WTB "The Iso Mod Addon (tm)", PST

Let me tell you a little story. Recently, I acquired a One-Hand Dagger from the ‘Circle of Blood’ quest line out in Nagrand. I currently use two High Warlord’s Razors on my level 67 Rogue. I opted for the dagger quest reward over the fist weapon because I’m mutilate specced, which requires using a dagger in both of my hands. This Ceremonial Dagger of the Whatever has a higher Damage per Second output than the Razor in my offhand. The swing speed is faster; resulting in quick, but weaker, swings. My mind latches onto each of these details (and more!) in a fraction of a second, and an internal argument ensues. Do I want slower, harder hits, or a quicker weapon speed for faster poison applications? The difference in top end damage is a measly 4 points, but the bottom ranges of the weapons are further apart. Does Mutilate even care about bottom end? What about when I hit 70 and start looking for a faster offhand to offset the energy usage of Shiv?

Ultimately, another voice in my head (this one with a tinge of annoyance) finally cries out to just shut the fuck up and put it in the bank for fuck’s sake. Can we get back to stabbing things? I got poisons ticking. Christ.

So I bank the weapon, and go about my merry business. Two days later, I run into a friend of mine, Pawnface. He’s really excited about this new dagger he got from a quest. He links it in a tell. I bravely link back my HWL Razor and say ‘yeah, I got one of those, but ended up banking it. I might just vend it for the 8 gold, since my HWL weaps are better.’

Pawnface, bless his soul, is gentle. He nudges me towards the light with a comment or two about how the new one will fare with an enchant (it already has gobs of AGI, throw another 15 on there), and mentions in passing a fact I had already thought about: faster poison applications. Being a Mutilate rogue, and one who loves Envenom, I live for poison applications. I have no less than 12 talent points spent making sure my poisons land, they tick harder, and they don’t get dispelled.

The inner argument starts again, but this time, Mr. Annoyed doesn’t beat around the bush. "Just go Buy the Fucking Mats", says he. "Put 15 agility on there, I don’t give a shit how much it costs. All this “if, but, or” crap is getting on my nerves. I got things to stab. Poisons are ticking!"

I run (sprint!) to the AH, and buyout mats for the 15 agility enchant. It comes to about fifty gold or so. Seriously, I have no idea what the fuck happened to the economy, but I guess that’s the point. No one is going to go farm Essences of Air for me anymore; it’s all about Motes of Doodoo now. The five that are up there are 15g each, and Mr. Annoyed certainly isn’t going to put up with a flight to Silithus.

I buy the enchant mats, get a friend to get it on there, and am pleasantly surprised with the result. I lost .39% crit, but picked up about 15 attack power which resulted in an overall damage output from 320 to 321(!), and shaved my off hand’s weapon speed down to 1.7 from 2.0. It wasn’t such a huge loss after all!

Ripperjack, I know you’re dying inside right now. What is the point of this entire stupid story? Shit, baby! THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO KNOW! The point is this: I obsess over little numbers like “point thirty-nine” and “one point seven” and “three twenty one”. I don’t think it’s healthy! I think it may be UNhealthy.

In the end, I kept the 1.7 speed dagger, but only because I think I spent so much gold on the stupid enchant. I can sit here and say I consciously know that I’d probably rather have that .39% crit, but in the end, I’m going to keep the extra Razor in the bank. The new one is 1.7 speed, after all, hadn’t you heard?! Carrying the 'old' HWL Razor around in my bags is just a wasted inventory slot, and putting it in the bank brings a sense of closure to the subject. It’s in the bank, and that’s final!

Look… Here’s what I want, and I will task it to you, the general public, to create it for me. Once it’s done, three months from now, and everyone is leaving little comments on Curse saying “ZeeOhEmGee! This is just what I’ve been looking for!” I’ll be like “Yeah right, Snapperlips. Get in line buddy, and stop swingin’ from the peanut tree. This Addon was written for ME, Isobelle of Scilla. If you ask nicely, I just might allow the author to let you use it.”

What I basically want is Theorycraft 3.

There’s an Addon out there called Theorycraft that will put little numbers on your Sinister Strike button and show you how much it hits for. While the default Blizzard tooltip says something like ‘Causes weapon damage plus 88’, Theorycraft actually takes those numbers, looks at your weapon, and does the math for you. It changes the in-game tooltip to say ‘Causes 314 damage’ and even puts a little 314 on your button. It will look at healing spells if you heal, take your +healing into consideration, and put little numbers on there for you. It doesn’t do anything FOR you, it just helps you do your job yourself with less hassle.

Anyway, that’s one function of Theorycraft. That’s the one I use it for. Another thing it does (albeit a bit poorly at the moment), is that it allows you to create a ‘fantasy set’ of armor, and see what your stats would be if you were wearing that armor. You can take what you’re currently wearing, and say ‘If I had all of this, and then went and got the Boots of DooDoo Brown, how much harder would my 3 point Eviscerates hit for?’

You ‘equip’ this fantasy armor, and re-mouse over your abilities, and the new tooltip says ‘Causes 323 damage’. It’s a great idea, but buggy, and way too cumbersome.

What I want, is to be able to click an item link, hold down Shift + Control (control alone is already equipcompare), and see this:

There would be a little dropdown menu for enchants, so you could also do things like see ‘If I kept my gloves, but got a 12 STR enchant on there, how would my attack power and block values be adjusted?’

Do you hear the angels singing? The trumpets heralding the arrivial of ‘The IsoMod’? BUT ISO WHY DON’T YOU JUST CODE IT YOURSEL—stop it! Cut it out! I didn’t ask for this power. With great knowledge comes great power (or something) and I’m delegating this task to YOU, my loyal serv—followers! I’m drained enough just having cooked up my glorious photoshopped comps of the Addon in action. I need to lie down. Take leave of me for now and get to work coding My Addon. My time is precious, and I have things to stab. Get to it, already. I have poisons ticking for fuck’s sake.

Christ.