs, and meta gem procs. If you choose to include it (which is the default), we include the average amount of spirit you get from each proc over the course of the fight.

DPS stat weights

DPS stat weights have a few changes:

Haste breakpoint picker: If Haste breakpoints are relevant to your class & spec, you’ll see the Haste Picker widget. This is amazing. Click the green “Change Soft Cap” button to get a Haste picker tool. When the Haste picker is open, you can select which permanent and temporary buffs you want to see in order to pick your breakpoint. You can now turn off the 5% Haste raid buff if your group doesn’t have it (a popular request we can now accommodate).
Haste stat weights: Again, if Haste breakpoints are relevant, you’ll see that Haste is listed twice in the stat weight editor (on the left). Once is listed as a pre-cap weight, and the other is listed as a post-cap weight. In english, you’re saying, “Hey, Haste is worth a lot to me up to my breakpoint, after that it’s not very important.” This will make Mr. Robot give you all sorts of Haste until you reach your cap, then give you hardly any Haste (or even no extra Haste).
Hit cap widget: you have always been able to change the level of Hit required, as well as force the Hit cap. However, it was under the options menu instead of in the stat weight editor. Well that doesn’t make much sense… does it?! So, we’ve moved it to the stat weight editor for a better experience
Crit caps for Frost Mages: we’ve now added in the 25% Crit cap for Frost mages, to account for the Shatter ability.

Understanding the Haste Breakpoint Picker

I want to point you to one of the coolest resources we’ve ever published – Haste breakpoints for every class, with the ability to turn on/off every permanent buff & temporary buff, including class-specific abilities. Once that goes live, I’ll provide you with the link.

We also put the same functionality in the stat weight editor. Click the “Change Soft Cap” button in the Haste widget to get the breakpoint picker. Here is a walkthough to understand the tables. I used my Resto Druid as an example, but the idea and layout is the same for every class & spec.

Questions?

Hope you like the new interface – we’re always trying to improve things based on user feedback. If you have questions about the new interface, let us know (leave a comment). Even if you LOVE it, you can tell us… I’ll pass along any praise to Mr. Robot himself.

Language Translation

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I feel odd writing this post in English, since it’s targeted to non-English speakers… I will try to get some folks to translate

One of our users wrote a Chrome browser extension that translates parts of our site, including item lists, Robocouncil and our trinket pages. The extension is called “fragmrrobot” written by AlexL. You can find it here and here. If you install it, please take a moment to rate it and pass some love over to the author. If you have feedback for the author, please leave it here or on his thread in our forums.

How to spend your Mogu Runes of Fate

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We make features that we want to use ourselves – and I always found myself asking, “What bosses do I save my bonus rolls for?” This feature became an instant hit – apparently a lot of other people also wanted that question answered. Even a few Blizzard folks are using it (and tweeting about it!)

How bonus rolls work:

There’s roughly a 15% chance your bonus roll gives you loot. We calculate the % chance you get an upgrade like this: we take number of upgrades divided by possible items, multiplied by 15%. So let’s say there are 4 drops I could get from a boss, and all 4 are upgrades because my gear is scrub. I’d have a 15% chance to get an upgrade. Now, let’s say only 2 of the 4 items are upgrades, I’d have a 7.5% chance of getting an upgrade, and a 7.5% chance of getting an item I don’t need. I’d also have an 85% chance of smashing my face on the keyboard if my luck is bad

Let Mr. Robot help you with your Bonus Rolls!

Unfortunately, he can’t hack the boss drops yet to guarantee you’ll get something. But he CAN help you optimize the bonus rolls. Let’s take a look at the information you can get in the “Find Upgrades” feature. I used screenshots for the new Throne of Thunder raid, but any 5.0 raid works just the same

Select the zone where you want to spend your Mogu Runes of Fate (bonus rolls). You can choose LFR, Normal and Heroic. Below is what it looks like for an LFR Queue. Continue reading →

Using RoboCouncil to Gear Up for Throne of Thunder

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So my 10 man raid team got to a bit of a slow start. We’re currently working on Garalon in Heart of Fear. We want to get into Throne of Thunder as soon as we can, because who doesn’t like new content?! There are no restrictions to get into normal mode Throne of Thunder, but the suggested gear level is 490. Also, for what it’s worth you need to have iLevel 480+ to get into ToT LFR.

