The Dungeon Finder and gear disparity
by Eliah Hecht 
Jan 2nd 2010 at 2:00PM
There is some confusion as to whether/how the Dungeon Finder matches characters according to internal gear score. To the best of my knowledge, it actually attempt to create a discrepancy between characters' gear, so that you're likely to wind up with a few heavily geared members 'carrying' lesser-geared members. This is directly contrary to a claim I've seen circulating that the system attempts to match internal gear scores.
If the system doesn't attempt to create disparate groups, it should, and if it does, I'm glad it does. It may be disheartening to see someone in your group in full blues or maybe even a couple greens, instead of the now-familiar suit o' purples, but as some commenters pointed out in my post on Dungeon Finder bingo, we all started out in blues and greens at 80 (with the possible exception of some crafted gear and BoEs), and heroics were designed to be run with that gear. Where are the epics supposed to come from, for a pre-raid character?
Furthermore, a less-geared character might actually need some of the gear that drops in the ilvl 200 heroics (i.e. everything except CC, FoS, PoS, and HoR), which is a nice change of pace from the usual shardfest. It may take you a few extra minutes to farm your emblems, but PuGs are about more than just you: they're about a group of people coming together to help each other out, and enjoy a dungeon.
Filed under: Items, Analysis / Opinion, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
Hal Jan 2nd 2010 2:05PM
Unless you're the tank. Then you better be sportin' 100k unbuffed health.
(That's the prevailing opinion, anyhow. Nobody wants a tank with 24k health these days.)
naseem jones Jan 2nd 2010 2:07PM
100k unbuffed ? TYPOOOOOOOOOOo
Arrowsmith Jan 2nd 2010 2:08PM
Or, heaven forbid, a Healer that actually has to sit down for Mana. I mean, that's just too scrub, right?
/sarcasm
i2hellfire Jan 2nd 2010 2:15PM
i um...think you missed the point of his hyperbole.
i've seen the gamut of tanks...from 20k to 40k. and whenever i slot myself as a dps, i've rarely seen the gearscores break mid 4k's (mine is around 5.4 for reference). so there is disparity...which i think is good. otherwise how would they ever gear up?
on a funnier note, the dungeon finder does have a gear minimum for particular instances. i was running with friends, and one dps'er wanted to bring their sub-geared alt (i think he was low 3k). the dungeon finder refused to let him queue for anything toc or icc and we had to bypass the finder in order to get into icc.
sccorp.sc Jan 2nd 2010 2:24PM
@i2hellfire
I'm not sure where you got 5.4k from, but that sounds highly inaccurate considering most of the top guilds in the world are running with just over 3k gear scores.
If you're unsure about a gear score for a character, I suggest using wow-heroes.com. They're an accurate engine for looking up a toon's gearscore, and for suggestions on how to improve it.
Stephen Jan 2nd 2010 2:28PM
I think the gear score he's referring to is the in game one that comes from the GearScore addon. Using that one, my ToGC10 and 25 geared main has a 5.4k gearscore, while my WoWHeroes score is 2874.
I've found that GearScore is becoming much more prevalent than using WoWHeroes.
Rhabella Jan 2nd 2010 2:32PM
@sccorp.sc,
The gearscore from the gearscore addon is very different than the wow-heroes scorign system, so anyone in, I believe, mostly toc 25 will have a GS in the 5k range.
Kesh Jan 2nd 2010 2:34PM
@sccorp.sc
There's a popular addon called GearScore that about 83% of pugs use these days, for that 5.4k is not highly inaccurate as it uses a different formula than WH does.
And any system that uses ilvls to determine a score isn't brlliant, plenty people are still stuck with ilvl 200 stuff because it's still BiS.
sccorp.sc Jan 2nd 2010 2:38PM
Ah, I see, thank you for the clarification, but why'd my comment get downrated for a misunderstanding/talking about something else?
Trolls ftl.
Knob Jan 2nd 2010 2:42PM
Doesn't matter how much you try and change it, the current instant-gratification generation will ALWAYS want an easy ride. The overwhelming majority of players out there do not care about others in the game; to them, other players are like the NPC henchmen of Guild Wars; there to help your character gear up. Most of the time these are the same players who are guildless, yet I'm sure they don't wonder even for a second why they're so.
