Have you ever noticed how getting new loot has the ability to make you want to play more? I’m not talking about getting a new sword and being excited because it has better stats then the mace you had before. I’m talking about getting an item that looks cool and you love the way it looks on you so you go sporting it all over Dalaran or any capital city of your choice. You want to be seen. This happens quite often with mounts as people will go to specific places (Krasus’ Landing in Dalaran) if you have flying mounts just so people see you on them. I say this because I just got my new shield NeverEnding Winter from ICC the other night. I love this shield, it looks sweet. I love the way the it looks so much that even if I queue up in LFG as DPS I won’t change my armor from my tanking set till I get into the instance.
I bring this up as a topic because I just ask you all if you could recommend another MMO for me to play cause I’m getting burned out on WoW and I don’t want to get completely burned out and not even pick up Cataclysm. But here I am a week or so later, feeling slightly refreshed. I still need my mace off Marrowgar which I’m hoping drops this week.
This all comes down to a one thing that I blogged about a long time ago, that WoW really is a popularity / looks contest. It’s all about bragging rights. He/she who looks the coolest, wins! You can deny it all you want but when it comes down to it you know that I’m right.
Example: Just the other night I was in one of my guilds and someone said and I quote “Is it wrong that I picked up an item that really isn’t that much of an upgrade for me but makes me look cooler and matches my set. I could have gotten a nice upgrade with my frost badges but I wanted my new chest piece instead.” I said not at all…of all my gear my cloak is the lowest piece I have sitting at ilvl 219. I said I have more then enough badges to get one that’s 264 but I’m saving for my legs piece instead. While the legs will be an upgrade from 232 to 251, the cloak would be a much more dramatic increase, ilvl anyway.
That being said it also peaks another question… What’s more important to people, looking good or having a higher “Gearscore”? You can see my dilemma, on one hand I’m upgrading my pants for cooler pants that will also give me a set bonus and a very small GS increase. On the other hand I have a cloak that will up my gear score a lot more while the stats are only slightly better. This has become a new issue as Gear Score has somehow become the benchmark for many guilds and players to tell if your good enough to hang with them in a raid or instance. While it certainly shows that a player has nice gear on what it doesn’t show is the persons skill at using all that gear. Here’s another example, I’ll use myself for this one. I’m a tank pure and simple. I do have a DPS spec and nice gear almost over the 5K mark on the forementioned gearscore. I enjoy the DPS spec and put out some decent numbers to boot. But my knowledge of how to play one is less than that of my tanking spec or another player who’s pure DPS. I have that high of a gearscore because in a ICC raid 3 pieces of DPS gear dropped and I rolled off-spec against no one. So here I’m sitting pretty with a nice gearscore that will only climb higher and yet my knowledge stays about the same unless I really put more effort into my DPS spec. So does gearscore really matter? To make matters worse I was in a Violet hold with my Paladin in DPS spec with my gearscore being 4975 and in my group was a DK at 5200…I out DPSed him by thirty something. While that’s not a whole lot more it does proves that gearscore really does mean jack shit.
I know this rant sort of took a turn from talking about looking good to the whole issue of gearscore but I had to get that out. I do want to say that I do use the gearscore addon, I like it for seeing what other players have. I’m not saying that ALL people with high scores suck and can’t play because I know a majority of them can play well. I just don’t think it needs to be a cut and dry benchmark for letting people raid or group.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know I’m refreshed a little and hoping my mace drops this week and I might even be a little more excited.
Till next time,
Mike aka Valaar
P.S. I noticed recently there a few more Valaar’s popping up on the Armory. I was the first but I guess the name is bound to be copied. I can’t fix that. But if your looking for the real Valaar aka me, then come to Kargath (US).