My raid team wants to gear up as fast as possible so we are tough enough to run Throne of Thunder. We’re using RoboCouncil to help us fast track our gear upgrades – we want to assign each drop as efficiently as possible. Mr. Robot looks at everyone in your raid group and ranks boss drops for each person. He even tells you if an item makes or breaks set bonuses – he’s very helpful! And of course, he can help you assign Throne of Thunder drops too

Continue reading →

5.2 Updates from Mr. Robot

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We’ll be updating this post with changes to the site. Check back often to find out what’s going on. You can also read our overview of 5.2 changes and how they affect your gear. When you’re ready, Mr. Robot is waiting to optimize your character!

Quick list of what’s done (and what’s not)

Current issues being worked on (see below)
Stat weights are in flux as SimC gets updated. Click here for details about each spec.
Trinket procs are simulated, scored and ranked
Set bonuses are estimated, as many of them are not implemented in SimC yet.
Most 5.2 items and their sources are in, some of the Heroic Thunderforged items are still not showing up in game.
You can find all sorts of new upgrades in the Upgrade finder (including Valor, new raid drops, etc)
New 5.2 filters have been added to the options menu

Issues being worked on (and resolved)

DONE 3/6/13: Ghostcrawler posted new trinket estimates. We are updating them, re-simulating them, and will have new scores in the optimizer shortly
DONE 3/6/13: Ghostcrawler posted new legendary meta gem information. We are updating those and will have new scores in the optimizer shortly. Note, you can turn the legendary metas on/off in the options menu.
DONE: 3/6/13: Fixed the Nimble and Confounded Jade gems
DONE 3/7/13: Some trinkets have restrictions, like Gaze of the Twins will only proc for STRENGTH users. We are updating these restrictions.
DONE 3/7/13: Added in new thunderforged items (and other items) as they show up in game
ONGOING: Most recent stat weight updates: 3/7/13. Get updates on all of our stat weight changes here. (note, the blog post is slightly ahead of our next update, these changes will take effect later today).
3/6/13: We are separating out Mogu Runes of Fate from Elder Charms.

Stat weights

We’re running new stat weights for every class and spec, and we use SimC to do this. Here’s an in-depth look at how we generate stat weights and specifics about 5.2 stat weight updates for each class. Anyway, a lot of the classes don’t have updated weights because there are some kinks in SimC that are still being worked on. They have a LOT of classes/specs to maintain and they are doing their best to get it all updated.

Trinkets

We have all of the LFR, Normal and Heroic 5.2 trinket procs simulated, scored, and ranked. We have the Thunderforged items scored and ranked if the item is showing up in-game – most of the Heroic Thunderforged trinkets aren’t live yet. If you’re wondering how we score them, you can read this blog post. Some trinkets, like Rune of Re-origination, are dependent on your personal stats. When you look at them in the ranked lists, Mr. Robot is using your stats to score the item. Be sure to brush up on how relative vs absolute ranking works in Mr. Robot’s gear lists.

It looks like a lot of the 5.2 trinkets are struggling to beat out the 5.0 trinkets, so you might see a level 502 or even a 489 outscore a new 522 trinket. That’s definitely possible – be sure to read the notes on each trinket if you question Mr. Robot’s ranking. If you still think something is suspicious, post on our forums and we’ll dig into it. If you need a little help to understand why a particular trinket is ranking high or low, hit us up on the forums too. Math is Mr. Robot’s strong suit, so we’re happy to translate math into words

Set bonuses

We simulate set bonuses in SimC and then turn the procs into relevant stats (much like we do with trinkets). However, since most of the set bonuses are not implemented in SimC yet, we just guestimated the set bonuses right now. We will update these with better estimates as more data is available.

If you want to ensure you have a 4pc bonus in your BiS list, you can lock the item in. Just click on the item you want to lock and it will open a gear list. Select the set piece and click the save button. That item will have a gray dotted line around it in the gear list now, which indicates that it is locked.

Thunderforged items

There’s a new mechanic in 5.2: Normal and Heroic bosses can drop Thunderforged items, which are 6 iLevels higher than usual. That means they are level 528 (instead of 522 for normal) and 541 (instead of 535 for heroic). You will see it on the tooltips.

