Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Rawr The Program

So, I really can't believe that I haven't blogged about this before. I feel like I've let down the druid, mage, and many other communities. The information is certainly out there, but why haven't I told you guys about it? Selfish? No. Forgetful? Maybe. But the truth is that I thought I had already blogged about this.

What am I going on about? Today I'm talking about Rawr. Rawr is a program that was originally developed to help Druids figure out gear upgrades for Bear and Cat forms. I know it's been around for at least two years, but know exactly how long. There's been many changes (it's now in Beta 15), and it's come a long way from just supporting Druids. It now supports the following classes/roles:
  • Bear
  • Cat
  • DPSWarrior
  • Healadin
  • HolyPriest
  • Mage
  • Moonkin
  • ProtWarrior
  • RestoSham
  • Retribution
  • Tankadin
  • Tree
  • Warlock
Phew! That's a lot of gear lists. I tend to lean more on Rawr than say MaxDPS.com since the Rawr suggestions seem to make more sense. The MaxDPS will give you the items that will give you the highest DPS, but it doesn't take into consideration survivability. What good is a dead mage? You got it... good for nothing. Also, it doesn't take into consideration your mana pool. So, what good is a mage without mana? So, Rawr takes into consideration dps and total damage possible. Overall, seems like an excellent guide for those classes to figure out gear.

Likewise, for tanking, you can see how each item stacks up in different areas. For tanks, it's not just how much stamina you have. So, Rawr breaks it down into Mitigation, Survival, and Threat. All of which are important to tanks.

You can also enter all the gear you currently have, and it will optimize it for you. Results may vary. Most of the time it seems to give good suggestions. There's some gear choices that are debatable, but aren't they all?

Now this program is essentially for level 70 toons. You can change your specs and the gear will adjust accordingly as well. If you're looking for gear lists of any of the above classes, go check it out. It's a great program.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't know Rawr actually had a DPSWarrior module. I'm going to actually have to it now.

Leiandra said...

They actually just added it in the last beta on 7/27. But it looks like it may be Arms only. I'm just saying.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I tried it out with my badge fists on but it was still calculating the DPS as Arms, and not Fury.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the tip. I've been using Rawr and I love it. The only little annoyance is that it seems necessary to "refresh" its database occasionally. I had already set my sights on getting the S2 PvP shoulders, for instance, and then a guildie pointed out that Fel-tinged Mantle (from Heroic MgT) was better. That item didn't show up in Rawr at all until I refreshed, then, sure enough, it ranked Fel-tinged Mantle above the PvP shoulders.

(I went for the PvP shoulders anyway, but at least now I know what my next upgrade target is).

On the plus side, Rawr told me that my Boots of Ethereal Manipulation really really sucked. Sharded now and I bought the badge boots. Good stuff.