GearScore isn’t going away… and it’s better this way
For those of you that having been living under a virtual rock for the better part of this expansion, GearScore is a wildly popular add-on that does exactly what it says. It gives you a score based on your gear. The better you gear is, the higher your score is.
It’s also probably the most hated add-on on the market right now too.
Which kinda confuses me…
Rewind back to the beginning of this expansion before GearScore was widely use, how did you get into a pug? You needed an achievement. Not just any achievement, but the very achievement that the run itself would have given you. So, if you hadn’t done the run before, you couldn’t do the run. Kind of ridiculous.
This method of doing invites was most common for Vault of Archavon pugs as you were often limited in how much time you’d have to complete the encounter before the bosses became unavailable. Groups didn’t want to have to explain the fight to you and most of all, they didn’t want to wipe. I can remember more than a few times wiping in VoA and watching in horrified amazement as we proceed to rush to beat the clock only to wipe again and again each time less prepared than the last until we were left empty handed, bitter and broken. (literally)
Enter GearScore
All of a sudden, we have a new way to get into a raid that’s based on the time we’ve taken to actual prepare for the encounter. (aka get gear) Better yet, we aren’t expected to know how to do the encounter, we’re just expected to have the necessary tools to be able to. So, you end up with raids filled with people that have the tools to complete the encounter and also raid leaders willing to take the few moments to actually explain how to do the encounter.
But the GearScore requirements are totally unrealistic!
Are they?
Let’s make an important distinction here. Unrealistic requirements are expecting a GearScore that is nearly impossible to obtain assuming that you’ve only got access to the content prior to what you’re hoping to get into. In other words, you shouldn’t need gear from Ulduar to do Naxx. What is the majority of the case is groups expecting you to outgear the encounter.
That is not unrealistic.
Yes, it’s true you could do the encounter with lesser gear, but let’s not kid ourselves, pugs don’t wipe. That’s not going to change. Would you rather be doing heroics or bouncing from one pug raid to the next wiping and disbanding? The “outgear” requirement system for pugs maximizes the chance that you’ll actually complete the raid instance. If you don’t meet those requirements, it’s very simple… run heroics. Emblem of Triumph gear is very strong and a full set of it will allow you to sneak into most raids.
Be the Change
I give everyone that complains about GearScore the same advice, “Be the Change.” In other words, start your own raids. No one is stopping you. And better yet, don’t have a GearScore requirement on them. If more people were willing to do that, GearScore wouldn’t exist. Because let’s not kid ourselves, we hate that GearScore prevents us from getting into runs, but we hate just as much getting into runs and having half the raid not pull their weight.
I started up a 25VoA a week or so ago, I didn’t ask for GearScore and I tell you what… it may have been my first Toravon kill, but I can guarantee it’s also going to be the ugliest Toravon kill I ever have. That’s what happens when the average GearScore of your raid is about 4300. (and there’s no way we’d have completed it even without 2 tanks with 5000+ GearScores)
Acceptance
GearScore isn’t going away because as hated as it is, it does speed up the success rate of pug raids. It does this not just by ensuring the group has a decent quality level of gear, but also by making the formation of groups happen that much faster. There’s no need to inspect someone before inviting or spam relentlessly for enough people with the achievement. There’s just a number. You run your heroics, you craft some stuff and you actually gem/enchant your gear and you hit the number.
Or you start your own raid. But don’t you dare complain when the guy in blues can’t seem to pull his weight.
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I agree with you 100%. GearScore is great for figuring out 1 thing, level of gear. It doesn’t give you any indication of skill. GearScore requirements suck. I’ve tanked thing on my warrior after being told “your gear score is pretty low, but we’ll give you a shot.” Afterward, most of the group told me I did a great job and would be invited back. The same applies to my resto shaman (who has an even lower gear score). I usually top the healing meters while being one of the lowest for overheals. Again, performance earns accolades and reinvites.
[Reply]
Aikoko reply on March 3, 2010 10:26 am:
I know what you’re sayin, I have a hunter who dps’ed VoA 25 and she has a 4216 gear score and she was one of the higher dps in the group, against dpsers with a far higher score…..
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Actually, I hate GS because it encourages people to blindly take gear with worse itemization simply because it has a higher ilvl. Until just a couple weeks ago I had a GS set (at the time about 5500) which was different from the set I actually tanked raid bosses in (which was closer to 5200). It was stupid to have to wear different gear just to get into a group when I had a better set with a lower GS (gasp) that I’d actually be using when we got to a boss.
That said, I agree that it’s a decent tool when used correctly. It’s just frustrating at times when it’s used blindly.
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 23, 2010 2:25 pm:
I’m really interested in what changes you made to your gear that would boost its GearScore that much.
I should note too though that this isn’t that different than when tanks were wearing both Brewmaster trinkets just so they had high enough health to be accepted by pugs. The way I see it, if you’re smart enough to game the system then you’re smart enough to do the instance at a lower GearScore than they’re asking for.
[Reply]
Xanedris/Mandaril reply on February 23, 2010 2:37 pm:
Vene, wearing both brewmaster trinkets is not a bad thing in itself… if your +def capped, the health is good for the tank. Sure, it’s far from being the best decision…
The bad decisions? I was in a Regular PoS Pug last night, with a warrior tank who looked like he barely passed the requirements for the in-game LFG gear check. Said warrior tank was wearing a pair of bracers with +int and SP (Armbands of the construct).
One could easily say he just picked up whatever epic plate bracers he could afford off the AH just so he could get in the instance…
[Reply]
Starbuck reply on February 23, 2010 2:43 pm:
300 gs drop sounds much but I’m in a similar scenario. I have a “max GS set” with near 5300, but never use it in raids. My other sets sits around 5150, some which consists of 2 low lvl trinkets (black heart and glyph of indomability). Also switching around with gear to cap expertise, which for me means lower GS pieces.
*$
[Reply]
TomHuxley reply on February 24, 2010 11:53 am:
It’s been a month or so now, maybe the delta was more like 200…the big killer was I was still using the JC stam trinket at the time, while I could toss on Onyxia’s avoidance trinket for GS. I was also using some of the T8 crafted pieces for boss tanking while wearing ToC stuff with worse itemization for a GS set.
As I said initially, GearScore is an ok tool when used right (and certainly better than asking for achievements) but there was a third option before; people used to use wow-heroes or a similar site, which is far superior to GS in that ratings are also based on proper gemming and enchanting (and at a glance you can see what those are). But that took more work, and now almost no one goes to that length when they can just look at GS for an easy number.
So I agree that the worst-case pugs have improved, but we’ve also seen a decline in the best-run pugs IMO. Perhaps the average has indeed raised (there are more average and poorly-run pugs than excellent ones) but it’s not as simple as a blanket improvement.
[Reply]
Foxtrot reply on February 25, 2010 11:40 am:
I have a similar set, in fact if you look up Foxtrot@Perenolde on the Armory you will see my GS set. It puts me just about at 5400GS. Am I going to tank in that? No, those Ony sword/trinket suck compared to the Claw and other trinkets I have. However those are my highest iLvL pieces. I can boost it another 50 points or so by equiping my 2H Axe (that I never use) In my EH set my score drops around 200 points
I did an ICC25 PuG last week, the leader asked for GS and stats. I gave him my GS and then my stats in my proper tanking set. He got upset once I got there and started tanking saying “Your lied about your GS” So, I put the GS set back on and said “There, you can have your GS or you can have me in competent tank gear, your choice” He left it alone after that and you know what? I managed to tank everything with no issues.
The only good thing about the GS set is for vehicle fights. Hurray for scaling.
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:15 pm
I do not inherently have a problem with GearScore. It’s a fantastic representation of gear. But that’s it.
I start my own raids all the time. I could care less about GearScore to a realistic degree. Let’s say I’m forming a Normal ToC 10/25 run for some alts. If 1) I haven’t heard of your guild name or 2) Your guild is low on the progression list, sorry, you’re not getting in.
And I can still do that with GearScore being used more widely. But what about when I don’t feel like starting a raid? What about when I want to be lazy for a change? When I’m in the most prestigious guilds on the server, I take offence to putting a GS requirement on my alt . I know how to play. And I know when my gear is ready for an instance.
GearScore only makes a problem that already existed worse. GearScore itself isn’t the problem.
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 23, 2010 2:24 pm:
What problem does GearScore make worse that already existed? People not letting your alt into raids?
Yes, sure as a great player you can probably do a great job with average gear, but as soon as you do that you lower the bar for everyone else too. And while yes, some people don’t do great even with great gear, I assure you they do a lot better than when those same people have poor gear.
And since most raids are made up of average folk and not great players, I’ll accept a few players like yourself not getting in to ensure that the majority of average players in the group have the necessary gear to do the encounter.
[Reply]
MS reply on February 23, 2010 2:43 pm:
The problem is it encourages bad players to a certain degree. I’ve seen 5600GS hunters boast that they pulled a magical 4.5k DPS. Can I get an “lol” ?
I judge players both on their own reputation (provided I know who they are), or based on their guild. Gear rarely factors into it. Unless I’m going for Insanity/Mad Skill in ToC or somesuch. And even then the primary factor is your reputation as a player or your guild.
You can easily obtain ToC level gear for every slot since 3.3 just by farming heroics. And that’s nice for alts. It’s fantastic for alts. But the rest of us were earning our ToC gear in Ulduar stuff. Again, I have no problem with this. Alts used to be a pain. Now they’re fun.
If someone from the top 5 guilds on my server PSTs me to get into a raid I form, for example, it’s basically a free ticket in. I don’t need to check their gear because I know they wouldn’t be in that guild in the first unless 1) they have good enough gear or 2) they know their class well enough to overcome shortages in gear (a guild alt). Of course, I can reevaluate based on their performance later in the raid.
The same problem existed before in the form of achievements. It just wasn’t put into numerical form which can be easily evaluated.
I don’t have a problem with people using GearScore to evaluate for raids. Fine. Use it. It’s great for semi-evaluating the casual and average players. But when an above-average player such as myself and other players who’ve earned their position in the top guilds on the server, and that’s completely and blindly ignored, I take issue with that.
