Gearscore

There have been some complaints on the forum about the use of Gear Scores to choose who will attend a pug raids.

Gear Score is the sum of the item levels of your gear. Legendaries for instance have higher item levels than epics. Certain epics have higher levels than other epics. Tier 10 has a higher level than tier 9 and so on.

Places liek WoW Heroes and Wowhead profiles display gearscores.

Pugs are also requiring you to have an achievement for an instance to prove you already have experience doing it.

Basically pugs are moving toward guild runs. Players want assurances they'll have a good chance of completing what they set out to do.

I joined a pug where I had to show my achievement before I got invited. Needless to say when I checked others, I found at least one player who didn't have the achievement. Okay, whatever. When the raid leader asked if it would be okay for an undergeared player to come fill the last spot, the rest of us said no. You require people to hit some standard you set only to let someone else limbo under it?

People move from going solo to pug, pug to guild, from "friends and family" guild to progression guild, from progression guild to server transfer to even further progressed guild, because they level of fail they are willing to put up with drops lower and lower.

I joined a pug Molten Core group that couldn't kill a corehound, and once I got a taste of a guild ran MC I never looked back.

I remember a player leaving what was back then called Nihilum (the top guild in the world) to go to SK-Gaming (another top guild) because he felt Nihilum was failing (at the time I think they got a world 2nd or something).

We all have our own level of fail we can be satisfied with.

Gearscore is a tool that people are using because whether it said or not, people will try to make do with as little as possible if they are allowed.

Just hit 80? Maybe I can get in someones 25-man ToC and bypass the regular 5-man -> heroic 5-man -> Naxx25 -> Naxx10 -> Ulduar 25 -> Ulduar 10 -> 25 ToC. See how much time I saved by showing up and riding on other's backs?

For every person who says but I can be just as skilled in my quest greens/blues as the epic'd player, there are 50 who aren't but like to quote that possibility as a reason they should get to raid in a place they won't really contribute.

One of the CM's seems to think gearscore is a tool, and while it has the potential to be abused, it's alright to use. I'm not sure how they could stop people from using it at this point, and they certainly aren't going to remove the achievement system.