I've been running random heroics daily with my Hunter and even though my gear is very good for a solo player (all slots are at least ilvl 200), I had no idea how I compared to other players in these groups, especially since many of them had no problem out-DPS-ing me by large amounts. To be honest, I realize that damage meters are a bit buggy in these cross-realm PUGs so I can't be sure that what I'm seeing is accurate.
Curious to see how good my gear really was, I installed GearScore for my two best-geared toons: my Hunter and my Paladin (Prot). Here's a screenshot for each.
Hunter
What I can gather from this is that I'm pretty well geared for a player who's been playing solo until recently. It's true that some of this gear was acquired with emblems from running heroics but before I started running heroics all my gear was at least ilvl 200. Apparently my gear is good enough to (almost) run the highest 25-man raids currently in the game. It seems that I'm over-over-geared for heroics. On the other hand a lot of the random people in these PUGs have GearScores of 5000+. Now I know why some of them are out-DPS-ing me.
Paladin
I've been saying this for a while: I'm seriously thinking about trying my hand at some tanking with my Paladin. This will probably happen once I'm tired of gearing up my Hunter and after I do some serious research on how to tank in a group. As you can see from the screenshot, my GearScore is decent and apparently it is a bit over what's necessary to run 5-man heroics. Which doesn't mean I'm gonna jump right into heroics with my fresh tank. No sir, I need to learn how to do this in normal dungeons and if everything goes well I can move on to the more serious stuff. Unfortunately my health is a bit low, 24K unbuffed and the only way I know how to boost it is through gear, but hopefully that will come after a few runs.
So there you have it: a very useful addon. I am aware that it is folly to swear by this so-called "score" since it is not something officially supported by Blizzard but merely a weighing of all stats on your gear and such. Still, I am finding it useful to figure out how well I'm geared for an instance, how my gear compares to that of other players and whether a new item would be an upgrade or a downgrade. If you haven't tried it yet, give it a chance.
12 comments:
http://sites.google.com/site/gearscoreugh/home
For those of us who are firmly against the idea of GearScore :D
There's been a lot of debate on my server about the usefulness of gearscore. The argument against it seems to be that skilled but not very well geared players never get invited to raids etc while hopeless but geared players get the invites, though you can always kick a poorly performing raid memeber.
The site Veliaf posted also raises the good point that gearscore can give, for example, a tank wearing healing plate a better gearscore than a properly itemized tank. The solution by using a mod that sends a false 6000 GS is pretty funny.
As a ret pally in mostly pvp gear I score about 4500 but my dps (currently 2.5-3.5k) would be worse than the same scored pve geared ret pally. So while Gerascore can be useful it shouldn't define a player.
Gear score is great for finding the extremes (terrible gear or excellent gear) but really has to be used with caution in determining the value of a player. Good link, thanks.
Well of course, the other way to improve your gear is at the AH. From following your blog I know you have more gold than you could possibly spend. So if you were to drop 10-20k on BoE crafted stuff and drops, I bet you could get that unbuffed health up right quick.
Also, bear in mind that the daily non-heroic *does* award 2 emblems. That's not going to get you geared up in a hurry, but it will give a nice head start for when you do dive into the heroics. I'm leveling an alt mostly thru the LFG system, and those daily emblems are making me really look forward to the day I ding!
You'll want to turn it off in instances and heavily populated areas (Dalaran). It's a resource hog, since it's constantly inquiring surrounding players, and theirs are doing the same to you (and everyone else). If you see a hit to your fps, that's why.
As for tanking, I love my pally tank! Just remember the healer's code: "If the tank dies, it's the healers fault. If the healer dies, it's the tanks fault. If the dps dies, it's their own damn fault."
It's also about attitude. Go at your own pace and ignore the people saying "GOGOGOGOGOG!!!!!" Just let everyone know you're a rookie, and if they want to leave they can. Most PUG's will understand. And, really, an extra 5 minutes is going to break the speed freak? Anyway, just accept gracefully any good advice and ignore the idiots.
Heh, before LFG I had one guy tell me to "L2tank!" Too bad he caused the wipe. I had just been rezzed after a tough fight and he pulled before I had a chance to buff...no RD, no blessings, no health, nothing. So, wipe. He learned the lesson that you should not insult the party leader...I kicked him, and we finished HCoS as a 3-man (one guy dc'd).
You've probably seen plenty of tankadins chain pulling and going fast. Why? Divine Plea. We don't want to lose it. A 15-second buff that replenishes our mana and is refreshed every time we hit something. Otherwise, it's on a 1 minute cooldown. If I were you, I'd get used to the basics of tanking before I started to worry about chain-pulling. However, you will notice that, if you're overgeared, you will run out of mana because you're not taking enough damage. So don't gear up too much before you start your tanking career.
Wow, I typed a lot more than I meant to. I just like it when a new tank comes along, especially one who is as diligent as you are.
The HP is gonna rise pretty quick once you spec for tanking and get the right gear. Even just speccing will probably boost the HP just from talents alone. You should have no problem trying out tanking on normal at all. I was running a normal nexus with a 14k HP tank (level 74).
Oh but I realize that the "score" is just to get a rough idea of where I stand.
So that's why I've been getting a lot of lag in Dalaran lately... it must be this addon?
@Wookie7 thanks for the long reply. I've been playing as a Prot Pally for the last few levels to 80 and I really loved it. I kinda got used to chain pulling due to Divine Plea. I don't quite get the mana part. From what I understand, there are 2 things that I need to do in order to get mana back: hit things with Divine Plea active and block with Blessing of Sanctuary up. And perhaps Replenishment. Right?
Blessing of Sanctuary gives you 2% displayed mana every time you block, parry or dodge. With Holy Shield up you increase block by 30% decreasing damage taken, increasing mana generated, and producing more threat (blocked attacks do 274 damage to the attacker).
Replenishment is a ret (and other class including survival hunter's) ability triggered by damaging judgment spells.
You can use Seal of Wisdom to further increase mana, particularly fast if reckoning procs, but this may be at the expense of threat producing damaging seals like Seal of Vengeance. You can also use Glyph of Divine Plea to reduce dmg taken by 3% when Divine Plea is up.
Also, if you need a good tanking spec and the reasoning behind it you could do a lot worse than Invisusira's recommended spec at:
http://modenstudios.com/invisusira
White kitten rating ftw!
Good morning! At least around here, it is.
Your mana comes from Blessing of Sanctuary, Divine Plea, and the 2-point talent Spiritual Attunement, which gives you mana when you're healed. You can get away with 1 point in it, but if you have mana problems, you might want to place both in it. I tend to judge wisdom in heroics, though I run with Seal of Vengeance.
Replenishment will come from other players.
Another way to save some mana is to put 5 points in Benediction, as that will reduce your mana costs by 10% for your instant spells (which is pretty much all of them).
You can save more mana by not opening up with your Avenger's Shield--it's a bit mana intensive. Instead, use your Hand of Reckoning.
As for lag, gnomeaggedon had a funny post about it. Basically, he found Carbonite and Gearscore to be the biggest problems. Here's the post:
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2009/10/09/carbonite-gtfo-of-my-dalaran/
Enjoy!
It's how I thought regarding mana generation. I meant Spiritual Attunement, not Replenishment. Stupid me, my other spec is Ret, I should have known that.
I'm on a fence whether I should keep Reckoning for dungeon tanking. I really love it in single play, for AoE grinding.
http://warcrafting.at.ua/load/42
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