It never fails to amaze me how few people read the patch notes when a new patch comes out.  This past week a fellow raider was complaining that they did not like having to manually switch pieces of gear when they switched talent specs.  Many of the players there said, “Well, use the equipment manager.”  To which the raider responded, “Huh?” So this guide is for all those players that never read the patch notes or never figured out how to use the Blizzard Equipment manager that was added in Patch 3.1.2.

What is it and why do you need it?

Let’s start off with a quick explanation of what exactly the equipment manager is.  It is Blizzards way of adding in a gear swapping system so that players are not forced to use the popular add-ons that do this such as Itemrack and Outfitter.  It allows you to swap complete sets of gear with just a few clicks of the mouse, instead of finding and swapping each piece of gear from your bags.  This allows players to swap between gear sets much easier than previously, and almost as easy as with the above add-ons.  Remember, this is Blizzard’s first shot at this, and the add-ons have been there for a while, so they have a few more features available.

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The Blizzard Equipment Manager

Now that everyone knows what it does, some of you may be asking why you need it.  If you are asking that question, you probably don’t need it.  Many players honestly would never make any use of it. For example while leveling, it is generally useless. Also, if you always do the same thing, it’s probably not for you.  If, however, you are a raider, PvPer, or have dual talent specs, it becomes a must have tool.

Many times players, especially those playing hybrid classes, will find that they need to switch to something else in the middle of a raid.  For example a fight that needs a single tank and your group has two, one tank switches over to DPS and changes all their gear.  Or as a second example: you are 10 man raiding and have 2 healers and get to a hard fight and need 3 - one DPS can swap to healing gear to fill in.  There are many other situations as well, such as a PvP player keeping their PvP gear set lined up and ready so that they can go from PvE to PvP quickly.  Many tanks also keep several sets of gear ready - one for avoidance, one for health, and one for block value.  Healers do the same type of thing as well, often times they have a mana regeneration set for long fights and a spell power set for big heals.  The options really are endless.

[protip]The Blizzard Equipment Manager really is simple to use and is a viable option for most players. Even if you only need to change gear a few times a week, say for Arenas, Battle Grounds, Raids, or even Dailies, you should take the time to set it up. Just a few minutes once, will save time over and over again.[/protip]

How do I turn it on and get to it?

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Turn on the "Use Equipment Manager" option

The first thing to do is to go into the options and actually turn the equipment manager on.  By default, it is set to off.  To do this press your “escape” key to bring up the options screen.  Then click interface and go to the “Controls” section and click on the “Use Equipment Manager” option.  Once done click ok, and return to the game.

Once enabled, you can go to your character screen and you will see the equipment manager icon in the top right corner of the screen. Simply click on its icon to open it.

How do I Use it?

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Setting up a PvE - DPS gear set

Before really using the equipment manager you need to setup your various equipment selections.  All you need to do is gear yourself with all the gear you want for a specific setup and then open up the equipment manager and click save, once the second window opens you enter the name of the gear set, for example "PvE - DPS", and then select and icon and click Okay.

Once you have one gear set created, change your gear to whatever you would like to have as a second setup and then click save again. Perform the same steps as above to setup a second icon and grouping.  Continue this process until you have all the gear sets you would like.

Now that it is setup, to switch between gear sets, simply open the Equipment manager and click on the gear set you would like to use and it will swap the gear out for you.  For even faster access you can drag the icons of the gear sets you use often to your toolbar and use them from there making gear swaps a single mouse click.

Tidbits

To update an existing set, just select the set that you have an upgrade for, replace the piece of gear and then click save again.  Keep the same name and select the same icon, and click ok.  A window will come up asking if you are sure you want to overwrite the previous setup, click yes.

There are several nice little features of the Equipment manager, such as when you hover over a gear set, it will show you a list of what is used by that setup.  This is useful if you have placed some of your pieces in the bank, so that you know what you are missing.

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Multiple Gear Sets

Missing Items

While the Blizzard Equipment Manager has several useful features it is missing a few that I find very useful in Outfitter (which is the one I have always used). The one I really miss is the auto equip for stat or ability that outfitter has. I find I use this a lot when I have gotten several new pieces of gear to see what is possible. For example on my Paladin tank I regularly select "equip for block" and see what I can reach for block value, or "equip for health" and check maximum health reached. Both of those as a tank can be useful, however you always need to check it's choices and adjust as it will not ensure defence cap or any other stat when doing the equip.