Gear Optimizer

[rhadamanthys]

Hello everyone. I've recently been working on a java-based Gear Optimizer.

What does it do?
Basically, it lets the user select (almost) any lvl 85 item, input stat weights, caps and metagem of choise, and from there it computes and returns the best possible gear setup. This includes selecting the proper items, gems and reforges. It might sount as a very hard to use too, but it actually isn't. Here is a video that shows you how to optimize yourself in a handfull of clicks and one minute of your time.

What makes the WoWGearOptimizer any different than other tools like it?

1. It is not limited to reforges only. Reforge-only tools are based on the assumption that you have already selected the best 16-17 items among the ones that you currently own, and from there they start to apply the reforges and tell you which one is best. Sadly though, selecting the items cannot be done independently (and beforehand) of the reforge and gemming process, and selecting the proper item mix will contribute way more than reforging the wrong item mix right. Also, they can't give you any suggestion on which items to get next etc.
2. It makes no compromises. What it will come up with is the best setup possible, not something close to it. I spent most of the development time refining the optimization process in order to not leave a 20% margin of error, but not even a 0.000001% one.
3. Not making compromises means being more thorough. Yet, it is incredibly optimized and fast. This is a real example from a user here:
   

   The most combinations your tool tries is 540k for me. A different tool (a rogue tool) makes sure of optimisation (but only does reforging, not gemming or enchanting) tests over 5 *B*illion combinations, i.e. all of them.

I'm still not convinced that it is quite that fast?
Although the problem of finding the optimal mix is np-complete, and therefore it could be very slow to solve, there are many optimizations that can be made to speed up the process. As a reference, optimizing my armory char as it is takes 306.110.016 tests before all the optimizations are applied, but only 3.888 after them. Settling for a close to optimal result would be a lot faster, but I didn't want for this tool to settle for anything other than the true optimal solution.

I'm confused, I have no clue about which algorithm I should use to fire the optimization...
I'll give you a real life example so you can choose whichever suits your needs.
Number of combinations to test: 9.953.280
Parallel (low mem) computed the result in 43 seconds, and the whole program was using 60 MB of ram.
Serial computed the result in 2 minutes and 10 seconds, and the whole program was using 60 MB of ram.
Parallel (high mem) computed the result in 31 seconds, and the whole program was using 620 MB of ram.
Please note that this test was done on a 8 thread machine, if the optimizer had access to a lower amount of threads the gap between the two parallel algorithms would have been even smaller.

What other extra features are currently implemented?

• loading your character directly from the armory. Its use is twofold: you can use it as a shortcut to load many items at once and then proceed to use them for the optimization process, or you can use it to load your exact armory configuration and evaluate how much dps/hps it is worth. Doing both will tell you exactly how big is the gap between your current setup and the optimized one, so it's easy to judge whether or not you wanna invest the money to go from the current configuration to the optimal one
• pre-sets of stat weights for most classes and specs
• unlike other tools it supports all normal random enchantment items from Throne of the Four Winds
• multithread support to speed up the computation considerably
• saving to disk your current profile (so you won't have to reinput weights, lookup items again etc)
• saving to disk the result of an optimization run so you can easily reopen it at a later time (maybe because you run it when you can't access WoW so you can't reforge/regem right away, or to do comparisons between different runs)
• you can quickly import stat weights from simulationcraft with just a cut&paste
• there is a button to export a textual representation of the optimized setup. This makes it extremely easy to copy it into WoW, so you won't have to tab in and out of the game to see how every single item should be gemmed or reforged

The WoW Gear Optimizer uses some fairly complex algorithms to reduce the number of combinations that must be tested (in many cases reducing them by up to six orders of magnitude). Also, after the first time that you run it, it will create a desktop shortcut icon, and regardless of whether you run it from the website or from the desktop, it will always autoupdate itself to the latest release.