[Reply]
Rurjaos reply on February 26, 2010 3:18 am:
Beeing in one of the top guild or an alt-guild of the top guild might be misleading.
A few days ago, I formed a ToCr10 and a DK from an top5-alt-guild (wich I didn’t realised at that moment) asked for invitation, as I don’t needed any more plate wearers (had 4), I declined. He asked, if shaman would be ok, I declined, got already 2. He asked for his mage and got invited. Except his dmg, he performed poor (75k-fire-dmg on Gormok, while all others together, including his mirrors ( 12k), took 20k) and on top of that, left us during champs-encounter.
I want to see gear handed out to players! Outgearing an instance doesn’t provide that.
Grido reply on February 23, 2010 3:02 pm:
/sign
I like to use GS as a way to scan people to see if they have put the effort in to make the minimal requirement.
As a tank in heroics I like to do a quick GS check on the healer to determine how fast I want to pull. DPS GS does not matter in heroics.
I also like to few have a few low geared people in an raid that could use the items that will drop instead of sharding it.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:21 pm
The “unrealistic” requirement my realm suffers from, and which makes me hate GS to the point of no return is:
Guy #1: You’re below 3k GS…
Guy #2: Ya, you suck!
Me: Guys… This is heroic Azjol-Nerub…
Guy #3: You still suck! You need 4500 GS or more to run with us!
You have been removed from group…
[Reply]
Araelun reply on February 23, 2010 2:40 pm:
This is the same issue I’ve run into. It’s frustrating as hell when you’re judged on GS for Heroics. My main is a pally w/ around 5200 GS. I have a warrior that just hit 80 a couple weeks ago. Yes, I’m in BoE Epics and quest blues, but it sucks to get voted out of a Heroic because you don’t have a 4k gear score. This has happened to me on at least three different occasions.
And you know what I was told? “Go arms until you can get some decent tank gear, then you can come tank heroics.”
But guess what? Even though I’ll have decent tank gear, I won’t have the skill to back it up.
[Reply]
Batzertzul reply on February 23, 2010 6:28 pm:
Yeah.. I ear about that a lot.. I hate pugs and only run with guildies or ppl I know.. But I heard quite a few ppl who I know are very competent being refused because supposedly their GS was to low. It also seems that the ppl requiring a 4.5K GS to run a heroic are usually ppl with low GS..
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Gearscore is meh. Some just wildly pull numbers out of the air and call them “requirements” to clear an instance others are just cool with it.
I joined a pug 25m ICC that was asking for a 4800+ gear score, we downed 5 bosses and that was more than I did expect we also had plenty of 5400+ GS people so it’s not like it holds back more geared people from joining.
Then there are these people that ask for a 5500 GS to down Toravon. On 10 man. Which is just bad and those people usually get laughed at in trade.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:33 pm
The biggest complaint I’ve seen, over and over again, is that people are being turned away from PUG raids because their gear score is too low.
It’s not about skill or even knowing the fights. Do you have the bare minimum gear required to perform at the level which the organizer of the raid expects? If not, don’t apply.
Once a candidate meets the GS requirement, then you can take the time to look at achievements, discuss mains, etc.
It just simplifies raid formation. Publish a minimum GS, others need not apply.
I don’t care if your Tank/Healer/DPS main is tricked out in all ICC hard mode epics and you know every fight like the back of your hand… Your quest blues-sporting DK isn’t tanking my raid.
[Reply]
Ngita reply on February 23, 2010 5:41 pm:
The raid leader leader does not expect you to know the fights, he does not expect you to know how to play your class. He has simply chosen an arbitrary number you must meet, If last weeks raid did not do as well as he hoped, well simply bump this weeks number a bit.
I am not talking about my blue geared alt, I am talking about my tribute to immortality alt in 4pce t9(245) with 251-264 drops in almost every other slot that still does not meet their required GS. The best part for me being of course an hour later they are still looking for that exact same spot.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 2:57 pm
gearscore is worthless.
it was posted above, but to reiterate, and add too;
in this welfare economy that blizz has imposed on us with heroics giving the latest badge as a reward, it just encourages bad players to look good. sure, you can weed out the baddies thruought the instance/raid, but it used to take skill to get gear. now anyone who can afk thru a random heroic can get t10. so you see a rogue with 5k GS, and think he’s good.
but apon further inspection, his tanlent build is all jacked up, and his rotation is lacking, and he’s wearing resilience gear to a pve raid.
and the addon has just made tracking scrubs harder to do.
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 23, 2010 3:20 pm:
Why has it made it harder?
Before: All you could do is inspect.
Now: You can look at a number + inspect.
At least, now you can weed out immediately the people with horrible gear and save yourself having to inspect them. All this tool can add is more information, it’s not like it prevents you from inspecting them the exact same way you always did in the past.
[Reply]
Xanedris/Mandaril reply on February 23, 2010 4:59 pm:
That’s the problem. People only look at the number, and don’t bother inspecting.
[Reply]
Starbuck reply on February 25, 2010 5:08 am:
So the problem is people. Not GS.
*$
tenes reply on February 24, 2010 2:41 am:
@Veneretio
i guess your right, i was blending a hatred of reliance on an addon to accuratly asses someones skills, and a disapointment in making the next best level of gear attainable as soon as a new patch comes out.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:00 pm
the problem i have with it is that it truly tells you nothing about the players. and with gear being ridiculously easy to obtain, it’s not hard to get a good gear score and still be terrible.
this is especially true of healers - i don’t know why, but pug healers are usually awful, regardless of gear score.
there is however, a better option - a “gear score with intelligence” if you will. the addon is called ElitistGroup, and it not only looks at gear, you can at a glance see exactly what kind of progression that person has done, as well as highlight any warning signs (bad gems/enchants, PVP gear, etc).
the other day someone was forming a group in trade chat for ToGC25, requiring a GS of 5500. as was quickly pointed out, his own GS was 5200……..
[Reply]
wds reply on February 26, 2010 2:27 am:
If there’s one thing I hate worse than tanking PUGs, it’s healing PUGs. People are so used nowadays to having overgeared healers they pay absolutely no attention to incoming damage. I can see why many people stay away from healing. Especially when the gear requirements for even the low level raid instances can be completely ridiculous (and if you do get in, you just know the melee dps will be aoe tanking, so I guess there’s some point to that).
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I think GS is good. It might be used in a bad or dumb way, but there were stupid people around before GS came out. That cant be changed with an add-on.
Now, I can very quickly see if my random hc pug will be a speedrun or more of a regular run.
All the ppl inspecting and checking armory that used to be such a hassle is now gone.
I get into raid pugs without achievment, only because they could see my GS was enough. That never happened before.
I dont see why ppl hate GS, it’s still the attitude among some players that is the problem I would say. It’s just a game for christ sake.
*$
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I originally had a problem with gearscore because it was a bloated addon that would lag the server with all the information it sent over global channels. They might have fixed that with the latest rev, so maybe I’ll pick it up.
And I don’t know about your server. Our server asks for 5500+ gearscore AND the achievement.
[Reply]
Rurjaos reply on February 26, 2010 5:53 am:
what REQUIRES that GS? ICC herioc?
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Tanks have always had a gearscore, it was called hp and was as good of an indicator of how well a person can play as GS is.
And I agree at the end of the day its a good thing. But its not the be all and end all.
If your pugging something simple (say TOC or VoA) then ya a blanket GS req is going to be fine. Things are easy enough that you dont need a raid full of awesome players to complete it, you just need a raid thats not full of morons.
ToGC/ICC if you need a pug the GS is just what gets your foot in the door far enough for us to look at your gear, either by wowheroes or visual inspection. A person that has the right enchants/gems is a much better indicator of if they will be any good.
And ya, form your own group if a) no one will let you in or b) there are no groups looking for the raid you want atm. One of the worst players on my server gets alot of groups because he forms them or has his friend form them. Eventually he’ll be well known enough that ppl will autoquit his raids but untill then he gets carried everywhere for no reason other than ppl can’t be bothered to make a raid of thier own.
[Reply]
Starscythe reply on March 1, 2010 9:11 am:
yeah but sheer HP is still pretty misleading. I always carry a stam set, armor set, DPS set, and RP set on both my tanks. I switch between toons fairly often because i’m a fairly popular enchanter/JC/BS just not on the same toon. so wow-heroes will often record me as wearing gear i dont actually tank in (anymore).
sometimes i try to get into pugs just to beat boredom and get turned down for things like ony or a toc10 because my warrior is bouncing around dallaran in T2 or T6 gear, or my DK is wearing her T7 set or armor set (45k HP) instead of her stam set (51k HP). I dont remember having even 40k HP when ToC first came out, but now it seems that 45k HP, armor caped, TOC insanity 10/25, and several icc10 HM down and i still get turned down for a bear in badge gear because his health pool is a little bigger than mine. (though i could just wear my stam set and out HP the bear, i’ld actually tank pugs in my armor set just because it looks so sexy, and has a litthe better threat)
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 3:40 pm
My server uses a mix of the GS addon and the Gears Score available on Wow-Heroes. Depending on who is running the pug the score requirements vary greatly as the 2 scoring systems are very different.
I use the addon not to figure out who should get in, but to figure out who needs to go. The 5500 gs hunter doing 4200 dps is horrible and wasting my time and everyone esles. It also helps pick an initial vig target and to know how hard I can push a healer in a heroic. But in reality it’s best use isn’t to know who can run an instance, or get in a pug raid, it’s to show who isn’t performing and should be removed.
[Reply]
Donega reply on February 24, 2010 3:09 am:
I’ve heard all about GS in the last few months and mostly just tried to ignore this, but whan thing confuses me and that is the score you can see in WOW-heroes. I hear people here talk about 5.5k GS, but on WOW-heroes the highest score on my realm (guy in all 264 and one 277 piece) has just under 3.3k GS. So I assume these are not calculated the same. But how do they compare?
On my main (priest, still leveling my warrior) my wow-heroes score is just over 2.4k, what would this be in GS?
Thanks!
PS. Great blog!
