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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsSpiritual Guidance: The GearScore is a lie, Page 2
by Fox Van Allen 
Apr 28th 2010 at 9:00PM
Shadow priests are fairly lucky -- it's hard to screw up a lot of our gear without actively working to do so. Most cloth items just don't have stats on it that are absolutely useless to us. (Compare that to a shaman like mine, who is carrying around an ugly mix of elemental spellpower gear and attack-power-loaded enhancement gear.)
If there's anywhere we're going to make mistakes, it's in trinkets. It's a pretty forgivable error, since most trinkets deal in procs. It's hard to guess which is better than which with a quick glance. Let's get something straight now, though: The trinkets you can buy with emblems stink for shadow priests. Read that last sentence again. Memorize it. Save your emblems.
The item level 245 Talisman of Resurgence is one of the banes of my existence. So many spriests wind up using it simply because it's easy to buy with Emblems of Triumph. The passive intellect part of the trinket provides virtually no benefit to us (it's worth approximately 28 spellpower). The real benefit from it comes from the on-use part (ugh). Overall, it theorycrafts out to be worth approximately 128.0 points worth of pseudo-spellpower. If you take a look at a good, up-to-date gear list (like the one at shadowpriest.com), you'll see that it's bad enough to not even rank in the top 20.
It is noticeably worse than the farmable Abyssal Rune (Trial of Champions regular), the Nevermelting Ice Crystal (Pit of Saron heroic) and even the blue quality Forge Ember from heroic Halls of Stone.
Choosing the Talisman of Resurgence makes your GearScore better, but it makes your DPS worse. (Even the item level 264 Purified Lunar Dust performs worse than the level 200 Abyssal Rune.) Is it really worth playing under your ability to appease someone else who values you so little as to reduce your self worth to a simple number?
There's got to be a better way to do things ...
Yet another column on this topic here at WoW.com isn't going to change the world -- that I know. Still, a large number of you all are regularly pugging content, and this stupid GearScore metric is a constant part of your world. As someone who pugged his way through most of Wrath, I have some advice.
- Never chase after GearScore. Others will use it to judge you -- don't use it to judge yourself. When I think that someone felt pressured into buying the Talisman of Resurgence despite knowing there were better options out there, I feel like throwing up. You'll always be better served in picking gear that maximizes your performance, not what some lazy PUG leader thinks of you.
- If a PUG is built solely on GearScore, it's going to be a bad PUG. Okay, sure, that's a broad generalization, but there's a lot of truth to it in my experience. Anyone can get decent gear these days with emblems -- even ICC-level gear is purchasable through emblems. A PUG built solely using GearScore is a PUG built solely around people who do nothing more than meet the minimum requirement. And while the 35-year-old meth addict next to me on the bus may meet the minimum requirements to be president for the United States ...
- The real information is found by reading between the lines. Gear is, of course, always going to be important. But did you know that a smart PUG leader will also take a quick look at your enchants and gems, and actually value your knowledge of your class over your four-digit GearScore? True story, kids. Neither enchants nor gems contribute to the traditional GearScore rating, but most raid leaders don't want a 5500 GS shadow priest with a plus agility enchant in their raid.
- Reputation is everything. There are plenty of successful PUGs out there, and they don't revolve around randomly picking people based on GearScore. The best organized PUGs revolve around reputation. My shammy has a horrendous gear score. Based on GearScore, I barely qualify to run heroics. Still, because I've performed well in PUGs before on other characters, because my guildies know me. Because I've built some cursory relationships with regular PUG raiders and leaders, it's not hard to find a group. ("We need one more? Hold on, I know this writer from wow.com we can get. No seriously, he's a good player, even though he works for wow.com.")
Perform to the best of your ability, don't be a jerk to the people you're randomly thrown into groups with, and make smart gear choices. Do those three things consistently, and your GearScore will be irrelevant. I promise.
Hunger for more information about bending the light to your advantage? More interested in watching health bars go down than watching them bounce back up? Think it's neat to dissolve into a ball of pure shadow every few minutes? Hate gnomes? The darker, shadowy side of Spiritual Guidance has you covered. Filed under: Priest, (Priest) Spiritual Guidance
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 8)
Kaz Apr 28th 2010 10:18PM
Gearscore was an addon to help raid leaders get a quick snapshot of players gear level without having to inspect everyone individually. It was created waaaay before raiding became so accessible and ilevels were displayed on items and therefor only relevant to progression raiding guilds.