Where can I see what it can do, or simply learn how to use it?
Here are the videos that I've made to demonstrate what it can do, and how to use it:

1. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - v4.3.1
2. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - Optimization Run (HD)
3. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - v2.0.0 Cached Results! (HD)
4. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - v1.9.5 Linked Caps! (HD)
5. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - Gear Optimization (HD)
6. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - v1.6.3 Multithreading! (HD)
7. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - v1.5.4 new features (HD)
8. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - General Usage (HD)
9. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - Comparisons between runs (HD)
10. YouTube - WoW Gear Optimizer - Reload Profiles and Previous Results(HD)

Where can I download it?
The software itself is downloadable at WGO | Wow Gear Optimizer

Some extra user feedback

It perfectly recommended reforging options to get me to exactly 1742. Not options I would have intuitively used when reforging manually. But now all my stats are better balanced according to the stat weights and I even simcraft 4k dps higher

Curent Version (1.9.5) buglist:

[Granfino]

how we will know if it will stole our pass?

[rhadamanthys]

Developing an addon for the past two years and now this so that I could steal your password ?

Besides, I don't think that password stealers publicize keyloggers using their real (and loved since beta) character name.

If you have any questions or worries about the tool feel free to wisper Rhadamanthys on shadowsong eu before downloading it!

[Deleted]

Just had a quick look, looks good. Is it just me though or is the download button borked?

[rhadamanthys]

It shouldn't be... Do you have java installed on your pc?

[iwog]

Not to crap all over you success but isn't this just a rawr replacement? Don't get me wrong I think it's great that there's now a competing optimiser but you seem to lack some of the power of rawr such as the ability to edit fight types and available buffs. These can give massively different results compared to the simcraft optimised standard fights.

[rhadamanthys]

First of all rawr has the advantage of being very modular, with the downside that some class modules haven't really been accurate since TBC, so some classes always had an hard time with it.
Secondly rawr formulates, simcraft simulates (and has options to include/exclude buffs, and include variables like movement etc).
Once you have the proper weights, you can easily plug them in the gear optimizer and find your best combo of items and gems and reforges, factoring in stat caps. I can assure you that every time I loot an item it creates a series of chain reactions for which I have to swap items from char to bags and vice versa, change some reforges etc, and many times those differ from what I'd have done with just educated guesses.

[iwog]

I know the pain of changing many pieces of gear because one new piece throws everything out of whack. Trying to balance the hit cap, soft haste and maximising crit has been lots of fun on my mage.

However I am slightly concerned with the simcraft aspect of getting stat weightings. Do you take the weightings from the already derived sims or do you generate the weightings yourself from one sim? If its the latter then stat weightings will be different every time you run the optimiser as the simulation will be slightly different everytime.

[Kite874]

as beeing a holy pala does this also work for me?

[rhadamanthys]

@Kite

I haven't tested it for holy palas tbh, but it should. Any feedback is much apreciated.

@iwog

I could cut and paste it here, but I'd rather link you the source itself, here. It is a very very interesting read, and should end your worries about simulation, variance, slightly different scales for good.

[Kite874]

@Kite

I haven't tested it for holy palas tbh, but it should. Any feedback is much apreciated.

after a quick test it seemed pretty acurate. most of my items were already optimized but i had my weapon/ring wich i knew were wrong optimized and your tool showed them as how they should be.

From a quick look it works for holy palas. cant guarantee it for reto droods/shamans and holy/disc priests.

[rhadamanthys]

Excellent kite, thanks a lot for testing it out!

[Deleted]

how we will know if it will stole our pass?

Because you need to input your password to be able to customly put together items and stuff or even look up existing characters at the armory, amirite?

[iwog]

@iwog

I could cut and paste it here, but I'd rather link you the source itself, here. It is a very very interesting read, and should end your worries about simulation, variance, slightly different scales for good.

Cool so basically only 100 sims are required for a 5% confidence level, hoping I got that right, its been a while since I did any stats. I'll definitely have to have a little play with this and see how the simmed (or sim-ed) results compare to rawr's formula results.

[rhadamanthys]

Wait, you probably got it right, but just in case, they talk about iterations (a parameter that you set before clicking "Start simulating", not actually repeating for 100 times the loop :
open simulationcraft - compute - close the program

To sum it up, with a big enough amount of iterations, the scales will be just fine.

[Deleted]

Love the fact hunters get their own on a website

[rhadamanthys]

New version incoming tomorrow!

[rhadamanthys]

I've updated the first post to reply to the most frequently asked questions

[Deleted]

Is it just me though or is the download button borked?

Same here. It looks good from the videos though.

[rhadamanthys]

What problem are you experiencing?