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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsForum Post of the Day: Invitation requirements
by Amanda Dean 
Jun 5th 2008 at 11:58PM
We all know that PuGging instances can be a pain, especially finding a tank. Gelin, a tank onThe Forgotten Coast, says that she checks the armory before she invites. If you don't match her standards for armor, weapons, and spell stats, she will not invite you to a group. As a tank She feels empowered since tanks are rare, and dps is much easier to find.
If the original post had been more eloquent, people may have viewed it as insightful, it makes sense to be properly geared before asking for a group. As it stands, the responses have been primarily negative, along the lines that this is a bad attitude to have in the game. This thread is legendary because of Eyonix's response:
You have left over talent points.
You should not be so judgmental.
I wonder what it's like to be knocked off your high horse by the most aloof of the CM's. It must hurt, a wee bit. I've learned to generally check someone's gear out at the beginning of an instance, due to a poor experience with a hunter with empty armor slots. What do you look for in your PuG?
Edit: Original post text after the break.
If you are wearing any green items I don't invite.
If your weapon(s) arnt epic, I won't invite.
If you have less then 1000 spell damage, I won't invite.
If you have less then 1300+ healing, I won't invite.
If you misspell anything or use numbers 4 words when messaging me, I won't invite.
Why? Because you are a dime a dozen, thanks to pretty much everyone having arena and battleground epics (except tanks) its pretty much reasonable for me to expect this.
Filed under: Blizzard, Instances, Classes, Forums, Forum Post of the Day
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 4)
Angus Jun 6th 2008 7:46AM
Eyonix is the most aloof of the CMs?
That's news. He's been nothing but a jerk from what I have seen.
As for the original issue, I've used the inspect feature to check talents and had it weed out a player once. When I saw the guy had spell damage greens and was specced 0/0/61 I knew it was time to tell the tank we needed to ditch the Hunter...
Endjinn Jun 7th 2008 3:02PM
As a few people have already said, gear is no guarantee of talent - how a person behaves is a MUCH better indicator.
Whether I'm tanking, healing or DPSing - I go into any group with an open mind.
How I'm invited DOES matter tho, a random, unsolicited invite isn't a good start - neither is being the last person invited but the first at the summonstone (I've lost count of the times that's happened).
End of the day I play for fun - I'm happy to help people along a bit etc BUT when it comes to heroics, there's a LOT less time/room to deal with people who don't really know their "job"...
It might help if heroics were a little harder to get into perhaps - maybe revered was the level keys should have been set-to (and normals earn rep-to) instead of honored?
Geo Lara Jun 6th 2008 8:22AM
This gear check thing is really getting out of hand.
I understand if you're pugging Kara, you're not going to be successful with out a certain level of gear. I think on heroics, depends - some people are looking to upgrade their gear in a heroic to get to Kara. People should have room to be more forgiving.
Where I think this is getting crazy is I'm starting to see gear checks on some of the regular lv 70 instances like Magisters Terrace.
People are not looking for skill in their players anymore they want I-win buttons. Which is starting to make pugging more of a pain.
My biggest problem with instances in Burning Crusade is that blizz made some things a little to gear dependent and that's warped a lot of peoples thinking.
Anu Jun 6th 2008 11:47AM
@ Geo Lara
Except in using MgT on normal as your example of people getting Armory'd, you are attempting to put MgT on the same difficulty level as normal Mechanar (which many will agree is easy as heck given a half-decent group) ; even well-geared groups who don't know the instance find MgT hard on normal. Not super-hard, but still a fun mini-challenge in preparation for the heroic. Without people who know what to do when the "OH CRAP" moment hits, a newly minted 70 would die if mobs started running around crazily.
I refuse to continue the run if the group wipes three times before the third boss is even reached. If they can't handle the 5-pulls, there's no way they could handle Delrissa and the PVP-style fight or even Kael.
Armory people for that instance, but that's it.
The experiences that we gain in running the lower level stuff and learning to play our classes is what makes someone a good player. Blizz unfortunately has made it a bit too easy to level up to 70 without really learning the mechanics of what we're playing.
Littlehawk Jun 6th 2008 8:23AM
It's probably because I'm a complete eejit, but I've never managed to get to grips with stats/armour or the like. I'm a feral (dps) druid so I just look for leather with agility/strength on it and then using ratingsbuster to see if it will increase or decrease my stats.
