Patch 8.2 has a lot of new items and gearing mechanics. First things first, let’s jump into the current status of optimization on our site.
Current status – Quick overview
Also hop on over to our developer’s forum post to easily track status.
Update on Thursday, June 27.
The remaining special effects for Vision of Perfection are implemented for all classes now, including healers and tanks. The simulator is fully functional for all gear, including raid gear. (With an exception: the special effect for Cursed Lover’s Ring probably won’t be implemented).
Gear rankings (optimizations) are continuing to run and we hope to have the majority of the classes live at the end of the weekend.
Update on Wednesday, June 26.
- The handful of special effects that weren’t implemented on launch are almost done:
- Memory of Lucid Dreams works for all classes now
- Brewmaster Monks and Protection Paladins didn’t have essences added into their rotations on launch but they are now fully implemented.
- Vision of Perfection needed to be implemented for all specs. Some specs are still outstanding and will be updated tomorrow. It is currently fully implemented for Protection Warrior, Mistweaver Monk, Destruction Warlock, Fury Warrior, and Marksmanship Hunter.
- Gear rankings (optimizations) will start running in full force overnight. If you are on the glonet, start your clients 🙂
Status as of Tuesday, June 25, 10 AM PST
- New gems & enchants: live & will be recommended in optimizations
- The “Punchcard” trinket is implemented in the simulator, including rotations. The punchcards are ranked in optimizations.
- New gear: can be browsed in all of our gear lists, but items with special effects are not yet ranked in optimizations. With one exception: the punchcards have initial rankings for the Pocket-Sized Computation Device.
- Addon is updated and version 77 or higher will be required in order to import/export the essences, punchcard, etc.
A note on Special effects – items, essences, etc
Fun fact: 8.2 added as many ‘special effect’ items as the launch of BfA and all previous patches, combined. We’ve been working hard on testing them in-game to make sure we know how every proc works in order to implement them. It’s taken a bit longer than expected because there are just sooo many.
Ranking special effects
Our gear rankings are based on simulations for your specific character, taking into account your current talents, etc. This saves you a ton of time so you don’t have to setup simulations and wait for the results every time you change a talent or get a new item. Not to mention, we can run more combinations than any one person could on their own computer(s) because we have a network of thousands of computers.
While this saves you time, it requires extra time on our end to setup and run all of the necessary simulations to cover everyone’s characters. Once these are complete, however, no more sims are required since we run everything necessary up front.
Some specs will be done later this week, others next week. If things change in-game or need to get updated on our site, we will re-run the affected items and specs. However, this is much faster, as we only have to re-simulate data for that specific item and the combinations that item was included in.
New gems & enchants
Gear optimizations will now recommend the new gems and enchants. If you don’t see them, be sure to go back to the setup screen and make sure “epic” quality is selected and you might also need to lower or disable to gem/enchant ‘threshold.’
A few notes about the gem filters:
- The new Jewelcrafter gem is included in the “Epic” filter
- The old Jewelcrafter gem is included in the “Rare” filter
- No Jewelcrafter gems will be used if you set the filter to “Uncommon.”
Enchant filters:
- “Only Cheap Ring” is only green quality, cheap ring enchants
- “Cheap Weapon & Ring” includes the cheap ring enchants and the cheaper weapon enchants (pre 8.2)
- “All” includes the rare and epic quality ring enchants and the new 8.2 weapon enchants. We might adjust these, but on the PTR the new epic ring enchants costs nearly the same as the old rare ring enchants. We will monitor this – if the Epic ends up being more expensive than the rare, we will update filters as needed.
- Note: The new weapon enchants are more expensive than the old ones, but aren’t necessarily better. They are just different.
New filter: In Eternal Palace
If you are in the Eternal Palace or Nazjatar, special effects will be activated that require those locations.
Benthic Gear
Benthic gear is new with 8.2 and includes Azerite items as well as gear for other slots (example item). The 385 versions can be purchased from Vendors with Prismatic Manapearls (or as quest rewards). These items can also be upgraded with the Prismatic Manapearls, to a max level of 425.
Benthic gear cannot Warforge or Titanforge, but it can roll sockets and tertiary stats.
You can currently search any gear list for Benthic items by typing “benthic” (minus quotes) into the search box. Later this week we will add a special category into the Upgrade Finder for Bethic gear.
Pocket-sized Computation Device – aka, the Punchcard
This is a new trinket that you get after completing a series of quests in 8.2 starting in Nazjatar and ending in Mechagon. It has 3 punchcard slots – think of them as colored gem-slots.
There are 3 types of punchcards: red, yellow, and blue.
- Red cards have either on-use or equip effects with a proc, similar to a trinket.
- Yellow cards are static stat gains.
- Blue cards are quality-of-life effects, like gaining swim speed or reduced falling damage.
Punchcard’s iLevel changes the level of the trinket.
