You all know a World of Warcraft number cruncher. You may, in fact, be that person, the one who can spout of stats about your class or game mechanics. Although, in the beginning, I rolled my eyes at people who pondered the math of the game, today finds me holding a deep respect for you number junkies. You've all helped many of us become uncrushable, uncrittable and even understand how +spell damage and +healing work.

If you don't have someone around to crunch numbers, try recruiting DrDamage. Some World of Warcraft stats-fiends may not like this addon, as there are people who disagree with the numbers it produces. I would have to say that its done well for me thus far. (I rarely have the inclination to work the numbers myself.)

Enough rambling, let's talk about what DrDamage does. This addon does all of your in-game theorycrafting for you. It will work the actual values for your damage, +spell damage and +healing based on your gear and talents. It will display the average damage or healing done by a spell on the actionbar.

Come on back and we'll look at little more closely at what DrDamage does.
So you're back, you must have realized that the numbers actually mean something, and they do. Having an in-game calculator that takes into account your talents and gear is a powerful tool. Its like having your favorite numbers-player sitting next to you all the time. (If you're not that person.) It is certainly a good way to get a feeling of which of your spells or abilities is outputting the most damage or healing.

Your spells and abilities will have a new number on the their actionbar button. Once you install this one, it will take the average damage or healing of a given ability and display it. I actually use this to decide which gear to wear on my rogue as I level. (It also updates in real-time for combat points.) It works for all classes and will work in conjunction with many popular actionbar addons, so if you're using Bartender, you can still depend on DrDamage to calculate your damage and healing.

DrDamage also calculates based on buffs and debuffs, so you can use it to compare the benefits of Blessing of Might vs Blessing of Kings. It also calculates debuffs on your targets. This bad boy calculates spells used in macros as well, if you're using the #showtooltip command in your macro script.

You can explore the options for this addon by using these commands:

• /drdmg
• /drdamage

You can change the options to display different values on your action bar, how things are calculated, displayed, all the things you'd expect from an addon like this.

After brushing off theorycrafters for so long in lieu of a more casual game experience, I think I've moved into a new type of play. This addon really opens the door to understanding the impact of gear, talents, buff, debuffs and more on your abilities and spells. Thanks to DrDamage for being my in-game numbers guy, you rock. Dismissed!