Friday, November 13, 2009

Gear Rating Web Sites

I'm a little concerned about the recent trend that has come up to entirely base people's ability to play WoW on a gear score. I mean, these gear scores have been around for a really long time. I can remember in mid-BC sites like be.imba coming up and telling you everything you need to know about your toon (wrong enchants, upgradable gems, etc.). Now we have ones like Wow-Heroes and probably 15 others as well that will give a score and tell you where these people can (and can't) raid.

This was set off when earlier this week, we ran a pretty smooth 25-man PUG into Onyxia. There were only about 4 of us from the guild that wanted to do it, so we had to PUG just a few people. As we were forming the raid and getting people on Vent, a couple of people were asking what gear score was needed to join our PUG. Is such and such number high enough for my friend to come along?

Umm... I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but it's Onyxia. Get a couple of geared tanks (which were in guild) and a couple of good healers (which I am *flex* and so was another guildie or two), then you can pug a crappy healer and a whole bunch of dps. As long as everyone stays out of the deep breaths, you really don't have to worry about killing her in record speed. I'm thoroughly convinced that a group in all blues could take her down. She's not hard. She hasn't changed much in the past 4 or so years.

So, while I really appreciate all these gear-checking/rating sites, I would advise using them with caution. Even with the best gear in the world, you still have to know how to (A) do your job, and (B) avoid fires.

Furthermore... didn't Blizzard make "most" classes equal so that we can play with our friends? If one of your 15 (or so) DPS is a lame duck, it's probably okay if he dies. Especially if you get Ony to phase 3... DPS makes it go faster... that's all. Shoot, at that point, all you need is your healers and your tank. She'll die eventually.

3 comments:

Kara said...

If we need certain things for a raid, I find it far more useful to glance at wowarmory. My big concern? Are they stacking the right stats? We can't really afford a resto druid in full feral blue pvp gear [has happened] but eh we've taken "undergeared" players many times who could pull more out of their toons than some of our raiders in full epicz simply because they knew the toon. Our tanking spots are usually filled with our best as are at least 4-5 healing spots.

Gear rating sites are a useful TOOL to help better yourself I've found, but are way overused by others to rate how good a player you must be.

*vlad* said...

I totally agree with you about Onyxia, which is why I get annoyed whenever I am in lfg and I see "need dps for Ony25, link achievement".

Not only is it stupid asking people to prove something that tells people nothing about your skills, but lets face it, most people pugging are probably playing their alts and looking for some action outside of their guild.

They don't need to prove that they are not "800dps in my epix", and for god's sake even if they were that guy, a raid of 25 can probably carry 5 or 6 such players quite successfully.

Wouldn't it be better to have an achievement like:

"I don't die in the first 5 minutes of a fight"

or perhaps for all those people who can link an achievement when asked but still don't have a fricking clue how to play their class:

"My hard-core raid friends dragged my sorry ass through ToC and got me the achievement despite the fact I died in the first fire"?

Paul said...

I agree. We have to start somewhere. Running the instances will give the newbie experience and hopefully some good gear drops...