Post by Heckler
Two small suggestions which I assume are probably in the works already, but if not:
Distinguish "Armor" and "Bonus Armor" where bonus armor is anything above the base value or anything on a ring, weapon, trinket, etc. which is unaffected by Armor multipliers. The game sees these as two different things, it seems the wowhead database, therefore, should as well.
Add a line item under "Weapon Stats" where you can assign bonus values to certain weapon types. For example, if I value Expertise Rating at 1.00, as a Human, I'd like to have 24.59 points added to any Mace or Sword type weapon to show my Racial Expertise gain. This isn't vital to gear comparison, but when comparing an Axe to a Mace, this can make quite a large difference.
And a final note, not necessarily a suggestion, but the Speed line item seems to be... quirky. It seems to divide the weight by 1e-04 whenever the page is refreshed, to the point where it seems unusable. (Odds are I'm just doing it wrong).
Post by Heckler
This isn't meant to be a 'necrobump' -- I had given up on a reply and assumed my suggestion was either (i) in the works already, or (ii) too idiotic to warrant a direct reply, or (iii) already implemented, but I was to stupid to see / use it. Regardless, I just noticed all the new activity today.
In looking through the database, there are quite a few examples of Items listed to have the 'correct' amount of 'additional armor' Such as:
Epic iLevel 200 Cloaks -- According to their iLevel, all of these cloaks should have 150 armor.
Cloak of Armed Strife however, has 486. Therefore, 336 of this is 'Additional Armor' that would NOT be multiplied by Dire Bear Form (or other multipliers like it) as of 3.0.8. This is notated correctly in this example, 336 is actually listed as 'AdditionalArmor.' To compensate for this in a weight scale, 'AdditionalArmor' could be given a negative value to drop the weight of 1 non-multiplied armor where it should be.
(For example, if 1 multipliable armor is worth 6, and one non-multipliable is worth 1, AdditionalArmor should be given a weight of -5. Net result: iLvl armor is worth 6, Anything on top of that is worth 1)
This works perfectly in most cases, as the database seems to be 100% correct for armor items. When considering Rings, Trinkets, Necks, and Weapons however, AdditionalArmor doesn't seem to show anything. Example:
iLevel 200 Rings with Armor - These items do not show a value for AdditionalArmor (neither do any of the Trinkets, Weapons, Necks, or Rings I looked at), but the armor granted by Rings, Trinkets, Weapons, Neck is NOT multiplied by armor multipliers either. My original suggestion was to give all Rings, Weapons, Trinkets, and Necks an AdditionalArmor value equal to that of their Armor. It seems to me the purpose of having an AdditionalArmor value at all is to allow this type of distinction. One way of getting proper weights knowing this is to have a different scale entirely for the slots which never receive Armor multiplication.
Enchants/Consumables add 'Bonus Armor', and should all have AdditionalArmor values as well.I'm not suggesting that there's anything WRONG with the weight scales. The makers of this database are quite skilled and have the highest level of my respect. This is simply a suggestion to help deal with the 3.0.8 changes to AdditionalArmor in a clean way that perhaps the devs hadn't considered, or perhaps could tell me why they decided not to implement it if they had considered it. As I stated above, I know the most likely situation is that these changes have already been put on the table and were either scrapped or are already in the works.