The Economics of WoW: Part 2

OK, so when I left you hanging last, we were talking about $100, and choosing between ice cream and goldfish. So, am I drunk AND high? Nope. And here is how it relates to WoW.

The way that Blizzard creates stats for items is as follows. Depending on where you can acquire items, they have X number of points to go into them. It's kinda like an RPG when you're starting out and you get a certain number of points to go into traits for your character. Then they place the points in different places depending on how they want to itemize that item.

Now depending on where the gear is acquired, the item level is set at a certain value. For example, just about everything that drops in Karazhan has an item level of 115. Compare that with heroic epics which are around level 110. Arena season 2 gear is level 136.

OK, so items with a higher level are better, right? Well, that depends. If you compare the arena season 2 priest healing headpiece to the Headdress of the High Potentate, it's no question which one is better for PVE and which one is better for PVP. If it had stats for PVE on it, the season 2 would outrank anything from Karazhan. But it has stats designed for PVP. It has no spirit, and little intellect on it. But it has a crapton of resilience and stamina, which aren't worth nearly as much in PVE for priests.

So lets tie this all in together somehow by looking at 2 pieces of gear with the same item level.

Ring of Recurrence
Item Level 115
15 Stamina
15 Intellect
19 Spell Crit Rating
32 +damage and healing

Spectral Band of Innervation
Item Level 115
22 Stamina
24 Intellect
29 +damage and healing

These items according to Blizzard are the exact same. According to whatever formulas they use, it seems that 7 Stamina and 9 Intellect are equal to 19 Crit Rating and 3 +damage and healing.

But ask any mage or warlock which one is better, and it's an easy choice. Unless you're tanking someone like Krosh in the Maulgar fight, the Ring of Recurrance is a lot better. So how can this be?

It's the same as the goldfish vs. the ice cream. The person selling the goldfish and ice cream are assuming that you like ice cream twice as much as goldfish. Because to him, 2 goldfish = 1 ice cream. But this is where you need to decide which one you like best.

The same thing applies to WoW. Blizzard is giving you a set number of items that you need to choose between. The key is not choosing the gear with the highest item level according to Blizzard. An example of Blizzard's scales is 1 Strength = 1 Agility = 1.5 Stamina = 1 Intellect = 1 Spirit. But for me as a priest, my scale is more like 1000 Strength = 1000 Agility = 10 Stamina = 4 Intellect = 2 Spirit. So my item levels would be a LOT different. An item with 50 Strength on it? Worthless to me. An item with 50 Spirit on it? Much much better.

So your job when choosing your gear is to determine which stats mean the most to you, and figuring out what it means to Blizzard. If Blizzard ranks that stat higher than you do, then it isn't one you should go after. If they rank it lower, then go after it as much as you can. It's the single best way to get the most utility out of your gear. Your goal is DPS, or threat per second, or mana regen, or healing per second instead of happiness points. And your job is to maximize that given the items that you have access to in the game.

There will be a lot more posts upcoming about this subject, and I assure you, some will be almost as entertaining as the first post was.