The Over Inflated Ego of Gearscore

WoW Blogs - Raid Leader Blog

Last Updated on Saturday, 10 July 2010 22:42 Written by Cybac Thursday, 29 April 2010 13:23

 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!

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