We are working with WoWDB on grabbing all of the items – both of us are scanning daily to get new items from the game. Most of the Heroic-Thunderforged items are currently missing from the game data. We will add them in as they show up.

Find upgrades for 5.2!

We have the “Find Upgrades” feature updated with all of the 5.2 content. If you’re wondering what to spend valor on, we’ve got you covered. If you want to know what LFR Queues have the most upgrades, we’ve got that too. And of course, since there are new crafted items, Mr. Robot will also tell you which crafted items are upgrades.

Just click the ‘find upgrade’ button to get your lists. I’m sure you’ll find Mr. Robot to be VERY helpful! It’s like having a personal shopper – it never turns out bad!

5.2 Filters in the options menu

You can now select T15 Heroic gear, include/exclude Thunderforged items, and include/exclude the Legendary meta gems. This is in addition to all of the other neato options, so be sure to check out that menu.

Ready? Get Optimizing!

Want more info, here are other 5.2 related posts:

Which LFR has the most upgrades?

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Looking for Haste Breakpoints? Click here!

(sorry, I put the wrong link on the homepage, and need to update the site to fix it! oooops!)

LFR QUEUES

Mr. Robot will tell you which LFR queues have the most upgrades for you. So if you’re trying to get to that 480 iLevel requirement for Throne of Thunder LFR, we’ve got you covered. Or perhaps you’re excited to jump into Throne of Thunder LFRs as they open and what to know what to spend bonus rolls on, we can do that too.

And in case you missed it, the drop rates for 5.0 LFR raids has been greatly increased. So have fun gearing up!! After you decide which LFR to run, be sure to find out which boss you should spend your bonus rolls on.

Click the “Find Upgrades” button.

Next, select “Which LFR raids have the best upgrades?”

Then see your results! Click the “view all” link on the right to see all of your upgrades for each queue.

In case you want to know the LFR raid release schedule, here you go!

March 12: Last Stand of the Zandalari
March 19: Forgotten Depths
April 2: Halls of Flesh-Shaping
April 16: Pinnacle of Storms

Best bosses for your bonus rolls:

Let Mr. Robot help you determine which boss you should spend your bonus rolls on. It’s not as simple as you might think: let’s say a boss has 5 drops for your spec, but you already have 4 of them… do you want to gamble and hope you win that 1 item you need? Mr. Robot has the scoop for you on this blog post. Here’s a teaser screenshot of how the tool works:

Find more upgrades!

First, be sure you get your 522 neck today! If you need more bonus rolls for 5.0 LFR raids, you can get a bunch of them in the new daily loot run scenario.

The “Find Upgrades” feature is premium, but everyone gets to try it free for a whole week! And we never ask for your credit card to start the trial – we don’t play games hoping you forget to cancel, that’s just not cool! And if you like the features enough to upgrade, you can do that for only $12 a year right now We wanted to keep the price very affordable.

That’s all! Hit me up with questions. In the meantime, here’s some more questions Mr. Robot can answer:

5.2 Stat Weights

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With every new patch comes new stat weights! Over the next week, we will be researching and refining stat weights for all classes and specs. Check this blog post often for updates on your class and spec, and please leave comments or links to good 5.2 resources that you think we should review.

NOTE:
When we say “No Changes in 5.2″ – this means that the stat priority has not changed for that spec, or, it means the weights have not shifted enough to cause different gems to be most optimal, etc. It does NOT mean that the spec itself didn’t get changes and tweaks in the patch!

For other 5.2 updates, read this blog post.

Set Bonuses

We have completed initial calculations for all set bonuses. We have also tweaked some of the tier 14 tank set bonuses. Set bonus estimates can be a little tricky, so let us know if you run into any issues. For background: we equate all set bonuses to a relevant stat. When a set bonus doesn’t really map to a particular stat very well, we use AP or SP for damage and healer specs, and armor for tank specs. Thus, your weights on those stats will impact the value of most set bonuses.

(Final set bonus estimates going live around 3 AM PST, 3/14.)

Death Knight – Blood

Status: Updated!

There were no major changes to blood tanking mechanics with 5.2, but we did make a slight tweak: due to popular demand, we have reduced the default weight on stamina such that the different builds will tend to favor their respective stats more (mastery, avoidance, etc.). As always, we encourage users to adjust stamina to their personal preference — there is no “one correct answer”.

