October Site Updates

I have been doing weekly updates to the Cataclysm gear listing on the site (accessible by filtering for patch 4.0.3).  One of the trickiest pages is Trinkets.  There are an obscene amount of trinkets in Cataclysm and I'm sure there are even more healer ones yet to be discovered.  There are also the epic heroic mode raid trinkets which will be added at a much much later date (probably post-Cata, I doubt they'll beta test heroics... who knows).

There is a lot of Cataclysm gear in the site now.  I have the goal of listing everything ilvl 333+ on the slot pages so you know what is what.  Ranks right now are based on the weights from a few posts ago.  I've unfortunately had to rely on this heavily since there has been such a large amount of items.  The best items according to this are int/spi/haste ones.

I have also had to add in some of the pre-4.0.1 spirit items from ICC that we didn't use before.  This includes the Marrowgar neckpiece, Sindragosa ring, and Deathbringer cloak.  These are some of the best items now.

Cataclysm & 4.0.1 Holy Paladin Glyphs

I have added a new glyphs page to the main website. This page lists the new Cataclysm holy paladin glyphs in the order you're most likely to use them. There are a few interesting choices and a few boring choices.

This page is also valid for 4.0.1 holy paladins since glyphs will be updated.

In addition, I've updated the methodology page for 4.0.1 and beyond. This should give some insight on how gear is ranked for the next expansion. Since things are still likely to change this page is also subject to change.

Stat Weights for Cataclysm

Even though Cataclysm is a few months off and stats may end up changing in value, I've entered a set of default values for 4.0.1. The only thing that will change for Cata is the value of a socket since you'll be able to fit 40 stat points into a socket instead of 20. Sockets are at 100 for 4.0.1, if you want to see 4.0.3 values bump it up to 200.

The values largely come from stat discussion in beta at EJ where Zaroua (Premonition) and DiamondTear (Paragon) are discussing the value of each stat. Still subject to tweaking of course. It's somewhat depressing that mastery is such an unattractive stat for us since it has the potential to be good... it's just that the current implementation is quite bad.

Here are the weights:
Spellpower (weapon only): 1.5
INT: 5.0
SPI: 5.0
Haste: 4.0
Mastery: 2.5
Crit: 2.5
Socket (4.0.1 value): 100.0

Site Update Launched!

The main website at http://bis.vilepickle.com has been updated for 4.0.1! Here's an overview of the changes to the site:

• All items now show their new stats. Stats from WOTLK are no longer listed when you mouse over items.
• Two patches: 4.0.1 pre-Cataclysm and 4.0.3 post-Cataclysm. Select the filter to change your item set (see new, not-yet-available items from Cataclysm for each slot with 4.0.3)
• MP5 is gone, spirit is in.
• Mastery is in.
• Spellpower now only counts for weapon pointscore.
• Cataclysm raid items will show up for both the 25 and 10 man filters.
• Reduced the number of WOTLK items listed. For the most part only the top of the line items remain. Lets face it, gear in WOTLK is only going to matter for a few weeks at best, and the old top items are still at the top.
• Speaking of old top items, mail and other non-plate is no longer listed due to the 5% intellect bonus in 4.0.1 and beyond for full plate. The mail is still good, but in the big picture you'll be using it as filler gear at best. Since we're still "best in slot" technically I do not see a real reason to list all of this gear from now on (unless it is clearly way beyond any of "our" gear).
• Item weights reset to 1 across the board. The stat shuffle has made it confusing for me to try and weight them right now. You can enter your own weights still on the individual slot pages. Note that socket value is the amount of a stat that can fit in a typical socket (20 in 4.0.1).
• The front page now lists the top 2 items for each socket. This is my effort to be more accepting of different itemizations that may be valid. My opinion should not be absolute and only listing 1 gave that illusion. I may add a filter to only list the top item in the future (mostly for readability).
• Item level has been added to the site on the slot pages. You can sort the tables by this value.
  
• Several back-end optimizations have been added to the site like page caching and offloaded static files. It should be faster.
  

I appreciate any feedback, and I especially encourage you to email me at vilepickle@gmail.com if you find a bug. I'm not a perfect PHP coder, but I get the job done. Enjoy the new site! I know I'll be getting a lot of use out of it when Cata launches.