GearDelta

See how much better a piece of gear is for your current spec, your secondary spec, and the spec you're planning, worked out from your actual talents. Built for World of Warcraft: Forever.

Most upgrade addons score items with a fixed list of stat weights. GearDelta reads your talents and works out what each stat really does for your character. If, for example, you're an Enhancement Shaman with Mental Dexterity, every point of Intellect is also a point of Attack Power, and GearDelta counts it that way. Respec, and the numbers change with you.

What you see

Hover any piece of gear and the tooltip shows three percentages (example):

GearDelta
  Current   (Enhancement 0/31/20)                  +3.2%
     DPS +3.6%   Crit 6.1% (+0.2)   AP 412 (+10)   Hit 2.0%
     Dodge 6.0%   Parry 5.0%
     Stormstrike +4.1%   Earth Shock +0.6%
  Secondary (Spec 2: Restoration)                  -1.5%
     Healing Wave +0.8%   Chain Heal +0.8%
  Planned   (Elemental 31/20/0)                    +0.8%
     Lightning Bolt +1.2%   Lava Burst +1.2%

• Current: your active talents.
• Secondary: your other dual spec, or any saved talent loadout you choose.
• Planned: a build you plan in Gear-Delta's talent planner, even a completely different spec.
• Ability lines: what the item does to each spec's most used abilities, per cast, up to four per spec.
• Stat lines (current spec): your main effect first (DPS, HPS or Threat), then the next important stats for your current role; With the change with this item in green or red, for:
  • Healers - mana, MP5, crit, healing.
  • Casters - MP5, crit, spell damage, hit.
  • Tanks - health, armor, dodge, parry, block.
  • Melee - crit, attack power, hit, dodge, parry, block.
  • Hunters - crit, ranged attack power, hit, dodge.
  • Health, mana, MP5 and armor are always shown whenever an item changes them.

Hold Shift to see the full calculation for every spec (example):

Item change: +10 Intellect, -3 Agility, +10 Armor
Melee DPS: DPS +3.6% [auto-attacks +2.8%, abilities +4.9%] = +12.9 AP, -0.30% crit, +157.5 mana (+8.8%)
+10 Int -> +10 AP (Mental Dexterity 100%)
Stormstrike: 164 -> 171 damage per cast (+4.1%)

The current-spec percentage also appears on the icon of gear in your bags and bank, on quest reward choices and in the need/greed roll window. It shows one decimal below 10%.

Gear your class can never wear, such as mail on a Priest or a two-handed sword on a Mage, gets no percentages at all. Gear you can learn to use later, like a staff before you've trained Staves or mail before level 40, is still shown.

How it calculates

1. Reads your character: stats, attack power, spell power, crit, hit, mana, armor, dodge, parry, block and block value.

2. Reads your talents from their own in-game descriptions, so it keeps up with talent changes during the beta. It understands stat bonuses (+10% Intellect), conversions (Attack Power equal to 100% of Intellect, healing from Spirit), crit, hit, crit damage, parry, block, defense and mana regeneration while casting. Procs, effects that only work against certain targets, weapon-type bonuses and pet talents are left out.

3. Applies each spec's talents to your stats, once with your current item and once with the new one.

4. Values your main abilities. Base numbers come from each ability's in-game text. GearDelta then works out how the ability scales: weapon damage, attack power, block value (Shield Slam), spell damage per school, or healing. Where Forever prints the scaling, such as "(+5% of ranged attack power)" on Summon Hawk, that number is used. Each spec shows its most cast abilities first, in the order ForeverDB's Forever DPS simulator measures, followed by other active abilities from its talents.

5. Turns it all into what your role cares about:

   • Melee and hunters: auto-attacks and abilities, mixed in the share each class gets from them in ForeverDB's simulator. For example, a Rogue gets about a third of their damage from abilities, a Survival Hunter about 80%.
   • Casters: their spells, plus mana over a fight.
   • Healers: their heals, plus mana over a fight.
   • Tanks: survival (health, armor, dodge, parry, block, defense) and threat.
   • Every role: a small share for survival, so armor and stamina always count for something.

   The result is one percentage per spec.

WoW Forever rules it follows

• One hit stat and one crit stat on gear for melee, ranged and spells.
• Hit cap of 9% for weapons and 16% for spells at level 60 (6% and 4% while levelling); with two weapons, hit above the cap still counts for 40%.
• Bonus healing on gear also gives a third of its value as spell damage.
• Weapon abilities use normalised weapon speed for their attack power part: 3.3 for two-handers, 2.4 for one-handers, 1.7 for daggers, 2.8 for ranged.
• Weapon damage counts in Druid forms; Shamans don't dual wield.
• The Forever armor formula, and 5 talent points per row inside each tree.
• Weapon and armor types per class follow Forever's own list (Rogues can use axes, Druids polearms).
• Enchants are ignored, so a new drop is compared fairly with what you wear.

Talent planner

Open it with the minimap button or /gd.

• Current spec / Secondary spec tabs show the trees as the game has them.
• Planned spec: left-click adds a point, right-click removes one, shift-click switches a choice talent. Tier and prerequisite rules are checked. Copy current, Copy secondary and Clear all give you a starting point.
• Role: Auto picks the role from the tree with the most points. Change it for builds Auto can't know about, such as a bear tank or a Smite priest.
• Source (Secondary tab): your other dual spec, or one of your saved loadouts. GearDelta learns your other spec's talents the first time you switch to it.
• Hover a talent to see which stat effects GearDelta counts for it.
• Ctrl + mouse wheel resizes the window.

Commands

Limits

• English game client only; item and talent texts are read in English.
• Use effects and procs on trinkets and weapons are not counted.
• When an ability's text doesn't print its spell power scaling, the classic rules are used (cast time / 3.5, damage over time duration / 15).
• Abilities without a damage number in their text (Multi-Shot), combo-point finishers and Execute are not valued.
• The auto-attack and ability shares are averages per class from a level 30 simulation; your own rotation may differ.
• These are estimates to help you choose gear, not a combat simulation. Very small differences can go either way.

Feedback

WoW Forever is in beta and its items and talents still change. If a number looks wrong:

1. Hold Shift over the item and take a screenshot of the tooltip.
2. For talent or ability problems, type /gd dump, then /reload, and attach WTF\Account<your account>\SavedVariables\GearDelta.lua.