World of Warcraft Patch 3.3.0 Released

[Cintirich]

Gearscore is an addon that assigns a numerical value to every item you equip. It bases the value off of the rarity of the item, i.e. green, blue or purple, and the ilevel.

The sum of all of your individual items makes up your "Gearscore" and if you have the addon installed, it will show you someone's gearscore when you target them and also when you see someone in the lfg tool (going off the last GS they had when you were close enough to inspect them).

For example, If you're a fresh 80 with mixed quest greens and blues, you might have a GS of around 2800. After you've run some normals and heroics and are mostly in blues and purples, you might be around 3800 or so. To crack 4000, you'll need to be in almost all 5 man heroic purples.

Before the patch a lot of people on my server wanted a GS of over 4400 for the "harder" raids like 10/25 ToC because you could only do that by getting gear from heroic ToC's (which have a higher ilevel - 219, compared to normal heroic items which are ilevel 200), badge turn in's, and raiding. Basically, it was a method to try to insure that you had invested some time on your charactor and had some idea what you were doing.

Before 3.3, a gearscore of 4900+ pretty much meant you were a hardcore raider (or were very lucky with pug drops). Now in 3.3, with badges falling like rain from 5 mans, it's not hard for anyone to get a respectable gearscore in a relatively short period of time and thus GS is becoming less relavent.

 

[kioras]

Not sure really, I guess gearscore is the total of your gears ilevel.

Which is compelte garbage for instances. Most 5 man heroic instances are perfectly fine for a group of people who average dps of 2k, a 25-30k tank. They just have to take it easier, since in heroics is where you geared up for naxx.

I have no problem carrying people in heroic 5 man instances, me and my friends DK, each pullign 3500 or more average dps, for the whole instance. Less wipes is more important... since more time is wasted on a wipe then taking 5 more seconds to kill mobs per encounter.

 

[ashmelev75]

I've been out of this for way too long. Can someone please expand on what gearscore is? Is it an addon? How do people know what your gearscore is before inviting and whatnot?

There are few mods (Gearscore ) and websites ( http://wow-heroes.com or http://be.imba.hu ) that you can use to evaluate someone's gear/enchants/gems to gauge their fitness for a particular instance. Basically each gear piece gets a score based on its stats. People simply need to inspect you to get your score.
Of course the gear score does not replace the skill or knowledge of the class, but some morons still think it is the key stat.

Both websites I mentioned can actually help you to evaluate your character, find upgrades and things you could have missed gearing your char.

 

[ashmelev75]

Not sure really, I guess gearscore is the total of your gears ilevel.
Which is compelte garbage for instances. Most 5 man heroic instances are perfectly fine for a group of people who average dps of 2k, a 25-30k tank. They just have to take it easier, since in heroics is where you geared up for naxx.

Heroic ToC5 requires at least some Nax25 level gear.
Heroic ICC instances require at least some Ulduar25 level gear.
I think Blizzard's dungeon finder actually does some gear checks before letting random people join you for these instances, but all prior heroic have no limits.

Just this morning I had to carry a group with 320dps DK and 1.5K dps shadow priest, doing almost 3K DPS as a tank. That was the slowest and most painfull experiences I had in months.

 

[raynman68]

Im on dawnbringer im gonna say off hand its medium.

I'm on Dawnbringer and it is a medium pop server, are you Alliance or Horde?

Ever since Winter Veil started the dungeon que has markedly increased for DPS, was 5-6 minutes now roughly 12-15 minutes on average. I am not sure if that's due to people going for the achievements or people just got sick of being in bad groups. When I want to tank I usually only have to wait a minute, two at the most.

 

[Numan]

I think Blizzard's dungeon finder actually does some gear checks before letting random people join you for these instances, but all prior heroic have no limits.

It does. A few of us decided to do the new three on heroic with one person's freshly hit 80 and since we are lazy we did the LFG tool to just teleport us there. It told us the new 80 was not qualified to do the heroic version. After some laughter at the poor guy we did it on normal.

