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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Daily Quest: Gearscore
by Anne Stickney 
Jun 16th 2010 at 2:00PM
Here at WoW.com, we're on a Daily Quest (which we try to do every day, honest) to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment and you may see it here tomorrow! Take a look at the links below, and be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
Gearscore is one of those addons that seems to get everyone talking, one way or another. Some people love it, some people hate it. Personally I'm of the opinion that the player behind the gear is more important than the level of the gear they are toting around, but there are plenty of other people out there that think it's a really good base indicator of a player's skill. Let's check out what the blogosphere has to say about it:
- Noobding has some input on gearscore and you.
- Pugnacious Priest talks about gearscore as a recognized universal measurement.
- TankingTips says gearscore isn't going away, and suggests that maybe it's better this way.
- Qieth's Quips has a few grumbles about gearscore.
- Variant Avatar make the bold statement that gearscore is like a child wielding a loaded gun.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 5)
traptinacivicsi Jun 17th 2010 8:45AM
I'm not sure why Alden got down voted as he is only stating the truth. thawedtheorc is the kind of person that, because of one bad time, instantly forms an opinion of gearscore as bad or terrible, when it was just that player.
"Man that paladin isn't buffing correctly even though I set his Pallypower up, damn that addon is retarded lawl."
"Whatever you do don't decurse the tank! OMG someone decursed him!" "..Sorry it showed up on my decursive bar." "Oh wow that addon must be retarded."
...is what you sound like.
I bet half of the people that whine about gearscore don't know you can /gs and get their gear information, including what spec the gear is for, to ward off those "herp derp I can wear cloth as a warrior and get good gearscore so it fails, lawl" people.
Not only that, it shows raid experience. It's almost like you can use gear score to inspect people!!
I'll fix your last statements for you:
thawedtheorc:
Gearscore is simply for the time conscious and knowledgeable player who knows he can save time by rounding up people with an average score and then inspecting them, rather than wasting the time to inspect every payer that whispers him, or relying on the word of someone he's never met on their raiding skill, period. (I know some just have those completely carefree lives that they have the time to sit in Dalaran for a half hour and inspect player, who are undergeared but read a website on how to gem, and then take their word of skill on faith, only to wipe on Deathwhisper..) /rolls eyes
Alden:
"It is very easy to make assumptions about addons, but in general (just to prove a point), Thawedtheorc is one of those people. As of TBC, raid sizes have been 25 man at max which is a DAMNED sight smaller than 40 mans of yesteryear. In fact, 20 mans used to be the "easy" ones to put together, because you didn't have to carry me and the other 15 people who weren't geared enough to even be there. People are just too damned time-constrained these days with their lives outside of wow and them fancy alts that don't have to raid through every outdated raid just to catch up. Why back in my day, QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ"
But really though, get elitist group and only refer to gearscore for an idea of the players gear range. I know I'll get downvoted but it was fun.
traptinacivicsi Jun 17th 2010 8:48AM
Sorry Alden, I meant Socialcockroach, you're all good.
Babaloo Jun 16th 2010 2:47PM
A funny little story I share with everyone whenever they say GS is all that:
We PUGged together a 25 man ICC, and there we were, standing at the hallways, picking up the first few trash pulls. There I was, top of the DPS charts and spamming Blizzard got me there. I saw another Mage who was doing the same thing, and to my amazement, his gear score was about 5.8K when mine was around 5.45K, with him doing 2K DPS. I asked him, dude, what's your spec, and he said Frost. I right clicked his raid frame and inspected his talent tree. 71/0/0. Yeah.
Alden Jun 16th 2010 3:09PM
that would be 0/0/71 you're thinking of.
$5 says you're lying. Armory link please?
Vinoth Jun 16th 2010 5:23PM
@Alden - LOL you got him there.
txnicole Jun 16th 2010 5:38PM
lol, you guys.... I think the point he was making was the guy was playing like frost in full arcane spec - he was saying that gearscore doesn't matter if the person behind it doesn't have a clue.
Babaloo Jun 22nd 2010 12:27PM
Thanks txnicole, I was making the point that he had no idea what spec he was actually in, aswell as having 71 points into Arcane.
Tim Jun 16th 2010 2:40PM
Gearscore is good if your a raid leader putting together a raid. It's good to see if they are ready for that raid of do they need to run a lower raid to get geared up. I don't think high level gear is a sign that the player is good. It only says you have the gear. I have seen plenty of 5500 or higher gearscore players who honestly totally suck. We were all once new to this game so it's childish to treat a new player badly. Some people in this game really need to grow up.