[Reply]
Brugamenn reply on February 24, 2010 1:56 pm:
I don’t know the formulas they use, obviously they are different but my warrior has a gearscore addon gearscore of just over 5800, the last time i checked on wow heroes its was just over 3200. the addon score seems to acverage just over 2000 points higher. so i would guess yours to be somewhere around 4800.
My hunter is sitting at 4700and change according to the addon, he is in badge gear and a couple peices from 10 and 25 man toc.
My warrior (5818 addon score) has mostly 264 peices with 4 iL245 peices left.
Not sure where your preist falls gear wise but hopefully that helps guage where you are.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:41 pm
my biggest gripe is that it downscores items that are great but from heroics. the score is based on not only the stats, ilevel, etc but on how rare the item is. two items that are exactly the same will have different gear scores if one has a 10% drop rate and the other a .01%.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:48 pm
You’re not convincing me, Vene.
At least on my server there’s no measurable correlation between GS and damage output for DPS.
Actually the norm is that the guys with a few blues on alts DESTROY the fully epic (welfare T9 ofc) people.
And that’s not even taking into account that people want 5k or more GS for about every pug there is. Including ToC10 normal, you can already read from the “LFM” spam in Trade chat which pugs to avoid (All those with GS requirement) - and I’m not even bothering to join anything not being started by someone I know.
I’m not against “meet at Dalaran bank for gear check” - because it tells me the raidleader is taking his job *seriously* and not just reducing people to a -meaningless- number.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Gear Score is bad. You can have a high GS and accomplish this via the new 5-mans. At least getting the minimum to get into the run. Using GS means you are too lazy to Armory someone. There you can see Achieves AND Gear… in one shot.
If you are putting together a 5-man, sure, use GS… but why would you need to? This is the only time it would actually SAVE you time though.
If you are doing 10 or 25-man raid content, then GS is a waste of time. If someone has an artificially inflated GS (5-man Heroic gear, BoE craftables or OS gear woven into their MS stuff…), then you don’t find out until you start the Raid. If you had just taken a couple minutes to check their Armory and see that they have achievements AND decent gear, then at least if they are bad they got carried hardcore and GS/Armory wouldn’t help you either way.
Experience > Gear, always. Due diligence > GS, always. If you are going to spend a few hours raiding, then take the time to make sure you don’t have a raid full of baddies.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:03 pm
“Be the Change”
This is pretty much what I’ve said in many forum arguments over GearScore. When people say “it sucks that I can’t get into a raid due to an arbitrary GS number, even though I’m geared/skilled enough to pull my weight,” what they’re really saying is “it sucks that this guy doing all the frustrating work of organizing a pug raid, which I’m unwilling to do myself, because it’s too frustrating and hard, won’t invite me due to an arbitrary GS number.”
Organize it yourself. Don’t check GS if you don’t want to. Come back to me in a month and let me know if you’re STILL not checking GS, though.
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Personnaly if I have to pug one or 2 ppl for a run I’ll usually check gear (Inspect) + + Stats + Achievements and if I realize during the raid that they don’t have what it takes I’ll just have to kick & replace em.. IMO it might take a few more minutes but it’s a lot more human
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
It is supposed to be an appraisment tool not a crutch for easymode which is why so many people are against it. They want to go into places
overgeared with little to no challenge. Any group that only relies on GS isn’t worth running with anyways because they themselves are probably scrubs. Also if there isn’t anyone else in your guild who can run with/vouch for you your in the wrong place and need to find a guild that can help you along even if it’s with their alts. Te problem with raiding right now is there is no “welcome to raiding” instance like there was with TBC. I am not oppose to GS evaluation as long as the group gives the subject or the screening a fair chance first. Having a hard cap on GS is wrong for all other classes. If tour a tank you damn well better be over geared at best if you are PUGing. If your not PUGing maybe your guild will understand if not they are also not right for you. The bottom line is if your guild isn’t willing to help you progress there is no reason to be there and yeah you’ll have to PUG an yes you will be subjected to idiots who rely solely on GS to be allowed into te raid. Chances are if you can’t find a good enough guild your also one of those stupid people in which case you should L2P and get your EASY badge gear.
[Reply]
Cornfedhick reply on February 24, 2010 10:43 am:
I had a hard time understanding your thought process. You went from GS to guilds to PuGing to being stupid to L2P?
Due to my family I havn’t been able to be online for more than 1 hr at a time since before 3.2 came out. Naturally I lost my raid spot since its not feasible with those time constraints. Luckily my guild has allowed me to stay because I was a good player when I could attend raids and get gear.
Thats where the quandry lies. You are assumed, in most cases, of being a noob if your GS is under a specific threshold. Everyone’s situation is different and there are many skilled players that fall into this category.
I know how to asses myself and my toons and would never try to tank something that is beyond my gear. I personally think it is narrowminded and “stupid” (to use your term) to make blanket comments about people that you’ve never played with or know. I just healed a warrior tank this week in heroic PoS with only 30k HP and they were amazing so you have to be careful about putting labels on people.
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 12:37 pm:
Agreed, it’s pretty foolish to immediately label someone as stupid just because they aren’t in a guild or can’t currently get into one.
[Reply]
Griffsnog reply on February 24, 2010 1:27 pm:
I’m not saying your a noon if you have sub par gear. I’m saying your a noon if you don’t utilize the tools at your disposal to get the gear you need. With the cutter state of the game i.e. Gold and BoE epix quite litterally falling from the sky. If you wont go out of your way to get yourself some decent gear, doesn’t have to be all phat epix. You just have to have what works. I am actually argueing against Gear Score. The fact is content is not hard like it use to be my warrior ijusr dinged 7. After a long hiatus from the game and I’m already geared to go into raiding content, if I don’t have items equiped I have the badge loot/craftable/rep reward items to fulfill those slots when I get there. If I can do it WITHIN A WEEK after being away for practically all of Wrath so can anybody. Btw if u o ly have 1 hour a week to play the game you shouldn’t be raiding. Sorry to be elitist bt that is the way I feel. This game is not hard. If you need to rely on some java script to let you know someone is or isn’t a good player you should not be playing an MMO. Go play modern warfare 2 or some fps. As a tank it is your responsability to make sure you are geare for an encounter if not let your healer know and make sure they are willing and able to heal you through it if it is possible. Tanks are the most gear dependent especially warriors. We have to deal with it. If you try to ignore it I can understand why your not being let into raids. My problem with addons like these is they take away from the fact that your supposed to be playin with another PLAYER not a bot in some gear you should be working togethe to strive to achieve not coast through the game with overgeared players. I feel GS puts
people in the mindset of high score= good player when in fact it doesn’t.
@Veneretio
if you can’t take the time to even find a random invite spammin guild why should I let you into my raid
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 2:25 pm:
There’s many reasons why a person chooses not to be a part of a guild. (some people like alt toons they can hide on, they don’t want to be part of an online community, etc) “not having the time to click accept” is not likely the reason very often if ever.
Why you should let them in your raid is the very same reason you let anyone in your raid because you feel they’re ready. I don’t agree with you that 1 step of the “get ready” process is join a guild.
Also, please, try to stick to discussing the actual topics rather than attacking the players themselves. Your posts are borderline trolling right now and the lack of spelling shows they’re clearly rushed at times. Consider these things before commenting again.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Yesterday I found out that you can be randomly queued for Halls of Reflection with people wearing wrathful gladiator gear (ilevel 264)
One of the melee circle-strafed around bosses.
We had to cheese it by walking behind the lich king cos dps was so low (not fixed, you just stand in different place)
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 7:12 pm
It’s pretty simple. Gear score is a bad solution. But, there isn’t anything better.
If you’re setting up a pug, it’s one of the few things you have to go off of. Despite the number of Corpse Tongue Coins and Last words out there to pump up GS.
[Reply]
Cleaved reply on February 23, 2010 7:24 pm:
When you severely out-gear non-heroic raid content (we just unlocked ICC10 Heroic, and only LK to go for 25m unlock), Last Word is really fun to use. The uptime on the buff is nearly 100%, and it is a solid TPS weapon given the constant 100 STR and how hard it hits due to the ilvl and slower speed.
Not great for everything, or progression, but fun to mess with when you are on content you could tank with a Green. I use it all the time now, just for SnG… even on our first ICC10 LK kill. In Heroics I’ll probably alternate between The Facelifter and Ardent Guard (Heroic version).
[Reply]
Kavtor reply on February 23, 2010 8:05 pm:
Eh. If you’re going to use a threat weapon, why use a 264 with a negligable proc. Use an actual DPS weapon. =P
[Reply]
Cleaved reply on February 23, 2010 11:55 pm:
I do. I have a suitable 264 weapon with ARP, etc. “Last Word” is only used for fun… and it has higher threat than some of my other tanking weapons. No one else wanted it, and would have been a shame to see it DE’d. My point was… the proc adds some TPS as well as the higher DPS of the weapon. The slower speed lowers some of that TPS at the same time. It is minorly useful as a gimmick weapon. Main point of my post being… use it, because having a proper tank weapon doesn’t make or break any current fight.
I think we’re still allowed to have fun, right?
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 12:38 pm:
Last Word is also like the best Blood Queen offtank weapon in the game… that’s something, right? Right?
Seph reply on March 4, 2010 12:40 pm:
Ok Cleaved I have to ask since you have killed him…. We are on Arthas this week on 10 man and since we just got to him I don’t know if this has been an issue. When we push him into p1.5 or p2 ‘however you want to look at it’ and we run to the edge we don’t have any stacks of the disease but all of the sudden when we get out to the edge and split in our groups someone magically gets it all of the sudden with usually no raid warning.
Also, Arthas tends to move around you as you tank when he summons ghouls. Have you noticed this or is he just buggy this week due to the minor patch?
[Reply]
Kobeathris reply on February 24, 2010 6:52 am:
If you have Last Word, you have killed 25 Putricide, which means you probably know what you are doing.
[Reply]
marklar reply on February 24, 2010 2:15 pm:
yes, there is something better…
[Reply]
February 23rd, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Taking Mongoose over Blade Ward = lower gearscore.
