Clarification on Questions

I find it hilarious that the posts I do as filler often turn out to be the more controversial posts I publish, at least judging from the comments.

The other day I did a post about how people are finding my blog using the search of “is my gear good enough for (random instance)”.

My philosophy on the search and its merits were alternatively blasted and agreed with. It would even appear that there were people who felt I was trying to say that no one should ask any questions about readiness to take on new content.

It’s obvious that my intent was missed by some. As an educator and a writer I cannot allow that to stand. So here’s take 2 on the gear question.

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From the statistics page for my blog I can see what search engine terms people are using to find the blog.

Currently one of the most popular is “warlock T9.” Not really sure why or how, sorry to disappoint all you warlocks out there.

One that crops up periodically is the search of “is my gear good enough for (instance)”.

Example: Is my gear good enough for Ulduar 10?

LITERALLY – “IS MY GEAR GOOD ENOUGH FOR ULDUAR 10?”

This is not a question being posed on a forum, it’s a direct question to the interwebz at large being typed into a search engine.

I typed that in to Google myself to see what comes up.

About 362,000 results and my blog was not on the first page. I’m crushed.

Of course, WoW-Heroes and BeImba weren’t there either.

What was on the first couple pages was mostly random forum posts with people asking if their gear was good enough to tank Ulduar.

This is a HORRIBLE question to ask the interwebz.

NOTE: I am not saying that asking questions is bad, I’m saying this exact, particular question is BAD.

It’s an honest question and one that the asker probably thinks is a good one.

The road to hell and numerous instance wipes is paved with good intentions and poor questions.

The biggest problem is the source being asked the question.

Google != Intelligent, rational individual.

Google does some great searching, as do other search engines.

But they are only as good as the parameters you enter.

Since my parameters were really broad and vague (how does Google know what my gear even is from that question? should I get a tinfoil hat?), I got back information on tanking and warlocks and priests and everything else.

What if I specifically am playing a boomkin? I would have had to wade through pages and pages of garbage to possibly find something useful.

Now, if I had asked the same question of a knowledgeable guildmate (or other experienced player), I would have (hopefully) received a useful answer.

The difference is that the guildmate would look at my gear, look at my spec, look at my gems and enchants, my demonstrated skill level, etc. and put it all together.

When asking “is my gear good enough” to a real person, the question takes on depth. There is an implied, “look at me as a whole and tell me if I can do this” whereas asking the interwebz boils down to “do i haz enuff purplz to play wit u?”

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Part of the problem is a pervasive belief (and it’s getting worse) that ilevel = ability to succeed. The saturation of servers with people running Gearscore or running off to WoW-Heroes every single time they evaluate an individual is getting worse.

I don’t want to talk too much about it, the gals over at Empowered Fire did an awesome job explaining why this is a bad trend and what can be done about it.

This is a case of a potentially great tool being used as a shortcut to laziness and an excuse for ignorance.

Yes, there is generally a relationship between having better gear and being a better player. But we all have horror stories of the uber-geared PuG that didn’t know jack so we know it’s not a guarantee.

I use WoW-Heroes. It’s a convenient tool for me to see how the guild is doing in terms of upgrades and where we *should* be able to tackle content. But it is always tempered with my individual knowledge of the players and their roles. And if I don’t know how much spell power versus haste a resto shaman should be rocking to take something on, I find someone and ask.

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There really is no “gear threshold” for entering raids. (With the exception of elitist puggers, but that’s an artificial threshold, not one intrinsic to the game.)

When new content hits, the Ensidias of the world do not have new epics mailed to them so they can start thrashing the new content.

They do it with what they have from the previous content and whatever can be scraped up on the way.

When Naxx was re-released for Wrath, Ensidia cleared it on both 10 and 25 man in 3 days.

3 days is not enough time to farm heroics for all the best gear available and there certainly wasn’t time to do any sort of emblem farming.

I was too lazy to find it before, but here you go: http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/08/ungeared.html

That would Gevlon from Greedy Goblin and his guild clearing Ulduar 10 in blues.

I have a first-hand comment from a friend in an OS 10 where an enhancement shaman did 3200 DPS on Sarth on the same day he dinged 80.

I know an individual with a 2400+ WoW-Heroes score on 2 characters. That is Ulduar 25 and beyond. (I’m at 2604 on WoW-Heroes and have a Gearscore of 4804 I think, just to give you an idea of the conversion, he should be 4k+.)

I frequently don’t trust him to tank or heal a 5-man.

He can’t target his heal assignment. He can’t pick up loose mobs. He’s taunted Sarth when he’s the OT and wiped the raid.

When we put him in DPS roles his gear is at least 2200. More than his DPS.

He can’t assist the tank or switch targets or even use the correct rotation.

But his gear is fine, his spec is probably cookie cutter to a more successful individual.

What can we take from this?

GEAR IS NOT THE END-ALL BE-ALL OF SUCCESS.

Gear is a reward. Gear is a tool.

Gear makes a good player better. Gear makes a bad player prettier. And their gearscore higher.

No piece of gear a scrub gets get will make the light bulb click in the dim attic of their mind and make them go, “oh yeah, my spec and rotation should be like this!”

But when people pose the question to the interwebz of, “is my gear good enough” the value is being placed on the gear – the pretty purplez – with no consideration for the skill of the player.

The interwebz can give you a vague idea of if your gear is APPROPRIATE to the level of content.

It cannot tell you if you’re a scrub that doesn’t know to get out of the fire, or true story – stop attacking when you have Curse of Mending on you in OS.

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There are no “gear checks” at the door to an instance. There is no hostess with a pretty smile telling you, “I’m sorry, but we require that our patrons be wearing a tie and have a gearscore of over 9000. We hope to see you again in the future when you’re prepared.”

There are key stats that you need to reach and maintain, based on your class, role, and spec.

A healer obviously doesn’t care much about a hit cap while I was obsessed with getting that magical 446 as a fire mage.

If you’re going to troll the interwebz to verify if you’re ready to tackle content, questions relating to those specifics for your character are entirely appropriate and heartily encouraged.

I want people to ask what their hit rating should be.

I want people to ask what their defense should be.

I want people to look at their character as a whole and determine how they should be gemming and enchanting.

I want people to ask what the optimum rotation is for their spec.

I want people to ask why specific talents are considered to be better than other talents. (This is a particularly good one – it takes the step from accepting spoon-fed cookie cutter specs to understanding WHY the spec works.)

Hell, even asking what is an acceptable amount of DPS is for a class/spec works for me. That’s a benchmark that can be used to gauge success. If you’re not meeting that benchmark, time to get even more detailed questions.

Asking what your best in slot items are is a good question – people should always know where their upgrades are coming from; it gives us goals and purpose.

What I do not want is people coming into the game with, “Well my gearscore is 4800 and WoW-Heroes says I can do this. It’s the healers fault that I keep dying to fire. If I switch from Lord Jaraxxus to the portal then my DPS goes down. But it’s ok, because I have a 4800 gearscore. What do you mean I shouldn’t be gemming for MP5 on a mage? My gearscore says I’m better than you so STFU.”

That is the attitude that hinging success upon gear breeds.

Not all players are created equal and not all purples are either.

TL;DR

Questions are good. But asking bad questions perpetuates bad results.

Learn to ask the right questions and everyone wins.

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