The addon Gearscore is a very hot topic for discussion right now. At any given point in time, there are dozens of threads on WoW related forums on the issue, and if you ask just about anyone, they’ll have a strong feeling on the issue one way or another. That’s not to say people over-obsessing about gear is a new development in WoW: It certainly isn’t, and certainly not an issue created by Gearscore itself.   Gearscore is simply the flavour-of-the-month means to do something people have already been doing since the advent of MMOs.

To weigh in myself, I can understand the feelings of hostility people have. While in a vacuum, Gearscore can be seen as benign or even helpful, but it has been tainted by the community.  Although it’s not the addon itself that is at fault, it has had a very negative impact on the mentality of current players.  In addition to encouraging the usual gear-obsession, its extreme permeation and popularity has shifted the philosophy and approach to gear valuation for raiders. It has caused people to judge gear based solely on where it drops and the item level it has.  I have encountered new players that assume that “higher number” automatically equals better.  I have also noticed that it has made older players lazy about spreadsheeting upgrades to see if a recent drop really is better. Worse, I have crossed some who may even know an item is better but still wear the worse-but-higher-ilvl piece instead just because they know that half the people around them are judging them based on their “score.”  Players, good and bad, just end up so focused and obsessed on that bottom-line number that they’ve minimised the importance of actually being better in favour of looking better.

However, I absolutely support a raid leader’s choice to require a particular gear level when planning PuGs or investigating subs and new members. I disagree quite strongly with all the people who insist that gear is totally irrelevant or those who imply the people who care are just stuck up elitists. While personally I don’t use any sort of standardized gear scoring system (website or addon), I do regularly utilise the armory to check both gear and experience when seeking out players to fill open positions. I make no apologies for doing so.

If you are of the mind that such behaviour is unfair, consider the other side of that coin:

I am a “serious casual” raider, a raid captain, a raid leader, and a guild leader. I have hosted countless PuG and impromptu raids, including running weekly “farming” 25mans in at least four different instances over two expansions. I am the sole leader of an ICC10, and I am an officer who helps lead an ICC25 raid, which is where I find myself most frequently investigating newcomers. My raid is not “hardcore” or on the cutting edge of progression, but we share a commitment to clearing the content. We devote only a few hours each week to raiding, so we are diligent about making sure those precious hours are spent being productive towards our goals and towards becoming a better raid. So when it is time to fill an open spot, you can bet I’m going to make sure fill it with the best possible option, not just in terms of class balance but also gear and experience.

I’m not doing this to be elitist. I’m doing this because the “raid” belongs to all 25 of us and it is not fair to my raidmates — who have put in hundreds of hours, thousands of gold on gear upkeep, consumables and repair bills, who have worked very hard on their accomplishments, who spent time outside the game researching their class, reading strategies, watching video guides, and participating in “how can we improve” discussions on our forums – to bring in people who have NOT done these things and expect them to make up the difference. It is irresponsible leadership to risk wipes on tough enrages in order to test out the skill of some guy wearing blatantly inappropriate armor. It is improper to ask them to waste their valuable time explaining the fights to new players just for the sake of “giving them a chance.” They did not sign up for that, it is not their responsibility or obligation, and it is simply unacceptable for raid leadership to compromise the raid’s hard-earned progress needlessly.

I have absolutely nothing against those people in non-raiding gear, nor do I have any ill will for those who are new to raiding (in fact, I wish them the best of luck in my favourite aspect of the game). Everyone has to start somewhere. But the caveat is: a progression raid is not that somewhere. So, yes, I owe it to my raid to be discriminatory. They shouldn’t be expected to concede — or even risk — their successes for a stranger. You’re not being fair if you don’t look at things from that perspective.

Being exclusionary in this context is not being snobbish or cruel to new players. They have other options. Those players can simply look for another raid in more-appropriate content for their gear and experience level, or seek out a raid that is dedicated to aiding new players (they exist; I know because I have also helped lead one of those). Most promising of all, they can start their own raid! Most current raiders did not ride in on the coattails of raiders before them; a large number of us headed fresh into the new content at the same time and moved forward together. If we could do it then, so can new players today. You just have to be willing to put in the effort to work your way up from more suitable content rather than waiting for an advanced raid to carry you along tiers above your gear level.

Finally: Yes, skill matters significantly. There are lots of bad, unskilled and/or lazy players across all gear and progression levels. But let’s be practical here: there is no means to “look up” someone’s skill or rank their performance. So raid leaders use what tools are available to them: checking past accomplishments and gear level. Yes, that guy in blues might be a better player than the guy in ilvl 264 epics (side note: why do people in these discussions always assume the circumstances to be where the guy in blues is amazing and the guy in epics is terrible?), but you’d be a fool to take the guy in blues over the guy in epics without knowing either of them. I have no reason to assume either of them is better or worse than the other, so I am going to suppose they are both average players. If they are both average, then you take the best geared and most experienced, of course. It’s common sense. The player in purples certainly has more potential, more experience and, on the off chance he does have weaker skills, more gear that will balance that out, and to push him ahead if he does exhibit proficiency; the odds are vastly in his favour.

The armory let’s us look at more than just gear: we can also tell if they were good enough that a raid kept them around for multiple kills (a raid might carry you through one or two kills but probably not months of them). Yes, it’s possible he’ll die to the fire 20 seconds in, but if he’s had eight kills worth of practice on the fight — and the new guy has none AND will also need us to spend 10 minutes explaining the fight — I’m going to bet on Mister Epics living longer and putting out better results with the added bonus of less downtime for the rest of my team. That is a bet I will win nearly every time.

