Does GS smell better because Blizzard named it iLvl?

[lthompson94]

iLvL is a joke. It needs to be based on what you are wearing. Period. Counting the crap in your bag is BS, and a way for bad players to cheat the system.

I don't care if you've run a heroic 50 times in your main spec and have a full set of 349/359. You know the fights. If you don't have the gear on your off-spec, that OS should have to get the gear to cue before wiping someones party.

[Grocalis]

There are two reasons, IMHO, that average iLevel has gotten by better with the crowd that hate Gearscore. It all comes down to the fact that with average iLevel, people are less likely to bitch.

One, it keeps you out of heroics until you are geared enough to be viable in them. This means people can't say "Omg your score sucks you are not ready for heroics!" because, the very fact you are in the dungeon means you are geared enough for them. People attached a stigma to people based on score rather then the fact they where in the heroics in the first place. The limiting factor of the average iLevel system means you have less people scanning you trying to find out your gear is "up to par" since they expect the fact you are even there means you are up to par.

Two, the number difference is much lower. Right now between just ready-for-heroic geared, heroic geared, and raid geared, is less then 30 "average" points from what I see. Back in WOTLK the difference, even before the first patch, was nearly 1000k GS since it worked on addition rather then an average. You are less likely to hear people start raging about your items when the number is less then ten average points rather then 500 GS points. It is a psychological difference.

[Kryos]

iLevel has no meaning since it counts crap you collected in your inventory. So if you have 50% 346 tank stuff and 50% 346 caster gear it counts you as a 100% 346 caster. Even GS was better than this.

[Deleted]

It's not like this is a new thing. Everyone could add all of your gear's item levels and divide them by the amount of different slots you filled. Blizzard just did this for you now. I am pretty sure it wasn't intended to be used as a gearscore. Gearscore doesn't exist any more either, it's called Playerscore and is a bit more advanced, but will never be perfect. Get a guild if you want to raid, seriously. If you complain that PuG's are bad and stuff, then maybe you should find something else to do with the 2-3 hours you have on off-times during the day/night/morning/whatever. Blizzard caters to the masses, they said so themselves, and the masses (who raid properly) do it in the evening, and do not need some addon to determine who's good and who's bad.

[Discombobula]

I like iLVL i just hate that it takes in account your gear in your bank/inventory.

[Hellphantine]

With some bosses being DPS races, like Argaloth for instance if you're looking at something commonly pugged (especially three healing it), people who have 346 ilvl are MORE LIKELY (not saying they will) to pull higher DPS.
I would inspect any pugs and check out their armory for a legitimate raid, but ilvl is a good frame of referance, especially now that people aren't being handed epics so easily.

[Tyraena]

Notes in RED -

Points AWARDED for things like:
Killing blows - Not a good measure, unless you are talking group credit for major kills. Otherwise this is a pure luck stat.
Dispells - Good one, bonuses should go to people who dispell significant debuffs or exceed x number of debuffs/boss buffs in a given dungeon/raid.
1st and 2nd in dps on boss fightsDifferent fights favor different classes. This could work (maybe) if Blizzard assigned a target value based on class and fight mechanics that each person achieves.
Casting interruptsLike dispells, points for each, with bonus for significant fight mechanics or x number of interupts.
Staying in group till dungeon completionGood do like.
etc...

Points DEDUCTED for things like:
Breaking cc (does not count against tanks)Good one.
Standing in bad stuff for more than a second or twoWould have to be based on fight mechcanics. If you get snared by the swirly on Erudax, and nobody dispells, you shouldn't get penalized for it.
Getting hit by something that is tracking you that you are supposed to be running away fromHard to judge, different class kite and varying degrees.
Abandoning groupExcellent.
etc...

For healers, you could have:
Below x% overhealing
Points for saves below x% health (gamey, as it may encourage healers to let dps get low)
Mana management - don't drop below x% mana without letting anyone die
Not using cooldowns - complete a heroic without using any cooldowns

[diemor]

With ilvl u can cheat, with gs u couldnt.
I rather have a noob with 6k gs in full pvp instead of a guy with 350ilvl thats wearing greens.

Um, what? I saw idiot DK's wearing Holy pally gear because it was a higher ilevel(which made your gearscore higher) in wrath.

Although I also wore gear that was subpar(Triumph Tank Trinket was garbage) because it bumped my gearscore so I could satisfy idiotic requirements for groups.

Never going to be a solid way to detect idiots from good players in my opinion, but gearscore was just as flawed(possibly more so) than average ilevel.

[Orodoth]

I still say pre-heroic dugeons, you should have to complete the regular dungeon 5 times. Some may bitch about this, but think about it. Odds are, 5 times into it, your going to remember enough to scrape by if your one of those players who remains blizzfully ignorant and lacking situational awareness. These are complete runs, not one where you did the first 2 bosses, wiped and bailed (with late entry into the runs counting for completion for fairness' sake) The average item level requirement is a nice step in the right direction, but on the same token, has its exploits, like being able to keep gear with higher item levels in your bags but not equipped, and said items count towards your level.

I've done my searching before, and not found any real info. Can someone tell me if Blizzard has a suggestions box somewhere? If people agree with the 5 runs deal, or something similar, I think a movement is in order.