Recent change — we increased armor a bit to make the optimizer more consistently choose the armor meta gem, and favor some of the new tanking trinkets a little more.

Death Knight – Frost 2H

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Death Knight – Frost DW

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Death Knight – Unholy

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Druid – Moonkin

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Druid – Guardian

Status: Updated!

The main change that affects gearing: 20% boost to the value of mastery. The rage-generation build doesn’t change much, but we did make one significant tweak: due to popular demand, we lowered the default weight on stamina. Most tanks should like this, but as always — stamina is very much a personal preference! Please adjust it as you see fit.

For the mitigation build, we have decided to bump mastery above dodge with the 20% buff. Both stats were already pretty close in value for reducing damage, but we like the “smoother” nature of mastery. Similar to the rage build, we have dropped stamina slightly in our defaults. Please adjust stamina to your liking! (You’ll hear us say that a lot.)

Druid – Feral

Status: Tweaked

Hit and Expertise are simulating out to be just as good as Mastery, so we are now recommending getting Hit/Exp capped as our default.

Druid – Restoration

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Our spreadsheet is mostly updated. The stat priority hasn’t changed because the major buff was the across-the-board 10% healing – which keeps everything relatively the same, just higher. Soul of the Forest is an even more attractive talent now, though. You can get some nice output from your Wild Growth using SotF as your talent choice.

Hunter – All Specs

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Marksmanship received a nice buff, but the actual stat priorities did not change as a result of the patch.

Mage – Arcane

Status: No Changes in 5.2

The Tier 15 4pc bonus looks like it is incredibly strong for Arcane, according to SimC right now.

Mage – Fire

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Fire gets a nice buff in 5.2, but the stat priorities have not changed.

Mage – Frost

Status: No Changes in 5.2

We are not confident right now that the Tier 15 4pc set bonus is working correctly in SimC for Frost. If it is working correctly, the set bonus is not worth getting. We will keep an eye on this and update if necessary.

Monk – Brewmaster

Status: Updated!

The default build still focuses around high energy/chi generation, with mastery moving above parry/dodge as the best passive mitigation stat. We have also made a couple of tweaks based on user feedback: the default weight on stamina has been reduced, as most brewmasters prefer to rely more on high avoidance and stagger rather than large health pools. As always, adjust this as you see fit! The second change is that we now recommend gearing all the way to the hard expertise cap. The reason for this change is straightforward: if you think expertise is good on a brewmaster, there is nothing that makes it stop being good at 7.5%. So in line with our other tank class recommendations, go all the way to 15%.

We have also added an editable haste cap for those who wish to target a certain level of energy/chi generation. We do not recommend any particular cap be default as it is a highly personal setting. Play with it as you see fit! Remember to use percentages, e.g. 0.3 would be in the neighborhood of 8000 haste rating from gear when fully buffed.

Update: it seems that some of my changes didn’t make it to the live site on the first update — we will be posting an update soon (sometime in the afternoon on 3/4) that has the stamina weight at the level we think most accurately reflects the monk tanking community’s preferred strategy (it will be pretty low, below most other stats).

Monk – Windwalker

Status: Updated

We updated these weights. Mastery moved above Crit in the stat priority and we included a soft cap on Haste at 40% (about 11500 on gear). Our testing showed this to be the value at which Haste started to drop off compared to other stats.

We have added an editable haste soft cap for windwalkers — feel free to play around with that and give us feedback.

Monk – Mistweaver

Status: No changes in 5.2

What do people think about the Tier 15 4pc bonus? It seems really weak by my calculations. The 2pc looks like it is strong.

Paladin – Holy

Status: No changes in 5.2

Paladin – Protection

Status: Updated!

Nothing significant has changed with respect to paladin gearing strategy in 5.2. Due to some of the new gear available and the levels of gear that players can reach, we have made some very minor adjustments. Thanks go out to Theck for providing some updated weights that keep the general gearing strategies similar, but tend to pick up socket bonuses more often, and not stack stamina as aggressively.

Something to note: it is popular for pally tanks to use the “Force Hit/Exp Cap” option. In general this should work well to guarantee hit/exp cap (and not slightly under), but if it doesn’t seem to be working for you, try dropping the weight on stamina slightly (to 1.3 or 1.4).