And let’s not kid ourselves: gear matters. The best skilled player in the world still will be incapable of meeting our DPS requirements if he’s not wearing raiding gear. There is a DPS ceiling based on gear quality; Playing well will make you exceed other similarly-geared players of lesser skill and it can bring you closer to your perfect spreadsheet figure, but it’s not magical and it’s not going to put you on par with people who vastly outgear you because that’s simply a numeric impossibility.

While most of us  do not have the time or drive to invest all that is necessary to try to become “the best of the best,” I know a great many of us expect more from ourselves than just average performance.  I crossed this post on MMO-Champion the other day and I felt it was very well-put and is the kind of wisdom we can all appreciate:

Written by ‘PrettyBiased’ on MMO-Champ

What do top guilds mean when they say “looking for exceptional players”?

I just read a thread the other day titled “what is skill” and to be quite honest most of the answers could not have been further from correct. There is a common line you will see from nearly every high end hardcore guild in this game. The most recent trends leaves paragon to be the front runner for favorite high end guild, so right from their wowprogress page “Always recruiting exceptional players.”

What does exceptional mean?
Going for a literal explanation straight from the definition “Deviating widely from a norm, as of physical or mental ability, Well above average; extraordinary”. So literally they are looking for well above average players for recruitment.

The breakdown
So, what exactly makes up an exceptional player? What does any given player have to do to be seen as exceptional to top players, or even catch their attention? I’m going to give a definitive answer of what I personally look for and have looked for in my five years of high end gaming in the world of warcraft.

What they know, the fundamentals
First off before you even have a shot at being called average you’ve got to have a fundamental understanding of everything that makes your character preform. What does that mean exactly? It means knowing your talents and abilities, their interactions with eachother, their interactions with glyphs, their interactions with stats, their interactions with set bonuses and trinkets, their interactions with other players buffs and talents, and lastly their interactions with your environment.

What they do, the checklist
High end play is not a rigid priority list firing off in a predictable manner, it’s a constant ebb and flow of reaching out to help others and allowing them to help you. Nearly everything happening in a high end raid is on the fly and reactionary, immediate reactions and timing are key which will require keybinding. I’m going to do it a disservice and number things off on a list, this is just for ease of understanding not something to be actually followed in order.

#1. Maintaining your highest output value efficiently and consistently, this is maximum damage healing or threat per second. This is the most basic aspect of playing well, without it you might as well not even be in the raid. Effectively this is the “why you’re there” check on the list, it’s fundamental.
#2. Maintaining full utility within reason to your situation, this means interrupts, buff uptime and debuff uptime management etc. This is what keeps targets taking maximum damage and dealing their minimum, again fundamentals.
#3. Pre-emptively avoiding incoming damage and negating or reducing unavoidable damage for both you and nearby raid members.
#4. Exploiting fight mechanics to the best of your ability, no this is not the kind of exploitation that gets you banned. This is how you get world firsts, by finding a buff and using every last square inch of it.
#5. Reach outside of your class role and help those around you, misdirects, controllable damage modifiers (tricks of the trade, etc) share them with your raid efficiently to maximize their potential and that of the raid as a unit.
#6. Assuming you’re doing all of these things at the same time without slacking at any of them, using ventrilo to communicate if you need help, if the aspect of the fight you control is falling behind or way ahead etc.

Misconceptions
Doing a lot of damage/healing/threat does not make you good, it’s what you’re supposed to be doing.
Standing in fire does not make you bad in itself, there are no golden rules in this game anything can be optimal or inferior depending on circumstances good play is always about what is best in the moment.
Min/Maxing is not an option, if you’re going to take this or any other game seriously you will inevitably find yourself becoming a min/maxer or you will be falling short of your goals.
Reaching your maximum potential as a player is far greater a task than reaching your maximum potential as a character.

The verdict
Can you do more than those 6 points? Always, anyone can always do more and in fact they are encouraged to as opportunities arise during an encounter. As far as golden rules go, I am rather confident I covered the main bases. Doing one or two of these things is just as far from exceptional, as doing all but one of them. You must do all of these things at the same time consistently to step outside the label of average, this game really is about teamwork and tunnelvisioning dps tanking or healing is never going to land you a world first. It’s all about communication and knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, asking for help when it is needed, offering your help when it is needed by others, and mastering the mechanics of a fight. The top damage players in the world could fall short of being exceptional if they don’t play outside the box and make these things happen. In the end, this is what separates players in top guilds from anyone else.

I thought all those points were excellent and something we could benefit from remembering.  It can also help us pinpoint areas we may need to improve on, and not let the fact we may be high on the meters distract us from other failings like regularly dying to environmental damage, or lack of knowledge about our class.  So if you thought you were a pretty good rogue because you can top the meters on Festergut but tend to drop your defiles right on your teammates during Lich King, you might want to reconsider your position 😉

Also, this topic also touches on something that those of us who play DPS need to remind ourselves sometimes.  Being a great player isn’t just about putting out good numbers (as the poster states, that’s just the bare minimum of our job).  It is also about doing, and doing well, those other things that may be asked of us, like kicks or interrupts or switching to those pesky adds that screw up your DPS rotation.  Most of us really hate doing those kinds of things and are not shy about lamenting our DPS loss for doing so (myself included), so sometimes we need a little kick reminding us that that aspect of our job is just as important — maybe even moreso — as how we look on the meters.