Even then I get confused about whether I should go for more feral attack power or hit chance or crit chance. I've spent hours reading sites that describe and explain stats and I just come off them with a headache.
I seem to be doing OK though, recently levelled to 70 and worked my way through Botanica the other night. Hope to be going on my first Heroic in the next week.
BillDoor Jun 6th 2008 8:50AM
Go download Rawr from http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr. It'll answer all of your questions.
William Jun 6th 2008 9:45AM
Rawr is sooo sweet. It does the stat thing for you(computing what your stats would be if you had such-and-such piece of armor), but it also tells you what is required for different things. Definitely a must for Druids.
newellrp1 Jun 6th 2008 8:24AM
One day I saw a rogue spamming that he was looking for more for his Kara group. He stated that the minimum HP requirement was 10k. Sure enough he was wearing all S1 honor gear. He knew so little about PVE that he didnt realize that he wasn't gonna get a good group if a players HP is the only gear requirement. I tried to explain to him that my mage was capable of about 50% more DPS than him but had 7.8k HP and therefore didn't meet his silly criteria. I don't know if I got through... but the bet the wave of ridicule in the chat channel did.
Buckshot Jun 6th 2008 8:27AM
Simple soultion, do what most good players do. Don't PUG.
BillDoor Jun 6th 2008 8:51AM
I don't PUG a whole lot anymore, but whenever I run a heroic, and someone doesn't have the key, I boot them from the group.
Littlehawk Jun 6th 2008 8:59AM
@Billdoor - thanks Bill, I've had a look at Rawr, but I can't install it: I use Linux. There's another calculator I've seen linked to on the wowhead.com forums that I will try and use soon.
Cat Jun 6th 2008 9:17AM
I generally won't armory check (actually I use be.imba.hu now) until I'm a few pulls into an instance and have observed foolish behaviour. Then I might do a quick reference - cruddy gear plus no clue generally equals either he or I leave.
I will ask if someone has tanked or healed that instance before, and will ask if people know the boss fights, but it's not a problem if one or two haven't. But all this is relative anyway, because some nights you want a quick daily H badge farm and others you might be less oppposed to glass-chew your way to a questgiver or something.
PUG raids however - there's too much investment in time and being saved to an instance for a week to risk it with bad gear or attitudes. Of course I'll happily take a total noob into Kara, but only when everyone else is aware of it and doesn't object. Good casual raiding guilds are great for this.
zappo Jun 6th 2008 10:12AM
As a rogue I always found it pretty easy. People just need more dps and whisper you, or whatnot. It's pretty obvious I'm in pve gear with decent stats (but low on stamina), so I'm sure anyone would think I'm alright. However I outfitted myself by just reading shadowpanther and obtaining whatever was within reach. I can assure you that when I first started out I had essentially the same gear and I was very bad - I've improved a lot though. Usually the best indicator is someone totally decked out in PvP gear, but when S2 gets pushed into honor gear it's going to overtake a lot of PvE which will make it a lot harder to tell.
I also have to say - thank you, to people who use the armory to check specs. As a priest I am shadow and do just fine for dps, and I AM capable of healing alright if the group is slightly over-geared or the instance is a bit below me. I find it insulting that people would ask you simply "+healz?" then turn you down. Instead of just looking me up, they are waisting MY time. Usually indicates a crap PuG anyway, so it's probably for the best
Milktub Jun 6th 2008 10:32AM
I wish I could read the forum post, but it seems that the forums are down ... again.
I tank a lot of pugs. Weeknights I do 1-2 pugs, and weekends I'll do 2-3 during the day and then either a raid or another couple pugs. At this point I've thankfully gotten to know most puggers on the server, and I have a memory of "oh, that warlock is mental" or "that hunter is an ace trapper!" But when faced with a new name, I go through my checklist ...
Guild? This check is rarely used, but if they're a member of a guild widely known to be a bunch of asshats, no way.
Armory check. No, I'm not looking for tier gear or badge epics. I'm not making sure every item is enchanted with the best enchants or that every gem is at least blue-quality. I'm looking for warning signs:
• Spec that is not just odd, but terrible. Things like a 20/20/21 spec, unused talent points.