Paladin – Retribution

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Priest – Discipline

Status: Updated

We reduced the weight on Crit so that Intellect gems will be favored, reduced the weight on Mastery, and increased the weight on Haste. We think Mastery is pretty weak compared to the other secondary stats in 5.2. We also added another preset for a Haste gearing strategy, since we think it might really be the best in 5.2. Mr. Robot’s priest healing spreadsheet has been mostly updated for 5.2.

Priest – Holy

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Priest – Shadow

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Rogue – All Specs

Status: No Changes in 5.2/span>

Shaman – Elemental

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Shaman – Enhancement

Status: Updated

We changed the default weights to assume you are using Elemental Mastery and Primal Elementalist, as this is simulating out to the highest DPS right now. This moves Haste up in the priority. The same weights will also work for Ancestral Swiftness, but AS simulates to lower DPS than EM right now. We also left the Echo of Elements build as another choice – the DPS is lower – about 3% or so.

Shaman – Restoration

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Is it just me, or is that 4 piece Tier 15 bonus absolutely terrible?

Warlock – Affliction

Status: No Changes in 5.2

We still don’t believe that you should value haste above mastery to obtain any particular haste threshold (in reality you’ll get a decent chunk of haste anyway). Haste thresholds aren’t as valuable for affliction in the real game as simulations would lead us to believe.

Warlock – Demonology

Status: No Changes in 5.2

Testing shows that secondary stats are still worth almost exactly the same for Demonology. Our current default of Mastery > Haste > Crit is still our recommendation, because you can make clever use of trinkets and fight mechanics to squeeze our more DPS in certain situations.

Warlock – Destruction

Status: Updated

We tweaked the stat weights based on the latest version of SimC. Grimoire of Supremacy is showing the best DPS with the 5.2 changes to Sacrifice. Our recommended stat priority has shifted to Crit > Haste > Mastery. There is not a dramatic gap between the secondary stats, so you could safely gear for more Mastery or Haste if it works better with your dual-spec or play style.

Warrior – TLDR

Mr. Robot: “Haste still sucks.”

Warrior – Arms

Status: Tweaked

The latest simulations show the stat priority unchanged for Arms. We tweaked the relative values a little bit to improve optimization, but the buff to haste doesn’t seem to have made that much of a difference.

Warrior – Single-Minded Fury

Status: Tweaked

The latest simulations show the stat priority basically unchanged for SMF. Haste is slightly better than it used to be – now it is equal with Hit (above 7.5%) as the worst secondary stat. We tweaked some of the relative values based on latest simulations as well.

Warrior – Titan’s Grip

Status: Tweaked

The latest simulations show the stat priority basically unchanged for TG. We tweaked some of the relative values based on latest simulations as well. The only real change is that Strength is somewhat stronger than Crit rating now.

Warrior – Protection

Status: Updated!

Shield Barrier got a small nerf, but this shouldn’t change how warriors play or gear. Our weights remain basically unchanged, with only minor tweaks to work better with the new higher item level gear, and more consistently pick up good socket bonuses. Warriors still enjoy what we would call the most “balanced” itemization of the different tanking classes, where there isn’t as hard a trade-off between passive mitigation and control — our stat weights try to reflect this.

We have increased Armor a bit to favor higher item-level items, and also favor some of the new damage absorption and self-healing style trinkets.

NO LONGER AVAILABLE: Comparing VP Upgrades

NOTICE: Valor upgrades are no longer in the game. They may return at a later date but Blizzard has not confirmed/denied this.

You can still use Mr. Robot to find all sorts of upgrades, like what to spend your Mogu Runes of fate on, or which LFR queues have the best drops (LFR queues open up March 12).

For today only, you can compare upgrading your gear with VP to the 5.2 items you can buy with VP. Remember, once 5.2 drops the VP Upgrade vendors will be gone. They might return later, but Blizzard hasn’t confirmed or denied that.

So we have been working all weekend to get this data live, so Mr. Robot can help you decide if you should spend your VP to upgrade gear (or not). Here’s the best way to compare:

Click the “Find Upgrades” button.

Next, select “What’s the best way to spend my…” “Valor Points?”

Review your results!

Mr. Robot will compare your upgrade-able items to the new 5.2 Valor items, all in one list! However, once 5.2 hits, we will remove the upgrade-able items to be compliant with the patch. This is available only for TODAY!