Taking Glove Reinforcements over Armsman = lower gearscore.
Taking +18 stam over +20 defence on shield = lower gearscore.
Taking 30 stam/18 resi over Hodir Exalted = lower gearscore.
Taking Black Heart over Eitrigg’s Oath = lower gearscore.
Or in other words…
Taking several valid, intelligent and metabased enchanting and trinket decisions that will enhance your overall ability = considerably lower gearscore. You, as a warrior tank, of all classes and specs, should understand this better than most.
[Reply]
Kavtor reply on February 23, 2010 10:31 pm:
My understanding is, wowheroes can score enchants. But the standard gearscore mod does not.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t similar valid gear choices that impart a lower ilvl for higher effectiveness, but, as one of the few tools for the pug raid leader to attempt to put a successful raid together, it’s going to be used.
[Reply]
Furiat/Vege reply on February 24, 2010 3:31 am:
Standard gearscore mod does not look at enchants, gems, stats or armor type at all. So yea, you can have awesome GS… in cloths and +mp5 jewelery. And, like Meatgazer noted, now it’s achiev and gs needed by most pugs.
[Reply]
Furiat/Vege reply on February 24, 2010 3:33 am:
Oh, and another note as a tank. How does your pug/heroic gear differ from your typical EH/progress setup? Mine does a lot, as I’m still running in sbr/sbv set in easier content. Which is Ulduar/Naxx gear mostly.
Sagramor reply on February 25, 2010 4:35 am:
Well said. Even thought it doesn’t look at enchants the spirit of this post rings true. It encourages people to take the Corroded Skeleton Key as their first EoF purchase.
I must confess I do use the addon though. A quick glance at my group gives me a rough idea how fast I can push an encounter, who to Vigilance, whether my healer can cope with me being in DPS spec, and so on.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 12:19 am
The short answer to everyone who hates Gearscore.
Join a guild.
Ive never had to deal with this addon or the drama associated with it.
I loved a comment I once read from Ghost Crawler saying something to the effect of they were thinking about introducing a ilvl 300 shirt into the game just to screw with this mod. I laughed really hard.
[Reply]
Zellviren reply on February 24, 2010 1:58 am:
Yep, I’m with Bodasafa; if you don’t like GearScore, join a guild for your raids.
Don’t complain about something you don’t have to submit yourself to.
But on the topic; the AddOn isn’t the problem at all. The problem is the use of it, typically administered by clueless people who have no real idea how a raid group is formed.
[Reply]
Bhig reply on February 24, 2010 4:27 am:
I think you may have missed the point a tiny bit.
I am in a guild. Heck, I run the guild.
But due to current circumstances, I have to pug for raids.
How does joining a guild assist me avoiding GearScore? In my case it doesn’t.
[Reply]
Griffsnog reply on February 24, 2010 1:49 pm:
Why are you running a raiding guild if you don’t have the time?
Donega reply on February 25, 2010 2:08 am:
I think you misread what Bhig said. He said he runs a guild, not a raiding guild.
I am in a guild right now that hardly does any raids beyond Naxx or OS and that’s a shame but i don’t even consider leaving my guild. Several people have left the guild to join a larger raiding guild, but about half of them came back because they missed the atmosphere we have.
For a lot of people WoW is more than just the raiding; raiding is a great part of it, but the social part of it is for a lot of people as least as important. This leads to people needing to pug, even while they are in a guild.
(Ok, maybe this is not the place for people that are in the more social guilds, but still wanted to say it)
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 6:52 am:
/signed.
All of my ICC and VOA raiding is usually done in-guild. VOA is sometimes pugged but I never have problems getting in. TOC I usually pug as well (trying to get a damn shield), and sometimes we have to make replacements, but my gearscore gets me in. Before I had the gearscore I just told them how much HP/armor I have and I get in. If you don’t have the GS, or the achievement, you have to figure out another way to sell yourself.
[Reply]
Furiat/Vege reply on February 24, 2010 7:12 am:
Add weekly to that. As a raid can only hold up to 25 characters, while usually raiding guilds have a bit more (like 30-35 I suppose). Some people in guild will (have to) pug those.
And dailies.
[Reply]
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 1:12 pm:
Weekly raids, when they consist of naxx bosses or earlier ulduar bosses, I’ll pug anything, I don’t discriminate or gear check. Haven’t had a wipe in there yet. If it was Sarth it would be the same thing. Malygos I would take guildies more than likely, if none were available I’d achievement check it. TOC weeklies I’d be more wary of, and would scrutinize deeper for the fastest and most efficient run, and ICC obviously will be done in the guild run.
February 24th, 2010 at 1:53 am
Hi Vene,
Nice post as usual (been following for over a year, but never left a note, here i go!).
The only use i found to GS is when doing heroics throug LFG. It allows me as tank to quickly get a view about the healer gear and the highest GS of dps.
If the Healer has low GS I usually then wait between pulls, watch his mana more carefully, and pull small groups he can handle healing. If his gear score is high enough, i go on a rampage crazy pulling.
For the dps, basically, I set vigilance of the highest GS dps at start. I have to say that plenty of times this has been spot on. However, as you have said so many times in other comments GS is not skills, and i have seen some really high dps put less agro than a low geared player. So I would change my vigilance target as the run evolves.
I never kicked anyone because of their GS!
My vote on GS is, the tool is good for me as a tank, how you use it is what ppl are complaining about.
Take care all !
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 12:41 pm:
Excellent points. You’ve touched on two of my favourite uses for GearScore. Always glad to see a long time reader take the leap to enter the comment community
[Reply]
Celdhyrean reply on February 25, 2010 9:15 am:
I just do the same by looking at their health/mana pool. I’m not a pugging guy but doing 1 heroic a day will give you enough experience to transform that data into useful information.
I put Vigilance up based on that and rush in the first pack, which should then give me enough information about whether the dps is actually good, whether i chose the right Vigilance target, and whether the healer had to expand a lot of mana or not (ie whether he’ll be able to keep up or not).
However geared they are, i will give them a chance (ie i’ll only leave after wiping once, twice or more depending on circumstances), i don’t really see the point in having an addon tell me what i’ll learn by the first pull.
[Reply]
Grafx reply on March 1, 2010 2:06 pm:
“i don’t really see the point in having an addon tell me what i’ll learn by the first pull.”
You would learn nothing from the first pull other than how much mana your healer consumes per pull without a threat / dps meter.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 4:34 am
To add my 2c (and probably labour a point that’s been laboured already…)
I dislike gearscore.
It only tells half the story, but a lot of the users of GS use it as the WHOLE story. Granted, a good gear score shows some level of willingness to put the effort in, and it shows that the people have gear to compete at the right level (not vastly undergeared etc).
But it says nothing of actual (general) Raid level experience, or experience in a particular raid.
Take my alt for example. He would routinely get denied groups (raid or heroics) based upon his gearscore. But as the player behind the toon, I have more than enough experience and skill to run many of the raids and/or heroics that I would be contending for.
So, I dislike how the addon is being used, rather than the add on itself.
And (as mentioned previously) to make matters worse, you can now get really good gear and still be a retarded player. On my server I have seen the odd fully geared level 80 pulling numbers (healing, dps, tps) that would be put to shame by a skilled player in all blues. To date, we still can’t figure out how this happens.
[Reply]
Bhig reply on February 24, 2010 4:37 am:
Oh. Just thought of another GS goodie.
[2. Trade] LFM for XXX raid. Must have GS of 4500+ come to fountain for inspection.
[Reply]
Bhig reply on February 24, 2010 4:39 am:
Crap.. didn’t like my syntax..
Bhig travels to fountain just out of interest
Inspects prospective raid leader
Notices raid leader is in all iLvl200 epics
Bhig returns to previous task
[Reply]
Corlath reply on February 24, 2010 10:59 am:
Had this happen a couple weeks ago on a Sunday. Hunter trying to lead a pug Naxx 25, asking for gs 4200+, I walked over to check him out. 2 badge pieces and the rest were BoE blues and greens. Decided my alt didn’t need the achievement that badly and the time could be better spent on mining titanium in wintergrasp.
February 24th, 2010 at 5:50 am
Nothing wrong with GS, I agree with pretty much all of what you said, Vene. That said, I’m still using the shield from 25 man KT. Blizzard has been very unkind to me in the way of shields since Ulduar. I also use one stam trinket, one armor trinket, yet my Gearscore is close to 5700 and I’ve got 44k HP unbuffed. It’s not hard to push it higher if you’re doing the content. My gearscore and stat levels have gotten me into plenty of TOC pugs (I had my account inactive for the end of 3.1 and much of 3.2, so I missed the achieves in TOC).
Bottom line, Gearscore does what it’s supposed to do, and it still has many, many haters. The haters can mostly be lumped into two camps: Those who are in a guild that does all the raids they need, and those who don’t know how to farm full t9 from emblems. Those are the ones who bitch and complain in trade when someone requires a 5.3k GS for 10 man TOC. 5.3k ensures that the folks running it probably didn’t get all of their gear from triumph badges. I hated it at first, but then I kept doing my daily heroic for Triumphs, Ony, VOA and was able to hit 5k before 3.3 came out. Things got a bit easier. Once I replace my shield obviously I’ll have some more self esteem though, this thing is pretty embarrassing!
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 6:26 am
I use this addon and I like it. It helps me to choose my initial Vig target and to help me gauge how many/fast to pull. I beleive that the main problem is not the addon but the people using it.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 7:17 am
Vene, you’ve done a wonderful job here of articulating the reasons why GearScore isn’t the blight on the WoW landscape that some often suggest it is.
As far as I have been able to tell, the objections to GearScore generally boil down to the following: “GearScore is stupid because some people use it stupidly.” If this were a legitimate reason for getting rid of something, the complainants should also abandon the use of automobiles, firearms, and their own reproductive systems.
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 12:47 pm:
Unrelated to your comment, but I am really enjoying reading your site… keep up the good work
[Reply]
Drae reply on February 24, 2010 2:09 pm:
Amg post url!
[Reply]
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 2:28 pm:
Amg click Lujanera!
