Gearscore, the FAQ

[soto]

Gearscore, the bane of all puggers.
On some realms, there is a tendancy for people to need a gearscore of over XX to join a pug, this frustrates many people these days, since a good gearscore is way harder to fake then say, an achievement which shows you have cleared an instance.

Another reason why people hate it is because skill=/=gear, meaning that they, the people whos 4th alt it is and who have obviously killed Anub on 25-man mode with their main in full 245 ilevel gear, cannot join a group to voa10 on their freshly dinged 80 alt.

I think you can smell the sarcasm comming from that, but ill leave it at that.

This guide is intended for the people who donot know what the addon does, but still get denied groups because of it.

How to beat the box (or in this case, the addon):
Gearscore only factors in Ilevel and enchants/gems level, making your gear gemmed with epic gems, will instantly raise your gearscore by about 200 over rare gems.
It doesn't filter out pvp gear, which means that, if you can, you should lay your hands on some relentless offpieces, which score as much as ToC25 gear and should thus pump your Gearscore bigtime.
Another thing to do is collect alot of off-piece gear with high I-levels and wear that, I personally have 2 sets:
A set with a gearscore of 4800 for PvE and a set with 5230 For when I try to get into a pug, which is a mix of relentless pvp gear, prot off-pieces and other high-ilevel crap

This description is copy-pasted from the curse.com's gearscore: GearScore - Addons - Curse



What is GearScore?

GearScore is an addon for World of Warcraft that allows you to quickly and easily judge a player's level of Gear. Simply mouse-over any player in the game and their GearScore will appear in their tooltip. No need to visit the armory!

GearScore represents the maximum potential for a player to perform. The higher your GearScore the higher your potential to heal/dps/tank. Remember however, that is is up to the player's skill to match that potential.

Watch a Video of GearScore 3.0 in action!: http:[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FYRHwswPNk]YouTube - GearScore Addon 3.0 Preview[/ame]

GearScoreAddon Official Website: http:GearScoreAddon.com - Official GearScore Website.

(Get the latest news, updates, info about upcoming features and of course download the newest beta versions!)

How does GearScore Work?

Whenever you mouseover a player in the game GearScore will scan that player's gear and calculate a score. The scores are based on how blizzard assigns stats to an item and take in account ilevel, rarity, and equipment slot location. Scores scale smoothly as player's level up and obtain new items.

Everyone who uses the mod shares information about the scores they scan allowing you to search for player's you've never even seen before.

What are GearScore's features?

Instant Score Calculation - Scores are calculated instantly whenever you mouse over any player in the game as long as they are within inspect range.

In-Game Armory - Allows you to view any player in your database's equipment and GearScore

Database - Scores are remembered so that the next time you see a player you will know their score, even if they are in a completely different zone. The database feature also allows you to manually look up a player anytime you want 1000 faster then the armory.

Communication - Whenever you scan a GearScore of a player you also share that score with everyone in your party or raid and everyone in your guild. This is very similar to how Gatherer works in sharing resource nodes.

Average iLevel - With this feature you can also see the average item level of a player. This is perfect for such things as Ulduar vehicle assignment and upcoming changes to drakes in 3.2

Master Loot Upgrade Mode - This mode is an excellent way to assist your raid in increasing their overall level of gear as quick as possible. Whenever you mouse over an item the tooltip will show how much of an upgrade in GearScore that item is for each person in your raid that can equip that item. Prefect for loot-council type raiding guilds and also excellent for leveling characters in helping to choose which item to pick from quest rewards.

Reporting - GearScore also allows you to post the GearScores of player's in your raid/party into chat. GearScore even has integration with Recount to allow you to see a graphical representation of your raid's GearScores.

How does GearScore compare to 'ratings' websites?

I started working on GearScore before I even knew of WoW-heroes or IMBA. I'm not sure how IMBA calculates its scores but WoW-Heroes scores are always about 1/2 of GearScore's scores. Many people ask me to simply use the same formula these websites do. There are a few problems with that. The first is I don't wish to steal a formula from a website and brand it as inline with their scores. Those sites make $$ from advertisers and if I steal their work I'm also stealing their money. Another problem with this is that the armory gives these websites more information then my mod, therefore they are able to take into account additional factors when calculating scores.

ZOMFG!!! GEAR DOESN'T EQUAL SKILL!!?

I agree completely. However many players like to PUG. When you pug your forced to invite people you don't know. A really sucky player with high GearScore will do more dps then a really sucky player with low GearScore. PUGs dont have time for guild-type interviews each time they invite a player to their raid. PUGs usually have no idea of the skill a player has. So PUGs are forced to use the only factor they know, your quality of Gear. If you don't like this style of gaming I recommend joining a guild where nobody cares what your GearScore is.

That being said, GearScore 3.x has new features that allow players to make smarter choices instead of simply dismissing you if your not at a bare minimum. The color chart for instances is colored from red to green to represent the difficulty a player might have in a particular instance. The in-game-armory function lets you see if a person's GearScore is low because perhaps they are in PvP gear or wearing a Lance and overall helps you make a more informed decision.





This is a list of what gear score is about appropriate for which instance:
Naxx10/OS10:3000
Naxx25/Maly10/OS25:3250
Maly25/Ony10/Uldu10: 4000
Ony25/Uldu25/ToC10:4250
ToC25/ToC10 Hard/Uldu10 Hard:4700+

Before people start complaining I copy-pasted this right from mmo-champ (where this is posted alwell, by me), I have added a little sig at the bottom of my mmo-champ post saying ''brought to you by soto''

[Manisher]

this ^ is tltr (to long to read)

[soto]

tldr, gearscore is a cool addon, you just have to learn to handle it

[krazy1432]

gearscore is stupid as hell.

Some lower itemlevel items are WAY WAY better than other higher level items.

By just having the better item with the lower itemlevel, your gearscore goes down by 200.

And gearscore is another thing to brag about, which does not equal skill, only equals to your a idiot because you look at the itemlevel instead of the stats.

stats > itemlevel

[xmolder]

I would like to point out that Wow Heroes gives Greater Inscription of the Gladiator (+30 stam and some resilience) 0 points, but a Knothide Armor Kit (+8 stam) 2 points. Um, what?

I'm way tired of people requiring gear score to even request an invite to a PuG VoA.