The Over Inflated Ego of Gearscore
If anyone reading this thinks that gear score has any bearing on the actual performance of a player in a raid environment then you should definitely wake up. This whole schoolboy business of my GS is higher than your GS is total crap. I’ve seen players with a much lower GS out DPS, out Tank and certainly out Heal players who’s ego’s are over inflated due to their GS approaching some fictional benchmark of awesomeness. Does a high GS mean a good player? No it doesn’t. It doesn’t stop nubcakes from standing in fires, not moving out of the AoE and it certainly doesn’t stop people from being unreliable, obnoxious and show a total lack of social aptitude for team play. What it has served to do so far is to provide the people who think they know everything a way of trying to say with absolute certainty that they are better than anyone else due to a few hundred poxy gearscore.
Do yourself a favour and don’t get caught up in all this number crunching. Be realistic about what the data of a gearscore can tell you and at least understand how you should use that information and how you should not.
My current main is a Resto Druid, my offspec is Moonkin, I’ve run VoA that many times that I have the 25 man Feral legs and hands. I have been unlucky with the 25 man T10 Resto Gloves, they just wont drop for me. Point of fact: Gearscore cannot be trusted without an inspection. All I need to do is to wear the highest iLevel pieces of kit I own, regardless of itemisation and type (PvP in my PvE anyone?) and there we go, suddenly some idiot has decided I’m now good enough to join the so called elite ranks of their raid.
Gearscore is only able to tell you that they have decent iLevel pieces of kit, it cannot tell you they know how to gem, enchant or itemize their gear correctly, or even if they are using any tier pieces or if a plate wearer is wearing mail. The list is endless. It definitely cannot tell you that person has any skill.
Now I’m not saying it isn’t a good place to start, you wouldn’t take someone with a 2500gs into ICC 25, but be cautious and make sure you don’t become dependant on GS to choose your raiding companions, you might fall foul of the GS > Common sense theme that seems to be happening.
Number 1 rule, be careful your not being Gear Scorest!
Last Updated on Saturday, 10 July 2010 23:42 Written by Cybac Thursday, 29 April 2010 14:23
Comments
About skill: in a raid if someone forgot a trap guess who finds the trap .....
And if I have to walk away or run, my dps tanks ....... rockbottom .... :-(
I know, it gets better in time and with skill (and it does : really), but I can attest to people less clumsy and keen on the right characteristics, with a lower gearscore and consistently a much higher DPS.
I am sorry to say, you are right: gearscore is a contra-indication, but no more. And certainly not an indication of anything other than luck (to get drops) and fighting time in dungeons and raids.
I'm also going to be putting up some forums soon that are dedicated to tactics but from a particular class/role perspective, would be interesting to have a chat and get more detail :)
I had fun with GS last night, got a guildy invited to a raid because they had high GS, but they were wearing their PvP kit, swapping into their PvE dropped them 100 below what the RL wanted. Nobody noticed till 4 bosses later that their GS had dropped by that time they had already proved their ability was more than adequate..... very funny.
Agreed, and during my guild only raids that I run I wouldnt expect anyone to be using it or in fact even be bothering with it. However, when pugging it's hard as hell to get 10 or 25 non guildies to turn the addon off, so, use it to make the decisions on who gets in, who stays in is based on performance and not fucking up. If their balls ups are due to lag or addon communication channel issues then it's the raiders responsability to sort it. I will ofc suggest addons be switched off, all other programs be exited, anti-virus not running, game settings be tuned, etc etc.
Personally i dont get any lag or fps issues as I custom built my machine less than 6 months ago, but there are some that do. You've actually reminded me to make a point about getting them to drop their addons, at least apart from DBM.
Thank for the comment, good points made :)
Gearscore doesnt increase potential, it's merely an indicator of possible potential should the person in question conform to certain rules such as correct itemisation, skill, understanding of tactics, ability to play off team members. All of these other areas cannot be assigned a number.
I can keep my gearscore high by swapping in Feral DPS kit, but that wont help me be a better tree in anyway whatsoever but will diminish my ability.
If used correctly it is only an indication of what might be the possible potential as long as you dont have a complete numpty on your hands!
wow-heroes.com is a great site, but I also recommend www.pugchecker.com and www.wowjackass.com I use both of those to make sure i'm not picking up complete idiots and that they have at least killed some bosses.
:)
1) Set a REALISTIC GS minimum for your pug/raid, a 5k GS is NOT necessary for a Naxx weekly raid!
2) don't be lazy or stupid, type /GS and actually LOOK at the player's gear. This is where u can see if they have PvP/wrong stats/chants on.
3) Do not use GS and the ONLY filter for raid recruitment, fire back a question about their core stats/rotations
4) PUGs are only as good as the knowledge of the person putting them together, if YOU are a wowtard and know nothing about any other class/spec than your own the PUG will be fail as you wont know good players from bad.
And the short & sweet for my wall-o-txt:
GEAR SCORE MEASURES ILVL OF GEAR - that is all, it's up to YOU to find the gear for your class/spec with the best combo of stats overall and not be a tard about it.
Still there is one thing you've missed or just didn't know of. The addon includes a specscore setting aswell, typing /gs brings up a new window which shows if the targeted player has (roughly) the right stats for the right spec, and also shows what he misses (ratings, gems enchants) and also if he has something that's not beneficial ( SP for melee classes and resilience). This command is most likely done to skip or speed up the inspecting in the raidinviting.
main has pure 5800 tank specscore. ps. stupid postlimit.
I'm aware of the functionality and I use it quite a bit, problem is, I think most people dont. All the majority of wow players do is mouseover a character and take the GS figure as being worth more than it is.
I do like the addon it's good for monitoring my own progress compared to those people I know look after their kit properly, I just dont rely on it to make raid invite decision.
P.S - Increased post size limit x 10. :)
hehe, I don't even usually post in these forums.
But yes, as you said, most people don't use that feature in the AddOn, which gives it the "bad" rep it has among some players.If players weren't as ignorant as they are and used the AddOn properly I believe we wouldn't have this problem.
As I probably stated earlier, the AddOn is brilliant if used well and smartly, but in the hands of the masses it gets overwhelmed by stupidity and ignorance which leads to it being the ultimate (often false) truth of one's skill.
Gear surely helps one to complete his role better, but in the end it's the player's skill that matters, not the gear, hence I wouldn't either rely on that in a situation where I'm inviting players to PUGs, a little chat and achievments help alot. Sometimes only looking at the name of the character or what guild he's in skips the whole bullshitting process and gives one an invitation. When you've been 80 for a while you recognise many names and guilds and atleast for me, the names can ring 3 different bells in my head: a) nothing, b) good, c) terrible. A leads to a little chat, B to an invitation and C leads to a "disregard him" comment on /raid.
tl;dr, skill > GS
If you are a pug raid leader, you are unlikely to know the ins and outs of every level 80 on the server, what they can and can't do. In short, you don't know if they are a good player.
So asking for an achievement is one starter (suggests some knowledge about the fight) and asking for gearscore is another (suggests something about 'potential' performance). If you know nothing about a player (or very little even) then you need to narrow down selection somehow. GS can be a useful tool in doing this.
Too many people rage about GS instead of thinking about how it can be useful.
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