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 2:29 pm:
http://tankingnotes.wordpress.com/
(You’ll notice a lot of commentor’s names are blue, that means they’ve linked to a site, often, it’s their own blog)
Signu reply on February 27, 2010 5:35 am:
Holy crap you have a good blog, Lujanera. Kudos!
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 7:39 am
You should check out the addon Elitist Group. It provides more details on the player than the Gearscore addon.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 8:28 am
I think the only sure fire way to assess someone is an armory check. It doesn’t take that long to spot a bad but of course the raid leader or his assistants would need to know enough about each class to spot the tell-tale signs - NOT achievements (bad players easily leach them and good players are frequently denied them due getting unlucky joining pugs full of bads) but subtle spec and enchant choices that show they have read around their class fully.
Gearscore ultimately falls down because gear is too easily available by grinding easy content for emblems and of course bad players always roll high and leach gear in pug raids. The end result leads to such a disparity in performance between players with identical gear scores that it renders the add-on worthless. It is not uncommon to see someone in a raid outputting only 50% of what another player of the same class and gear score is doing.
I’ve seen that happen, most people reading this have seen it happen too. I’d be prepared to bet that if such statistics existed (they probably don’t) that gearscore pugs have exactly the same failure rate as random pugs.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 8:50 am
I’m tempted to simply say “Gearscore is useless and encourages gear based discrimination of players” but… that’s the whole damn point of the addon, and I think that might be what bothers me.
It bothers me that someone writes an addon that essentially sums up a bunch of numbers that it cannot then evaluate in any sort of context and produces a number that’s meant to indicate how suitable a player is for an endeavour. Be it a raid, a heroic, or anything.
A great case in point. Last night I was tanking HoR heroic with my 232-264 iLvl gear tank. We had an arms warrior as DPS. This arms warrior had gear comparable to mine, the usual 245 triumph bits, the usual 232 set pieces (again triumph badges) and to top it all off, Quel Delar (lucky sod ;P) This guy should have been pumping out a minimum of 3.5k, probably more like 4-4.5 in that place with that kind of gear.
I did more than him throughout the entire instance. During the waves at the start (when an arms warrior SHOULD be good with Sweeping Strikes and bladestorm opportunities in abundance) he was at 1700dps… 1700!!!
As comparison, my little DK did that much damage at level 78… And now at level 80 with mostly epic stuff, still isn’t geared enough to even DO HoR Heroic according to the Blizz instancing system, and yet can put out between 3k and 3.5k.
Yes, you could argue that inspecting this guy and seeing gear like that would have given just as much of an indication of his worth as gearscore would. BUT… the majority of people are sheep. They follow the crowd. People make gearscore, people use gearscore, and if someone sees an addon that popular, that well used, they simply believe it.
If someone hadn’t thought that you could sum up performance with a single number (that doesn’t even include spec/gem/enchant choices) we wouldn’t be needing to discuss it
I suppose I’m ambivalent. If people want to use it, go ahead and use it, and keep my alt out of your groups even though I know he can do more than MANY of the other puggers out there. I just hate that so many people actually think Gearscore IS a good way to evaluate people.
It’s rather sad
[Reply]
atcq reply on February 24, 2010 8:58 am:
^ This.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned, but some of the BiS trinkets are still ilvl 200 which, if going by GS, penalizes you.
It’s come down to “bring the gearscore, not the player”.
[Reply]
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 1:16 pm:
In normal mode TOC the ilevel 200 trinkets might have been BIS, only if you didn’t raid Ulduar though. In ICC and with the advent of triumph and frost badges you’re definitely outdating your statement.
[Reply]
Signu reply on February 24, 2010 10:16 am:
The person interpreting the number is the problem, not the addon. If you blindly go by GS, you may be as bad as the person wearing unsocketed/unenchanted gear.
[Reply]
Despil reply on March 1, 2010 9:07 am:
But it IS a problem,or atleast a big part of the problem,as some people got a tool to abuse,and are,efectively making thing only worse.
We intelectually KNOW its wrong to judge by GS but if more and more people are using it,and abusing it, a critical mass will be formed when it will be THE evaluation of someones skill.
And thats just bad.
So i hate it with a passion
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 9:26 am
I had an interesting experience in VoA the other week. I was on my freshly dinged (~one week) affl. warlock.
My gear sucks. I’m still wearing the Scryer hit / spellpower on use trinket… it’s ilvl 115. I got a smattering of blues, some 245 badge gear, and some 200 epics. I think (I am unsure, because I don’t have the addon) my gearscore is like sub-4k.
So this ret paladin (who was not the raid leader) makes a huge fuss about my gear score and how I was too scrub to do the raid. He was wearing full t9 232, frost badge cloak etc.
I spanked his damage and dps. Like 1000 more dps, 6% more of total damage done. I did ~20% of my total damage to the orbs.
I laughed my balls off. The raid laughed at him. He quit the group.
Gearscore is a tool, but like any tool it’s only as good as the people who use it. Using gearscore to determine someones ability to raid is like using a hammer to cut a 2×4.
[Reply]
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 9:51 am:
x2
An excellent, yet neutral-ish argument.
[Reply]
Calanan reply on February 24, 2010 1:27 pm:
Finally.
“Gearscore is a tool, but like any tool it’s only as good as the people who use it. Using gearscore to determine someones ability to raid is like using a hammer to cut a 2×4.”
This is really the crux of it. GS is a tool. How you use that tool determines its usefulness. Vene has been kind enough to give several excellent examples for how this tool might be used beneficially. If people choose to use it in less responsible ways, that is their issue not yours.
[Reply]
melville reply on February 25, 2010 2:49 pm:
I preferred “link achie or no inv” because it isn’t hard to get the achie when the content is released and nobody has an achievement. You have 7 days to get an achievement for a puggable raid which is more than enough.
In tank gear I have 5858gs and people don’t ask for an achie, on my alt it’s a different matter however and even with achie but low GS I don’t stand a chance.
GS brings about the “All the gear no idea” people while leaving good raiders with the achievement that they got in sub par gear because they outplayed the content in the first week it was released.
People need to realise that classes like rogues, locks and hunters can play WELL out of their GS league on the dps charts purely by knowing how best to use their class.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 11:16 am
If you use gearscore at all when forming your raid you’re bad. End of discussion.
Do the gear check, don’t be lazy. Gearscore is dumb, does not take into account enchants/gems and blindly gives higher item level gear a higher gearscore without any consideration into how ideal the stats may be.
If you rely on it in any way whatsoever when forming your raid, you’re raid will most likely fail. It takes about 5 seconds to hover over every piece of a person’s gear to ensure their gems/enchants are appropriate and their gear is correct (ie - not pvp gear for a raid). If you don’t know how all 10 classes should be gearing/gemming/enchanting you have no business leading a raid imo.
[Reply]
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 11:28 am:
That’s a somewhat ignorant response and it leads me to believe you didn’t read the post or subsequent comments. The great thing about Vene’s blog is the comment section is definitely used as a forum.
“If you use gearscore at all when forming your raid you’re bad. End of discussion.”
That’s pretty bold indeed. When forming a PUG I ask for gearscore, achievement or any argument as to why I should take you. I’ll glance at their gearing, gemming, enchanting choices as well. GS will get your toe in the door with me, but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to slam said door on said toe and break it.
“Do the gear check, don’t be lazy. Gearscore is dumb, does not take into account enchants/gems and blindly gives higher item level gear a higher gearscore without any consideration into how ideal the stats may be.”
Yep, got it. I do gear check.
“If you rely on it in any way whatsoever when forming your raid, you’re raid will most likely fail.”
Tell that to the 30 minute 10ToC I did on Monday night, the raidleader used gearscore as an initial qualifier and we had 0 deaths. Granted, it’s easy content, but guaranteed many pugs still cannot get past Northrend Beasts.
“It takes about 5 seconds to hover over every piece of a person’s gear to ensure their gems/enchants are appropriate and their gear is correct (ie - not pvp gear for a raid). If you don’t know how all 10 classes should be gearing/gemming/enchanting you have no business leading a raid imo.”
It takes maybe 5-10 seconds to mouse over each piece for each person, I’ll give you that. What I’d like to point out is there’s little argument present in your post and what seems like untargeted, “AOE” flaming.
[Reply]
Seph reply on February 24, 2010 12:03 pm:
Hydrix is just angry because he has a low gearscore
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 12:56 pm:
Easy on the trollin’ gang
And while I disagree with Hydrix’s statement that using GS immediately makes you bad, I can’t disagree that relying solely on it is a bit lazy. However, sometimes you just want to be lazy. If leading was super easy, everyone would be doing it so personally, I welcome any tool that might allow me to be lazy some days.
I won’t dispute though that gems and enchants should be taken into account and with any luck they will be in future updates of the add-on.
Dread reply on February 24, 2010 1:14 pm:
Oh I agree using it solely is lazy for sure. I’m fully backing him up on that, but it’s the outward statements that are a blanket flame without holding back that I had a problem with. Blatantly stating that “If you do this at all you are horribad” has no place in a discussion.
Hydrix reply on February 25, 2010 5:34 am:
My post came across as angry because gearscore as an addon makes me EXTREMELY angry.
An addon has no business trying being part of raiding if it is INCOMPLETE. It is vastly incomlete because of it’s blanket i-level -> gearscore conversion that takes absolutely nothing else into account. Highest i-level gear is not always the best in slot for most classes (take the black heart as a prime example - not best in slot, but better than using a 245 hit rating trinket to tank).
I come from Area 52, one of the most pug happy servers out there (for horde). The amount of rampart SOLE use of this addon by people forming raids, who insist you have a gearscore about 10-20% higher than THE ADDON ITSELF TELLS YOU IS REQUIRED is what pisses me off the most.
Yes, gearscore measure potential, but it is so widely misused that if the addon went away tomorrow (and it should), I would not miss it in any way whatsoever. The only people who would whine are those who don’t want to take the time to do gear inspections. IE - “PST with GS for invite”.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Gearscore is just a tool that does a particular thing. Its functions include indicating what level of effort a player has put into gearing up. Achievement checking is a different tool, which tends to show the raiding experience of a player. Inspection is still another tool and tends to show whether players understand their class and perhaps shows their raiding experience depending on where their gear dropped. Hating GS is like hating a hammer because it is not a saw.