• Gear that doesn't make sense. Greens are fine, but rogues wearing "... Of the Whale" gear make me cry.
• Enchants or gems that make no sense. Same thing. I don't want the mage in my group to have +AP gems or the hunters to have Mongoosed weapons.
• Experience. I'll check the reputation tab. Ten points over honored with two factions and barely friendly with other factions says quite loudly "I don't know dungeons." I don't care if you've run that dungeon on your Mage, you're running this time as a Holy Priest.
• Obvious PvP focus. The new PvP gear by reputation set is a nice starter set for PvP, but is worse than most quest gear. Filling a couple slots with Arena gear is fine, but coupled with the only trinkets being the Frostwolf Insignia and Insignia of the Horde scares me.
• Name. I don't accept weird names.
Shadowembrace Jun 6th 2008 11:08AM
I'll be honest. I look for at least someone else I know in the PuG. Or, I'll do /who on all the party members and see what guilds they are in. I'm very specific, and unless I know the person or have ran with them before, it's unlikely I'll invite anyone from the guild 'Panda Panty Raiders' or something stupid like that.
That's basically my #1 thing I do for PuGs. I like inviting people from reliable and founded guilds on my server. If there's someone from Eternal Sorrow, more than likely I'd pass up anyone else not from ES, to get the ES person in. It's not because I'm an elitist, it's just that I am tired of failing at the easiest instances to complete. I PuG alot of reg. 70 instances, and lately, I've had no issues with anything, but every now and then I'll get a member who types 'lik dis' and thinks everyone in the group 'is a n00b' cause we know how to play our classes.
anonymoose Jun 6th 2008 10:49AM
"FYI, in no way can "competency" be determined by someone's armory. You could easily have someone decked out in epics under 2 dangerous circumstances:
1. PvP welfare epics (no competency required)
2. Genuine PvE epics obtained via gearing up (not paying attention in the raid/instance and just looting)"
Um actually a great deal about competency can be determined by ones armory. PvP gear isn't an automatic disqualifier as many of the PvE-ers I know have PvP gear as well. Additionally, many (not all) of the PvPers I know have great situational awareness and are not likely to stand in fire, void circles, poisons, etc.
For regular 5 mans my standards are more lenient than for heroics--but in both cases that armory tells a good story, including gearing (which demonstrates knowledge of class--you don't have to be in purples, but if you have a best in slot pre raid blue or even green, that speaks volumes), as well as the rep sheet which tells me how much of the content you may have seen to date.
A couple of days ago a friend was in a tortured 5 man with a demo lock sporting AP and other melee stat gear, mixed with healing gear and some actual spell damage gear. Quite honestly, the complete lack of understanding about gearing was so profound it was shocking. This person was swapped for someone who knew how to play their class.
Bill Jun 6th 2008 11:12AM
The problem I've found is that armory doesn't refresh all that fast. I'll frequently respec my warrior for pvp and then back to prot for raiding, heroics, etc. only to get turned down for groups because Armory shows me in my Gladiator gear.
Milktub Jun 6th 2008 11:22AM
And it's this reason if I'm turning someone down for an Armory reason I'll ask if their current gear is different than what I see in the Armory.
ivyleaves Jun 10th 2008 12:17PM
Most of the time I log out after farming. I am a Holy paladin, but I am wearing spell damage gear, not my healing gear, when I log out. The armory is not a good place to check someone out, imo. I know of Main Tanks who take off certain items before logging so that they don't give away what they think are "secrets."
darian Jun 6th 2008 12:42PM
I generally find the Armory to only be helpful to a certain point. If it shows obvious signs of stupidity (bad gear choices, poor talent spread etc) then I'll know to stay away, but most of the time people have that basic modicum of gear required to do their job.
What's far harder to judge is whether the person themselves is capable. You generally can't tell that from gear. I was in a Heroic last night with a Resto Shaman sporting +1400 healing. The run took three times as long as it should have because they didn't have the basic skills necessary (precasting, on the spot decision making, reaction time etc.).
Thus you have to do your best and draw on other metrics; typing/spelling, guild, how often you see them joking around in trade chat etc. They're all bad metrics, but there's not much else you can do.