The punchcards have their own item level, currently maxxing at 415. The trinket takes the item level of the punchcards and averages them to make a new item level, which then scales the effects of each punchcard up or down. A note: we have a working theory that only Red and Yellow punchcards’ item levels are factored in to the overall iLevel, blues are not.
Let’s look at an example I have from my character on the PTR:
- 404 iLevel red punchcard: Subroutine Overclock
- 408 iLevel yellow punchcard: Optimized Adaptable Logic Board
- The trinket’s item level increased from 400 to 406 after those were socketed into it.
Below is a screenshot of my trinket.
I moused over the red punchcard slot to get the tooltip for my actual 404 punchcard. You can see from that tooltip that it is in fact item level 404 and it grants 284 Haste (highlighted by the red box). However, when that red punchcard effect is listed on the trinket itself (as shown above), it is scaled up to the trinket’s item level of 406, giving me 286 Haste (highlighted in red) instead of 284.
This also means my level 408 yellow punchcard gets scaled down to level 406, as shown below.
This scaling is not permanent. If I socket a 408 red punchcard in (instead of 404), the trinket’s item level increases to level 408. Then each punchcard is re-scaled up to level 408, bringing the Mastery on the 408 yellow punchcard back up to 288 (instead of the scaled down 286 version).
When you ‘socket’ a punchcard into the trinket, it cannot be removed. You can socket over it with a new one, but the old one will be destroyed, just like gems.
Mr. Robot will optimize your red and yellow punchcards
Since you can get this trinket from a quest early in the patch release, we made sure that the punchcards had initial ranks and ready to be recommended in gear optimizations right away. Note that blue ones are up to you to choose since they are quality-of-life improvements. If you don’t have a blue punchcard in your trinket, it will be left blank on the optimization. If you already have a blue one in, a different one will not be suggested. The best ones will be shown in your optimized result, similar to how we show suggested gems.
Current status: READY! the punchcards have initial rankings and will be suggested in optimizations.
Essences & the optimizer
Your Heart of Azeroth necklace now has essence slots: 1 major essence and 2 minor. You get the major slot as you do the main quest line in Nazjatar.
The first minor slot unlocks when your Heart of Azeroth is at level 55 and the next one at level 65.
Both major and minor essences have different qualities, from uncommon to legendary, and these are unlocked from various activities in the game.
How does Mr. Robot handle essences?
You will need to specify your major-essence preference and then Mr. Robot will optimize your minor essences with Best in Bags (premium) as well as the Gear Check (free) and Best in Slot (free). Current status: the minor essences are currently not ranked – they are being simulated so we can get them ranked for you asap.
The major essences are personal choices, similar to talents. A few examples:
- DPS – Essence of the Focusing Iris: “Focus excess Azerite energy into the Heart of Azeroth, then expel that energy outward, dealing x amount of Fire damage to all enemies in front of you over 2.5 sec.”
- DPS – Purification Protocol: “Call down a purifying beam upon the target area, dealing x amount of Fire damage over 6 sec. Any Aberration struck by the beam is stunned for 3 sec.”
- Healer – Vitality Conduit: “Direct the Vitality Conduit toward an ally. Every 0.5 sec for 6 sec, they transfer x amount of health from the highest-health ally within 30 yds.”
- Tank – Azeroth’s Undying Gift: “Reduce all damage you take by 20% for 4 sec.”
Since the major essences are more of a preference and rely on your situation or play-style, they aren’t well-suited to mathematical optimizations. Therefor, Mr. Robot has you choose your major essence, then he will optimize around it. This is similar to how he handles talents: you pick (or import) your talent setup and get gear optimized around that.
But just like talents, we will give you some data on the guides about how each one stacks up. That will be coming soon.
Minor essences, on the other hand, are often stat-gains or effects that scale with your stats. A few examples:
- DPS – Blood of the Enemy: “Your critical strikes with spells and abilities grant a stack of Blood-Soaked. Upon reaching 40 stacks, you gain 548 Haste for 8 sec.”
- DPS – Condensed Life Force: “Your spells and abilities have a high chance to impale your target with a spike of azerite, causing x amount of Fire damage (scaling with Versatility)”
- Healer – Artifice of Time: “Your heals have a very high chance to grant the target 281 Haste for 6 sec.”
- Tank – Nullification Dynamo: “Every 20 sec, gain a Null Barrier, absorbing the next 22,638 magic damage you take for 10 sec.”
With just these examples, you might start to see how it can be difficult to suss out the best ones, as a mere human, without a bunch of math or simulation. This is where our gear optimization comes in handy – we run simulations for you and provide the answers you are looking for.
Update status & questions:
I will update this blog post with current status. Our developer will also be updating this forum thread (which might be a better medium for tracking updates, rather than searching through a blog post). Feel free to also post any questions or comments on our forums.