GS even serves a function in heroics. It helps you know you’re probably in for a longer run in the case of a lower GS group. You probably shouldn’t all out nuke as dps with a low gs tank. A really high GS tank often indicates a quick and more fun run. These things are worth knowing.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Well I have read this post a few times now, and the comments as well. I will admit that when I first read it I thought to myself, “this is not good. I usually really appreciate ALL of Ven’s posts and have found them very helpful, but this post is elitist and the problem with the game and seems out of character”…….. Remember, I said “when I FIRST read it”……..
But today I get it. Ven is RIGHT, and I don’t hate GS (thought I did - but that isn’t it). What I dislike is the way some people use it.
To use it as a starting yard-stick for a quick measure of gear, to make sure your group is appropriately geared is great, it is helpful, and is a good first test to make sure that you are not trying to take low geared persons into content that their gear was not meant for, because that does no one any good. As a starting point, used in concert with some sound judgement, it is a help.
The PROBLEM is, and I think that this is what gets most people upset, is how easy it is for it to be used incorrectly in an attempt to try ensure that a raid group REALLY overgears content. All while excluding those players, that, while acceptably geared, and with the skill for the content are still trying to get good gear and progress through content. But that is the leaders perogative.
I agree with Ven when he says, “Be the Change.”, and let the “need 6000GS for VOA 10″ people sit in trade chat spamming all night trying to get a “cake-walk” of a run, while you take a less geared group through for emblems and gear. No one is forcing you to run with them, and there are options on most nights. Depending upon your mood that day, you may not even want to run with the leader looking for a stupid qualifying GS, cause they may be a jerk. You may also find that you fill your group with more individuals who think like you and are looking to have a fun run. Because guaranteed there are probably many others around rolling their eyes at “high GS” spammer, and it is better to run with people having the same view of the run that you do anyway.
Some players want to be carried through content, or have an elitist attitude that they are the best, and have best gear, and to hell with everyone who has not cleared ICC 25 Hard-mode. Others are willing to take one or two less geared players though runs to help them out, just like they were helped out on their way to the top, and some have days when they could fall into either category. It is the way of the world, and it takes all different types of people.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I’d love to see it incorporate some of the standard meta-achievements as well; in a separate rating, or a checklist.
“This player has completed:
Champion of the Frozen Wastes,
ULDUAR
The Siege of Ulduar, (10/25)
The Antechamber of Ulduar, (10/25)
The Keepers of Ulduar, (10/25)
(What ever the Yogg and Vezzax) of Ulduar (10/25)
etc. Providing the “Highest” completion thus far.
This would provide an great indicator of raid content completed in addition to a gearscore. Sure “Link the achievement” is much the same, but I’d take players that are fore example: done keepers to my ToC run even if they don’t have the ToC10 achievement ya know. Include for all toons on an account. I am much more likely to bring a under geared alt whose main has completed the achievements then someone who’s never set foot in the frickin place. At least they’d have an idea of the fights.
Or
“Report me a damage meter link for a single target boss fight, plus your gearscore.” Then I’d simply divide the two. An addon the tracked your last say 10 single target DPS and averaged it, then divided by gearscore would be really nice. A composite if you will.
Really Gearscore would be much more useful if it somehow incorporated player skill into the rating. Either via achievements or a measurable number like DPS. Of course this would be FAR more difficult for healers and tanks (tho tanks could maybe use TPS, but then, does threat really matter enough?)
[Reply]
marklar reply on February 24, 2010 6:01 pm:
as myself and at least one other person pointed out, there is an addon that does exactly what you’re asking for.
i never even downloaded GS, but i do use ElitistGroup. it actually provides some useful information about a player. i would take someone with Firefighter completed over someone with a leet GS and 5/14 ulduar.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
I wish you could edit posts >
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on February 24, 2010 2:31 pm:
Agreed, this is something I really need to look into adding to the site. Consider it added to the list of things I should have done a year ago
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
GearScore is about as good as HP requirements for tanks, or DPS numbers. You don’t live through ICC on neither 20K health nor a 2500 GS, so in that respect, the numbers and the addon makes sense. However, they’re also easily spoofed (PvP gear etc.), which you can only see if you inspect the players yourself - and if you have the proper knowledge of the class.
If you’re smart, GS can help. If you belong to the remaining 80%+, well, you’re not reading the posts here anyway, you blindly trust GS, make up outrageous numbers, and kick people from raids that don’t pull 5K on Marrowgar 10 while being boned
The intent of GS wasn’t too bad - I mean, it’s quicker than alt-tabbing and checking wow-heroes, be.imbah, etc. The way it’s (ab)used is what’s bad.
I’ll make another pitch here for “ElitistGroup”. It gives you way more information on a quick glance, average iLevel of gear is in there too, but it screams at you for the signs of a player that might be questionable. I.e. bad gems, bad enchants, atypical trinkets, etc.
Granted, it screams at me in my “heroic tanking set”, too (dps-trinkets?!).
And it gives me the chance on my alt to “link” to my main. Just so I can prove that yes, I’ve been here before. Multiple times.
GS, Recount, EG, they’re all not bad tools. They’re often used in bad ways. In my opinion, EG is a smarter tool. The cynic in me says, though, that it’s too late. Too many people are humming the “GS, GS, GS” mantra, too many are lazy and “stupid”, and we won’t get rid of it anymore. MS Windows, VHS, and GS win by sheer numbers, not quality.
[Reply]
Kavtor reply on February 25, 2010 8:31 am:
And even with the different tools (achievements, GS, EG, whatever) you never know what you’ll get in a pug raid.
How many players are just having a bad day. Or distracted, watching TV because it’s just a ‘pug’. I’d bet the vast majority of players preform worse in pugs than in their guild raids because we don’t take them as seriously.
So it should be no wonder that those who want to put all the extra work into forming a pug raid use every tool they can, including wildly inflated gear scores, to ensure the raid is as well prepared as possible.
[Reply]
February 24th, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Here’s the common complaint that I see about gear score and sites such as wow-heroes. The notion that very capable players are being turned down due to lack of gear.
The problem is, most people think they are amazing/ above average at their given class/roll. Obviously not everyone can be above average. So if I am leading a raid and you tell me that you are super leet dps, unless I actually know you, that admission of prowess is meaningless.
Even if you belong to XYZ progression guild, for many people that has little meaning. Perhaps the raid leader has never heard of your guild. And just because you belong to some amazing guild does not necessarily indicate skill on your part even if you feel that it does.
There have been quite a few times where I have pugged people into my raid whom I have ignored their gear score because of their insistence of knowledge of the raid (linked achievement) or acclamation of leetness only to find out during the raid that they are standing in the green stuff, or not moving to a certain location.
Yes gearscore does not guarantee success but its an introduction to a player. They may live up to your first impression or fail spectacularly but at the very least dressed for success.
[Reply]
February 25th, 2010 at 8:36 am
My biggest problem with GearScore is that it is ONLY based off the pre-existing data that is already inside an item. Like the item-level.
For example, the Rune of Repulsion off 10 man Sapphiron (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40372) is from higher content, so it has a higher item level (219) than both the Black Heart and either Brewfest stamina trinket (both level 200). Yet for a tank, at least for anyone going for Effective health (which is the prevailing tanking philosophy these days) almost everyone will choose them over the Rune of Repulsion, and will be wise to do so.
So because I haven’t had the luck to roll of a trinket from TogC or ICC yet, I end up with a lower gearscore, despite making the better choice with gear.
Also worth noting is that fury warriors will always have a higher gearscore than a ret pally or DK with similar gear- simply because they have two 2h weapons equipped (a 2h out of icc gives about +940 to gearscore).
So I don’t dislike gearscore because of most of the reasons you talked about in your article, but because it doesn’t discriminate on finer points.
At one point, GS was trying to to distinguish between “tank” and other specs, but after some testing (by switching specs and keeping the same gear on) I discovered it didn’t do what it was advertising.
So the people who made the GearScore mod, in an effort to allow everyone to do less work, didn’t do the work they should have in making the mod (what a shock!)
[Reply]
Hydrix reply on February 25, 2010 9:13 am:
“Also worth noting is that fury warriors will always have a higher gearscore than a ret pally or DK with similar gear- simply because they have two 2h weapons equipped (a 2h out of icc gives about +940 to gearscore).”
Doesn’t work that way champ. Gearscore does some kind of a weighted average of the two to give you an equivalent one 2H weapon score. At least it’s smart enough to do that or fury warriors would all be running around with 6.5k+ GS.
[Reply]
Vilereaver reply on February 26, 2010 12:26 am:
Even if that is the case, there’s no GS weighting for effective health vs evasion vs threat. Its ONLY based off the item level and
And with 2h weapons, for example, there is no discrimination between items that are clearly different.
For example, compare the 2h axe of saurfang from 10 man ICC (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50798) and the sword off marrowgar for 10 man (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=50761). Despite the axe being clearly better for having an extra socket and higher max damage, it has the same gearscore (944 last time i checked).
I wish I could see exactly how the calculations are made- I would love to work on it. And I’m curious how the weighting works- I’ve heard that chest pieces are given a heavier weight towards the final number than other pieces of gear, and I wonder how they chose by how much.
[Reply]
February 25th, 2010 at 11:33 am
+q for ElitistGroup. SO much better that GS, for so many reasons.
[Reply]
February 25th, 2010 at 11:33 am
That was supposed to be +1. LOL
[Reply]
February 25th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
You imply in your original post that GS has down away with the achievement requirements asked by inviters. On my server at least the two are used in tandem e.g. “LFM for Raid XX. Must have 5.5k GS and have [Endboss Achievement].” A high GS doesn’t preclude the need to explain the encounter. That’s the thing people want to avoid since in some cases it’s what slows down a group more than even a wipe.
[Reply]
February 25th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
[2: Trade] LFM ToC10. minimun 5.2k GS
[Reply]
Noxit reply on March 1, 2010 1:12 pm:
this is from my realm [2: Trade] LFM naxx need 4.9kGS and achivement!
