Sift: Loot Advisor
Every World of Warcraft player knows the feeling. A purple item drops, your bags fill up, and you stare at the tooltip wondering if it is actually an upgrade. Item level says one thing, your gut says another, and the internet has a dozen conflicting opinions. Sift: Loot Advisor removes the guesswork by looking at every rare-or-better piece of gear that lands in your bags and answering one question: what should you do with it? One word and a reason. It never acts for you, but it makes your decisions dramatically easier.
Five Words That Cover Every Drop
Sift distills its analysis into five clear verdicts. Each one comes with a plain-English reason, so you understand the logic behind the advice.
- Equip. Better than what you wear for your active spec, by the numbers.
- Hold. Keep it. It wins after upgrades, completes a tier set through the catalyst, or needs a level. The panel says what it is waiting for and what that costs: "after 2 upgrades, 40 Champion crests".
- Sim it. Too close to call, or a trinket. Sift would rather say so than guess. Healers see "Your call", since Raidbots does not sim healing.
- Send. An alt on file wants it more than you do. The verdict names the alt, with the runners-up in a note.
- Dispose. Nothing you or your alts can use. Vendor or disenchant.
How Sift Decides: Stat Weights, Not Item Level
The core of Sift: Loot Advisor for World of Warcraft is its weighting system. It does not blindly trust a higher item level. Instead, it compares gear using stat weights. You can paste your Raidbots weights and Sift uses them. Otherwise it uses defaults generated from SimulationCraft's profiles for the season. Gems and empty sockets count toward the score, giving a more accurate picture of a piece's true value.
Every comparison also knows how sure it is. A margin of error is built into the calculations. When the gain sits inside the margin, the answer is "Sim it" with both scores shown, not a coin flip. Your own weights narrow the margin, making the advice sharper over time.
The Long Run and Tier Sets
Sift thinks ahead. It knows every upgrade track's item levels and crest costs, and asks which piece owns the slot in a month, not which is ahead today. A piece that your worn gear, or something already in your bags, will beat once upgraded is a dead end, and Sift says so even when it is ahead right now. This prevents you from wasting crests on a temporary gain.
Tier sets and the catalyst get special treatment. A piece that completes your 2-set or 4-set is a Hold for the catalyst. A piece that would break a set sitting on its threshold is never an Equip, however good its stats. This alone can save you from ruining a set bonus.
Alts and Warbound Gear
Managing multiple characters is a chore, but Sift remembers the gear of every character you log into and scores warbound pieces for each of them. Press "Will send", drop the piece in the warband bank, and the alt's panel knows it is coming. Any bank reminds you what to deposit and what is waiting for you. This makes gearing an alt nearly effortless.
Where Sift Shows Up
The addon integrates with nearly every surface of the game without being intrusive.
- Tooltip. One line on every piece you could equip: the word and the reason. Hold Shift for the math.
- Panel. /sift, the minimap button or the addon compartment. Everything waiting on you, grouped by what to do next.
- Chat and toast. One line per new verdict at a safe moment: out of combat, no keystone running, no boss in progress. The toast goes wherever you put it in Edit Mode.
- Loot rolls. A word beside every Need and Greed window: Need with the gain, Sim it when close, Greed when an alt wants it, Pass when it is a dead end. Nothing is rolled for you.
- Great Vault. A ranking of the offers while the vault is open.
The guide covers all of this. Four pages at first login, and /sift guide after. Every surface has a switch on the settings page, which also lists every /sift command with a button that runs it.
Safe, Passive, and Honest
Sift never equips, sells, moves, rolls on or catalyzes anything. It touches no protected frame and reads no combat data. Everything it knows comes from item tooltips, your bags, your characters' gear and the currency window. Everything it says is advice. This makes it one of the safest addons you can run, with zero risk of accidental actions.
Compatibility and Installation
Sift supports Midnight 12.1 and later, with no dependencies. It is built and tested on the English client. For those playing older versions, the addon works across Retail, Classic, TBC, WotLK, Cataclysm, and MoP, making it a versatile tool for any version of the game you prefer. The interface remains consistent, and the core logic adapts to the available content. To get started, you need to know how to install it properly. Simply extract the folder into your Interface/AddOns directory and restart the game. For a smoother experience, you can download Sift: Loot Advisor through the foxygame.net launcher, which offers a one-click install and keeps the addon updated automatically, so you always have the latest version without manual checks. The launcher also provides a catalog of compatible addons, making it easy to manage your entire setup.
Your Weights Beat the Defaults
While the default weights are solid, your own sims are always more accurate. Open /sift weights, paste a Raidbots stat weights string, and Sift asks for a fresh sim when it goes stale. This keeps your advice aligned with your exact gear and playstyle. For feedback or issues, the source is available on GitHub, and in game, /sift feedback builds a report you can paste.
In a game full of choices, Sift: Loot Advisor gives you clarity. It turns bag clutter into a clear action plan, saves you from bad investments, and makes sure your alts get the gear they deserve. Whether you are pushing mythic keys or leveling through Classic, Sift is the advisor you want watching your bags.
--- **Update Sep 13, 2026:** Added 1 file for version 12.1.0.