These guilds were giving advice on gearing, gemming, enchants, and motoring player performance. Gearscore just helped them know if they could take a player into the highest end raid or if they needed to farm gear from previous raids first. Your healers couldn't put on DPS gear or vice versa to bloat their GS (Raids would probably wonder why players were rolling/biding on gear that wouldn't help them).
Right now its about as useful as saying a person needs all purple gear, only to get people in T1 gear show up to an ICC raid....
GS is effectively useless for all but raiders and those that don't really know how to use it right.
Ryan Apr 28th 2010 10:19PM
This article was win for the 8 year old Fox parts alone. But then you went the extra mile and it a good article too.
Tony Montana Apr 28th 2010 10:21PM
Gearscore is abused and BS as well. I know a guy in my guild who rolled a Druid. He used RAF to get it upto level 60 and then used the BoA items to get the Druid upto 80 faster. After that he spent quite a bit of money and put things together from emblems of triumph. He got a pretty decent score of around 5.5K GS just like that.
He's a great guy but he doesn't know how to play a Druid and despite his high gear score hes not able to perform well but due to his GS he gets into most raids. Nowadays if you have the money you can get a very, very decent GS just through heroic farming and AHing some 264 tidbits and picking up some 264 resilience stuff with honor points. It wouldn't make a very effective combination in the real world but your GS would be very, very high.
I think the biggest example of GS being moot though is hunters. Most melee classes rely a lot on melee weapon DPS. Naturally hunters rely a lot on ranged weapon DPS. If you have a lot of your GS coming from various other places but have a relatively weak weapon your gear is practically useless in certain specs.
For example if your an MM hunter and you have a gearscore of 5800 but a weapon with 180DPS your DPS is not going to be very good. Reverse the situation with a GS of 5300 and a weapon that can do 255DPS and suddenly you are looking at a world of difference in real world DPS. I think there are plenty of examples of GS being useless but I don't think there is a bigger example than Hunters. There is literally an entire world of difference depending on your gemming, spec and weapon. If you looked at the GS for a hunter alone you could be completely and utterly off the mark.
I'm about to shut up soon for the 2% of you that are still reading this but another thing worth noting is that a lot of guilds are comprised of friends. Every now and then you get together with the guys and you run a nice raid and pick up some good items. See the thing is when your with mates nobody is going to be too picky with what your gear is like or whether you know the boss fights or not, you won't pick a fight with a real life friend over that. A lot of people get a free ride through raids like that with friends that outgear them, heck I've been there before when I came back after WOTLK came out and got to 80 and was pulled through Naxx. A week later in a PuG my "expertise" in Naxx came out when I had too little experience to really know much as I was pulled through the only other time I'd been there.
My final point to consider is this. If you join a guild unless you are a guild hopper you join that guild to stay in it. You make friends and you get along with people. WoW is an awesome game but its still a game and it is supposed to be enjoyable. You want to spend time with people you like being around and not be completely loot orientated.
Sometimes you'll join a guild and the guild helps you perhaps gear up but what guild masters are looking for is players that are polite, sometimes sit out raids for the good of the guild and strive to learn more about playstyles and how they can benefit the raid.
Nowadays guild masters often look for the person with the highest GS. If you have a low gearscore it doesn't matter if your a gentleman, show up on time, put the guild first etc etc. Thats what GS has done to WoW.
CaryEverett Apr 29th 2010 10:24AM
"Nowadays guild masters often look for the person with the highest GS. If you have a low gearscore it doesn't matter if your a gentleman, show up on time, put the guild first etc etc. Thats what GS has done to WoW."
No. That's what pug leaders do.
World of difference my friend.
rukamich Apr 28th 2010 10:26PM
I love this article, and I don't even play a priest (but I DO heal as both a Druid and Pally). I am so sick and tired of gearscore and the people who solely depend on it to raid. Just because some tool has had hours each day to faceplant his/her way thru several instances, farming badges and getting new gear is absolutely NO indication on how well they can raid or even if they know their class.
I don't get to raid regularly because I work nights and play on a server where the "day raiders" are almost non-existent, but I've played for 5 years and KNOW my classes. I know their strengths, weaknesses, when to back-up healers who are in trouble, not to stand in the fire... But, alas, because I don't LIVE to run the same instances over and over and over again during my limited playtime, I don't have a 5500+ GS, so I can't even get into pugs who occasionally form early on weekends.
Sure, I know that slightly inferior gear will make my toon a bit weaker, but, and especially if I'm healing, I'm still competent and capable of surviving most situations (barring a catastrophe, of course).