[Reply]
February 26th, 2010 at 2:17 am
i on purpose use low GS for Heroics at the start, so all the noob GS people remove themselfs from group
[Reply]
February 26th, 2010 at 6:15 am
Personally I am not using GearScore and it has not really entered the server I play on yet to the extend I hear about on other servers. I have read most of the comments here and one argument that keeps coming back touches an issue I have been struggling with for quite some time.
“Skilled players in mediocre gear vs. unskilled players in great gear”
Ofcourse those skilled players can pull their weight and bringing the unskilled to a raid can be burdensome, but to me, wanting to get into a raid with mediocre gear, no matter how skilled you are, is disrespectful to the others in the raid.
In patch 3.2 and now 3.3 Blizzard has implemented a “gearing path” that makes it possible for anyone to properly gear yourself completely for the tier of raiding you aim for without having to go through all previous tiers. Personally, trying to get into a ToC raid when I still have some iLvl 200 pieces I would feel like leeching others who have followed the proper gearing path.
A respons I sometimes see is “But I, a rogue, pull 4k dps in my average iLev 219 gear while that ilev 245 hunter does 3.5K dps! Kick the hunter!”
My answer to that would be: “The hunter is probably doing his best and is helped by good advice. The skilled rogue could have been doing 7k dps if he had all ilev 245 gear, thus depriving the raid of 3K dps.”
The whole “I am skilled so I should have more rights” totally ignores the social aspect of wow.
[Reply]
Tenes reply on February 28, 2010 12:34 pm:
While what u say makes sense, it is still horribly off-center. Gearing patches, I get it. But if an ilvl 219 rogue does pull more dos than a 245 hunter(by your example) then that proves the point I made so much earlier in this thread. That skill > gear, and the addon is crap. Maybe if the rogue hadn’t been lazy he could have had better gear, sure. But for tanks, some lower ilvl gear is better, and we’re being penalized for it
[Reply]
Dread reply on March 1, 2010 6:01 am:
When I tell them how much HP I have they don’t ask for my GS. I have more armor than many bear tanks on the server as well.
[Reply]
Sage reply on February 28, 2010 1:49 pm:
How bad does the hunter have to be? The rogue’s already doing more damage, will probably avoid fire, use CDs in a better way, and help you with encounter mechanics (counterspelling).
If it’s the raid leader’s friend, ok. At a certain point, you’ve gotta get better, though, and if they’re a 245 hunter who can’t do much……how did they get all that gear? What if that rogue’s got a 11k dps mage lying around (we all have alts)? That rogue’s mage probably did ToCr, while the hunter didn’t. So someone who can help the raid has to suffer, because they have decent, but not great items? Eh, to each their own. If the hunter works better for you, grab the hunter.
[Reply]
soultrapped reply on March 7, 2010 7:21 pm:
while i agree in some aspects of what you are saying isnt it more annoying to when gear is just handed out to people and when they get into the raid they know nothing about it and cause wipe after wipe rather than a good player who may not have the same gear pull his own weight not need to be dragged threw not causing wipes which would you really want to deal with
[Reply]
February 26th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I use WoW-Heroes for my GS. When I tell peeps my GS is 3K they always ask me if thats a GearScore figure. When I say “whats that?” I get invited instantly.. lol
[Reply]
February 27th, 2010 at 10:29 am
By Blizzard’s own admission, they make choosing the best item difficult. This leads to The Black Heart being awesome till ToCr 25 (not a bad thing, but an unusual thing), the Armsman enchant being horrible, and so on. Remember heroic gear in BC being better then Kara gear? Yeah.
Gear can be used to show someone’s knowledge & preparedness, to varying degrees (there are sites up that show decent gear, so it removes some of the weight from the equation, but there shouldn’t be too much weight there). It doesn’t, however, show development of muscle-memory, good tactics, and so on. I find, for VoA, that a simple gemming/add-on check is easy enough (then again, I can AMS every other Whiteout, thus causing it to drop off, so dying to Toravon is not a problem).
Bigger instances require a more focused look at a person’s gear/experience. Gear Score does this. This is both a blessing and a curse. Consider how much of your system’s memory, CPU, and bandwidth this uses. My guildies were surprised. Make sure you turn GS or any equivalent addon off before starting the raid.
[Reply]
Sage reply on February 27, 2010 10:30 am:
Bah, by gemming/addon check, I mean gemming/enchant.
[Reply]
Dread reply on March 1, 2010 5:59 am:
Which heroic gear was better than Kara gear?
[Reply]
Seph reply on March 1, 2010 8:53 am:
I think he meant the badge gear you got from running heroix. Remember at the end of the xpac it was 1 billion badges for a t6 eqivalent.
Dread reply on March 1, 2010 9:16 am:
When sunwell came out for sure, and at the ZA patch. But definitely not at the beginning, the statement is the same as it is in WOTLK, but with different badges.
Sage reply on March 2, 2010 10:25 am:
For a caster, there was an amulet, that I can remember currently. Tier pieces were crap for many classes too.
February 28th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
My main gripe about the GS is that it doesn’t seem to make the proper analysis that Rawr or http://be.imba.hu make. These out-of-game tools have a fairly accurate model of your class and spec and do a good job of identifying the gear that performs best, as opposed to the highest level gear. As far as I can tell GS doesn’t. It’s just item level x slot coefficients. So it does nothing to encourage players to gear properly. The other day a melee DPS was starting a PuG raid. I inspected him and saw he was wearing nearly 500 hit rating. Clearly some number-chasing going wrong there.
My gripe about players is that they get a high GS and feel that they are God. They spam trade and LFG with there slightly above average GS, expect to be fast-tracked into raids, and once there seem uninterested in improving their actual performance. Therefore, on our server at least, any talk of GS is associated with the “I has GS, I win” stupidity. If I join a PuG where the invitation method, and especially the leader, emphasises GS I expect it to be selecting for idiocy.
[Reply]
Dread reply on March 1, 2010 5:58 am:
be.imba.hu has never had a proper way to audit a prot warrior spec, and does not seem intuitive enough to see what are the best enchants (read: 18 stam or 240 armor to gloves). It’s auditor for protection builds has been under development since inception but has never been available. That’s just one of the issues. RaWr has it’s uses for brand new players but as far as auditing someone else I wouldn’t bother. If you’re going for out-of-game just use the armory and some common sense.
[Reply]
March 1st, 2010 at 12:35 am
Has anyone mentioned Elitist group as a viable alternative? It is superior to GS in every important aspect. The ability to makes notes on players and share that information with other is very useful as well as suggested encounters for your gear level.
The window allows for checking the gems, enchants, achieves and experience as well as setting a “main” so that your ulduar hardmode kills can help you when running on a alt.
check it out, it’ll prevent the occasional noob in all pvp gear slipping into your raid. I expect there’ll be a elitist group entry in a few weeks =D
[Reply]
March 1st, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Elitist Group is a much better addon. Don’t know if anyone mentioned it already, i only scanned through the replies.
It gives an average of your gears ilevel, and also scans to show gemming and enchants, with your numeric talent spec as well. It also gives you the ability to make notes on players and rate them after the encounter.
As far as GS goes, I can see some merit in it, but mostly it just looks like an e-peen measure.
I took a long break from, and came back just after 3.3 went live. I entered a random heroic, just to get in the swing of things. Now, when i quit, which was right before Ulduar came out, I had a combination of heroic and Naxx gear, and was 3/5 t7.
The first heroic I entered was CoS, and the healer looked at me and told me I need to gear up before I started running heroics. Bear in mind, I had the shield and bracers from heroic CoS equipped. GS has its uses, but it mostly just goes to prove that gear has outpaced intelligence in this game.
I really miss seeing hunters and mages that know what CC is.
[Reply]
March 1st, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Yeah, while GS has become some kind of “meter” issue nowadays , i find it really good for some reasons:
once you know pretty much everyone in the server, there’s no need to armory to pug. check GS, you’lll have a good average (needed for a pug, after all)
and if performance is something that really matters to you, as it does to me, you can compare different specs, players, and gear choices based on GS.
“why is that 5k DK doing better than that 5,7 one ?” “why’s that barely 5000 tank easier to heal ?” … things like that would take a huge effort from armory only, since gear is very specific for each class and spec.
therefore, if you’re being dps-pwned by a lesser GS than you, what are you doing about it ?
and of course GS is important. ilvl gear has been a mechanic that improves some part of the gameplay (i.e. veichles) and it’s nice to have a set based off of GS.
[Reply]
March 1st, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Dont know what is all fuss about…Vent this is the worst article of yours..Sorry no offence..But I must say GS is great tool if you pug a lot..With latest GS addon you dont only get numbers but you also get how much exprience someone have. Just do /gs name…if he is in your database it will show you the whold lot of information..And also when i pug ICC grp I know that if someone have 5300-5400 GS cant be achive by just running heroic..They have some rading exprience..But if you want to be 100% sure just do /gs Name..
[Reply]
Veneretio reply on March 1, 2010 2:14 pm:
It seems you agree with my position, so I’m confused what you find bad with the post. Could you articulate your criticism better?
[Reply]
Alkingson reply on March 1, 2010 3:34 pm:
May be we are on same page but
You said below:
“There’s just a number. You run your heroics, you craft some stuff and you actually gem/enchant your gear and you hit the number.
There’s just a number. You run your heroics, you craft some stuff and you actually gem/enchant your gear and you hit the number.”
Which is not true..Its not just a number you get more information than number if you use it right way..
[Reply]
March 1st, 2010 at 2:32 pm
There is no guarateed way to make sure that every member of a PuG is good to go. Gear is the only part of the equation that can be quntified and thus programs like gear score have a roll in the process of making a group as good as you can before hand.
Player skill and experience are not easily quantified. Achievemnts show you have completed the instance but that leaves out new raiders or Alts that have no made the run before.This does not account for playes that were carried through and did not do their job.
The Elitis Group add on model has some benefits but a community wide database of experience with a player is very subjective and should be taken with a grain of salt.