Adoisin Jan 2nd 2010 4:04PM
I'm a healer on my main. I've run into all sorts of tanks in the LFG tool. As long as a tank can grab some aggro and try to keep it, I am willing to give them a chance. I don't bother looking at gear unless the tank is doing a horrible job, and then it is to just make a few mild suggestions. Everyone has to learn at some point. I imagine when I first started healing heroics, I sucked. My guild was kind enough to go as guinea pigs tho, so no one yelled at me for it.
Try and remember it's just a game. If people are nerd raging over it, they need to switch to decaf.
Jonathan Jan 2nd 2010 5:34PM
@ Adoisin
This. As a healer, I could give a crap what your health pool is. 30K is generally plenty to get through most instances. It's tanks who don't know how to hold aggro that get me. Keeping one person with 30K health up and running is a lot easier on my mana pool than having to keep four separate people topped off so a stray hit from a mob the tank can't hold aggro on doesn't take me and a DPS down.
Verit Jan 3rd 2010 12:36AM
@i2hellfire
I've dragged green geared alts through icc 5 mans - the problem you were likely running into is they need to complete the questline on normal mode before doing heroic mode.
thebitterfig Jan 3rd 2010 1:29AM
My main is a tank, so whenever I'm dpsing a LFD pug, the first thing I look at with the tank is how they pull. You can tell a lot about a tank by how the pull. When they LoS, when the use what abilities, what mobs they hit first. A tank who pulls poorly (warriors who pull with taunt, for example) is probably going to have a harder time holding aggro, and a harder time dealing with bad situations, like when bad (skill-wise) dps pull threat by attacking the wrong mobs, using copious aoe where it shouldn't be used, and so forth. Bad pulling technique can lead to wipes, too... For example: the intersection in Halls of Stone. on our left: two casters and a melee, on our right, two melee and a caster. the DK tank (who's threat is bad relative to gear and who's spec is a little dodgy) deathgrips the one melee out of the 2 caster/1 melee pack. the casters start shooting at him, he doesn't LoS (plenty of room to LoS), and the second pack gets pulled into the fray. That's bad pulling. The good pull would be to Strangle one caster, DG the other, and use LoS to get out of the way and make sure the other pack doesn't pull.
I'll take low-level well-chosen gear from a good player over a bad player with good gear any day. Same goes for dps. I'd rather have 1.5k dps from a player who is playing well in crap gear, than 3k from an idiot who makes lots of major mistakes (Starfall pulling in adds, for example).
PeeWee Jan 3rd 2010 9:26AM
As for gear scores, I wish sites like Wowhead etc. actually published the formulas used, so you can start doing _real_ comparisons.
Euranne Jan 3rd 2010 9:59AM
@Verit
You don't need to complete the questline to do the heroics - you can do the entire thing in the heroic versions of the three new 5-mans also. It's just to open the separate dungeons themselves, at any difficulty.
Although most of the time I hope they do them on regular first so they at least have -some- idea of what they're facing before they run the heroic version. :/
zappo Jan 4th 2010 10:46AM
thebitterfig - "When they LoS"
That's almost a lost art. When a warrior pulls out a gun, shoots something and runs around the corner, you'd think it's pretty obvious what's happening. Instead everyone just opens fire on the group along with the death grip in the totally random direction from dps. Then you have to run out and try to gather all that crap up with no agro. So more often than not it's just easier to charge in and start spamming AOE. Sorry to all the healers out there :/
Squelchy Jan 2nd 2010 2:09PM
I am so glad you wrote this and I hope people actually take it to heart. There's nothing that annoys me more than people who get angry when someone actually NEEDS the gear that a heroic drops. That's what heroics are there for!
Qot Jan 3rd 2010 12:07AM
In the same vein: stop apologizing or asking permission when you need! Especially when it's on-spec! Had a tank in H UP in blues asking if he could need on a plate +defense piece. You need, you hit need. It's that simple.
Nia Jan 3rd 2010 1:09AM
I had a guild member get abused for this very thing - in normal FoS...
He needed on a staff that dropped, which was a HUGE upgrade for him. But the group he was pugged with were there on a DEing run and were angry because they wanted to DE it. I just don't get crap like this....