Gear score

Gear score is numerical value based on the statistics of a player's gear. In addition to item level (ilvl), the item's actual statistics or abilities may or may not be included for calculation, as determined by specific formulas or addons.

Most commonly, gear scores are a metric used to evaluate the relative strength of a player's equipment as a way of determining if that player meets a given threshold to join in certain raids or groups going through an instance. It should be noted that a given gear score, no matter which formula is used, does not necessarily mean that other players can not demand higher scores from others before joining a raid or group.

Despite the possible flaws in the system, gear score can be a useful tool in determining an individual player's readiness for certain content. Rather than risking the waste of time and money on wipes and repair bills, gear score can provide a better indication of a person's ability to meet the challenges in an instance. When used as an initial assessment of a player, followed by inspections of their Armory profile (which does display things like item enhancements and achievements), gear score can allow the quick and efficient assembling of groups and raids intending to take on difficult content.

Controversy

The usage of gear scores has caused a large amount of controversy. The largest source of complaints appears to arise from the fact that while gear score addons/websites may calculate and suggest a gear score for certain content, frequently players have arbitrarily raised the minimum score needed before they will allow others to join them. Motivations for this may include a desire by some players to either decrease the chance of failure in the instance, or to increase the ease or speed of gameplay. Oftentimes players will seek to run older content as fast as possible as a means to farm emblems as quick as possible. These groups frequently reject new players who may actually need gear from such content.

Another source of controversy is that gear scores can be artificially inflated by using gear with higher ilvl and stats, but which is actually harmful to the class wearing it. One example is the use of spell power armor by classes that are primarily a physical dps class to inflate a gear score, rather then simply wearing whatever gear is actually of use. It should be noted that some gear score systems will lower scores on players who equip improper statistics.

An additional source of controversy is that players often feel they are skilled enough to overcome their lack of gear. They feel upset that they are not given the chance to prove themselves because they fail whatever gear score requirement was imposed by the raid leader. They feel as though, if given the chance they could excel and become a valuable asset to any group. They often feel disparity by being reduced to a simple number as a measure of their worth.

In addition, the gear score of a player (asuming he or she is not faking it) only informs you of the potential of the player based on gear, skill is completly out of scope. A player with a low gear score can still out perform a player with a high gear score. Similarly a high gear score tank can be the counterweight for a low gear score healer or vice versa. This makes the whole gear score food for controversy, even though it may be very useful to provide you with some initial sifting. It makes players feel they are judged based on factors that only partially determine their worth, therefore feeling unjustly judged.

Sources

There is a variety of external web-sites and addons that can be used to score a character's gear.

• Be Imba
• Wow Heroes
• Warcrafter
• Wowhead Profiler
• GearScore add-on (Website)
• WTF is My Gear Score?

Score Comparisons

Be Imba	Warcrafter	WoW Heroes	GearScore	Avg. iLevel	Content
535.25	1887	2445	4486	219	25-man Ulduar
485.14	1771	2227	4100	203	10-man Ulduar
453.24	1684	2059	3763		10-man Naxxramas
n/a	838	701	1602	134	Halls of Lightning
n/a	721	450	1321	111	Level 70 Dungoens
n/a	n/a	329	574		Level 60 Dungeons
n/a	n/a	?	?		Starting Areas

Formulas

Gear Score (Add-on)

$G = 1.8618 \sum_{j=1}^{18} \left( \sum_{i=1}^{36} (S_{i,j} \cdot V_i)^{1.7095} \right)^{1/1.7095}$

where

G is the calculated Gear Score
j is the slot index
i is the attribute index
V is the associated attribute weight

The sum i is over all attributes, while the sum j is over all item slots.

i	“S”	“V”
1	Strength	1.00
2	Agility	1.00
3	Stamina	2.00
4	Intellect	1.00
5	Spirit	1.00
6	Arcane Resist	1.00
7	Fire Resist	1.00
8	Nature Resist	1.00
9	Frost Resist	1.00
10	Shadow Resist	1.00
11	Defense	1.00
12	Expertise	1.00
13	Block	1.00
14	Block Value	0.65
15	Dodge	1.00
16	Parry	1.00
17	Resilience	1.00
18	Armor Pen	1.00
19	Attack Power	0.50
20	Crit Rating	1.00
21	Ranged Crit	1.00
22	To Hit	1.00
23	Ranged To Hit	1.00
24	Haste	1.00
25	Damage Undead	0.55
26	Arcane Damage	0.70
27	Fire Damage	0.70
28	Frost Damage	0.70
29	Holy Damage	0.70
30	Nature Damage	0.70
31	Shadow Damage	0.70
32	Spell Penetration	0.80
33	Spell Power	0.86
34	Health Regen	2.50
35	Mana Regen	2.50
36	Armor Pen	0.00