Pyromelter Jun 16th 2010 2:40PM
The biggest problem with gearscore is that it can be a resource hog. I've seen it over 12MB of memory. So make sure you have addon control panel and you turn that thing off when you are doing BQL and PP, because people always seem to freeze up for those.
pinteresque Jun 16th 2010 4:15PM
...or you can use GS Lite, though honestly 12mb of active ram isn't a whole lot.
Aloix Jun 16th 2010 5:48PM
The problem/difference/advantage of the Light version isn't so much the MB it's the addon spam. I don't want a ton of unnecessary spam going on btwn me and 24 other people going on during a raid.
Buuyyaa Jun 16th 2010 2:41PM
Anyone ever claimed gearscore shows who is a noob and who is not? No! Thats why raidleaders ask for gearscore(equip lvl) AND achive(knowledge). So please stop QQ about it...
Chairman Kaga Jun 16th 2010 2:43PM
The problem with GearScore is not the addon itself, but that vacuous morons use it to justify their idiocy.
Stephen Jun 17th 2010 1:03AM
Amen to that one. About a month ago I was looking for an ICC10 PuG on my main since I wasn't going to be able to go to our Guild one. There was a guy looking in trade for a healer so I messaged him. When he asked my GS, I told him that it was near 5.8k (It was like 5786, I honestly don't remember the exact number but it was VERY close). He told me I was under geared and wouldn't make it past Prof. I was flabbergasted, and questioned him about what they were planning on doing, and he said ICC reg. He then asked me to stop bothering him so he could focus on people with skill. Needless to say, that pissed me off, so I linked him my Kingslayer Achievement (which he didn't have, I armoried him) as well as the heroic ICC10's I had done and put him on ignore.
Alex Gore Jun 16th 2010 2:45PM
The only problem I have ever really had with GearScore and the ilk (Wow-heroes for example) are the arbitrary numbers they produce to affix how geared you are for a specific raid. For example, Wow-Heroes tells me I am "ready" for ICC10 based on my 2589 score, but GearScore tells me I am not based on my (I think, I've never downloaded the add on) 4779 GearScore. Well... who's right? And why is it in four pieces of tier9 I am not ready for tier10? And what if there really is little better than my ilvl200 trinket?
The point being, the "tool" is fairly useless if we don't have a sound understanding on the best way to apply the metric given. Frankly, I just think it's created lazy players, but the precedent was set the MINUTE Blizzard created the armory.
pinteresque Jun 16th 2010 4:40PM
WoW-Heroes.com and the gearscore addon use completely different scales for measuring your gear's "worth" - wow-heroes lists mine at 3094; the gearscore addon has it at 5700-something.
When people throw those numbers around, they usually come from the addon. Generally speaking, 4800+ is comfortable (not capable; COMFORTABLE) for ICC; many people use 5k+ as a minimum requirement.
Alex Gore Jun 16th 2010 5:06PM
Oh, I understand the different numbers, as the two things are using totally different formula. The point I was making was what is the point of these formula? How were they reached, and how do we know the usefulness of the numbers?
For instance, you say 4800+ is comfortable for ICC... ok. Why? How did that number make it to mean that? It's just sooooo arbitrary as to feel useless as a real measuring tool.
pinteresque Jun 16th 2010 6:35PM
@Alex
GS IS a measuring tool. Its strength is, that's ALL it is. It makes no assumptions about talent or anything else. As has been pointed out over and over, all it does is gives a quick idea as to the relative ilvl of a person's gear. It says nothing about skill or competence, or even about where the points on the gear are going - you could outfit a mage in +agility gear and its GS would be rockin', but that doesn't mean they'd get very far without, you know, mana.
GS is a calculator, not an AI. It counts points of stats on gear, adds them up, makes them a pretty color and puts them in a tooltip. What you DO with that information is entirely up to you, and personally I'd rather it stay as a yardstick than an suckage detector.
GS is like a ruler. You can use it to tell how long something is, but it would be completely incapable of telling you if the beam the carpenter is measuring with it is going to hold your roof up or not. It will tell you that it CAN (with a little math) but the ruler can't tell you whether the carpenter is competent enough to use the beam correctly.
...and I would rather GS do THAT than make assumptions about how well I play. :)
Dawn Jun 16th 2010 2:44PM
The two problems I have with gearscore is people using it in standard heroics-- the ones that drop ilvl 200 blues from most bosses-- and people demanding unreasonable levels of gear from PUGs. Booting people from heroics for low gearscore is stupid; how else are they supposed to get gear? Also, I've seen 'LFM Naxx 5k+ GS.' and similar things.
Maxpowr Jun 16th 2010 2:46PM
Gearscore is like judging a person by their looks.