GS and the "leet" players are the biggest reasons I find it hard to login to WoW as often as I used to. There's just no fun at 80 when people think GS = skill and knowledge.
nwoods13 Apr 28th 2010 10:47PM
WTF are you talking about. this is not a column. its a face melting column.
nwoods13 Apr 28th 2010 10:49PM
ahhh wtb edit button *sniff* *this is not a healing column.
breaklance Apr 28th 2010 10:44PM
GS is a lie.
Experience means nothing.
If you can't get in a pug because they are requesting 5500 gs and you have 5400, they are idiots. GS is a nice jump point in that it surmises do you kind of have the gear for this or not. But see, GS inflates as tiers go on. Case in point is that when I first completed ToGC25 and was even running it in 50 attempts my gs was 4900, and this was BEFORE ICC had come out. Now that gear is more available people ask for 5400 or some outrageous number to do ToGC because higher levels of gear are more attainable and at a basic sense it makes sense. Not every joe-schmuck will be able to complete ToGC at the gear levels of hardcore raiders at the time. But still it can be done is the point. Many of you probably also noticed this as ICC unlocked, at first the GS requirements were 4900-5000 now they are 5200-5600 just to do the first 4 bosses.
Great analogy by Fox here in that GS is something an 8 year old would come up with and enforce.
Moanique Apr 28th 2010 10:56PM
I can give someone with a new driver's license a Ferrari...doesn't mean that I want to ride with him.
Tengoleche Apr 28th 2010 10:58PM
Just wanting to point out but that screenshot can NOT be from BC..... The user has a Nibelung which is obv a Wrath Item.
D Apr 28th 2010 11:51PM
You know you can go back to Outland after you're done with Wrath, right? :)
Tengoleche Apr 29th 2010 11:07PM
This is true except that it was stated that it was a BC screen shot not an Outlands screenshot. Using the reference BC would lead 90% of readers to believe that it was in fact a screen shot taken during the BC era, and not the Wrath one.
Colerejuste Apr 28th 2010 10:58PM
I watch GS the same way I watch a disk defrag. I don't need to watch it, but it's mesmerizing. I like to also use Pawn, which at least tried to weight stats in a class/spec relevant manner. I compound this evil by having Outfitter automatically build several outfits based on GearScore, Pawn(Tank, DPS, Heal, whatever) and then just create my own Normal, Prot and Heal outfits based on what I think is best.
At best, what a high GearScore tells me about another player is that they've spent alot of time pugging, or they may be participating in the latest raids, on that toon. Other than that, I'll let their actions and chat comments speak for themselves.
nekorion Apr 28th 2010 11:06PM
Get gear score
target someone
type /gs
It'll give everyone an "applied" gearscore which accounts for smart gemming, and enchanting choices based on class and spec.
I've always wondered why people don't use THAT function of gearscore. It's an advertised feature o_O
Marluxia.Kyoshu May 3rd 2010 4:33AM
Yes I hate how everyone completely ignores this feature. It's ridiculous.
vinniedcleaner Apr 28th 2010 11:08PM
Great article! I think this should be required reading for all the GS elitists out there.
Michael C Apr 28th 2010 11:31PM
Gear score is a joke. Anytime someone spams the trade channel LFG but you have to have a GS of X amount it makes me laugh and pity that person. Or when someone its putting together a group and says "your gear will be inspected".
Real players dont give 2 hoots about gear score, only the obsessed do.
jared Apr 28th 2010 11:35PM
Hunters don't get full gearscore for two handed weapons - GS gives them a Hunter score - basically the ranged and Melee GS scores are transposed compared to a melee class.
Doma Apr 28th 2010 11:40PM
Replace Gearscore now with TRH!
I love this article and everything about it. Yes I yes I yes I dooooooo.
Doma Apr 29th 2010 12:10AM
When setting up a raid, I make a point to inspect people in person. You would not believe how many people I've turned away for an ICC pug because they were in Heroic epics with 264 wrathful pieces, Furious Glad gear without gems or chants, or were horrendously specced. When someone I (correctly) rejected spitefully cites their Gearscore at me, it's only funnier.
Whatever happened to scrutinizing Gem slots, chants, and talent points? The game hasn't gotten THAT much easier, certainly not easier to make a competent raid.
I make it a point to not answer people with a GS number when trying to get into a raid. I tell them which Tier set bonuses I have, or how many BiS items I have. Then, I wait. If they're so dependent on an arbitrary number that it only took them a few months to forget what those terms mean, why they're important, I get to avoid a fail raid, keep my Raid ID, and laugh about it to myself.