5.0 and 5.1 Valor Item costs will be discounted with 5.2 We are now listed the DISCOUNTED prices, but you will have to wait until patch day to buy them at the lower costs.
Mouse over any item to see the faction requirement. The new raid faction, Shado-Pan Assault, lets you spend Valor on items. Neutral (Neck), Friendly (Wrists, Rings, Trinkets), Honored (Legs, Back, Hands), Revered (Chest, Waist), Exalted (Shoulders). Get a full list here.

That’s all – hit me up with questions! In the meantime, here’s some more 5.2 information:

Site Outtage – Microsoft SSL Certificate

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Hi. First, I’m really sorry that users could not log in and optimize. What a way to start your weekend – thinking that you’ve been abandoned by your robot BFF. He’s back and still loves you, I promise!

You see, we use Windows Azure to host our site. It’s a great service, 364 days out of every year. It auto-scales our servers with our traffic, hosts all of the cached item lists, and all sorts of good stuff. But just like every ~~boss~~ thing you encounter, they have a weak spot: SSL Certificates.

Friday afternoon (2/22), the SSL certificate they issued for us (and all of their clients) expired. They didn’t renew it, so all of the sites who use them couldn’t access secure databases. That means we couldn’t process users’ logins and let them access logged in settings and features. This happened last year too, on leap day (2/29) because Microsoft’s SSL Certificates didn’t include leap day. Read the ZDnet article about this.

Well, it’s fixed now. About 11 hours after it went down… but those were PRIME gaming hours, weeks before a big patch too! Mr. Robot is very, very sorry this happened. He’s also very sorry that so many people were trying to reset their password, thinking that was the problem. If you had tried resetting your password during the outtage, you might need to reset it again. Once you do that, the login should work. If you did NOT try to reset your pw during the outtage, there should be no need to reset it – just log in as normal.

He is on a bus to visit some friends in Seattle to make sure this doesn’t happen on a random day in February, 2014! (ok, he isn’t on a bus… he’s just using internet channels, but thought a road trip sounded more hip.)

Thanks again for visiting Mr. Robot optimizer as often as you do. We really appreciate it.

Why Mr. Robot Loves WoWDB!

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I saw this thread last week, where one of the WoWDB creators was asking for feedback. I wanted to share why WoWDB is awesome, which is especially relevant with 5.2 coming so soon.

We started working with WoWDB in August, right before MoP came out. You see, we don’t get the data ourselves, we partner with databases to get it. WoWDB’s data for MoP was really accurate, and we needed that.

As you know, the databases mine data from the game, so it’s often not totally accurate before the patches come out, since the data is still in flux. Even after the patch comes out, a lot of the items need manual updating. Here’s where our partnership comes in, to help both sides.

We get data from WoWDB through a handy dandy API. Thanks WoWDB! Then we use their item data to categorize each item – we show if it costs VP, what reputation you need, what boss it drops from, etc. Then we run lists of gear to ‘fact check’ the data. Anything that seems wrong gets sent right over to WoWDB. Here’s the awesome part: They usually fix it in under a day!

For example, I emailed them yesterday about the Thunderforged item lists on WoWDB. The item lists didn’t have all of the data in them and tier pieces were showing as Thunderforged (when they can’t be Thunderforged). The guys at WoWDB got back to me right away. They told me they re-scanned everything in the client and the items are still missing. They said they are scanning daily to pick up new items. And, they manually removed the Thunderforged flag from the tier pieces. This all happened in less than a day.

Looking at the thread I linked at the top, you see a lot of people complaining that WoWDB isn’t any better than Wowhead, so why bother? There are 2 big selling points for us: they have an API, and they are very fast to fix inaccurate data. Sure, several weeks after the patch, data from both databases is pretty solid so most people don’t notice. But for Mr. Robot to optimize correctly ON patch day, he needs that solid data right away!

Wowhead has a lot of comments, and those comments are incredibly useful. No doubt about that! They also have some really awesome people (like perculia) writing some great information roundups (like this one on the new 5.2 factions). We like Wowhead, in fact, I visit there all the time to read Perculia’s stuff!

I really wanted to shed some light on how big of a help WoWDB has been for Mr. Robot. And the warm fuzzy side of me would really like to get quality comments on WoWDB for 5.2 data. Take some time to write in a comment or two on WoWDB and spread the good karma. Mr. Robot is watching you.