Today, with Patch 3.1.2, Blizzard finally introduced the Equipment Manager, which basically allows you to change all your gear by having sets, something we’ve seen before with addons like ClosetGnome and Itemrack.
Equipment Manager
- When enabled from the Interface Options menu, this feature will allow players to store sets of equipment, easily swap between saved sets using hotkeys, and pull items directly from backpacks or bank slots (must be at the bank to equip inventory from the bank).
Before ranting a bit about it, this is not activated by default once you apply the patch, you have to go to Interface > Controls and, at the bottom, you will see an option that says Use Equipment Manager
This feature, compared to the addons before mentioned, is very basic. I was fooling around with it a bit and found out a couple of things:
- To create sets just equip yourself with the items you want on it (including t-shirts and such), then press the button at the top-right corner, press Save, select an icon and write down a name and that’s it.
- There doesn’t seem to be a way to change gear like ClosetGnome by using an icon in the minimap. Instead, you would drag the icons to your bars and then, if you feel like it, assign a hotkey to be able to switch. This probably also works with macros, but got no clue about that.
- Once you select a name, and an icon, for your set, you can no longer edit it. If you want to change any of these, you’d have to remake the whole thing again.
- While I was making the sets I left out my t-shirt, I thought it would just leave the space blank, letting me put whatever I wanted there once the set was made, but I was wrong: I equipped the t-shirt and pressed the set again and it took out what I had in the t-shirt slot, so probably you could also make some sort of naked set.
- The sets in the Equipment Manager window (for reference look at the first picture posted) is sorted by creation, not alphabetically or anything like that. So, if you remake your first set, it would end up at the end.
But it’s not bad considering that it’s one less addon that you could use, but then I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with it or go back to ClosetGnome.
Something I noticed, and something I did like about this is: all the geared is switched instantly. Before, when I used ClosetGnome, I kept having this problem, which was bugging me, when switching from tanking to DPS gear, since my DPS neck (Favor of the Dragon Queen) has a Dragon’s Eye, it gave me the error that no more than 3 items with Dragon’s Eyes could be equipped so I had to manually change the neck to be able to use it.
But with the Equipment Manager, since everything is swapped instantly, I get no error whatsoever, which is nice.
Keep in mind that this rant is based in just a couple of minutes of using it. I haven’t seen any sort of guide about it that could probably clear up some of the questions I had, but knowing Blizzard there probably won’t be any additional information of how it works (a la Scrolling Combat Text).
I’m also wondering if the Equipment Manager sets are synced (like the macros and such), that would be nice too, I’ll check this tonight when I get home.
Update 1 @ 6:03 PM GMT -5: I just got home and I’m trying to get into the game and guess what?
And after a while
People in vent is saying that Wintergrasp was having a ton of issues… seriously, are patches tested anyway? Go go raiding Tuesdays… /sigh
Update 2 @ 6:31 PM GMT -5: So I found a post that was made like an hour (or so?) ago:
Billtedes:
All realms are live and available for play.We are currently experiencing some issues with the authentication system that is preventing some players from logging in. We are actively investigating these issues and will provide further updates as soon as we can.
How can the realms be live and available to play while you are having issues with the authentication system?
Now when you try to log you get this error instead.
Update 3 @ 6:42 PM GMT -5: Finally, servers are back up. Going back to the topic, Equipment Manager sets do sync, which is kinda neat if you use different computers to play WoW.
Gahlok
Frostbolt.com
Yea… well… the blizzard equipment manager sucks imo due to lack of easy way to change/not auto changing/sucking up a bar slot/not having a way to not equip a specif slot like a naked set. Only reason for a naked set is to unquip durability gear, save on space by leaving whatever non durability gear is equipped. And like hell if I want to change my tabard with the rest of my set, or have it taken off for that matter. ClosetGnome is FTW imo. only problem I’m having with it is, it’s not working at the moment?? So I’m currently sol for the time being…
There is a FAQ on the Equipment Manager in the US customer support forum.
Supposedly you can modify a set by equipping it, making changes, pressing save, and then using the same set name (I think you have to pick an icon again also). I haven’t tried that yet.
If you have your character pane open, but don’t have equipment manager open, you can hold and mouse over a slot and get a clickable list of all items that fit in that slot.
I haven’t found a way to get “partial” sets. For instance, I have a DPS set for moonkin which assumes full raid buffs, including the 1% hit from Heroic Presence. I have a “Trash” set which is the same as the DPS set, except two items are different. I have a “No Draenei” set which is the same as my “DPS” set, except one piece is different. If I get a new piece of gear, I’d like to (typically) just change the DPS set.
With Outfitter, I had a Fishing set, which just equipped my fishing pole and fishing hat. If I was fishing in WG, the rest of my gear continued to be PvP gear. If I was fishing in Scholazar, the rest of my gear continued to be Farm gear. Once I caught my daily, I could click off my fishing set, and restore whichever set I’d been previously wearing.
Macro: /equipset
If you use Broker addons, this is one to switch sets: http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info12641-Broker_Equipment.html
To create partial sets: When the manager sub-window is open, the alt hover menu for a slot will have an extra icon, the “no” symbol: a circle with a slash. That keeps that slot from changing. So, for example, most of my sets leave my tabard slot alone.
if you hold down alt and mouseover a slot on your character pane while having the equipment manager open, as well as getting a clickable list of items for that slot as someone already mentioned, you get a ignore this slot option (red crossed out circle).
Nice blog
im going to create a deathknight leveling blog soon, don’t know what race to roll tho. Got any tips on class to roll?
Im so going to read this blog when I have the time
-some random dude
If it’s alliance Human; no clue about Horde, tho.
thx, hordes are just plain fugly anyway
This blog sure is interesting. Once you get the hang of equipment manager it is pretty easy to use.
To change what is in a set, all you have to do is have the manager open, replace the slot with your new equipment, click save, and your ready to go!
I agree with Collapsar–this blog is interesting although I am totally unfamiliar with this site. Maybe one day I’ll download Frostbolt, learn how to play the game, and ask you for pointers to get through the different levels.