 

[kioras]

Heroic ToC5 requires at least some Nax25 level gear.
Heroic ICC instances require at least some Ulduar25 level gear.
I think Blizzard's dungeon finder actually does some gear checks before letting random people join you for these instances, but all prior heroic have no limits.

Just this morning I had to carry a group with 320dps DK and 1.5K dps shadow priest, doing almost 3K DPS as a tank. That was the slowest and most painfull experiences I had in months.

Not quite, you can progress quite cleanly without even buying either badge gear, or running 10 or 25 man dungeons through the system.

Normal heroics, you need a collection of level 80 quest blues, and some normal quest drops. TOC 5 man normal has the same requirement.

H TOC you want close to an average ilevel of 200, from either toc normal and other instances.

ICC normal also slot in at around H TOC difficulty, just require a bit more knowledge with the more complex fights.

once you get the gear from those 4, you can than move onto the H ICC instances, with a gear level of 232.

Of coarse while doing this, you will be collecting a pretty high amount of badges, letting you steadily move up even faster as you get the 232 set gear, or the ilevel 245 single pieces.

 

[Zorachus]

This whole gear score thing is what turns my Brothers off from WoW So now the loser with no life and has the 2 hand axe of "Instant Death" with 400dps, and spends every waking second running heroic dungeons to gather the #1 Epic l33t gear, is the winner ?

That is such a fucking turn off to play a game like this then. What we love about WoW is leveling up and exploring new zones, running some small group Instances along the way together, and having fun. Sure cool gear is nice to have, but should not be the end all and be all for the main reason to play a game

I kept reading that we had to hurry up, get to 80, you need to be Level 80 to play WoW, rush man get to 80 a.s.a.p. to play with the Guild Why ? Isn't MMORPG's about the journey, and not the destination ? So I finally got my DK to 80, ran a bunch of heroic dungeons, got some Epic gear, and said to myself now what ? I thought there was like a 2nd game waiting for me to play ? I kept thinking where is the other part of this game I kept hearing about ? I am 80, but there is nothing new to explore or see now, after I ran like 15 or so different Instances ? I thought there was a whole other chapter to WoW I was missing because I was not end game 80 yet, but now 80 can't find it ?

 

[kioras]

First Chapter is the journey. (leveling to 80)

Second Chapter is the destination. (dungeons, raiding and PVP at 80)

Final Chapter is the burnout. (where you quit the game and promise never to come back)

Reality is, that you have to enjoy leveling up to 80, and then you should try to enjoy the level 80 content, ideally by getting into a good friendly guild. Burnout comes at some point, for everyone, and is either a short or pernament.

 

[GoldenTiger]

PVP is what keeps me going in any MMO... I enjoy PVE to an extent, but I'd be bored to tears if I did *just* PVE or *just* pvp even. The leveling experience helps you (in most) get used to the class and game mechanics, while endgame is where the bulk of the content is at since everyone will end up there. If you don't enjoy the dungeons or PVP combat, then any MMO in particular won't work for you, it's just the genre.

Most/all MMO's change markedly @ cap levels, which is where the game really "begins" in terms of anything meaningful for your character. No one ever really "wins" unless you regard having the best gear as the sole measurement. I personally count "being the dude that you want to run from in PVP" as winning alongside high-end gear/obscene amounts of gold in an MMO. Some would consider it off of more of a PVE pillar, or being world-first's to beat new content. Still more would think you need to just be skilled and able to beat encounters and/or enemies in PVP with a high success rate as "winning". These games are basically like structured fake-life models... and just as in real life people have different opinions on what "winning" at it is, so do people in WOW or any other MMO.

 

[MX-5 Dave]

Are you on a really low pop server or something? The longest I've had to wait (as a DPS) is 20 - 25 minutes. As a tank or healer, I've heard the wait times are non-existent. Gonna try to get my low level druid up higher so I can start running as a healer because of this...

As a healer the longest I have waited was about 3 minutes. Many times its almost instant. Its short enough that I cant que up then run from one side of dal to the other for reagents/whathaveyou.

