WoW Manaview EDGE Addon Review
Manaview, the team that developed BOOSTER and TYCOON, has once again come up with their newest addon called EDGE! While the first two addons were mainly geared towards more specific needs such as making gold and leveling, this latest one is claimed to be usuable by any WoW player!!
One might venture to ask how EDGE lives up to serving its 11 million subscribers. To find out the real score, I got hold of a copy to see for myself and the results are detailed here in this WoW Manaview EDGE Addon Review:
WoW Manaview EDGE Addon Review – Initial Take
It is quite SIMPLE to figure out! The WoW Manaview EDGE addon is definitely more streamlined than either TYCOON or BOOSTER! Therefore, should you have problems with the any of the two, those should go away with EDGE. Right after you have downloaded EDGE (or Manacore, should you still not have any of Manaview’s other fine addons), you may simply run the Manaview Updater to find out if there are any updates and then you can start up World of Warcraft.
The WoW Manaview EDGE addon is designed to function for any class or any purpose – therefore I thought I’d try it on my Level 61 Worgen Druid that I have not attempted to do after completing the newer quests (above 60). The idea of questing through Hellfire Peninsula once more makes me quite sick, so I decided to go through the Random Dungeon Finder as a tank.
Remember that I have never tanked previously and it had not even thought of something like a bear spec because my version is simply full-on cat for leveling. So after I logged in on my Worgen, I clicked the EDGE button on the Manacore frame, selected Leveling as my purpose and then looked at the options it gave me.
Lo and behold, there was a Feral Bear Dungeon Leveling spec, so I clicked on that and thought I’d put my trust on it using auto-spec. When I had that sorted out, it informed me of the best glyphs to get (I could not get all of them after all) that would be most advantageous for me while I tanked dungeons on my level. It also provided me a strategy for tanking singles and multiples. I scribbled a few notes that I knew I was going to forget later.
Prior to waiting-in-line (queuing) for a dungeon, I browsed through EDGE and found the spec for raiding Bears. It appeared rather different than my leveling spec and so I wanted to get to the bottom of it and find out why. Logic then would state that top level Bears need different stuff yet that was not enough for me. I needed a more conclusive answer while I also wanted to test the support for this product.
So I emailed support@manaview.com and waited for my new dungeon. Taking my cue from the advice that the EDGE strategy had given, I was able to aggro quite well. Initially I was worried that I was doing terribly since one of the Death Knights would have it all the time, however, as I looked over to see that he was in Blood Presence, I stopped blaming the addon for that. I also ceased blaming it for the lumps I incurred while learning and the little time lost due to having re-referenced the Strategy pane.
As a whole, my dungeon is what I can call a success and thanks to my rested XP, I made around one-half of a level for every 20 minute dungeon run. Not too bad!
For validation, I ran a few more and right after hitting 62, I checked my email, just to make sure. To my pleasant surprise, some from Manaview had just emailed a response to me saying:
“Hi there,
First of all, thanks for trying out EDGE! Your question about the Bear dungeon spec was forwarded to me, as I helped design the spec you’re currently using. I raid as a Bear and I’ve also leveled two Bears via the RDF. Back when I was looking for specs for my first Bear, all anyone had was just a makeshift Cat spec, or a high-end Bear spec. Neither of those work very well for tanking dungeons.
For quick comparison’s sake, here’s the spec that’s in EDGE for dungeon leveling Bears:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfzGfoubdrckMcz:0rqzVaMmz
And here’s the Bear raiding spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0ZfMGdoubzrckMcu:q0r0zVMmz
There’s a lot of similarities, but the key difference is trading out some survivability for more damage, which in turn means more threat. This is the biggest problem Bears face while leveling up. Every healer can keep you alive with their eyes closed, but competing with heirloom-geared DPS for threat is incredibly frustrating. So the dungeon leveling Bear gets full King of the Jungle for a damage boost on Enrage, which you should be using on cooldown like the Strategy says. You also get Primal Madness to help with the issue of being rage starved at lower levels.
What you lose is Perseverance – a must-have talent for raiding Bears – and 1 point from Infected Wounds. Both of those help keep you alive, but again: You don’t have much trouble with that while leveling through dungeons, especially if you’ve got heirlooms.
I hope that helps answer your question. Let me know how the leveling goes!”
Frankly, I was expecting some generic response and even prepared myself for a “it’s this way because it is…”. To my elation, I got a detailed explanation of both the differences between the specs but also why they existed. Without much ado, I can say that I am quite happy with the response and it hinged my experience with EDGE to being a positive one.
WoW Manaview EDGE Addon Review – How It Rates:
Getting to the thick of things though, My ratings are:
Interface : 4.5 out of 5
Sleek and clean is how I would describe the interface. It’s probably a great thing that it is simple because it leaves only a few things for me to click on before I get my spec. To remember and understand which does what is actually very easy. My only comment is that I’d prefer a way to probably detach the Strategy pane so I can reference it without having to view everything else.
Features : 5 out of 5
The addon is listed by the EDGE site as a talent, glyph, and rotation manager. I think that it truly lives up to that. There are two modes that the talenter comes in: auto and manual. Therefore, you can pick and choose as you wish. The glyph choices aren’t explained, but they appear to be quite obvious in most cases. Finally, at least from my experience, the rotations and strategies given are solid.
Cutomer Support : 5 out of 5
I was quite glad when they got back to me on the very same day and was even more elated when they answered my question in a very thorough manner. Having to deal with just one person avoided any hassle with having to explain things over and over again and this has raised my confidence with the representatives as far as their expertise and skills are concerned. No minus on this aspect.
Value : 5 out of 5
This aspect has always been a stickler since what I consider as great value may not actually be great value. Honestly though, EDGE is a great value per se. Being less than $40 and giving me an all-access pass to every class and every spec in the game for life is beyond compare.
Overall : 4.5 out of 5
I, truly and honestly believe that the WoW Manaview EDGE Addon was well worth the money I paid for it. To think that I have not even explored all it’s uses yet. At first, I was rather skeptical about the usability of this product but I have learned a whole lot since then. As I have said before, my only negative was just for a feature that I wished it had. Overall, I am downright impressed!
really good glyph and rotation tool for those who play WoW!
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