WoW GearScore; Important or Useless

In 2009 players became obssessed with gearscore. Gearscore is a calculation primarily derived from the item level of a players gear. The two most common ways of finding a players gearscore is from an addon called GearScore, or wow-heroes.com. In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, epic gear became much more common and easier to attain. Because of this, people sometimes found it more difficult to determine a players skill/experience. Gearscore was meant to me a kind of solution to that problem. Raid leaders could use the addon or look up players online and easily see how good their gear was.

The use of gearscore still causes controversy today. One complaint is that group leaders require players to have an unreasonably high gearscore to join. They do this for various reasons, like geting through old content faster or reducing wipes. Because of this, new players find it more difficult to get into groups because of the high expectations. Fortunately the Dungeon Finder tool introduced in patch 3.3.0 has helped players who actually need gear from older content get in groups.

Some players state that their skill is is enough to overcome their lack of gear. Others complain that gearscore can be inflated by wearing high ilvl gear that isnt useful to the player wearing it. On the official WoW forums there has been lot a lot of discussion on the issue, some players even suggesting that the GearScore addon should be banned.

The real problem isn't gearscore itself, but the people who use it unreasonably. Gearscore can't calculate a persons skill, but it is very helpful in determining what content someone should focus on. Just because someone has a very high gearscore doesnt mean that the person is skilled enough to fight the lich king. Also, someone with a very low gearscore isn't going to be able to contribute much to the raid, no matter how much skill they have.

Overall gearscore is is useful, despite the flaws in the system. When doing end game content, a certain quality of gear is required. If you are undergeared then the raid is carrying you through the content. Likewise you can have the best-in-slot items and still wipe the raid if you don't know what your doing.