 

[sideout]

What your gearscore isn't over 9000? noob gtfo of our random heroic


Awesome WoW mentality at work dur dur dur

 

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

This whole gear score thing is what turns my Brothers off from WoW So now the loser with no life and has the 2 hand axe of "Instant Death" with 400dps, and spends every waking second running heroic dungeons to gather the #1 Epic l33t gear, is the winner ?

That is such a fucking turn off to play a game like this then. What we love about WoW is leveling up and exploring new zones, running some small group Instances along the way together, and having fun. Sure cool gear is nice to have, but should not be the end all and be all for the main reason to play a game

I kept reading that we had to hurry up, get to 80, you need to be Level 80 to play WoW, rush man get to 80 a.s.a.p. to play with the Guild Why ? Isn't MMORPG's about the journey, and not the destination ? So I finally got my DK to 80, ran a bunch of heroic dungeons, got some Epic gear, and said to myself now what ? I thought there was like a 2nd game waiting for me to play ? I kept thinking where is the other part of this game I kept hearing about ? I am 80, but there is nothing new to explore or see now, after I ran like 15 or so different Instances ? I thought there was a whole other chapter to WoW I was missing because I was not end game 80 yet, but now 80 can't find it ?

The journey is fun and I like it a lot, but it inevitably has to end until the next installment. That's where the problem lies, providing something to do once you hit the cap.

 

[Cintirich]

The journey is fun and I like it a lot, but it inevitably has to end until the next installment. That's where the problem lies, providing something to do once you hit the cap.

What keeps me going is "changing it up" every so often.

I've leveled 4 characters to 80 and I enjoy gearing them up once I get there, via instances, badges, raids, etc...

I've got a job, a wife, and three daughters so I don't have the time or energy to join a serious raiding guild, so once I get to the point where my gear is more or less "maxxed out" so far as pugging is concerned, I'll either switch specs to gear that aspect of my toon or switch to another character.

Keeps me fairly busy and interested enough to hold out til the next expansion.

 

[wtburnette]

What keeps me going is "changing it up" every so often.

I've leveled 4 characters to 80 and I enjoy gearing them up once I get there, via instances, badges, raids, etc...

I've got a job, a wife, and three daughters so I don't have the time or energy to join a serious raiding guild, so once I get to the point where my gear is more or less "maxxed out" so far as pugging is concerned, I'll either switch specs to gear that aspect of my toon or switch to another character.

Keeps me fairly busy and interested enough to hold out til the next expansion.

Pretty much the same for me. I laugh every time I encounter some snob commenting about how low my gear score is, asking why I didn't use certain tactics, or whatever. I mean, if you want to be an elitist, run with other elists and stfu. The rest of us are trying to have FUN playing a GAME for heaven's sake.

I actually enjoy leveling to 80. I have 3 toons at 80 and a handful I play that are anywhere from 12 to 71. Right now I'm concentrating on my 80 retadin, but I switch off from time to time just to stay interested. I enjoy the game immensely and can't see myself quitting the game anytime soon.

 

[darkpaw]

Just this morning I had to carry a group with 320dps DK and 1.5K dps shadow priest, doing almost 3K DPS as a tank.

I've never kicked anyone for poor dps, but 320 dps.. I'd have to. A fresh level 80 dk couldn't do that little dps if they just turned on auto attack and did nothing else. That was someone that just must have been on auto follow the whole time.

I've had quite a few groups where I've carried people doing 1k-1500 dps and I don't really have an issue with that if they are at least participating in the group and not just mouching.

The whole gearscore obsession is pretty retarded. Last night my guilds best gear rouge (about 7-8k dps) was getting compliants from a pally in his group for not doing enough DPS. What a friggen joke.

 

[Numan]

I have the Diablo mentality; must get better loot! Same thing in WoW. It's better to stick around in a small guild of friendly people that aren't r-tards esp. now with the pug-o-matic in place. With former MMOs that were all "serious business" I got fed up and tired of them so much quicker.

 

[MX-5 Dave]

Last night playing my lowbie tank, this jackoff 18 huntard need rolled the caster robe off lord cobrahn in wailing caverns. What an idiot. Seriously, he cant use it, couldnt DE it, and it sells for CRAP gold. We had 2 casters in the group that DID need it, and lost the need roll to him. He was booted from the group within 10 seconds lol.

