Was Gearscore a helpful addon for it's time?

[Nnyco]

it does basically what ilvl does nowadays, its a good meassurement but shouldnt be taken too serious

[Heladys]

It was handy for slacker guild raiding. Think back to Vanilla when you're try to organize a molten core run and you'd catch two of your hunters all decked out in +heal/+spirit gear, and wearing their carrot on a stick trinket.

Same/same, it would point out here people who didn't have enchants, or were still wearing their pants from the last expansion (no shit), or who had all the wrong stats.

I mean yeah it also go used for a lot of dickery in public raids, but assholes are gonna asshole. It did serve a useful pre-ilvl purpose if used well.

[the]

players actively geared for gearscore often at the expense of properly gearing

This is it. this is the reason it became a problem.

Now Blizzard actively maintains ilvl to mean more power. In Legion when things got out of whack with the rings and much lower ilvl rings gave much more power, they redesigned the system so that ilvl still means more power. That did not happen with gearscore, causing the following:

1) Players would apply with high level, and if they wanted max dps swap to their max dps set - forcing you to keep a high ilvl set that you never used in your bags.
2) Players would only every keep the high ilvl because they no longer measured themselves via recount, b/c erroneous thinking that higher gearscore meant better.

[Lochton]

Just wanting to get some opinions on this matter. Do you think Gearscore was a useful addon for when it was used in Wrath mostly?

Gearscore was a plague, really. In the end, the number became too dumb to hear for any raid. Just like it's starting to be with item level, when people demand higher avg. item level than the equipment dropping.

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It was a dumb addon because it existed in a time where it didn't necessarily give you an accurate indication of character strength, and because players actively geared for gearscore often at the expense of properly gearing. It was pretty much a dumb addon for dumb people, which is probably why it was popular.

Ilvl is used today and similarly isn't always a good indication of char power (for example I could have dumped an extra 15ilvl of wrongly itemised gear on to my Arms Warrior and lost a noticable amount of dps, but my ilvl would be super sweet), but ilvl today is at least a better indication of character power than it was back then.

I remember people actively being ridiculed for gearscore, I remember promising recruits being declined because of its mention on their application.. The only people I really remember using it were puggers, and mostly the kill up to Saurfang groups.

I am agreeing full out.

[Deleted]

Yes it did what it was supposed to.

[Frolk]

Didt it include enchants/gems in the score, and that would make it better than purely ilvl, still shit tho

Kids, dont pug.

[Schattenlied]

Not really, no... Gear wasnt anywhere near as important back then as it is now. Back in WotLK people cleared 8/12 ICC in blue items, a final tier raid in full blues, that is nowhere near possible anymore. You couldn't even kill the first 3 bosses in normal nighthold in blue items right now and it's a first tier raid... Gear inflation is out of control.

[Jimson]

Actually wasnt hidden but only way to see overall Ilv was trough armory
Even now you cant see the Ilv on character in regular UI

You see ilvl in the group finder, which is the only place you really need to see it. If someone is standing in front of you, all you really need to do is inspect them and glance at their artifact ilvl, which should give you a quick idea of their progression. Of course, there's rarely ever a reason to take the ilvl of someone standing next to you.

[Jenram]

Personally, I hated Gearscore on occasion and still sometimes hate on item level, because people use it as a basis for skill 80% of the time.

One situation where my guild leader of 9 years didn't want to bring me into a 4/12 cleared ICC run when I was new to the guild because my iLevel was in the 4500's, and most people preferred 5200+ for tanks at that point. I ended up going as a last ditch effort to raid instead of calling it early, we 2 shot the Dreamwalker encounter, 1 shot Festergut, and 3 shot Rotface for first kills with me tanking on my 4500~ prot warrior. I became the main tank for the main group in that guild for the rest of Wrath, went halfsies in Cataclysm DPS and Tank, main tank for all of MoP, and the raid leader for the 2 following expansions until I got tired of leading.

And since the introduction of iLvl, I've proven over and over that iLvl doesn't speak for my capabilities quite a few times, such as out-dpsing 390 - 400 ilevel geared people during Dragon Soul on a 380+ Survival Hunter. REPEATEDLY proving I could solo-tank Normal (Heroic now) Garrosh on undergeared alts with the correct usage of my cooldowns and mitigation, and pumping out arms warrior dps in Hellfire Citadel on Heroic Archimonde at ilevel 700 - 705 that made quite a few 710 - 720's look bad.

The system is great as a basis to mark a character's capabilities on, but as soon as people start using it to mark the PLAYER'S capabilities, that's when the system is flawed.

[Laerrus]

Not really. Back then when I used to lead Naxx PuGs, I'd often see players in dungeon blues out DPS players geared in epics.

[Mikah]

Nope. Just like item level today.

An 880 geared toon can range in dps anywhere from 150k to over 600k depending on skill / spec (more skill than spec). A 900 geared toon can range in dps anywhere from 250k to over 950k depending on skill / spec.

So a good 880 player that doesn't play a ton and doesn't buy his gear but can do 600k doesn't get the chance to run many mythic+ because they going assumption is that if they take the 900 player who bought his gear, at least they'll get that 250k to 300k.

Basically, many people don't want an actual challenge in the game. They want quick and easy handouts of gear while going through the motions.