The advent of GDKP runs has worked out well on my server. There seems to be a lot of geared players that run them just to make money and alot of alts with money to make them viable. But wihtout any gear standard you are setting yourself up for failure.
[Reply]
March 1st, 2010 at 10:21 pm
I don’t like gear score because it misjudges gear. Take my friend and I, who play 2 warrior tanks. His gear score is higher then mine, even though I am better geared. He has like the skeleton key while I have the jugs vitality, I have the legionaries gorget, he has the 10 marrowgar one. Things like that.
[Reply]
March 7th, 2010 at 6:55 pm
I think gearscore sucks if you remember all the way back you didnt have achievements aether it was all based on skill and stats achievements were one thing that made it nice to know everyone in the raid knew what they were doing but now gs is so easy to build up that anyone can do it then the requirements keep going up so the truly skilled players who sacrifice some gs for a item lvl 200 trinket that is better than most 245 trinkets are suffering because of the fact that people think you need a 5.5k gs to do patchwerk now i think it was a good idea people just simply confuse it with skill it dont take alot of effort to get good gear. but the fact that it has become such a crutch for people it completely ruins the environment in the game GS NEEDS TO BE 7K TO RUN NORM SFK! thats what it is going to turn into soon if it doesn’t get a handle on it and people remember that even in full heroic icc 25 man gear if you dont know what the difference is in healing and tanking you arnt going to be good.
[Reply]
March 11th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
RE: In other words, you shouldn’t need gear from Ulduar to do Naxx. What is the majority of the case is groups expecting you to outgear the encounter.
Actually, it’s not uncommon for pugs to require this level overgearing. Specifically, I’ve seen several instance of people recruiting for a pug of the weekly in Nax (10 man), requiring 4k dps.
[Reply]
March 13th, 2010 at 2:22 am
The problem with using Gearscore to assess a person’s readiness to join certain encounters is that it is completely irrelevant whether the gear they are using is what their class and role calls for. For instance my Warrior could be wearing cloth gloves with stam int and spirit and still have a high gearscore.
Call me old fashioned, but I very much believe it’s a person’s ability and knowledge of their class far outweighs they number Blizzard has given to their gear to show its comparative level.
[Reply]
March 17th, 2010 at 7:52 am
My experience with GS is not the best.
After reading all the coments, I find the only solution to be what has always been.
Have them come to you, inspect their gear & achievements if needs be, trash GS, and raid kick anyone using it.
With all due respect, I find that if anyone needs an addon to judge if a character wearing ilvl 200 blues and epics can tank/dps/heal ICC 10 man for instance, then that person should NOT be playing WoW or raiding at all.
Lazy raid leaders make for poor raids and fat repair bills.
I find it even more sorry to see people excluding someone because they are 200 or 300 points off from the number established by the would-be-raid leader, when in fact as said earlier, most of the time those guys 200 or 300 points short will actually outshine those in far better gear with ease and almost no effort.
Skill playing your class, class mechanics, itemization, rotation and appropiate spec is what you need to see/evaluate in a player to determine if they can or not perform to standards, and GS shows none of that.
[Reply]
March 22nd, 2010 at 10:49 am
The following is true for me:
1- The only way of knowing truthfully what a player can do is by raiding with them.
2- Raiding with players you don’t know comes with risks. Risk of potential lost opportunity (VoA), gold (repairs) and time.
3 - As a raid leader, I would like to decrease my risks but I am aware of #1.
4 - Most people looking to join my raid don’t want to give a full dissertation on the pros/cons of being fully hit capped without buffs vs. being fully hit capped only with buffs….or the way to trade off INT/SP/HASTE for healers. I don’t want to read this dissertation either. Therefore I need a quick way to determine who I might be interested to invite to my raid, who I need to check out a little deeper and who I need to avoid.
For healers and tanks, I always check either armory. For DPS, if their GS is > 4500 (for ToC10/25 or VoA 10/25) I invite. 4000-4500 I send a whisper and ask them about how they typically do on these fights. If I get an intelligent answer back, I usually invite one under 4500 for every one I have at 5k or over. Under 4k, I tell them that I’m sorry that we’re looking for folks with a little better gear. Is it arbitrary? Yes. Is GearScore imperfect information that doesn’t tell me about the player’s ability? Yes. So are achievements. Just because you can link that you’ve done ToC10 doesn’t mean that you meaningfully contributed. Personally, I was dead at the end of faction champs the first 3 times I was in groups that successfully cleared it — truthfully, I’d been dead most of the fight having gotten pwn’d early. After that, I figured out how to stay alive longer. My achievements only tell you that I’ve done it….not how I performed.
For those of you who reference not being allowed into groups due to GS that is too low, I’d make the following suggestions: 1) don’t respond to idiots wanting absurdly high GS e.g 5k+ GS for VoA. 2) Get better gear. GS of 4500 corresponds with average item level of 219. That means your average piece of gear is from H-ToC5 or any of the normal ICC 5 mans.
If you can’t be bothered to get some badge gear or farm some normal instances, why should you be allowed to come to a raid.
[Reply]
March 23rd, 2010 at 2:05 am
New players are having really hard times thanks to this addon, not just alters. This Addon is so good that i can have more GS than you in pvp set for pve content. Go in pvp, before pull change to pve, after pull go back pvp….more than 5ks in 232 Furious. Great, isnt it?
You know how to make numbers, like Elitits and other people. Now you only have to know how this game works by the eyes of other players, you cant play solo. Remember this. You cant play solo.
[Reply]
April 1st, 2010 at 7:17 am
Apparently Blizz thinks that Gear Score is serious business as well
Just look at how they are dealing with it in the development stage!
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/equipmentpotency.xml
NICE. lol
[Reply]
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:26 am
gs is great addon, the main thing that screws it up is that you have pvp and pve gear which doesn’t make sense to me. I can tank the lich king and take acceptable damage however i cant defend my self against any one in pvp because their attacks are apparently more powerful than the lich kings? Dosnt make sense to me.
[Reply]
Trip reply on May 3, 2010 12:28 am:
The reason why that screws with the gs is that u have people running with the best pvp cloak the best pvp belt and the best pvp bracers to boost their scores yet they cant tank anything.
[Reply]
May 28th, 2010 at 10:43 am
I think the biggest thing to remember is that people will always look for a way to judge you just to judge you. Most of the people who blindly say “Your gearscore is too low” without really bothering with any other variable are doing it because thats what they’ve learned to do.
Odds are you don’t wanna run with those guys anyway; there are millions of players in WoW, theres no reason to requeue for that random or invite a guildie to do an instance with you for some gear farming.
I understand as a DPS you can be very frustrated with waiting forever to queue up for a random, only to be booted as soon as you set foot in a random. Most players I encounter don’t have issue with gearscore so long as you aren’t a zombie. Others will mention it but will wait and see how you do. People who are so quick to boot you as you don’t even get a chance to speak up for yourself aren’t worth your time anyhow.
[Reply]
May 28th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Noticing the number associated with the GS addon has helped as far as the tools needed as you have said proir. The problem we get, as is always the case, is the fact of carried weight, or people that have gear that do not play there class to an expected degree. The hard thing is to define that before you step into a raid with them. The only way to to this is to see them play.
With saying that, the GS addon is effective and only as good as the player truly is. A good friend of mine has said to me before that “Gear Score can’t fix stupid…”. Such is the case of a tank that has to fix it on the fly because of the things that all ways will affect a raid, ie: pets, DPS, etc.
The only real thing this addon does is allow a quick shot of someones toon that has a good bunch of gear or not. So far the only way to alleviate this problem and to better ensure a victory in any pug raid is to “pray” they have the basic knowledge of whatever class of toon they are playing.
5.6k GS or not, if you suck at your position in raid, you should either leave or be booted…..and to be suprised by a kick from group for major suck-a-tude should wake us all up to the fact that we got kicked for a reason.
GS is effective as a tool, but you as the RL should always use your best judgement to fill the positions needed and try to find quality players to do this. It is the responsibility of the RL and as all ways, everyone in the raid to call out when someone is slacking, but be aware that the only way to know is to get them in there and show it.
[Reply]
June 16th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Gearscore should be used to check gear, it should be one of many factors that lead you into or out of a pug instead of being everything.
[Reply]
June 16th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I love GearScore! Though for DPS’ers I ask for their DPS, because you can be an ultrabaddie with terribad DPS and still have a pretty awesome GS. But I still need to know your gear score. I wouldn’t let someone tank RFC for me without a GS that’s OVER 9000. True story.
[Reply]
June 17th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Gearscore hurts the game in a couple of ways. The original writer states that being overgeared isn’t a problem. Well, it kinda is because it takes the players who need gear/experience out of instances they can learn in and puts them all going from heroic 5 man content to 10 man ICC.
This race for gearscore, coupled with the emblem system, makes NAXX/ULD/ONY/EoE/OS and much of ToC10 obsolete. Only RL friends and Guilds go past the random weekly bosses in these raids. The emblem gear leaves holes that can only be filled by doing those raids. (Most significantly weapons and trinkets) But people don’t “need” those raids anymore because you can get a gearscore high enough for ICC without upgrading beyond a BoA weapon or a decent heroic blue.
More importantly, if gear scores are lowered you may be able to breeze through some of those runs with a group that is 7/10 or 17/25 over-gear and the rest at or slightly below the gear of the instance. That would help people because they would 1) get used to raiding in larger groups 2)have more time to know how their talents/skills/buttons work in a larger group and 3) help fill those gear gaps that gear score doesn’t reveal.
But if you are trying to run Naxx and require Uld gear you are really just setting yourself up later to be running with the hunter who doesn’t know what MD is, or the DK Tank that stacks Spell Power or the Resto Shaman who insists on putting Earthshield on a lock because “their health goes down so much”. And you know where you are meeting these guys? In ICC.
Lastly, wtf is the point of taking a group that is over geared for an instance?
None of you need the drops, all get sharded. (Shards are dirt cheap no because getting an epic in wow is as easy as getting VD in a Somali brothel) And you don’t need the emblems because you already have the gear they would buy?
[Reply]