 

[Xee]

Hmm, all this talk is making me think about giving WoW another shot.

I played from beta to just before BC came out and haven't had an inkling to ever go back. It was only a few days ago that I found out a co-worker used to play as well and we ended reminiscing for about 45 minutes. After I got home I started going through old screenshots and have started wondering what happened to all the people I knew. I'd probably sign up again if it was only $15 but since I'd have to get both the expansions it'll probably be more like $75. A bit too steep to find out if I want to come back full-time.

 

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

The old days are long gone, and the landscape of gameplay changed dramatically. For better or worse, I can't really tell you. I remember the old days where there really wasn't a whole lot to worry about, in terms of gearing up your character. It was a one-way street down raid progression for anything worthwhile. Now we're bombarded with so much gear, I'd be very surprised to see any drama over loot these days. I think that's Blizzard's strategy to keep the drama down. The only thing I can see some drama over is the Battered Hilt from the new heroics.

 

[Roliath]

i "just" got back in and am coming to the end of my one month free playtime. I'm 36 rogue on stormreaver (roliath) and I've been leveling completely through random dungeon's and I hope to do this to around 60ish lol.
anyhoo, where is the best place to buy game cards on the cheap?

 

[Ocellaris]

Pretty much the same for me. I laugh every time I encounter some snob commenting about how low my gear score is, asking why I didn't use certain tactics, or whatever. I mean, if you want to be an elitist, run with other elists and stfu. The rest of us are trying to have FUN playing a GAME for heaven's sake.

one thing you should keep in mind is that horrible players ruin the play experience for others trying to have fun. i've seen dks stacking spell power gems, rogues stacking str, numerous people with unspent talent points, druids that did not know they could innervate other people, tanks that die because they have no def then bitch at the healers, healing paladins in dps gear, dk tanks with a bunch of block gear, people who do not know what 'line of sight' means, and tons of people with ineffective talent specs... those people should be embarassed that they spent hundreds of hours in wow and never figured out the basics. meanwhile they keep queueing up randoms and slowing down everyone else and cause wipes because apparently its too friggin hard to read tooltips or their character sheet. its a group game, people should be self motivated to spend a few minutes learning how to do their role in a moderately productive manner instead of being coddled by the other players.

i've never said anything to or had a problem with anyone having 'bad gear'. heck I am happy to carry them as long as they look like they at least understand basic shit. don't confuse people being 'snobs' with people just frustrated at how retarded a lot of other players are.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

 

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

one thing you should keep in mind is that horrible players ruin the play experience for others trying to have fun. i've seen dks stacking spell power gems, rogues stacking str, numerous people with unspent talent points, druids would did not know they could innervate other people, tanks that die because they have nno def then bitch at the healers, healing paladins in dps gear, dk tanks with a bunch of block gear, people who do not know what 'line of sight' means, and tons of people with ineffective talent specs... those people should be embarassed that they spent hundreds of hours in wow and never figured out the basics. meanwhile they keep queueing up randoms and slowing down everyone else and cause wipes because apparently its too friggin hard to read tooltips or their character sheet. its a group game, people should be self motivated to spend a few minutes learning how to do their role in a moderately productive manner instead of being coddled by the other players.

i've never said anything to or had a problem with anyone having 'bad gear'. heck I am happy to carry them as long as they look like they at least understand basic shit. don't confuse people being 'snobs' with people just frustrated at how retarded a lot of other players are.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device

I agree. Although 1 pitiful DPS won't really ruin an experience these days, I can't help but wonder why some people suck *that* badly. They have 80 levels and probably several days' (in /played) worth of experience to learn their class. It really is a strange phenomenon. The lowest DPS I've seen personally was a warlock in the neighborhood of 500-600. This was in a Heroic dungeon. I can't think of any possible reasons that he could do so horribly other than dotting everything up and standing there. Fortunately they're very rare in my experience.