This is far from the reality though, and its really using the extreme cases to prove a point.

By now, you can be sure that if someone has only 880 gear, that means he has been playing very casual and seen very little of the content. Most likely has very low AP on his weapon and does not know the dungeon/raid bosses mechanics very well. Sure, there will be some alts or returning skilled players, but for 99% of the people you will pick at 880, you are far more likely to see them near the 150k rather then the 600k dps.

On the opposite, someone with 900 gear most likely has seen the encounters, been farming and is playing enough to care about his rotation. Yes, it could also mean someone with daddy's credit card who bought himself some heroic boosts, but again, that will be the minority. The number of 900 players that will only do 250k is very rare, and you are more likely find someone who actually try.

Statistically, there will be a distribution of players skill over their ilevel, which is probably not even going to look normal, since the casuals and bads are more likely to have lower ilevel. You are thus more likely to get a 'normal' player from either range. And you are better off with a 'normal' 900 then a 'normal' 880.

[Kraddark]

It was a useful addon in the right hands but had a negative effect on the community overall.

[asasyn13]

People were using Wow-Heroes before gearscore was ever in the picture. GS made it quicker for those people to make a quick pug group without having to tab out or inspect everyone they were adding. GS was never really an issue for me and either is ILVL I usually do most things with my guild. It does get annoying when i try to do things on an alt from time to time.

[MoanaLisa]

No, I don't think so. It didn't do as much damage as DPS meters with respect to how the community treats one another but it was pretty close. Basically tools like this are used to exclude others from social play. They've done more damage over the years than any amount of stuff that people typically blame Blizzard for like cross-realm and LFD/LFR.

[DesMephisto]

No, it was the scummiest add on around and deserved to be buried. And this is coming from someone who had LK 10 HC on farm and a fair few LK 25 man hc kills, not someone salty because they couldn't get into a group

Oh boy LK 10 HC, that was soooooooooooo hard

[Spl4sh3r]

It did the exact same Item Level does now, except that it caused far more lag, excessive amounts of screen freezings actually.

Actually it was a bit better than Item Level, because it automatically included Enchants/Gems in the calculation. So if max would be 8500 Gearscore from gear alone you could with Enchants/Gems maybe reach over 9000!

[MonsieuRoberts]

No more helpful than iLvl is today.

[Rotted]

What are your requirements for NH pugs?

On the rare occasion I pug it / go on alts, I set a base line of 875-880, usually get a few 900+ then I take a handful of people who are 865+ ish.

I never ask for curve, I just point blank ask them to be honest and tell me their experience, if they've said they've cleared it, I believe them. If they say they've done some of it, or read up on it I believe them. I have three PUG rules,

1) If you're a dick to someone, you get booted
2) If you're not sure what to do ask, I'd rather take 5 minutes to explain it before an encounter than for someone to cause a wipe for having a debuff and fucking up etc.
3) You have two strikes, if you pull for a tank twice, you're out.

I've been running EN, TOV normal + hc for months and most weeks NH normal, I've only ever had one group wipe on anything and that was Drakes HC with a group of mostly 900s+ pulling everything and fucking up their debuffs thinking they are the the shit. I actually get less shit in groups when it's closer to the raid avg loot drops than over geared groups.

Regardless of all that,

Gearscore was a nightmare, the creators set their own biased score on to gear and tried to pass it off as official / accurate / best way of doing it. The scores were insanely high to what the ilvl were (which could be viewed on a web browser). Trinkets and Weps were given stupidly large scores in ratio to drop rates / what was available per reset. When the first Shadowmourne appeared on the servers the avg required to enter also shot up.

You also need to take into account availability of gear, in wrath if you only did ICC 10 man normal or 25 man normal, you were stuck at 251. There was a few piece of gear you could get from vendors, but no titanforging, no valor upgrades, no worldquests infact no quests which rewarded gear. Essentially, if you didn't start raiding before that add on came out, you were screwed.

And I'm not throwing the entirety of the blame on the add on, the community can take some shit as well, frankly they abused that add on. Asking for stupidly high requirements to enter, then belittling those who asked to come on alts. Hell, I remember setting up a fair few groups and potential members asked me what was the GS requirement, I'd say I don't use that and they'd point blank refused to join regardless people had achis or I amoury checked them.

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Actually it was a bit better than Item Level, because it automatically included Enchants/Gems in the calculation. So if max would be 8500 Gearscore from gear alone you could with Enchants/Gems maybe reach over 9000!

Well, first I think you mean 5500 and 6000 not 8500 and 9000

Second, BULL SHIT, The only people who hit 6000 / 9000 were shadowmourne wielders, it was incredibly rare to see anyone even close to 6000/9000 without it. I remember it being a easy couple hundred point boost

[Deleted]

Well, first I think you mean 5500 and 6000 not 8500 and 9000

Second, BULL SHIT, The only people who hit 6000 / 9000 were shadowmourne wielders, it was incredibly rare to see anyone even close to 6000/9000 without it. I remember it being a easy couple hundred point boost

He's probably talking about Cata 1st tier, because the WotLK version didn't take gems and enchants into account, the Cata version did.

[RyanEX]

No. I hold that damn addon as the beginning of the end for the community.