Comments on: Gearscore, and why we need to evaluate other players

By: Fohm

Fohm — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:43:05 +0000

This is exactly what I do as well.

By: 3 reasons why we need damage meters « Welcome to Spinksville!

3 reasons why we need damage meters « Welcome to Spinksville! — Mon, 03 May 2010 08:54:55 +0000

[...] like gearscore, the damage meter addons have become so popular that it isn’t unusual for people to boot others [...]

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:50:06 +0000

Really, don’t worry about that. It’s never been easier to gear up with emblems from heroics with the dungeon finder, and the people who make the most fuss about gearscore are often the ones who take it all out of proportion and don’t really understand the game anyway.

Good players will always be wanted.

By: James

James — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:23:56 +0000

Being in Iraq since the release of the ToC patch I’m dreading going back to play. All my gear is mostly 219 with all my 80s. I was in a top guild in BC “beating” the game before all the nerfs to BT and Sunwell.. IMO I’m a skillful player but now I only have shit gear.

I’ll be back in 2 months but by then everyone will be saying you need 251+ gear to do anything in this game. In Naxx I was pulling 3-4k dps on average with 4-5k on Patch. But when I get home none of that will matter as I won’t have the gear score or achievements to do any raid.

Shit happens. I might just wait to start playing again when the Xpac comes out.

By: Mandorellan

Mandorellan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:03:13 +0000

I dont use gearscore, but i do run a similar addon called EKinspect, and i also use wow-heroes on a regular basis. I use it mostly to see where my char would do well in raids (wow-heroes) or to quickly see someone else’s “range” of instances/raids he/she would get the most upgrades from or do well in.

As a lvl80 tank, i use my EKinspect quickly before starting the dungeon to see what the healers average rating is like and store that information in the back of my mind, and i check to see at a glance which (ranged) dps has the highest rating, so i tend to stick my vigilance on that person.

I never, ever, ever put all my trust and faith in an addon like that tho. After the initial few pulls i will adjust accordingly…the other ranged with a lower rating turns out to do more dps/threat, then i will change my vigilance. If the healer keeps up with my pace i will speed up and pull larger groups, if not i will be more carefull.

I’ve even a few times used wow-heroes to turn down a player for a raid i was organizing, not because they were undergeared, but because i actually preferred to take along that guy with lower gear and less achievements, because i knew thát person would benefit more from the raid, get some upgrades and have some fun, while the other übergeared person from a top-end guild who would only want the badges might have been pushy, wanting things to go faster, etc.

Also, i would never, ever (and have never) kicked a person from a group because of gear, or left a group because players in my group were undergeared.

I have had some comments myself though from others, for example when using the LFD to go to Gundrak heroic with 24k health unbuffed and def capped, and the healer asking me “are you tanking with thát gear” and leaving the group instantly…when i remember the good old days when this was fine for Naxx10…

By: spinks

spinks — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:12:43 +0000

“Perhaps it’s my inner scientist”

Ah, there’s the difference! I’m an engineer so I know that a flawed model can still be useful, as long as you understand the flaws.

By: mandalus

mandalus — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:10:53 +0000

I run gearscore, mostly because as a tank, it lets me know who in the group I may have threat problems with. Mages and Warlocks who outgear me, give me fits on threat.

Also, I updated gearscore last night and noticed they have a new section in recount. It calcualates your effectivness of gearscore vs how much dps you did. It’s kind of neat, you can see who is living up to thier gear. On the flip side, it makes healers and tanks look like slackers. I can’t wait to spam it in our next guild raid.

By: Chastity

Chastity — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:59:26 +0000

I’m kinda glad somebody came out in favour of Gearscore – I mean, I still think it sucks, but somebody obviously thought it would be useful enough that they bothered to write it, and other people obviously agreed enough that they use it.

You’re obviously right that WoW is a gear based game, and all else being equal a well geared player will perform better than a badly geared player, but as a lot of people have pointed out, Gearscore doesn’t really tell you how *well* geared somebody is, only what ilvl their gear is. There’s a correlation certainly, but it’s very possible that the DK with 4000 GS is actually wearing a whole lot of Holy Plate.

Perhaps it’s my inner scientist, but I’m always leery of assigning numbers to things that aren’t really measurable. I think there’s a genuine danger in reducing complicated things to single numbers.

By: Kiseran

Kiseran — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:14:41 +0000

On my server, gearscore as well as asking for achievements is completely unknown. If I lead a PUG-Raid I will armory everyone who wants to participate and have a look at every single piece of equipment. Gearscore? I don’t need it.
When I’m gathering people for a Naxx-Raid I expect at least blue gear level 70+ fully gemmed with at least green gems, with cheaper enchants on the more important pieces. A player who is geared like that will be accepted. But a player geared in full iLevel 232 but without a single enchant will be rejected because he has written “I don’t care” all over his equipment.
I also don’t need Gearscore to find out how to heal, I will always try to heal as mana-efficient as possible. I never stopped trying to be as mana-saving as possible since classic, even if it means that I end most fights with a completely full manabar. Its not like I’m giving up anything for that, I just don’t give in to sloppy playstyle. And if the time of mana starvation comes back, I will be ready.

So tell me again: Whats the use of gearscore if it doesn’t even catch that DK who simply bought every cheap epic (including cloth and spellpower leather) in the auction housee to sneak himself into HoR heroic? It can be tricked, it tells me sometimes that good players are actually bad and sometimes it claims that bad players are good. If I need to doublecheck everything anyways there is no sense in even installing this.

By: Rurjaos

Rurjaos — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:07:48 +0000

There seem to be some reasons, gearscore shouldn’t be the ONLY source of information to evaluate players.
So there’s no need to propagate fake ones:
The performance issues (addon chat spamming) should have been resolved with one of the latest versions. But even before that, I think scanning was disable during combat.