 

[Astral Abyss]

I agree. Although 1 pitiful DPS won't really ruin an experience these days, I can't help but wonder why some people suck *that* badly. They have 80 levels and probably several days' (in /played) worth of experience to learn their class. It really is a strange phenomenon. The lowest DPS I've seen personally was a warlock in the neighborhood of 500-600. This was in a Heroic dungeon. I can't think of any possible reasons that he could do so horribly other than dotting everything up and standing there. Fortunately they're very rare in my experience.

Reminds me of a friend of mine. He's gotten several characters to level 80, but once he does he always says he can't find anything to do and starts another character. As a result, he's never learned how to spec properly, upgrade gear, or learn how to properly play his character in a group.

It's sad really, watching him. He started trying to run dungeons with his Enchane Shaman since he can finally get into a group with the random dungeon finder. His dps is so bad though, he was whining to me that his normal dungeon groups have been complaining about his dps. I had him install Recount and watched him. He can't put out more than 600-800dps, and this is after I helped him get some better gear, so he's in all blues and purples.

The worse part is he has no idea how any of the battles work and responds so slowly to situational challenges that he's a drain on the healer.

It's the people like him you may be grouping up with now. No one would ever have dealt with his lack of skills before, but now he can get into a group regardless, and everyone else has to carry him. I'll sure he'll get better eventually, but it's no ones fault but his own that he never bothered to learn how to play.

 

[Ragenrok]

I agree. Although 1 pitiful DPS won't really ruin an experience these days, I can't help but wonder why some people suck *that* badly. They have 80 levels and probably several days' (in /played) worth of experience to learn their class. It really is a strange phenomenon. The lowest DPS I've seen personally was a warlock in the neighborhood of 500-600. This was in a Heroic dungeon. I can't think of any possible reasons that he could do so horribly other than dotting everything up and standing there. Fortunately they're very rare in my experience.

i know this bugs me something fearce, I have troubles dpsing on my 76 lock in affliction, I can only seem to reach 1kdps but in destruction spec Im normally 1300-1600 which isnt bad for 76 (not great but isnt bad lol)

Theres just so many people that dont know what spell rotations and synergies are that it can be a hassle to find decent groups.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Yeah, I don't mind someone being a noob in an MMO but seriously, put a LITTLE effort and common sense thought into things! Other players who are strangers do not exist solely to carry you, and the game is not there to be your 24/7 babysitter for activities .

 

[Ragenrok]

Yeah, I don't mind someone being a noob in an MMO but seriously, put a LITTLE effort and common sense thought into things! Other players who are strangers do not exist solely to carry you, and the game is not there to be your 24/7 babysitter for activities .

whats amazing is how easy the info is to find. 30 min of reading on elitest jerks and i jumped 1k in dps on my dk when i first started raiding

 

[Yoshiyuki Blade]

i know this bugs me something fearce, I have troubles dpsing on my 76 lock in affliction, I can only seem to reach 1kdps but in destruction spec Im normally 1300-1600 which isnt bad for 76 (not great but isnt bad lol)

Theres just so many people that dont know what spell rotations and synergies are that it can be a hassle to find decent groups.

Well, the group composition and the nature of the class spec can greatly affect your dps too. I know for a fact that if I went Fire spec on my mage in heroics, I'll be doing pretty horribly, simply because Fireball is too damn slow to hit anything, and mobs die before ignite (a DoT) will take it's full effect. In raids or longer fights, specs like afflic and fireball do better. Also, if you have two other people who you don't synergize with or just output amazing dps, you'll find yourself at the bottom easily. It doesn't mean you're bad, it's just the nature of people "hogging" all the damage . I know this because I see plenty of well-geared, well-played classes in 3rd DPS by far because they're melee, and running with me and my bro (Mage and Warlock). I've outputted nearly nearly 12k DPS on bosses before. The rogue is actually an RL friend who was far behind us and to ran into the boss seconds before he died lol. Had he come in at the same time, I most likely would not have ramped up so high. Classes who take time to make the most of their DPS certainly won't shine in heroics.

Another issue is one that I think was discussed earlier in this thread regarding how damage is recorded with recount. Damage done is what really matters.

 

[JustinSane]

^ You were in a heroic with someone from my server. That whole cross server instancing is pretty damn cool. But I still must resist..