[Bisso]

With ilvl u can cheat, with gs u couldnt.

What? you,re joking right?.... RIGHT?!!

[Brutallus.]

1. right click player
2 compare achievements
3 statistics tab
4 Knowledge

[Xucuroz]

As i've said all along, there was nothing wrong with Gearscore, it was the pug raid leaders who used it that were using it incorrectly more often than not. It was very easy for someone to state a rather high gearscore requirement, which was often way higher than what the raid would actually require.

I'm sure others have stated the same thing.

[PyroGhozt]

No dude it still stinks, For starters they need to have PVP and PVE gear ranked separately so more specifically PVP gear has a PVE rating on it so that when ppl try to get free rides into heroic dungeons the game tells them to get lost and go get proper gear. I mean what is the point of carrying ppl who do 5-6k dps in a heroic.

---------- Post added 2011-01-18 at 11:31 AM ----------

Seems like you are the one that missed the boat, ilevel have always been in the game, average ilevel has been in the game ever since the LFD-tool was introduced (ICC patch I think).

And it serves it's purpose.

Yeah but the way its being used for the LFD/G tool is broken because of PVP gear imo.

[Jademist]

Seriously, I remember all the QQ about Gearscore and it feels like ilvl has arrived relatively unscathed. With that aside, I'm going to admit now that I liked gearscore and I like ilvl but they both miss the point of what we, as raid organizers, really need; we need a way to assess the individual ability of our raid and some way to sum that up to a raid view to understand if we have the heal/dps/avoidance/cc/interrupts to perform.
In my mind, Blizzard really missed the boat with ilvl. They took gearscore which was helpful but only marginally so, and they replicated it.

Instead of gearscore, what I'd really like to know is how well the individual did the last time they faced this boss. In absence of that data I'd like to know how well that individual did in heroics. Maybe average dps, number of wipes, number of completed instances, cc, etc. Maybe even a user ranking system with user comments. Is there a mod out there that does that?

Well, I don't think we can judge a person individually based off how his group does. And DPS varies from boss to boss nowadays imo because in some fights you have to move, you have to switch to adds, you have to do this and that. Basically you have to do things that will show lower DPS.

For instance, said person goes and runs a couple of heroics. He does exceedingly well but he's also trying to help out a friend get used to the new heroics. They wipe a couple of times. That adds to his "number of wipes", therefore when someone sees that, they will immediately put judgement upon him because he wiped a bunch of times. Or if his group was bad and he was doing well, then the number of wipes still represents him as a bad player even if he isn't.

Average item level in my opinion is great. Its better than gearscore where it takes into account gems and enchants and what not. I mean, really if you don't want to play with scrubs then go form a guild or run with your guild instead of trying to guess how well a player does. Gearscore was dumb because well, what do you do when you run raids? You try to get better gear. But if people put the bar for gearscores rather high then many people suffer for it.

Gearscore and Average Item Level are vastly different in ways you can ever imagine. They don't put a number on each item, each enchant and each gem and tally that up to get another number. At least it doesn't marginalize players who, instead of being given a chance to improve and get better gear, get locked out because their gearscores are too low for this and that. I mean, in WotLK, near the end of its life, people were asking for 9.6k GS to run a heroic. At least with Blizzard's Average iLvL, people get a fair chance at things, good or bad. If they're bad players, then well, avoid them. Go find others. I'm pretty sure if you're a "good" player then other good players would like you among their ranks of running whatever.

At least, that's how I see it.

This is purely opinionated.

[unholyskipper]

peronally i liked gearscore more than ilevel

[Drunkenvalley]

I really like average iLvl. Compared to Gearscore, it's a very simple and reasonable way to judge based on gear.

No, it isn't.

I don't see why players are so eager to scout for iLvl / GS anyway. Both fail to account for the simplest and most important quality in a player: Brain. And while GS would try to weigh stats, it still only says... well, nothing of value, since it would rank Rimefang's Claw as high GS for non-tanks, even for 2-handed wielding DKs.

[Jademist]

Also, in addition, the only way you even HAVE to use average iLvL is when you use the random dungeon system.

Gearscore sites are still up. If you want to use gearscores, then use it.

[Sparkymisslecat]

For healers, you could have:
Below x% overhealing
Points for saves below x% health (gamey, as it may encourage healers to let dps get low)
Mana management - don't drop below x% mana without letting anyone die
Not using cooldowns - complete a heroic without using any cooldowns

Yes - good point - killing blows isn't really a good measure of skill. That probably shouldn't be on the list. These were some examples off the top of my head. I considered the %overhealing thing, but honestly as a healer I usually don't care about my overhealing in a 5-man, and the amount of inefficient healing I do tends to depend on how tight or crappy my group is, so I didn't think it would work. I think there also needed to be some "tank-specific" points but I had a hard time with that also.

I think if a few smart people put their heads together on this though it could be workable.

P.S. I *also* think Blizzard should separate regular achievements such as "Explore Ashenvale LOL" from real Achievements like Heroic Lich King or hard-mode fights.

[Swiftwood]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/search
^ all you need.
/end thread

[Drunkenvalley]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/search
^ all you need.
/end thread

Oh god, now I can only picture people playing on EU reading this thread and going WHY CAN'T I FIND THEIR CHARACTER