Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Thoughts on Gearscore, and how it can be done correctly.

Gearscore has infected Destromath. First running rampant on the horde side, people have begun to treat it as the gospel on alliance side too.

This is my opinion on gearscore. It should be thrown in a sack. The sack should then be thrown into a river, and the river hurled into the sun. The idea of rejecting people based on what is essentially a summation of their item levels is moronic, given the amount of data it doesn't include. The whole notion of the addon is to cause people to forgo actually looking at someones spec and gear. Which is why it fails. It's an abacus, not an audit.

However, the concept of an addon which does the work of inspecting a players gear is not without merit. Sites such as Wow-Heroes and Be.Imba.Hu have been doing so successfully for years, and without the flaws of Gearscore. This is because they run a full audit which takes into account specs, gems, and enchants. The DK with spellpower gear is properly called out for being a tool, not rewarded with a bigger e-peen to flex.

There is an addon that does this correctly. It is new, and it will hopefully displace gearscore. It is Elitist Group. What elitist group does is present a rudimentary audit to any player who is in your group. This is most effective in the LFD pugs. Upon opening the summary screen, you're presented with a panel that shows you each item they're equipped with, their item level, gems and enchants, and if each is appropriate for their spec. It also points out if they're missing any talent points, and how much of each teir of content they've cleared. At the end of a five man, or on command in a raid, a window comes up that allows you to rate a player 1-5, and write a short note about them. These can be shared with other players running the addon, creating a kind of reputation system.

The system is not perfect. It flagged me for using the 30 stam to shoulders PvP enchant. However, it's leaps and bounds better than gearscore, and something that I'm not afraid to endorse.

2 comments:

  1. I hope that addon catches on I guess. One thing I point out however is Be.Imba is pretty craptastic for tanks. Our gear is overloaded with defense at the ICC level, so it dings you for being overcapped. Also the prot tree evaluator has been "under developement" for years. When are they fixing that? Also doesn't take into account that we don't need hit at all, yet I'm dinged for not being capped. Has not been updated to Icecrown and tells me I'd me challenged in ToGC25 and beyond, which is definitely not the case. Vanilla and BC tank commenting here. It's great for a beginner, or a DPS class perhaps, beyond that, there still has yet to be a definitive guide, other than knowing the class and using the armory for it.

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  2. I have grouped with people in Heroics with blues and greens who have out dps, out healed and out tanked people in full tier 9, even saw a tier 10 lock doing 850 dps in a heroic. Its about skill, and how well you know your class. Gear score doesnt make a lick of difference. I dont pay attention to gear score if they can prove they have the skill without being carried.

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